Register for upcoming seminars

 

Date and time: Tuesday 7 July 2026, 4.30pm - 5.30pm AEST 
Topic: Making MEL usable: designing credible, practical guidance for practice settings
Location: online, via Zoom. Details will be emailed to registrants just prior to the start time
Presenter: Kat Goldsworthy | Australian Insitute of Family Studies
Register online by: 6 July 2026

Event description:

Using monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) to support better decision-making and continuous improvement is widely recognised as good practice. But translating MEL concepts into clear and practical guidance is far from straightforward.

For evaluators and evaluation teams, this raises practical design questions: how do you move from theory to guidance that supports implementation? How do you translate a non-linear evaluation process into clear, usable steps? And how do you design MEL guidance that is rigorous enough to be credible while remaining accessible to practitioners with different roles, learning styles and levels of experience?

This seminar draws on the development of the AIFS Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Guide  - a step-by-step, interactive resource designed to help child and family service providers embed MEL into their everyday practice. The guide aims to support organisations to plan, collect and use evidence to understand what is working, for whom, and why - and to strengthen their programs over time.

The presenter will reflect on the purpose, design decisions and development process underpinning the guide, including how the team:
• translated MEL concepts into clear, practice-oriented guidance without losing conceptual integrity
• balanced monitoring, evaluation and learning (rather than privileging evaluation)
• designed a step-by-step approach informed by user feedback and testing
• combined visual tools, templates and examples with videos and interactive content to enhance user engagement and accessibility.

The session will also reflect on what it takes to develop guidance that is credible, usable and responsive to context - and the trade-offs and tensions encountered when designing resources for implementation in real-world service settings.

Presenter details:

Kat is a Research Fellow at the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS), a national research organisation that produces evidence to inform policy and practice to improve the wellbeing of Australian families. She works in the Evidence and Evaluation Support team, where she specialises in strengthening evaluation capability across child and family service systems, with a focus on translating evidence into practical tools and guidance for the sector. She is passionate about supporting organisations to generate and use evidence to strengthen programs and improve outcomes for children and families.

Kat recently led the development of the AIFS Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) guide and has contributed to a range of evaluation capability building resources. Her work spans the design and delivery of evaluations, involving children in evaluation, and the development of theory of change and logic models.

If this seminar is recorded, it will be available on the member portal only.

This event is organised & hosted by the Victorian Regional Network of the AES. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators.

Seminar start times:

VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS, QLD: 4.30pm

SA, NT: 4.00pm

WA: 2.30pm

New Zealand: 6.30pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Please ensure you have access to your email address just prior to the start time to access Zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. Thanks.

 

 

Date and time: Friday 10 July 12.00pm-1.00pm AEST
Topic:  AES Systems Evaluation SIG: Future Drought Fund MEL Framework - a systems base approach to evaluating complexity
Presenter: Marwan Hassan | Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
Venue: Via Zoom. Details will be emailed to registrants just prior to the start time.
Register online by: 9 July 2026

Event description:

In this one‑hour online seminar, Dr Marwan Hassan will unpack how systems theory has shaped the Future Drought Fund Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Framework 2024–2028. The session will walk through the Fund's systems‑based Theory of Change, its nested MEL architecture, and the learning cycles that support adaptive management in a changing climate.

The seminar will:
• Show why the Fund moved away from a single fund‑wide logic model to a systems‑oriented Theory of Change
• Explain how concepts such as resilience, spheres of control/influence/interest, and levers for change were used in practice
• Illustrate how MEL is nested at fund, program and project levels to manage complexity and support contribution analysis
• Highlight how annual learning cycles and key evaluation questions drive real‑time adaptation
• Include time for questions and discussion about how these design choices translate to other complex portfolios and systems‑level evaluations

Presenter(s) details:

Marwan Hassan

Marwan El Hassan is Director of the Program Evaluation and Support team for the Australian Government’s Future Drought Fund in the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, where he leads the integration of monitoring, evaluation, learning and social‑ecological resilience principles into drought resilience programs. He has a background in agricultural and animal sciences and natural resource management, completed his PhD in sustainability at the ANU Fenner School of Environment and Society on Australian rangeland goats as a complex social‑ecological system, and is an Honorary Lecturer at ANU working on resilience theory and social‑ecological systems for sustainability.

This free event has been organised by the Systems Evaluation SIG Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators. 

This seminar will be not be recorded.

 Seminar start times:

VIC, NSW, QLD ACT, TAS: 12.00pm

SA, NT: 11.30am

WA: 10.00 am

NZ: 2.00pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Please ensure you have access to your email address just prior to the start time to access Zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. Thanks.

Date and time: Tuesday 14 July, 1.00pm-2.00pm AEST
Topic: Ethical decision making in evaluations: what we're learning and what we don't know (yet) 
Presenter: Emma Williams | Charles Darwin University
Venue: Via Zoom. Details will be emailed to registrants just prior to the start time.
Register online by: 13 July 2026

Event description:

There is a vast literature on how people should make ethical decisions, but far less on how ethical decisions are actually made in practice. The same is true of evaluation - internationally, numerous codes, standards and guidelines exist to support evaluators in understanding their ethical responsibilities. Yet there is limited evidence on how effective these resources are in helping evaluators navigate everyday ethical challenges, particularly those not directly related to research or that arise unexpectedly in the field.

Emma Williams's research, with preliminary findings presented here, examines both the intentions of those who develop ethical guidelines and the decision-making processes of practising evaluators. Using realist Q methodology, Emma's work reveals that AES members adopt distinct ethical decision-making styles. She will also discuss the most critical information gaps in evaluation ethics and how they might be addressed.

About the AES Ethics in Evaluation SIG:

The Ethics in Evaluation Special Interest Group (SIG) offers a collegial space for evaluators to connect, reflect and learn together about the ethical dimensions of our practice. The SIG is not intended to provide case by case advice or resolve individual ethical dilemmas, but to rather function as a community for shared learning, broader ethical inquiry, and strengthening our collective understanding of what ethical evaluation looks like in an evolving context.

Any AES member with an interest in evaluation ethics is warmly welcome. Whether you’re an experienced evaluator, new to the profession, a commissioner, a researcher, or simply curious, you are invited to join our community. Contact ethics.sig@aes.asn.au for more information.

Presenter details:

Emma Williams has spent many years moving between academia, public service and private practice. She is a Credentialed Evaluator with experience in realist, observational and participatory evaluations on topics such as throughcare, service access, employment, littering, urban and international development. She has also commissioned evaluations, been involved in updating AES ethics documents, and currently works on a part-time casual basis at Iris Ethics. She was a member of the RREALI (Realist Research, Evaluation and Learning Initiative) team at Charles Darwin University, and is now researching evaluation ethics for a PhD, using realist Q investigation methodology.

This seminar will be recorded and available on the member portal only.

This free event has been organised by the AES Ethics in Evaluation SIG. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators. 

Session start times:

• VIC, NSW, QLD, ACT, TAS: 1.00pm

• SA, NT: 12.30pm

• WA: 11.00am

• New Zealand: 3.00pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Please ensure you have access to your email address just prior to the start time to access Zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. Thanks.

 

Date and time: Tuesday 21 July, 12.30pm - 1.30pm AEST
Topic: Do current models of commissioning evaluation support good evaluation practice and meet their intent?
Location: online, via Zoom. Details will be emailed to registrants just prior to the start time
Presenters: AES Fellows: Alan Woodward, John Guenther, Lyn Alderman, Marion Norton
Register online by: 20 July 2026

Event description:

This session is seeking your experiences of Evaluation Commissioning – helpful and unhelpful -  to enable evaluations which make a difference. We will prompt your input with voices of workshop participants at the 2025 AES Conference.

Why is this important?

The Evaluation Commissioning process involves a wide range of people including:

• those tendering who win and lose

• the program and policy areas which seek to find ways to improve the program

• evaluators

• those who participate in and/or are affected by the outcome of the evaluation.

See the AES BLOG for more detail:  Who does a commissioned evaluation involve and what matters to them?  based on contributions from 80 attendees.

Our questions for this session are:

Commissioning Outcomes: What commissioning processes facilitate good evaluation practices?

How to improve:  What would it take to shift systems and culture to facilitate good evaluation outcomes?

The choices made in the procurement design directly impact factors such as who can undertake the evaluation, what is valued in assessing the tenders, who can contribute, what aspects of the program matter and what counts as evidence of ‘it works’. The specifications may affect whether the evaluation can or will meet rigorous requirements of human research (National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2025 ) as well as a range of protocols and principles including:

• AES Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Evaluations

• Australian Institute of Indigenous Studies (IATSIS) Code of Ethics for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Research (2020)

• Ethical protocol for Evaluation practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander settings

• First Nations Cultural Safety Framework (AES) 

• Right way evaluation: Our First Nations’ approach to monitoring evaluation and learning.

This seminar will be recorded and available on the member portal only.

Presenter details:

The four AES Fellows leading this seminar have long careers of evaluation in government, NGOs and private settings. with roles as commissioners, evaluators, service practitioners, organisational heads. policy advisers, planners and program designers. Their role in this seminar is to stimulate your awareness of the potential for a commissioning process to promote quality evaluation practices and to encourage you to provide your experiences in order for the AES to determine whether commissioning poses systemic barriers to providing quality evaluations that makes a difference.  

This event is organised & hosted by the AES Fellows Management Committee. Our seminar series provides an opportunity for you to meet with AES members and others in the evaluation community and to share and learn from the experiences of fellow evaluators.

Seminar start times:

VIC, ACT, NSW, TAS, QLD: 12.30pm

SA, NT: 12.00pm

WA: 9.30am

New Zealand: 2.30pm

For other time zones please go to https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

Please ensure you have access to your email address just prior to the start time to access Zoom details. Please also check your email address is correct on your registration form before submitting. Thanks.