Evaluation and communication in practice (DECI-2 website)

The DECI-2 website features a searchable knowledge base with over 80 documents and an online guide directed primarily to communication practitioners.

DECI-2 stands for “Developing Evaluation and Communication Capacity in Information Society Research” and has been a research project funded by IDRC and UKAid’s INASSA program.

This resource and the following information was contributed by Ricardo Ramirez.

Authors and their affiliation

Developing evaluation and communication capacity in information society research (DECI-2) 

Key features

Designing evaluation and communication strategies together creates a learning space that enables projects to be clear on their goals and strategies. This finding is the outcome of five years of action-research by the DECI-2 project. We are sharing our approach, our case studies and an e-guide directed at practitioners.  

How have you used or intend on using this resource?

We have been using this hybrid approach for the last few years and we will continue adapting it. We have found that partners gain a ‘way of thinking’ in both evaluation and communication, which enables them to become more reflexive in their work. The e-Guide signals the major steps we follow, which we adapt it to each to each context.

Why would you recommend it to other people?

I would recommend the website to the following audiences as:

• Evaluation Practitioners will find examples of utilization-focused evaluation (UFE) and developmental evaluation initiatives will be able to learn about the benefits of introducing communication planning early on into an evaluation process.

• Communication Practitioners will find examples of research communication (ResCom) used as a tool to help research projects design their communication strategies early on and will be able to learn about the added value of introducing evaluation questions into communication planning.

• Mentors and Facilitators of Learning will learn about the value of just-in-time mentoring, whereby projects receive support at their own pace, when they are ready and about the importance of a Readiness Assessment early on, to confirm that conditions are present within which demand-driven mentoring will be effective.

• Project managers and Commissioners of Evaluation will learn about the benefits of the simplified hybrid approach, where evaluation and communication planning enhance each other, and about the value of having project teams gain a senseof ownership over their evaluation and communication strategies.