Collecting information

This step will help you to:

find different ways to collect information about the difference you are making and
fit evaluation into your project or organisation.

Pathway Diagram

Getting Started

Do you know why evaluation is important? Are staff and managers motivated to get started? Do you have clear statements about the difference you want to make as an organisation?

Collecting Information

Do you have statements that help you recognise the impact that you have? Do you have the right systems to enable you to measure what you do, and the difference that you make?

Using Consultants (Optional)

Do you know what you want from an external evaluation, and can you communicate that? Do you know how to go about commissioning consultants?

Analysing & Reporting

Do you know how to analyse the information you collect? Can you write a report about what you've done and the difference you've made?

Learn from your Findings

Do you know how to use the findings to improve your service? Do you know how to share your findings with others?

Events & Training

Be sure to read this booking information.

February 23, 2012 Using Creative approaches to evaluate your project Edinburgh

Resources

Case Studies

ESS Case Study: Community Food and Health - Little Leithers

The Community Food and Health Scotland (CFHS) Self-evaluation Collaborative is a partnership between CFHS, ESS and six community food and health projects. It involves three ...

ESS Case Study: Community Food and Health Scotland: Hidden Gardens

The Community Food and Health Scotland (CFHS) Self-evaluation Collaborative is a partnership between CFHS, ESS and six community food and health projects. It involves three ...

ESS Support Guides

ESS Support Guide 2.1: Developing and using indicators

Evaluation is about working out what difference you are making through your services or activities. The changes or differences you hope to make are your outcomes (see Evaluation Support Guide 1 ...

ESS Support Guide 2.2: Using interviews and questionnaires to evaluate your project

This guide covers some of the more traditional approaches to collect information for your evaluation: questionnaires, interviews and group interviews (focus groups) and gives advice on how to ...

ESS Support Guide 2.3: Visual Approaches

This guide covers some visual approaches you can use to collect information for evaluation: relationship maps, service use maps, lifelines, body maps and evaluation wheels and gives advice on how ...

ESS Support Guide 2.4: Using Technology to Evaluate your Work

This guide covers some ways you can use technology to collect information for evaluation: video, digital photographs and audio recording. These can be used independently or ...

ESS Support Guide 2.5: Storing Information

This guide looks at how to store the information you need to use in evaluation.

ESS Support Guide 3.4 - Using Qualitative Information for Evaluation

This guide will help you to think through how you can make use of qualitative information in evaluation. It looks at what qualitative information you might ...

Thematic Guides and resources

Addressing the challenges for evaluation

This paper is for people with a role in commissioning, funding or evaluating ...

Data Protection Act

All the information you need on the Data Protection Act.

Ethical Evaluation

Advice for ethical evaluation, specifically of interest to those involved in learning and teaching but with wider relevance.

Evaluating Community Projects - A Practical Guide

by Marilyn Taylor, Derrick Purdue, Mandy Wilson and Pete Wilde These guidelines were developed as part of a Joseph Rowntree Foundation Programme to help 20 community and voluntary ...

Evaluation Journey

This is an introductory guide to evaluation in Plain English with a good number of case studies. Published by Ash Scotland it focuses on health work but is useful for anyone who needs a good ...

NPC Wellbeing Measure

New Philanthropy Capital (NPC)'s Well-being Measure is an online ...

Outcomes Star website

The Outcomes Star™ is a unique tool for supporting and measuring change when working with vulnerable people. It is widely used and is: Underpinned by an explicit model of change

Paul Hamlyn Foundation Evaluation Resource Pack

This comprehensive pack from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation takesd the reader through the whole process of evaluation. It is clearly written and well explained, covering the pros and cons of a ...

The W.K Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook

This handbook provides a fairly in-depth look at some basic questions, such as the limitations of scientific methods in evaluation. One of the key aims of evaluation for the Kellogg ...