Blogs

Case studies are often used in evaluations – but not always in ways that use their real potential.  Recently I had an opportunity to spend some time with the evaluation unit of UNOIOS (United Nations Office of Internal Oversight and Inspection) and some of their UN evaluation colleagues exploring ways to better use  case studies in evaluation. Here are five lessons I took away from our time together.

Last week I was lucky enough to be involved in a series of workshops by Stephanie Evergreen on presenting data effectively. I've walked away with a wealth of knowledge on how to choose the most appropriate chart, which tool will create it, and how to improve the chart's design to more effectively communicate my message.

Conferences are a great way to connect and learn with the evaluation community. Earlier this year we shared a listing of conferences for which we received useful feedback from our users. This week we're highlighting a new page which lists upcoming evaluation conferences from around the world. Check out the new page here. Are we missing any? Let us know in the comments below. We'll be updating this page as new conferences emerge.

What is more important to you: a good education or a good healthcare system? Or perhaps employment or security is at the forefront of your mind at the moment. What about the environment or human rights? We all have different priorities in life and different sets of values with which we make judgements on things around us. Evaluations attempting to understand effects on people’s lives should at least attempt to try to understand the values of those people rather than imposing an external set of values. This week’s guest blog is from Laura Rodriguez Takeuchi, a researcher at the Overseas Development Institute. She introduces some practical ways that evaluators can begin to weigh people’s values as they relate to desired outcomes and distribution of benefits.