D&D Evaluation Project

The C2D2 community is hosting a national conversation about evaluating dialogue and deliberation. The goal of this effort is to strengthen practice through more work on evaluation. Activities to date include:

• Conference call in November 2010 (clic here to see the notes from this conference call - PDF)
• Evaluation resource webpage with community submission of evaluation resources
• Workshops at C2D2 2009 conference
• Conference call in August 2010 (clic here to see the notes from this conference call - PDF)

So far, some key areas of discussion have explored:

• Good evaluation practice means considering and incorporating evaluation from the beginning of the project.
• Quantitative and qualitative methods are equally valued.
• Evaluation should include a learning focus, as understood by multiple perspectives
• Evaluation includes consideration of the context and of the model of action/change the deliberation and dialogue process is embedded in. For example, it is often challenging to evaluate long term impacts
• Evaluation is not values-free.
• Evaluation should uphold (or at least not run contrary to) the principles of D&D in its design and implementation. In particular, participants should be involved in the evaulation process.
• The needs of project sponsors and the D&D field should be considered in designing evaluation.
• Results of the evaluation should be publically shared, when possible, especially when there are "failures" to learn from
• Comparability across evaulations would be useful - can our community develop a set of basic common indicators?

Want to get involved? We hoped you'd say that! Email us at infoc2d2 [dot] ca and we'll be in touch about the next opportunity to contribute.