The 2019 Call for AEA365 Blog Posts by Sheila B Robinson

Greetings aea365 readers AND authors! I’m Sheila B Robinson, Lead Curator and sometimes Saturday contributor. Recently, I wrote this post asking what you would like to read on aea365 in 2019.

Thanks to those who offered ideas! Now, I’m writing to ask YOU to consider contributing on one of these, or any other evaluation-related topics.

Lesson Learned: Readers suggestions include:

  • Beginner-level R: which packages and techniques to use for data cleaning and basic analysis?
  • Strategic / organizational learning: how to keep the momentum going and compile / share findings so they are useful?
  • Designing new evaluation / research projects: how to turn very ambitious questions hypotheses into credible studies with reasonable budgets?
  • How other evaluators are evaluating professional development aimed at improving college or K12 teaching practice.
  • How other evaluators are evaluating culture change in departments in higher education.
  • More “reviews” — bringing my attention to reports or synthesis studies on evaluation that give “big messages” and not just examples from individual program evaluations.
  • How people have transformed their own processes to make evaluation results be more actionable.
  • How people have approached difficult conversations to ensure the beneficiaries of services are considered as critical stakeholders in evaluation projects
  • Best data visualization practices for sharing data with youth.
  • How community groups and agencies have built evaluation capacity in their own settings. I think it is a long process, and it would be interesting to hear from people at different stages, or retrospective descriptions of the process.
  • More about evaluations of programs developed for, with, and by people with disabilities. Also would like to hear from people who have disabilities and are working as evaluators.

Hot Tip: We’d love to hear from YOU!  Please send a draft for consideration.

Hot Tip: You don’t have to be an expert to contribute! Readers want to hear from everyday evaluators. You don’t need to be doing something unusual or cutting edge. Share how a strategy has worked for you. Share what you’re learning about and experimenting with. Share a lesson you’ve learned. Tell about a book you’ve read, a course you took, or an experience that gave you new insight.

Cool Trick: Follow contribution guidelines! See the link right up there…near the top of your screen? We can only publish posts that adhere to these guidelines.

Get Involved: It’s time to share YOUR insights with aea365 readers! We rely on hundreds of generous authors who have contributed over the past 8 years (!) to keep this blog going. As you can imagine, collecting 365 articles each year is no small task.

Is this the year YOU decide to contribute?

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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