Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.
Greetings, fellow evaluators! We are members of the Blue Marble Evaluation Network, a global group engaged in asking questions about the future of our Earth and evaluation’s role in supporting a future that is just and regenerative. The Blue Marble refers to the view of Earth from space, an image of our shared planetary home without borders, boundaries, or divisions.
At the 2019 annual conference of the American Evaluation Association, ARCevaluation of Menomonie, Wisconsin (now Catalyst), sponsored a poetry contest. The winning entry, shown below, was submitted by Evgenia Valuy.
Blue Marble Evaluation Questions
Blue Marble Evaluation is not a model prescribing how to conduct evaluation. Rather, it is a set of principles and meaningful questions that help guide how we engage in evaluation. We encourage you to embed these questions into your evaluation practice, no matter the sector, to help ground and expand thinking and spark a movement of more Blue Marble thinkers.
- How do we contextualize local evaluations within a global context, and vice versa (bringing what has come to be known as a gLocal perspective (global + local)?
- How do we work with key ecosystem actors to think beyond immediate project evaluation goals to break down silos and engage more holistically and systemically?
- How can we incorporate concerns about equity and sustainability in ALL evaluations?
- How do we integrate short-term, medium-term, and long-term perspectives?
- How do we stay “world savvy” as evaluators and engage reflexively to understand and acknowledge our own “skin in the game”?
- How can evaluators help tell the story of global systems change?
- Overall, how do we need to adapt our evaluation practices to respond to rapidly changing conditions that are threatening the health of our planet and its inhabitants?
- How can evaluators connect with one another globally to ponder these questions and share insights and new directions?
We have been engaging with these questions as a Blue Marble evaluation community and invite anyone interested in sharing in inquiry together to join the Blue Marble Evaluation Network and participate in monthly community gatherings (free and open access): https://bluemarbleeval.org/
Rad Resources
- Patton, MQ. (2019).?Blue Marble Evaluation: Premises and Principles. Guilford.
- Blue Marble Evaluation Network
- The 5th edition of Utilization-Focused Evaluation (2022) by Charmagne Campbell-Patton and Michael Quinn Patton with special attention to issues of global equity and sustainability.
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. The views and opinions expressed on the AEA365 blog are solely those of the original authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the American Evaluation Association, and/or any/all contributors to this site.