What program evaluation services do we offer?
Contact us to support your grant proposal, consult on your funded project, or serve as external evaluators.
Consultation on proposals:
- Identify the reporting and accountability requirements of funders
- Help articulate project goals and measurable objectives
- Suggest advisory board members
- Develop a logic model or evaluation matrix
- Write an evaluation plan and evaluation questions
- Advise on evaluation methods to measure progress
- Develop an evaluation budget
Evaluation at all stages of a project:
- Front-end evaluation at the project start to inform the work
- Formative evaluation to guide the project team during implementation and allow for iterative design
- Summative evaluation to summarize project accomplishments
- External critical review as a “critical friend” to review project design and implementation
Examples of our program evaluation work:
- Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), NSF community program office: We are performing a needs assessment of the participating researchers, as well as relevant policy organizations, Indigenous communities, and other community members, to help define the goals and activities for the community office. We plan to continue assessing these activities and evaluating whether the office is able to reach their goals.
- Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU): We host an REU site, RECCS, and serve as external evaluators for several other REU sites. Contact us to consult on incorporating an evaluation plan into your NSF REU proposal.
- Undergraduate Teaching in Mathematics with Open Software and Textbooks (UTMOST): We evaluate instructors’ experiences working with the UTMOST team (e.g., orientation meetings, textbook support, research participation) and teaching with the UTMOST math textbooks in their courses. We also gather feedback from members of the UTMOST team and advisory board to facilitate and improve communication and teamwork throughout the project.
- Fiske Explorations Videos, a NASA SciAct project: We evaluated video content against NASA goals, as well as audience impact with surveys and polls. We analyzed the reach of the project through tracking Planetarium requests for video downloads, as well as web analytics for both the website and the YouTube versions of videos. We also surveyed planetarium managers throughout the project to gain information about how the videos were used and received by their audiences. Finally, we tracked the relationships built through collaborations with NASA Science Matter Experts.
