| Session Title: What Have We Learned From/What Do We Still Need to Learn About Developing Evaluation Organizations? |
| Think Tank Session 322 to be held in Preston Room on Thursday, November 8, 9:35 AM to 11:05 AM |
| Sponsored by the Organizational Learning and Evaluation Capacity Building TIG |
| Presenter(s): |
| Carol Fendt, University of Illinois, Chicago, crfendt@hotmail.com |
| Cindy Shuman, Kansas State University, cshuman@ksu.edu |
| Bret Feranchak, Chicago Public Schools, bferanchak@cps.k12.il.us |
| Stacy Wenzel, University of Illinois, Chicago, swenzel@uic.edu |
| Discussant(s): |
| Lisa Raphael, University of Illinois, Chicago, lisamraphael@yahoo.com |
| Meghan Burke, University of Illinois, Chicago, meghanbm@gmail.com |
| Abstract: In creating evaluation organizations, what type of capacity building and role definition is necessary to develop, staff, and manage these groups? Here we bring together a think tank of evaluators interested in developing their organizations. To start the conversation, representatives from 3 relatively new evaluation organizations discuss their stages of development. They consider, for example, how they have created a base understanding of the need for formative evaluation, developed clients, managed workloads, found, hired, trained and retained qualified staff, etc. The 3 cases are 1) the department of program evaluation within the third largest public school district in the USA, 2) a service-oriented office housed within a college at a land grant university, and 3) an evaluation group within a research university, that has moved between colleges, and is not tied to any regular staff or faculty. This will be an interactive session; all participants will be encouraged to engage in the discussion. |