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EVALUATION POLICY INITIATIVEAEA is pleased to announce a two-year initiative to assist in developing an ongoing capability to influence evaluation policy. This web page has been established to help you to learn more about our ongoing efforts.
On behalf of the Board of Directors of AEA, we are pleased to announce the formation of the AEA Evaluation Policy Task Force (EPTF). The goal of this two-year initiative is to assist AEA in developing an ongoing capability to influence evaluation policies that are critically important to the practice of evaluation. The members of the Task Force are:
In addition, AEA has contracted with George Grob, President of the Center for Public Program Evaluation, as a consultant to the Task Force. George is a longtime AEA member and senior evaluation manager with significant experience in policy development and congressional relations. He will play a key role in assisting in the planning and implementation of the Task Force’s efforts to influence evaluation policy. This group collectively brings extensive and varied experience in the profession of evaluation, the development of evaluation policy, and in AEA, and we are excited about the prospects that they will be able to make an important contribution. The term “evaluation policy” encompasses a wide range of potential topics that include (but are not limited to): when systematic evaluation gets employed, and on what programs, policies and practices; how evaluators are identified and selected; the relationship of evaluators to what is being evaluated; the timing, planning, budgeting and funding, contracting, implementation, methods and approaches, reporting, use and dissemination of evaluations; and, the relationship of evaluation policies to existing or prospective professional standards. To deal with the broad potential scope of this effort, the Task Force will, during the two year initiative, concentrate on evaluation policies in the United States Federal government, in both the legislative and executive branches. Focusing on the Federal level enables the Task Force to address evaluation policies that directly affect a broad cross-section of our membership and ultimately affects our entire field. The Task Force will make recommendations to the Board about how this scope might be extended into other sectors and areas over time. Of course, engagement of AEA members is critical to the success of such an effort. We are doing several things to connect you with this initiative. We have already established a dedicated e-mail address (evaluationpolicy@eval.org) to receive your comments and questions and we will establish a special web page on the AEA website to keep you informed on an ongoing basis. We will look for other ways to communicate with and involve you as the initiative unfolds. To help kick off this project and to engage you more personally, we would also like to invite you to a special open forum at the upcoming Evaluation 2007 annual conference in Baltimore entitled A Discussion of AEA's Evaluation Policy Initiative that will be held on Saturday, November 10, from 9:35 AM to 10:20 AM in the Versailles Room of the Radisson Plaza Lord Baltimore. At this session we will introduce this effort, and discuss the Task Force and its goals and charge in greater detail. We look forward to working with AEA members through this effort to enhance the ability of our association and profession to influence the evaluation policies that shape how we do our work. Hope to see many of you at the conference.
Hallie Preskill
William Trochim Evaluation 2007 Conference Session: The following panel session devoted to discussion of the initiative was offered at Evaluation 2007. Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation slides.
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