Aug 31st: Plan and Essential Information for your Evaluation

After you have selected your evaluation topic, here are steps that could help you plan for your evaluation, especially for you to complete your first part of the assignment:

1. Schedule a meeting with your team members to plan for your evaluation. Kelly and I can also join your meeting to help focus your topic. With your team members, start brainstorming all kinds of questions you want to ask the primary stakeholders (those who primarily manage the program on day to day basis), and write them down. Questions should be as detailed as possible, covering background and history of the program, program's mission or goals, day-to-day activities, budget, staff involved with program operation, number of beneficiaries it serves, the purpose of this evaluation, and the intended uses of the results from this evaluation etc.     This needs to be done this week by Friday 9/4th. 
2. Part of your initial contact, send a brief note (via email) of the program you are evaluating to the best of your understanding what is being evaluated, to your primary stakeholders (for CFC project send to: Jamie and Natalie) to obtain their feedback. This needs to be short and right to the point. It needs to be done by Friday 9/4th. 
3. Once you receive their feedback, the next step is to schedule a meeting (via Skype) with the primary stakeholders (for CFC project: Jamie and Natalie), again, to explore the program being evaluated more in details. Make sure that your questions allow you to understand their needs and their intended uses of the program results. It would also be important to ask them who should be included in your sample (data to be collected). Right now, their schedule is open on Tuesday September 8th at 9:30am till noon. 
4. Depending on who they refer you to talk to, please then schedule a Skype call with them. Those may be staff on the ground including Savy Ung, CFC's superintendent and Christin Spoolstra, CFC's deputy country director.  
5. Set up your evaluation timeline--when to finish what. 
6. Discuss individual team member's roles--who is doing what? It is also helpful to assign one team member as a contact person to primary stakeholders and Kelly and I. 
7. Conduct literature search related to your evaluation topic including relevant government policy, similar programs run by other NGOs or institutions, as well as empirical findings related to the program.  
8. Begin drafting your IRB Human Subject Application. You have almost 4 weeks to do this. Make sure it is ready to be submitted by September 28th. 
9. The next step would be to meet up with your team members to work on writing up the first part of your evaluation.   

Questions for discussion

1. Think of your project, in what way that it can be a needs assessment?
2. You are planning your talk with primary stakeholders (e.g., those who sponsor the needs assessment), think of some questions to ask that show your understanding of needs assessment project you are undertaking.
3. Think about who should be included as your stakeholders in your needs assessment project.

Due next week, September 7th 2015 

IRB package will be created on the irbnet.org website. This package is the registration of your project on the website that includes project information, IRB certificate upload, and names of all your team members added to the package.

Task division of your team members should have already be defined. Please be prepared to share everyone in class.

Your team will also be asked to briefly described the progress of the project.