User:SarahStierch/journal post

Program Evaluation & Design team releases evaluation capacity survey; related updates

Earlier this year, the Wikimedia Foundation formed a new team – Program Evaluation and Design (PE&D). This new team aims to partner with chapters, affiliates and individual community members who are involved in program development and execution, in order to support them in better evaluating the impact of their programs. Programs include edit-a-thons, workshops, the Wikipedia Education Program, Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Takes [Your City], on-wiki contests, and GLAM activities. We hope that program evaluation will help to strengthen programs in general, and can support chapters and other movement groups in making the best decisions on what programs to invest time and money in.

Kippelboy, from Amical, learned about logic models at the first PE&D workshop in June. Amical has since utilized the process in their strategic planning.

One of the most recent tasks of the team has been to launch an evaluation capacity survey. Launched in late August, program leaders and chapter staff developing and executing programs were asked to take a survey which looks at what the evaluation they have been doing and their ability to do evaluation. The data from this survey will be shared as a public report about the state of evaluation in the Wikimedia world and will provide important data on how the PE&D team can actively support program leaders with appropriate tools, design strategies and resources. Thank you to everyone who responded!

PE&D partners with WMF analytics to soft launch WikiMetrics – early users wanted! PE&D has been working closely with the Foundation's analytics team to help soft launch WikiMetrics, a tool that allows users to pull data based on usernames. For example, through the easy to use interface you can upload a file of usernames based on who attended your edit-a-thon. After the edit-a-thon, you can ask WikiMetrics to tell you if those users have edited two weeks after the edit-a-thon, and how many edits they have made. Want to play with WikiMetrics? Watch the online training the team made and gather that data! Share your feedback here. The team will be hosting their next Google Hangout about WikiMetrics on September 5, 16:00.

PE&D is also releasing monthly blogs about evaluation in the Wikimedia movement. A new blog, written by Amical member Barcelona, looks at how Amical has used evaluative processes, like logic models, to develop their strategic plan. Read this blog post here, and contact Sarah if you're interested in sharing your chapter evaluation story.

After an informal community survey, a Facebook group has been created to help build a community of program evaluators. While not every Wikimedian is on Facebook, the group has already over 60 members and is buzzing with activity. And finally, a PE&D announcement list also exists, where you can get occasional updates about the latest news in the Program Evaluation world. You can also ask questions about program evaluation via the team's meta portal.