2009 AES International Conference Canberra - Program

Session 1: opening plenary Audio (Mp3 82Mb) (Right click on the link to save.)

Keynote address:

Evidence and Evaluation Audio (Mp3 63Mb) (Right click on the link to save.)

Professor William Trochim, Cornell University

Session 2: plenary

Keynote address:

Terry O’Brien, Productivity Commission

Collecting or 'constructing' qualitative evaluation evidence addressing highly sensitive and marginalised issues? Lessons from evaluating Australian 'Clean Needle Programs'

Evaluation in the Australian Public Sector: After 25 years of Federal Government Departments’ involvement in evaluation – what have we learnt?

Assessing aid effectiveness in a changing world: the annual review of development effectiveness

Revolution for evolution – a new approach to road safety advertising and more significant role for social marketing research

Rethinking the evaluative process: exploring co-constructive research relationships

Indicators and public policies: the sunflower effect. The cases of the Millennium Development Goals and of the Paris Declaration

Luc Lefebvre

Using standard setting to understand stakeholder perspectives of ‘How good is good enough?’

Evaluating the implementation and outcomes of four State-wide policies

Capturing the voice of children through photos in Lao PDR

Issues in the evaluation of programs for Indigenous communities in Australia

The road to resilience: signposts and maps

Using participatory methods for researching violence against women: an experience from Melanesia and East Timor

The use of Social Network Analysis in the evaluation of a complex Pacific health initiative

Bridging the performance gap between civil society organisations and international donors

Quantitative or qualitative indicators… What about both?

The use of beneficiary and other focus groups in the evaluation of empowerment programs – lessons from NGO programs in India

A concise framework for thinking about the types of evidence provided by monitoring and evaluation

The evaluation of European Commission aid delivery through the UN Family, the Development Banks and the EIB

Evidence based policy and practice: meeting sampling challenges in evaluating national OHS interventions

Lifting the lens: using systems logic to make sense of a complicated policy

Evaluating AusAID’s sub-national programs in PNG

Usefulness of mixed methodologies in evaluation of a program for Indigenous clients

Simulation modelling as a tool for evaluation

What have we learned about RCTs, gold standards and credible evidence: moving beyond the debates to improve evaluation practice

Dr Stewart Donaldson

Evaluating the progress of complex programmes: a scoring procedure

Using the Delphi technique for assessing evaluation capability building needs

Using a logic model as the framework for an evaluation in Papua New Guinea

Eyes on the horizon: evaluating the impact of the CSIRO National Research Flagship Program

Communicating during a crisis – choosing your words

Do evaluation forms have a future?

Dr John Owen and Professor Rick Cummings

MSC: Misunderstandings, strengths & challenges

Fiona Kotvojs

Shaping a whole of organisation response to evaluation: achievements, challenges and learnings

Leaving the microscope at home and taking a can opener instead – experiences in capacity assessment with civil society organisations in Papua New Guinea

Moving toward the fire: developing a tool to provide meaningful results to both government funders and to remote community members

How does stakeholder engagement in program evaluation really work?

Janet Clinton

Session 9: plenary

Keynote address:

The “messy” world of development evaluation Audio (Mp3 61Mb) (Right click on the link to save.)

Cheryl Gray, Director, Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), World Bank

Reconstructing program theory

Doing evaluations in Papua New Guinea

Round table

So, what are we (were we) trying to achieve in the Madrasahs? Using evaluability assessment to identify changes in the quality of basic education in Islamic schools in Indonesia

Applying theories of the policy process to evaluation: the case of the 2009 evaluation of Australia’s National Drug Strategy

Working with economic evaluation: a dream or a nightmare?

Geoff Drysdale and Bernadette Swanson

How national and international agencies create confusion about what evidence is needed for evaluation

Jerome Winston

Session 11: concurrent sessions

Discussion of the ‘success case methodology’

Evaluating business assistance schemes with large longitudinal databases

A spatio-ethnographic methodology for strategic monitoring and evaluation

Building the evidence of the value of non-government drug and alcohol treatment – it’s not just about data collection

Jo Khoo and Tanya Merinda

Learning from the evidence about evidence-based policy and practice

Professor Patricia Rogers

International development evaluation: Australasian aid agency perspectives

Penny Hawkins, Cate Rogers, Dan Ticehurst and Miranda Cahn

Panel

‘It’s all a bit wishy washy’: the challenge of building partnerships for effective mental health evaluation

The role of household panel surveys in evidence-based policy: a review

Dr Gaminiratne Wijesekere

Meeting the challenges: evolving evaluation processes in an AusAID funded program in Papua New Guinea

Developing quality guidelines for observational studies

Skill building workshop for carers of people with eating disorders: evaluating the effects on the participants or evaluating the program?

Good value: taking an evaluative approach in a field dominated by statistics and economics

A framework for evaluating capacity development programs in the international development sector

The influence of program theory-based evaluation on the use of the evaluation information: a longitudinal study

Evaluating a complex intervention for people bereaved through suicide – challenges and considerations

Why do so many program evaluations systematically over-estimate positive impacts?

Proof of success – finding evidence in a world that forgets: valuing criteria for the evaluation of the National Dementia Support Program

Management by objectives in the German Police force? Performance criteria, factors for success and failure from the employees point of view

Evaluation of the European Union Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme

Understanding negative impacts of early intervention: realist methodologies

Did it make a difference? Trying to unravel the mystery of impact and the contribution made by a public initiative

Extreme evaluation: evidence and community-level health activities in Afghanistan

3.40pm - 4.30pm

Session 15: plenary

Panel discussion:

Hierarchy of Evidence Audio (Mp3 52Mb) (Right click on the link to save.)

Facilitator: Terry O’Brien

Session 16: plenary

Keynote address:

The importance of evaluation for evidence-based policy and practice Audio (Mp3 61Mb) (Right click on the link to save.)

Dr Phil Davies

From anecdote to evidence: a model for rigorous integration of qualitative information in evaluations

Gathering evidence using data: the implications and advantages for undertaking evaluation research in-house

How to decide? Collecting evidence for evaluations

Family outcome measures: pre and post intervention process to assess family functioning

Evidence on a shoestring – what works for NGOs

Andrew Anderson and Annette Michaux

What are these things called Program Logic and Program Theory: and how are they used?

Professor Patricia Rogers,

Anne Markiewicz,

Kate Averill and

Paul Duignan

Session 18: concurrent sessions

Analysis of causation in qualitative evaluation

Development of a monitoring, evaluation and reporting framework for the invasive pest plant and animal program in Victoria

How should an evaluator make judgments about the quality of research evidence from the social sciences?

Evaluating the impact of communities for children

How do NGOs gather evidence to show effectiveness?

Dr Francois Tsafack, Andrew Newmarch, Carolyn Kabore and Gabrielle Mahony

Addressing challenges in using realist synthesis to inform policy and practice

Kaye Stevens,

Margaret Cargo

Issues teaching qualitative research and evaluation

Using social software / Web 2.0 to gather evidence, two case studies in education for sustainability: CarbonKids 2009 Pilot and Global Communities for Sustainability

Meta evaluation to assess the quality of evidence – a case study

Developing effective programs and services in a population health framework

Facing the evidence: Chernoff faces in evaluation

Evaluation of natural resource management funding programs in South Australia (2000-2008)

From institutions to community care in Victoria: what difference has evaluation made?

Stakeholder network analysis: a case study to understand the spread of aquatic weeds

Clients’ perceptions of value drives evaluation

The role and challenges for official statistics in policy evaluation

Geoff Bascand

Signposts for Australian agriculture

An argument for the adoption of a rigorous process of stakeholder analysis (SA) within evaluation practice

'Evaluation Champions Network (ECN) Model' strengthening evaluation capacity of farm service delivery projects

3.15pm - 4.00pm

Session 22: closing plenary

Panel discussion and closing remarks Audio (Mp3 41Mb) (Right click on the link to save.)