New and Noteworthy — Reads

A framework for adapting evaluation designs in times of COVID-19

Last month’s roundup focused specifically on COVID-19 and its implications for evaluation. Evaluators continue to produce COVID-19 related resources as the global crisis continues.

The Independent Evaluation Group of the World Bank recently produced a framework organized around four questions to address the evaluation challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, which include:

Should we adapt our evaluation questions and scope? In short, of course. As they state, “we must consider what evaluation scope or angle can bring the most value at this time.”
Can we improve what remains feasible? Yep – lots of good ideas on how evaluators can improve how we review and synthesize existing knowledge, including experimenting with AI.
Can we find ways around what is infeasible? Lockdown conditions means findings creative ways to engage with stakeholders and collect data (see below under New and Noteworthy tools for a remote survey toolkit).
Can we tap into alternative sources of evidence? There are opportunities to incorporate existing sources of data that evaluators do not typically tap into (e.g. geospatial, financial or social media).

Tapping into big data: Lessons from evaluators working in the food and agriculture sector

Speaking of opportunities to incorporate existing sources of data, Eval Forward recently posted a blog post titled Evaluation in the age of big data: Opportunities and challenges in agriculture and food security. In this post, they explore the challenges evaluators face (i.e. time and cost constraints and the trade-offs that are made because of that) and how big data and data analytics can strengthen evaluations. The post provides a list of some widely used big data techniques and their actual or potential applications in food and agriculture evaluation. These techniques include satellite and drones, remote sensors, GPS location data, social medial, Internet search data, integrated data platforms and biometric data. Interested in learning more about these techniques? Check out The UN Global Pulse website for over 100 case studies of how they have been applied.

New and Noteworthy — Tools

Remote Surveying – A toolkit on how to do it right

60 Decibels (@60_decibels) created a Remote Survey Toolkit to help you navigate phone survey best practices, survey providers, survey questions and more. Now that nearly everyone is practicing social distancing, face-to-face data collection has gone the way of the Dodo bird (well maybe not, but for the time being). The toolkit has lots of user-friendly tips, cheat sheets, decision trees, example questions, and other resources 60 Decibels has collected over the years that they have generously curated for all of us to use and benefit from!

Tools for capturing activities, outcomes, and learnings

Evaluation Support Scotland produces a number of free tools that can be downloaded from its site. Under its COVID-19 page it lists not only tips for evaluating during COVID-19 but practical tools. New tools include: