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Making Sense of the Contemporary Roles of Internal Evaluators
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| Presenter(s):
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| Boris Volkov, University of North Dakota, bvolkov@medicine.nodak.edu
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| Abstract:
This paper will describe and analyze roles of internal evaluators in contemporary organizational settings. It will provide an overview of various contexts; the parameters and dimensions pertinent to internal evaluation and internal evaluators within organizational settings; organizational demands on internal evaluation professionals; and evaluators’ roles, generated in response to these demands. Critical issues will be illuminated in the role of the internal evaluator in a context of modern organizations influenced by various traditions and movements, including quality assurance, continuous quality improvement, performance monitoring, and Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), to name just a few. It has become more evident that the internal evaluator’s job is not just about using appropriate evaluation methodology or building complex M&E systems but increasingly about dealing with intra-organizational obstacles to quality evaluation. New roles certainly require reconfigured, unorthodox methods and styles of work to effectively meet the needs of the emerging learning organizations.
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Program Manager as Internal Evaluator: Challenges and Lessons Learned
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| Presenter(s):
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| Anthony Kim, University of California, Berkeley, tonykim1@gmail.com
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| Abstract:
In real-world settings, program managers often times have to play a dual role as an internal evaluator. This situation arises for a couple of reasons. To begin with, many organizations do not have the resources necessary to assign independent evaluators to evaluate programs. Secondly, a growing number of organizations have been cutting or eliminating their budget for independent internal or external evaluators due to the current economic climate.
This paper outlines the author’s experience as a program manager at an education nonprofit as he was “forced” to conduct an internal evaluation of his program. The author faced conflicts of interest, since his objectives as a program manager often did not coincide with his objectives as an internal evaluator. Reflecting on these experiences, the author questions the increasing reliance of evaluation by program managers. Program managers, by the nature of their positions, are limited in their ability to perform honest and objective evaluations of their own programs. The author’s reflections can serve as a cautionary tale for organizations against relying solely on program staff for evaluation.
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