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Liz Zadnik on Staying current in evaluation while also juggling other responsibilities (A Practitioner’s struggle)

Hi there, Liz Zadnik here, bringing you another Saturday post focused on practitioner experiences and approaches. Today I’m going to focus on my personal journey to stay up-to-date and relevant in all things evaluation. I was not formally trained as an evaluator – everything I know has been learned or gained through on-the-job hands-on experiences and mentorship (I’m very …

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Galen Ellis on Virtual Meeting Spaces: Minefields to Gold Mines

Greetings! I’m Galen Ellis, President of Ellis Planning Associates Inc., which has long specialized in participatory planning and evaluation services. In online meeting spaces, we’ve learned to facilitate group participation that – in the right circumstances – can be even more meaningful than in person. But we had to adapt. Although I knew deep inside …

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Linda Cabral on To Transcribe or Not to Transcribe….That is the Question.

Greetings! I am Linda Cabral from the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Health Policy and Research. A big part of my job uses qualitative methods to evaluate different health and human services programs. Our data collection processes can include utilizing one-on-one or group interviews and as well as focus groups. With this type …

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Vincent Francisco on How context informs capacity-building and opportunities for community-level change

Hello, I’m Vincent Francisco, Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  In working with initiatives that span from very small and targeted program development to state and national-level initiatives for broader systems improvement, there are several challenges and opportunities that present themselves. Challenges Ever changing …

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Eva Guenther on Staying on Top of Evaluation When It is Not Your Primary Responsibility

My name is Eva Guenther, I am a Project Manager for a for-profit, employee-owned US Government (USG) contractor in Washington, DC. I am responsible for the successful implementation of USG funded projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While my heart beats for evaluation it is not the primary focus of my role …

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Florent Gomez-Bonnet and Margaret Thomas on combining evaluation methods to get a more complete picture of partnerships

Hello from Florent and Margaret in Sydney! We are two seasoned evaluators from ARTD Consultants, an Australian public policy consultancy firm providing services in evaluation, research and strategy. As more Australian government services and programs are delivered through partnerships, evaluators need to find better partnership evaluation methods. Faced with the challenge of evaluating partnerships, we …

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Pei-Pei Lei and Carla Hillerns on Smart Survey Design: Randomization of Response Options

Hi, we are Pei-Pei Lei and Carla Hillerns from the Office of Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Have you ever selected an answer to a survey question without reading all of the choices? Maybe you paid more attention to the first choice than the rest? Today, we’d like to share a …

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Sheila B Robinson on Welcoming Summer with a Breath of Fresh Warm Air, and New Evaluation Learning

Hello Evaluation Learners! I’m Sheila B. Robinson, aea365’s Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor. Today, I’m writing about AEA’s Summer Evaluation Institute, a fabulous learning opportunity coming up soon. Anyone who knows me knows that two things I love are learning, and meeting with evaluation colleagues, and this is the perfect opportunity to do both. Registration is …

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Josh Twomey on An Evaluator’s Journey Toward Bayes: Part II

This is Josh Twomey again from UMass Medical School’s Center for Health Policy and Research. As promised in yesterday’s Part 1 posting, I wanted to walk through an example demonstrating aspects of Bayesian analysis that evaluators might find advantageous. Part 1 mentioned the use of the Bayes Factor (BF) as a decision-making tool. BFs tell …

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Josh Twomey on An Evaluator’s Journey Toward Bayes: Part I

My name is Josh Twomey, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine & Community Health, at UMass Medical School’s Center for Health Policy and Research. Perhaps you have noticed the term ‘Bayesian’ popping up now and then in the evaluators’ break room. I certainly have, and in recent months, set out on a statistical journey to find …

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