Hello Loyal aea365 readers! I’m Sheila B. Robinson, aea365’s Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor with one question for you: What is it that YOU would like to read about on this blog?
Lesson Learned: AEA365 has been going steadily since January 1, 2010 with 1800+ contributions from hundreds of evaluators across the globe. We accept individual submissions at aea365@eval.org on a rolling basis, along with inquiries about sponsored or themed weeks. Posts are about any and all evaluation-related topics, and anyone with something to share with fellow evaluators is welcome to contribute! If you are interested in sharing a tip, please be sure to check out our contribution guidelines here.
2015 has been declared the International Year of Evaluation and we suspect we’ll be hearing quite a lot about that in the coming weeks and months. The aim of designating 2015 as the International Year of Evaluation is to advocate and promote evaluation and evidence-based policy making at international, regional, national and local levels.
As a key learning tool for evaluation, aea365 can also be a fabulous vehicle for promoting evaluation and evidence-based policy. With that in mind, we would like to include your voice as we head into the new year as our aea365 team considers inviting authors and groups to contribute.
Hot Tip: Let’s crowdsource some ideas for aea365 in 2015 and make it the best year ever.
Please let us know what you would like to see in aea365 by responding to these questions in the comments:
1. What do YOU want to read or learn more about on aea365 in 2015?
2. Who do YOU want to hear from on this blog?
Thanks very much for your input and your loyal readership.
Happy New Year!
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.
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It would be great to see some comments on developing, sharing, and storing lessons learned from evaluations.
I would love to see a post, or series of posts about evaluation from the perspective of practitioners for whom their primary job is not evaluation. Perhaps tips on how to best integrate evaluation into the myriad of other, seemingly more pressing, tasks without pushing it to the back burner.
I second this!
Sheila,
I would like to read more about observational studies and the best practices in using secondary data sources.
Best,
Zoraya Cruz-Bonilla
Data Research Assistant
Binghamton University
I’d like to hear more of other evaluators’ ideas for how to make evaluation more useful for finding solutions to social problems and building a better world.
I’d like to hear from evaluators doing research on evaluation – what are they studying and what are they learning?
I’d like to hear more on collective impact and experiences in evaluation of partnerships.
I’d love to hear from evaluators of all ages and those working with diverse communities
I would love to hear more about how private consultants deal with the cost of SPSS. I know it seems silly but it causes a lot of angst. The other stat packs aren’t user friendly if you have always used SPSS.
I’ve switched to using R. There is a learning curve but there are a lot of free resources on the net and the package is free. I agree that the cost of SPSS is prohibitive for independent consultants working with small charities.
@Krystina, try PSPP. If you know SPSS the learning curve is minimal. For me, I just had to work out how to import files and once I’d figured that out, it all looked very familiar. And it’s free. 🙂
I totally agree, the cost of SPSS is completely outrageous and not at all workable for independent consultants and small businesses.
Loved the idea of R, but just couldn’t devote the time to the learning curve, which was why I was so stoked to find PSPP.
Case studies with operational survey questions and instruments.