Launching the first BetterEvaluation Virtual Writeshop – May 2011

Perhaps you have undertaken an evaluation on a program to mitigate climate change effects on rural people living in poverty, or one on capacity development in value chains. Or perhaps you have worked on participatory ways to make sense of evaluation data, or have developed simple ways of integrating numbers and stories. We’d like to bring unknown experiences to the global stage for wider use. We want to hear about your work!

Do you have an experience that covers many different aspects of evaluation – design, collection, sensemaking, and reporting? Did you look at different options to develop a context-sensitive approach? And has your evaluation process not yet been shared widely? If your answer is YES to these questions, then please read on about our virtual writeshop on evaluation.

We are facilitating a virtual writeshop between May and September 2011 that will lead to 10 or so focused documents of 2000-4000 words to be shared globally. This process will involve interactions with the facilitator and other participants, during which we will use email and Skype calls to develop clear documents for other evaluation specialists. It will take you the same amount of time to write an article. The exact number of days depends on the quality of existing documentation about your experience but count on 5 days or so, at least.  The process is spread over several months so can fit your own schedule.

What is in it for you?  Participating in the writeshop will give you structured editorial support and peer review so you can document and improve the description of your evaluation process. By the end of the process your write-up of around 2000-4000 words will be ready for publication on the BetterEvaluation site and other sites, with a solid basis laid for possible publication in an evaluation or development journal.

What is BetterEvaluation and why a writeshop?

BetterEvaluation is a new interactive web facility that allows those dealing with evaluations as designers, commissioners or implementers to make informed methodological choices. It recognizes that each evaluation situation is different and requires those responsible for monitoring and evaluation to respond to it by selecting appropriate methods and justifying that choice to others. Part of BetterEvaluation’s work involves a solid, diverse set of resources. A core team has been working for many months to write up resources that are easy to use and illustrated with practical examples.  We have been using our own networks and existing evaluation materials to create useful resources.  Further development by selected member of the user group is being undertaken in May-June 2011 to identify and contribute additional relevant material. After the public launch (August 2011), BetterEvaluation will actively incorporate material contributed by the wider community of users, including writeshop participants.

We know that many innovative and informative evaluation processes exist that would be wonderful to share. We want to make explicit the often-tacit processes of evaluators in assessing a situation, selecting appropriate methods for each evaluation component, and then justifying and communicate the choices. The writeshop will, therefore, be an opportunity to make visible your unpublished work and working processes and offer useful examples, methods to the large and growing international evaluation community. Through the writeshop process, we expect contributors to become clearer about what they consider as high quality evaluation and to gain insight into the choices made en route.

Selection criteria

We are inviting people to submit proposals for writing up evaluations or M&E processes that involve interesting evaluation situations and methods –  in particular those that relate to assessing: climate change, capacity development, and agricultural research impact, or advocacy and social justice related efforts. The cases will also need to fulfil the following criteria:

• Completed – we will not include planned evaluations or those that are still in progress, as we want to have cases discuss whether decisions have been influenced and how
• Written by someone directly involved and knows the entirety of the process (commissioner, designer, implementer)
• Able to discuss the process in detail and explain the choices made en route
• Inclusion of dilemmas faced and values used to shape the process.

How the writeshop will work

The virtual writeshop will be coordinated by Irene Guijt, an experienced evaluator and editor. All communication will be conducted by email and Skype.

Step 1. Submit your 1-2 page proposal. Please send it to us by May 31, 2011 at Patricia.Rogers@rmit.edu.au. [PLEASE NOTE CHANGED EMAIL ADDRESS FOR SUBMISSION]

Please include:

• What the evaluation process is about (a one-off evaluation, longer term organizational learning, a specific method);
• Description of the evaluation situation (scope), who (organisation) did/does it involve (check if you need organisational permission and whether organisation(s) are comfortable or not being identified;
• When it took place (to check on its completion);
• List methods used for different evaluation tasks: managing the evaluation, defining the task, engaging participants, describing, understanding causes, synthesizing and valuing, and reporting/supporting evaluation use;
• Description of the dilemmas faced during methodological choices and values used to shape the process; and
• Author’s role in the process.

Step 2. Selection results will be announced on June 12, 2011. Each proposal will be reviewed by at least 2 people of the BetterEvaluation core team using the criteria mentioned above. Those proposals that are not selected will receive a response on the reasoning behind this and the opportunity to either rework content for other parts of the site (for example the FAQ section or example of a method) or for another writeshop round in the future. Selected case writers will receive initial ideas from the reviewers that help define the focus of the contribution

Step 3. Submit an initial draft by July 8, 2011. All contributors who accept invitation to join the virtual writeshop write a first draft – using the agreed table of contents, develop a detailed summary of bullet points or ‘cut and paste’ from existing evaluation documentation. The initial draft is the basis for agreeing on the focus, length, and style.

Step 4. Write a full contribution by September 1, 2011. Authors will use the agreed draft focus to produce a polished piece of approximately 2-4000 words, and will benefit from coaching and guidance in a collaborative manner. Each author will be teamed up with two other authors for support and additional input. Each author will comment on two other people’s work, with the virtual writeshop coordinator commenting on all people’s work. The final documents will be to a high standard, ready for publication on the Better Evaluation site after a final edit.

Step 5. Final style editing and publication by September 30, 2011. The virtual writeshop coordinator will do a final style edit of the contributions. These contributions will then, after mutual approval, be posted on the BE site and disseminated widely.  Copyright regulations are consistent for all BetterEvaluation material, summarized below.

Principles of copyright

BetterEvaluation has developed the following principles on copyright to guide content development during the beta-phase:

-         Your copyright remains your property.

-         By providing work to BetterEvaluation, you grant to BetterEvaluation a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use and adapt the work.

-         You acknowledge and agree that no royalties will be paid for use of your work.

-         You warrant that Your Uploaded Content does not infringe any other person’s intellectual property rights.

We will finalise these principles into a copyright agreement that will be available when the site is publicly launched.