Generations: multi-generational approach to evaluation

May 1 to 4, 2011
The Westin Edmonton, Edmonton, Alberta
Email: CES@buksa.com

English / Français

Program

Conference Theme

Our 2011 theme is Generations: a multigenerational approach to evaluation. Over the past thirty years (one generation) the field of evaluation has changed. This conference will highlight:

• changes in evaluation techniques and tools,
• changes in evaluators including education, training, experiences and perspectives,
• changes in the populations served by the programs and services we evaluate

The final program is now available here.

Keynote Presentations

Opening Keynote: Dr. Robert Stake

For a reflective start to the conference, join us for Robert Stake's opening keynote address. Drawing from long tenure as a professional evaluator and teacher, Bob will illustrate the growth and change in the field from the 1960s, and help us identify potential future scenarios.

In his acceptance to our invitation, Bob said, "You have heard it. The modest response is, '...but I stood on the shoulders of giants.' Are we builders on old shoulders? In what ways are the formal evaluations of 2011 built upon those of 1971? How much do generations present rely on generations past? Precious little, I think. The current people express polite respect for the founding fathers and mothers. The current people express disregard, mostly disdain, for ancient standards of validity. But mostly the present is a separation from the past, not particularly inventive, mostly adaptive. The times have changed. They have. The old stuff doesn't fit very well. Generations present adapt to situations unthinkable to generations past."

Dr. Stake is known for his responsive evaluation approach and special use of case study methods. Since 1975, he has been Director of the Center for Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation (CIRCE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a center that has been evaluating diverse education initiatives for more than 45 years.

Keynote Panel Discussion with Paul Born and Liz O'Neill - moderated by Mark Cabaj

The demand for new ways of tackling pressing social, economic and environmental challenges grows with each day.

Evaluators might be able to help. The seeds of evaluation theory and practice were planted during the scientific evolution, sprouted in the late stages of the industrial revolution, and grew robustly after the Second World War. In that time, evaluators have developed a great deal of capacity to help assess the "downstream" work of implementing and improving policies and programs as well as judging their overall merit or worth.

Evaluators are still struggling, however, to find ways to provide social innovators with relevant, timely and effective evaluative support in the "upstream" process of surfacing and designing new strategies, programs or policies in a way that embraces - rather than undermines - the dynamic creative, messy, unpredictable process that this work typically requires.

This keynote session will include an interview and small group discussions with two well-known Canadian social innovators to explore how they create, radically restructure, and grow social innovations in fast moving environments - and how they think evaluators can help (and hinder) - their efforts.

Closing Keynote: Renée Vaugeois

Whether in Uganda addressing the needs of orphans and grandparents affected by the AIDS crisis, or working to advance human rights of those marginalized in our increasingly diverse Canada, Ms. Vaugeois critically reflects on what kind of world we live in and what it means to embrace human dignity and foster change. Building sustainable change towards a culture of peace and human rights involves looking beyond the immediate, exercising reflection and learning, while fostering relationships between diverse perspectives and individuals. Embracing diversity must move beyond discussions of race, gender or religion to include notions related to our abilities, our backgrounds, as well as our generations. To build sustained and meaningful change for the future requires the consideration of our diverse generations. In Uganda and in Canada, Ms. Vaugeois works to bridge the wisdom of the elders with the innovation of the youth to foster community building, individual growth and inclusion.

List of Presentations

Panel Sessions

Mr. Rob Chambers: Assessing Evaluation Quality: Current Practices at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat's Centre of Excellence for Evaluation

Dr. Wendy Doughty: Developmental program evaluation: Challenging conventional practice and roles

Ms. Judith Krajnak: Evaluating as Change Agents within Alberta's Primary Care Networks: Perspectives from the Front Lines

Ms. Chantal Langevin: Implementing the Assessment of Economy and Efficiency in Program Evaluations

Mr. John Ma: Approaches, Challenges and Lessons in Conducting and Evaluation of a Web-Based Initiative

Ms. Kate Powadiuk: Multi-Site Evaluation and You: Tips for Smooth Implementation

Ms. Kathryn Radford: Guiding Change with Experience: Mentoring and New Directions in Evaluation Training

Mr. Andy Rowe: No Method to Our Madness: Getting Methods Out of the Way of Good Evaluation

Dr. Simon Roy: Dear Proposal Writer... Dear RFP Writer...

Ms. Patricia Saunders: Diversity in Evaluation: Evolving Practices

Ms. Denise Wong: Evaluating Policy Programs: Lessons Learned by the interdepartmental Policy Program Evaluation Working Group

Paper Presenters

Dr. Numan Al-Musawi: The conceptual change approach to improving evaluators' perspectives: Effectiveness and implications for program evaluation theory and practice

Ms. Michelle Anderson-Draper: Evaluation's role in improving educational outcomes for children and youth in care

Ms. Leslie Ayre-Jaschke: Developmental Evaluation and Outcome Mapping in Alberta: Finding new ways to respond to complexity

Dr. Alexey Babayan: Embedded Case Studies: innovations in case study design in the evaluation of a provincial nursing smoking cessation best practice initiative

Ms. Louise M. Bahry: Building Competencies in Situational Practice: Addressing the Coursework Gap

Ms. Denise Belanger: Video and Voice: Exploring Case Studies as a Vehicle for Youth Voice in Evaluation

Ms. Teresa Bellefontaine: The Evaluation of Place-Based Approaches

Mr. Frédéric Bertrand: Does research performance influence environment-related outcomes of countries? Lessons learned from a macro-level evaluation using bibliometric indicators and environmental performance indexes

Mrs. Brigitte Bouchard-Morris: Using case studies to document innovative practices

Ms. Donna Brown: Evaluating Global Partnerships: A new evaluation model and approach to building partnerships

Ms. Heather Buchanan: Ethics DO Matter!

Mr. Saad Chahine: Using Cognitive Interviews to Understand Educators' Data Use

Dr. Kaireen Chaytor: Evaluation Theory - the Starting Point for Evaluation

Dr. Colleen Dell: Applying the Principles of Community-Based Research to Mental Health and Addictions Program Evaluation

Dr. Ann Doucette: Examining Measures Used in Evaluation: Addressing Challenges with New Tools

Dr. Wendy Doughty: Diverse voices: Building a culture of assessment within a multigenerational, multidisciplinary, multiple program/unit team.

Mrs. Kate-Lynn Duplessis: Application and utility of geomatics to evaluation: Mapping vulnerable populations and community based services in Canada

Dr. Samantha Evans: Ethnographic research techniques in the context of evaluation

Dr. Joy Fraser: Should Principles of Social Justice and Cultural Competency be Included in All Program Evaluations?

Ms. Sarah French: Social Return on Investment: The Edmonton Context

Ms. Rebecca Georgis: A Framework for Community-Based Evaluation: Theory into Action

Dr. Rebecca Gokiert: Community-Based Evaluation within a Cross-Cultural Context

Dr. Kathryn Graham: Effective Evaluation: Innovative methods, tools and promising practices

Ms. Rita Gunn: Transitioning to Performance Measurement in Legal Services: Institutional and Conceptual Barriers

Ms. Eleanor Hamaluk: Using case studies to tell the evaluation story: A hybrid approach

Mr. Michael Harnar: Theory Building Through Praxis Discourse: A Theory- And Practice-Informed Model Of A Transformative Participatory Approach To Evaluation

Jennifer Hewson: Engagement and research design learnings from a three year, arts based community development project

Dr. Tammy Horne: Connecting Communities On-line to Share Learning: Using Web Conferencing for Group Interviews in Evaluating Community Development Initiatives

Dr. Dale Howard: Quality of Life as a Performance Measure in Providing Supports to Adults with Developmental Disabilities

Ms. Kathy Howery: Navigating Developmental Evaluation: The Role of a Sherpa within Organizations

Ms. Helen Hsu: Evaluating Long-term Outcomes of Medical Education Programs on the Development of Physician Competencies

Ms. Serena Humphries: Developmental Evaluation Applied: Promoting Evidence Use in Health Care Organizations

Ms. Andrea L.K. Johnston: Case Study's that Work With (not without) Communities

Mr. Eugene Krupa: Evolving a Capacity-building & Utilization-focused Evaluation for CATCH: A Community-Driven Movement to Address Early Childhood Development in Kelowna, BC

Mr. Eugene Krupa: Evaluation of LoHiCdSHI in Rural / Remote Zambia: Building capacity to addressing maternal and child health and determinants of health in rural/remote communities

Mr. Eugene Krupa: Evaluating Community Health Workers systems in Rural / Remote Zambia: Designing for intersectoral collaboration, knowledge translation and sustainability

M. Moktar Lamari: Valorisation de l'évaluation de programme dans les politiques gouvernementales : Un examen empirique de la capacité d'absorption des ministères agissant dans les principaux domaines d'intervention du gouvernement du Québec

Ms. Faith Layden: Evaluating Knowledge Synthesis, Translation and Exchange: The Complexities and the Challenges

Mr. Augusto Legaspi: The process and the learning from developing ESL course evaluations: From the high-level trust creation to the ground-level decision of which word to use

Mr. Andrew Lejeune: Bridging the gap: Examining models for evaluator training

Ms. Dianne Lepa: Aboriginal Engagement in the Evaluation Process at INAC

Dr. Chris Lovato: Evaluating the Contribution of Medical Education to Physician Human Resources: The Distributed Medical Education Program at UBC

Ms. Patricia Macklin: First Impressions Community Exchange (FICE) Longitudinal Evaluation

Mr. Robert Malatest: Challenges in Utilizing Randomized Control Trials in Social Program Evaluation: Lessons Learned

Mr. Greg Mason: Three cases in cost-effectiveness analysis - pushing the boundaries

Dr. Nazeem Muhajarine: Effecting family changes for the healthy development of children: A provincial early childhood intervention program evaluated using mixed methods

Mr. Michael Obrecht: A Logic Model for Evaluation Capacity Development

Mr. Hubert Paulmer: Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) at Project / Organization Level - Experience from the Recent Past and Lessons for the Future from Three Different Regions across the Atlantic

Mr. Hubert Paulmer: Household Surveys - the "Traditional Way" in Today's ICT world - A Case from Africa

Dr. Eileen Piggot-Irvine: Changing values and strategies in feedback in evaluation: Evidence of impact

Mr. Sandiran (Sandi) Premakanthan: Planning for Program Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Readiness

Ms. Vera Radyo: Breakthroughs in Shared Measurement Evaluation: A BC Example

Mme. Lynda Rey: Implantation du concept " Hôpital Promoteur de Santé " en contexte de périnatalité de l'analyse des processus à l'appui à la décision: une approche développementale

De l'analyse des processus à l'appui à la décision: une approche développementale

Ms. Stephanie Robertson: Social Return on Investment - A Tool for Your Evaluation Tool Kit

Ms. Dana Robinson: From micro to macro: What can program evaluations tell us about an issue?

Mr. Gunter Rochow: Multi-language Electronic Surveying - within Budget

Ms. Anne Routhier: The Policy on Evaluation 2009: Progress Toward Full Implementation

Ms. Carol Siu: An action inquiry of a pilot community health promotion program: Empowerment program evelopment

Ms. Donna Smith-Moncrieffe: Using Internet Research Methods in a Needs Assessment Framework

Pernelle Smits: Change of attitude among non-professional evaluators

Pernelle Smits: L'attitude positive des gestionnaires envers les évaluations et sa traduction dans la pratique

Dr. Marla Steinberg: CAPTURE and CLASP: Expanding the Reach of Chronic Disease Prevention Programming and Evaluation

Dr. Stephanie Sutherland: Lessons learned about medical school curricular integration: Perceptions of students, faculty and curriculum leaders

Dr. Bejoy Thomas: Thinking out-of-the-box: A cancer care experience of evaluating access and utilization

Mr. Stanley Varnhagen: Encouraging Experimentation and Innovation in Instruction through Evaluation

Dr. Jennifer Yessis: Lessons from applying developmental evaluation approaches: relationships, relevance and rigour

Poster Presenters

Ms. Michelle Anderson-Draper: A network revealed: Highlighting the successes, challenges and the path we took to get here

Ms. Jeanne Annett: Standards of Practice for Evaluation in Alberta Health Services

Mr. Peter Czerny: Maximizing Performance Measurement for Evaluations: Analysis Framework Technique

Ms. Emily Di Sante: Designing an Evaluation for Sub-Populations: Evaluating Ontario's Smoking Cessation System for Smokers of Low Socio-Economic Status

Ms. Lindsay Foster: Using Evaluation to Enhance Clinical Practice through Innovation

Ms. Stephanie Gazzola: Increasng Service Use at an LGBT Community Organization: Barriers and Challenges

Ms. Trudy Johnson: Meaningfulness in Evaluation

Dr. Undurthy Lakshmi Narayana: Developing Research Competencies among Educational Functionaries: An Evaluation of a Training Programme

Ms. Lisa O'Reilly: Fed-speak and what those acronyms really mean

Mrs. Katherine Roger: Learning by Doing: Participatory Evaluation from the Perspective of a Novice Evaluator

Mr. Peter Zuba: A Custom-Designed Process and Database for Course and Program Evaluations.

Schedule-at-a-Glance

All activities take place at the Westin Edmonton Hotel

If you are interested in hosting a thematic breakfast, please see the description on the homepage.

Social Events

Morning Stretch Yoga Practice with Angela Wiens

This mindful morning practice will focus on opening our bodies to the new day, centering our attention on releasing the back, hips, and legs. You'll leave the class feeling centered and ready to start your day. All yoga experience levels welcome.

Please bring your yoga mat and wear loose comfortable clothing. A few extra yoga mats will be available.

You can register when you register for the conference; there is a maximum of 20 participants.

Please visit Angela's website at www.yogainnerspirit.com to read about her classes and approach. Feel free to email her with any questions.

Angela Wiens is a certified hatha yoga teacher (registered with Yoga Alliance).

Gala Dinner at the Art Gallery of Alberta

Join your colleagues at the new Art Gallery of Alberta for a Gala Dinner. You will enjoy a four-course dinner as well as an opportunity to explore this unique building and its galleries. Tickets must be purchased in advance at the time of registration. Seating is limited, so purchase your tickets early!

Alberta Night

Please join Malatest for the opportunity to mix and mingle with this year's conference participants! Drinks, food, Alberta trivia, and line dance lessons will allow you to experience Alberta at its best!

All interested parties can purchase tickets for the Social Mixer Event at the time of registration.

Group Runs with Sherry Honey

Drop-in and join the Westin Edmonton's very own Sherry Honey for a run or walk around Edmonton. Sherry is an AFLCA certified fitness and group exercise leader. There is no charge for this activity.

Canadian Evaluation Society Annual Conference
Generations: multi-generational approach to evaluation
c/o BUKSA Strategic Conference Services
Suite 307, 10328 - 81 Avenue NW, Edmonton, AB T6E 1X2
Phone: (780) 436-0983 x234 Fax: (780) 437-5984 Email:CES@buksa.com