From the AES President

Dear AES Colleagues

As 2011 comes to a close we can reflect on a year of change, challenge and excitement for the AES.
This has been the year that the AES took the step of creating permanent staff and a new office in the University of Melbourne to support the implementation of a bold strategic plan and accompanying implementation actions. The AES has moved a step further in its maturity and growth.

Also, the AES has this year established a Leaders Forum that will meet annually to discuss strategic priorities and issues for the Society as it pursues its objectives. This process enriches the functioning of the AES Board and those in committee and regional group leadership roles as we work towards maximising the benefits of AES membership to the 1,000 plus individuals who have joined our association.

In 2011, a wonderful AES Conference in Sydney attracted record numbers of participants and leaves a legacy of impact both in terms of knowledge shared, and in the public presentation of evaluation as a robust, well defined and innovative set of practices and methods that are being applied across a wide range of policy and program areas.

Shortly, the Board will be seeking AES members to nominate for involvement in a range of Committees and Working Groups, which reflect the priorities and actions for the AES in 2012 and beyond. We need the input of AES members – whether long serving or recently joined – to ensure that AES activities are informed and shaped by our membership – those who are involved in and passionate for evaluation. I encourage you to consider nominating your interest.

To support professional learning in 2012, the AES has prepared a program to address the priorities and preferences identified from feedback collected in 2011. This program is an exciting way of better coordinating and promoting professional learning activities – and we anticipate, building a stronger role for the AES in building the skills and practice expertise of evaluators in Australasia.

The recent visit of Terry Smutylo to conduct workshops on Outcome Mapping was particularly well received by practitioners and commissioners of evaluations – and showcased how evaluation theory and methods have something to offer policy makers, program developers and stakeholders. We greatly appreciated Terry’s openness to share his considerable experience in such a helpful way.
At this time, I would like to wish all AES Members and our staff a very Happy Christmas and best wishes for the year ahead!

Warm regards,

Alan Woodward
AES President

AES National Office – Closure over Christmas and looking at 2012

The AES National Office will be closed from Thursday December 22 through to Monday January 9. Maria and Anita would like to wish all AES members and colleagues a joyful and safe holiday season.

We are looking forward to working with all members in 2012 to continue to support rigour and quality in evaluation and enhance the benefits of AES membership such as:

Advocacy of rigorous ethical guidelines and standards to guide quality evaluation
Leading edge thinking and debate offered at the annual AES International Conference and by high profile local and international speakers.
Professional development and support through an international standard professional learning program, offering comprehensive capacity building workshops and free local seminars
Recognition of best practice and support of emerging evaluators through the AES Excellence in Evaluation Awards and Conference Grants programs
Networking opportunities with peers in Australia, New Zealand and around the world, including participation in a variety of Special Interest Groups
Keep up to date with evaluation work from around Australasia through access to prominent evaluation publications including the Evaluation Journal of Australasia

2012 is promising to be a year of development and growth with a new look website, re-vamped professional learning program, more opportunities to engage with peers through Special Interest Groups, working groups and committees and opportunities for partnerships.

AES 2012 Conference - 27 to 31 August 2012, Adelaide Conference Centre

The 2012 Adelaide Conference has confirmed the programs keynote speakers. Join these internationally recognised speakers and register to attend or to present at the conference. Registrations are now open for early bird registrations, for pre-conference workshops and abstracts for conference papers. For all your conference the information go to www.aes2012.com.au

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dr Michael Quinn Patton: the renowned international evaluation consultant and trainer, whose current interests include developmental evaluation and real time evaluation.

Professor Trisha Greenhalgh: Professor of Primary Health Care and Director of the Healthcare Innovation and Policy Unit in the Centre for Health Sciences at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, whose interests include evaluation of innovations in health and new methods for synthesis of research and evaluation findings.

Professor Terry Buss: Executive Director and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, South Australia, whose recent book ‘Evidence based public management’ tackles the practical issues of utilizing evaluation and other evidence in improving public management.

Professor Nicoletta Stame: is a leading European evaluation theorist and associate editor of Evaluation, past President of the European and the Italian evaluation societies, and retired professor of social policy, whose work aims at enhancing the evaluation capacities of public administrators, program implementers and beneficiaries.

KEY DIARY DATES

Registration Opens December 2011 with the Early Bird Registration Deadline 10 June 2012

Take advantage of early bird discounts and arrange your registration and travel now and save!

Pre Conference Workshop Submission Opens December 2011 and Deadline 28 February 2012

If you have a dynamic and interesting topic you would like to offer as a workshop during the pre-conference program please note that submission for pre-conference workshops is now open.

Abstract Submission Opens December 2011 and Deadline 31 March 2012

The theme is ‘evaluation in a changing world’, and the conference committee is keen to hear about all-things-innovative: innovations in evaluation theory and methodology; innovative ways to use technology to conduct evaluation; innovations in responding to changes in the world in which we work; and innovative ways to present at the conference itself.

For more information e-mail: aes2012@arinex.com.au or visit the website: http://www.aes2012.com.au/proposal.php

AES Workshops Program

Many of you attended the recent AES sponsored workshops on Outcome Mapping held by Terry Smutylo, founder of the Evaluation Unit of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). These very successful workshops attracted 75 participants from around Australasia including, Fiji, PNG and Mongolia. The AES also worked with Terry to offer a public lecture at Oxfam in Melbourne, a round table for AusAID in Canberra and an in-house consultation with Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin.

The 2012 professional development program will continue to host visiting experts from around the world as well as offer relevant and timely workshops and seminars that address core knowledge and skill areas and the latest trends and thinking for people working in evaluation.

The AES national workshops program will be released in mid-January 2012.

As a preview the program will be launched with workshops by renowned academic Professor Helen Simons, Professor of Education and Evaluation at the University of Southampton on using case studies as part of evaluation. These two day workshops are initially scheduled to be offered in Canberra, Perth and Brisbane in late February and early March.
To register your interest in one of these workshops please e-mail your name and contact details and state you are interested in to aes@aes.asn.au. To monitor the 2012 workshop program regularly visit our website at http://www.aes.asn.au/ProfessionalLearning/

2012 AES Awards in Excellence in Evaluation

Nominations for the 2012 AES Awards in Excellence will be launched in March 2012.
This is a reminder that there are seven AES Awards for Excellence in Evaluation which may be awarded each year. These are divided into two main categories:
Two awards that recognise individual evaluators (nominated by their peers)

Five awards that recognise organisations, project teams, evaluation projects or programs (nominated by the evaluators themselves)

For information on past winners and for more information on how to nominate projects for an Award visit the AES website http://www.aes.asn.au/awards/

NB: USE THESE DOCUMENTS AS A GUIDE AS THEY WILL ALL BE UPDATED IN THE NEW YEAR

CPE – Master of Evaluation Program 2012

Enrolments are now open for the Master of Evaluation and Post Graduate Certificate of Evaluation offered by the Centre for Program Evaluation at the University of Melbourne. The courses are designed for evaluators, policy makers, program planners, managers, project officers, teachers, and performance auditors from public sector organizations, non-government agencies as well as private consultancy firms.

For more information please contact the course coordinator Bradley Shrimpton at bshrimpt@unimelb.edu.au Enrolments can be made online at this URL:

http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/futurestudents/apply/apply.html

Two new special Interest Groups

At the November 30 AES Board meeting the Board approved the formation of two new Special Interest Groups

Special Interest Group on Performance Measuring

The new Special Interest Group on Performance Measurement has been ratified by the AES Board. The objectives of this SIG are to:
Exchange views, experiences and information about the development, collection, analysis and reporting of performance measures, with a view to enhancing the discipline of performance measurement.
At this stage it is proposed that the SIG’s main activity will be through the website and e-mail, and might include:

noting specific problems and seeking advice on solutions
exchanging information about relevant references and examples of better practice
exchanging information about opportunities for professional development in this area

At present the group comprises 20 or so members and a wikispaces website has been reserved at http://aesperformancemeasures.wikispaces.com. If you are interested, please visit the wikispaces site and make a post or contact one of the inaugural committee members:

Graham Smith              Graham.Smith@numericaladvantage.com.au 0449 590552 (a/Chair)
Meredith Harkness        meredith.harkness1@defence.gov.au
Jerome Winston            Jerome.Winston@cedre.org.my
Euan Lockie                   Euan@acig.com.au

AES tech-eval Special Interest Group

The objective of the new tech-eval SIG is to develop capacity among evaluators to:

evaluate programs and program elements that use information technology-based platforms
(eg web-based self-help or counselling tools, mobile applications, SMS-based reminder systems, viral videos, conversations on social media... the list is much longer than this, and ever growing)
effectively use contemporary information technologies in evaluation methodologies
(eg wikis, online forums, online surveys, social media monitoring... again the list is long and growing).

The SIG will focus on the need to develop capacity among evaluators to work confidently in this environment, designing and executing sound evaluations that understand what these technologies are, how they can be used and how their impact can be measured.

Highlighting the great opportunities for using technology in evaluations – be they wikis, online forums, online surveys, social media monitoring the group is encouraging anyone with an interst in this area to get involved.
If technology freaks you out, swap fear of the unknown with curiosity and see where it takes you. If you’re already working comfortably in this space, help lead your colleagues forward. To get involved:

Join the email listserv: go to http://mailinglists.uow.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/aes_techeval
Check out v1.0 of their resource library of conference papers, published evaluations and other resources for evaluating tech-based programs and program elements. For now, this can be found at http://iibsor.uow.edu.au/AEStecheval

Inquiries can be made to:

Australia: Duncan Rintoul (drintoul@uow.edu.au | +612 4221 4559)
New Zealand: Adrian Field (adrian.field@synergia.co.nz | +649 360 9714)

Amendments to the Telecommunications Industry Standards

The Australian Marketing and Social Research Society recently notified members about amendments made by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to the Telecommunications Industry Standard 2007. Of specific interest are the changes to the conduct of telephone surveys in Australia.

In summary the amendments, which came into effect on 3 November 2011, relate to:

restricting the calling hours and days for making calls;
requiring researchers to provide certain information to people called;
requiring researchers to terminate calls at the request of the person called; and
requiring researchers to enable calling line identification.

If you are involved in conducting telephone surveys as part of your evaluation work it is advised that you familiarise yourself with the amendments by visiting: www.comlaw.gov.au/Series/F2007L00815.

Other New and Things of Interest

For other news including positions vacant, tenders etc visit http://www.aes.asn.au/ofinterest/

Welcome New AES Members

ACT
	Rebecca	Lyngdoh Reye	Independent Consultant
	Louise	Cooke
NSW
	Nicole	Cooper	Baptist World Aid Australia
	Danielle	Ranshaw	Western Research Institute
	Nick	Roberts	Mental Health Coordinating Council
NT
	Kay	Coppa	Kakadu Health Services
QLD
	Angus	Walker	JTAI
	Larisa	Villis	Department Employment, Economic Development & Innovation
	Salend	Kumar	University of Queensland
SA
	Evan	Hill	Hills Strategic Consulting Services
	Krystyna	Slowinski	Department for Families & Communities, SA
	Linda	Vasey	Coffey International Development
	Alicen	McNaughton	Alicen McNaughton Consulting
VIC
	Cynthia	Mulenga	World Vision Australia
	John	Gilbert	County Fire Authority
	Glenn	Weston	Roberts Evaluation
	Karen	Gray	Success Works
	Ruth	Friedman	National Stroke Foundation
	Sarah	Maddox	Cancer Council Victoria
	Elizabeth	Creed	Department of Children & Families, NT Government
WA
	Fay	Winter	St John of God Healthcare Outreach Services
	Nolan	Stephenson	Department of Regional Development & Lands
	Linda	Leonard	Department of Regional Development & Lands
	Cate	Brooks	Department of Regional Development & Lands

Copy for E-News

If you have contributions or a notice for the next 2012 E-news please email the editor