A pragmatic guide to monitoring and evaluating research communications using digital tools
January 11, 2012 at 7:07 pm 1 comment
Here is a very comprehensive post from the On Think Tanks blog that explains an approach for using digital tools to monitor and evaluate research communications for a think tank (ODI).
The approach taken relates online measurement tools to four levels of assessing influence of communications on policy (an aim of research communications):
- Management, outputs, uptake, outcomes and impact.
The last level, outcomes and impact is of course the hardest to measure with digital tools. But I think if you have access to your target audiences, this can be done through in-depth interviews or more simply through email surveys to ask how they have used the research products – which can give then provide an indication of the role they have taken in influencing policy.
Entry filed under: Advocacy evaluation, Web metrics.
intelligent measurement 
1.
Char Psych Tutor Mentor | January 24, 2012 at 11:37 pm
Thanks, what a comprehensive article! I’ve bookmarked it to dip into. Think Tanks are becoming more popular, especially with multi-discioiline collaborations. Quality evaluation is a critical way to ensure stuff gets done in the most optimum of ways.