Following a successful pilot program the previous year, your NSW AES Regional Network Committee ran a second EvaluAdder program in 2023. We spoke with EvaluAdder (mentor) Jasper Odgers and Buddy (mentee) Ingrid Willenberg about their experience in 2023, as we lead into the launch of the 2024 program.
Welcome to the AES Blog
Australasia has some excellent evaluators. More than that, we have an evaluation community full of ideas and a willingness to share. The AES has long provided a place for us to come together, at regional events and the annual conference, to develop our community together. Now we’re taking it online! The new AES blog will be a space for AES members – both new and experienced – to share their perspectives, reflecting on their theory...
If you have an idea, please contact us on blog@aes.asn.au. Please also view our blog guidelines.
by Anthea Rutter
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
John was made a Fellow in 2023. He is Research Leader for Education and Training, based at the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education based in Darwin, NT. Over the last 18 years John has conducted research and evaluation projects which have focused on remote contexts, covering all states and territories of Australia. He is the current Editor of the Evaluation Journal of Australasia.
by Anthea Rutter
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
Lyn was made a Fellow in 2021 and has been and continues to be an outstanding contributor to the AES. She has been a member since 2007, President for four years and completed six years as Editor of the Evaluation Journal of Australasia contributing 35 articles in the Journal (articles, book reviews). Lyn has been in the evaluation profession for over 30 years. Presently she is Dean Academic Transformation University of Southern Queensland.
by Anthea Rutter
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
Nan was made a Fellow in 2021. She has been in the evaluation profession since the late 1980s. For more than 20 years Nan has run an independent evaluation company in Wellington New Zealand. Nan builds evaluation teams on a project-by-project basis. She brings together evaluators with a broad mix of skills and experience tailored to meet the evaluation, whether that is in a government, community, or tribal context. Nan comes to evaluation with business, retail management, market research and social policy experience. She decided to set up an evaluation company because of the highly variable quality of evaluations she was managing and because she wanted to make a difference for Māori. Nan has been a member of the AES since the late 80s. As well as being co-opted onto the AES Board she was part of the Wellington Chapter and has been involved in the NZ conferences and running workshops for the AES.
By Samantha Abbato and Kate Sunners
Pictures, storytelling and fun are essential in the evaluator's change management toolbox and for evaluation capacity building. In this blog, Samantha Abbato (Visual Insights People) and Kate Sunners (ARTD) unpack why this is and provide some ideas for your engagement toolbox through a case study.
by Andrew Benoy and Kale Dyer
With government finances tight, it is more important than ever for agencies to demonstrate that every dollar being spent is generating value.
So it makes sense that monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) is in the spotlight, and that many agencies are looking to build their internal MEL capabilities.
But building that MEL capability is no easy task. Drawing on our experience working with government agencies across Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, we are pleased to share some key things you should consider when investing in and growing MEL capabilities in the public sector.
By David Watters, Founder at Simple and Engaging
I was recently talking with a non-profit client of ours at the end of one of our regular meetings. We'd strayed from our automated maturity assessment project to talk about some of the other projects they were working on. They walked me through one of their social impact programs and the processes involved in gathering, analysing, and improving data. One thing immediately stood out to me: the processes were very manual, time consuming, and generally diverted their attention away from the more important work of understanding what the data was telling them and how they could improve.
I was recently talking with a non-profit client of ours at the end of one of our regular meetings. We'd strayed from our automated maturity assessment project to talk about some of the other projects they were working on. They walked me through one of their social impact programs and the processes involved in gathering, analysing, and improving data. One thing immediately stood out to me: the processes were very manual, time consuming, and generally diverted their attention away from the more important work of understanding what the data was telling them and how they could improve.
It made me wonder if there wasn't a more automated and digital way to do this work. While doing some basic research, I discovered a number of platforms that usually came with a very high price tag, far out of my client's reach. Our organisation's goal is to use our natural curiosity and focus on effectively using technology to simplify and solve complex problems in order to assist organisations in reaching their full potential. So, I collaborated with leading social innovation guru, Tracy Collier to learn about the typical steps in a Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (MEL) Program and to identify some free tools that can be used at each stage.
by Anthea Rutter Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'. Amohia Boulton was made a Fellow in 2022, having been in and contributing to the evaluation profession since th...
by Anthea Rutter
Members who have made a long-term and wide-ranging contribution to the AES and the field of evaluation are recognised through a special category of membership called 'Fellow of the AES'.
Dorothy Lucks was made a Fellow in 2021, having been in and contributing to the evaluation profession since the 1990s. Dorothy is the Managing Director of a WA based company, SDF Global, and specialises in the field of sustainable development. A long-time member of the local WA branch of the AES, Dorothy was also a member of the International Relations Committee for the AES Board.
In this blog, Dorothy speaks with Anthea Rutter (Research Fellow, Centre for Program Evaluation) about her time in evaluation, her long association with the AES, and what drives her in her work.
by Jade Maloney, Sharon-Marra Brown, Alexandra Lorigan and Rosie Dale
At AES22, ARTD Consultants' Jade Maloney, Sharon Marra-Brown, Alexandra Lorigan and Holly Kovak presented on a panel with peer researchers, Kirsty Rosie and Rosie Dale, on the practicalities of co-evaluating with lived and living experience (LLE) researchers.
Co-evaluation like co-design is informed by the principle of 'nothing about us, without us.' While co-design recognises the rights of people with lived experience to shape the policies and programs that affect their lives and the way this strengthens policy, co-evaluation recognises the expertise that people with lived experience bring to designing measures of success, collecting data and making sense of findings and the way this can strengthen evaluation.