I am Susan Kistler, the American Evaluation Association’s Executive Director and aea365’s regular Saturday contributor. So, what I am doing here on this fine Monday? On Saturday, I had to share the Evaluation 2013 Call for Proposals, but I had another piece of news to spread the word about as well. Sheila B. Robinson will be taking over as lead curator of aea365. You’ve heard from Sheila before both on aea365 and on her own Evaluspheric Perceptions Blog. Sheila is already diving in with some great ideas for bringing new voices and content to aea365 this year. Together, we wanted to share a couple answers to frequently asked questions about how you could get involved:
Hot Tip – How to submit a post: If you have an idea for a post, you are welcome to send the idea to aea365@eval.org to test it out and get feedback. Or, if you are confident that you are on target with your content, then review the aea365 Contribution Guidelines and email your completed post to aea365@eval.org. Sheila will review it for alignment with the guidelines, do a bit of copyediting if needed for formatting consistency, vet back any major changes with you, and then queue it up to go live 0n one of our next open days.
Hot Tip – How to sponsor a week: If you are a member of a group that would like to sponsor a full week on aea365, there are a few extra steps. You may always start with an email to aea365@eval.org to vet the idea. To really get started though, you’ll need to identify a lead guest curator (this could be you!) who will solicit and foster six contributions appropriate to the sponsored week, and you’ll need to provide us with evidence that your group’s leadership is supportive of this effort. We’ll have a preliminary discussion to ensure that all is a good fit and then, if all is copasetic, work with the guest curator from invitations to final editing. Don’t worry, we have a great one-page guest curator’s worksheet that steers you through the entire process.
Lessons Learned: aea365 is meant to be an avenue to share those great bits of information that you would tell a colleague over lunch, whether it be about the new tool you are using that is saving you time and making your graphs look great, or the process you’ve tried out that has increased your response rates, or the new book you’ve read that has changed how you approach your practice. Don’t be shy, please take a moment to contribute your knowledge and expertise related to evaluation, evaluation appropriate methodologies, or practicing as an evaluation professional, via an aea365 post.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.