Evaluation

Evaluation task.

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/self-evaluation-toolkit 

What is evaluation?

• The making of a judgement's on either the  number, amount or mass of value of something that is to do with an assessment. this also consist of gathering evidence before, during and after the project. which help's improve the project for the next time it is done.

What do you think the purpose of planning and implementing an evaluation process is?

• This help's with the planning process as it makes you think about what you are aiming for within the project and how to do it. Along with how you will know if it will succeed.

How do you think evaluation...

Helps with planning?

• Makes you think about what you are aiming for and how it will help you succeed. along with keeping you on track for what you need to do...

Assists in ensuring “quality assurance”? 

• Meaning you keep an eye on things to make sure the quality is maintained and no disasters happen.

Demonstrates the value of your project? 

• Evaluation proves the quality and value of your project that you are doing.

Future proofs your project? 

• The evidence you collect can help and aid other future projects to help them do better.

Assists future groups of students organizing the event? 

• The evidence you collect can be used for reporting back to whom interested in this kind of project.

Facilitates adaption and change? 

• The reports back on your own evaluation can help future organizer's adapt and change what they may have though you did wrong. Can essentially help make it better along with supporting future funding application's.

Keeps you on track and avoids disasters? 

• Progression and constant evaluation defiantly helps keep you on track to fix mistakes and to avoid disaster's.

Strengthens the creative industries? 

• The evaluation can help "support future funding application's". Evaluating your work also helps create a collective body of work/evidence that helps develop new idea's and contribution's to assist in other project's.

Ensures funding has been well used? 

• Ensuring you have a good evaluation means that the founder's who read the evaluation can look at it and ensure that their money has gone to a good cause and not to personal use. to make sure the founder's are not disappointed.

Facilitates growth and development? 

• Going over an evaluation let's you clearly see your mistake's and where to fix the mistake's made for next time.

Planning your evaluation...

What sort of evaluation will you undertake e.g. who are your stakeholders and what information do you require in order  to be able to evaluate the project?  

• What the groups that you have in place along with how they benefit each other or didn't for the project. Along with how each of the area's and group's work well i.e: sub committees and leader's of the project. The mistakes that you may need to fix up or simplify things you did not do so well so you can do better for next time. Along with other things such as budgeting, sponsor, venue and people who helped out with the project.

What kinds of information or evidence are you going to include in your evaluation – e.g. what people say, what they  have  done, what you have done, how an audience has responded? 

• Public responses to the event and night itself. Along with individual's that participated in the event and helped create it with their involvement's.  Along with what was necessary for the project and what wasn't.

What questions are you going to ask? 

• The success-fullness of the task itself, what worked well, how can you improve on the event. Along with area's that were or were not necessary?

How do you plan to answer these questions ?

• needing both number's and opinion's that will form both people that attended and helped with the project.

This is really about what sort of information you need to answer the  questions and how you will collect it and do you need numbers ?

• You need at least 50 people attending 20 workshop's. For more information and depth.

When should you collect the information? 

• As  minimum the collection of this information will be at the end of the project. but if you can ask questions at the start of a project, you will have a ‘before’ against which you can look at the ‘after’to assess changes.

How will you collect the information?  

• We may have some of the information that we need, from either previous evaluations or findings from market research. There are different ways to collect this information: EG: keeping  register, using a questionnaire, taking photographs, videotaping people’s thoughts about a project, asking them to keep a diary, etc...

How are you going to make sense of the information you have collected? 

• By assessing and putting it in order of event's to make changes or try something different or to see what part's of the project was successful or not.

How are you going to present the results of the evaluation? 

• Probably through like a evaluation manual or visual diary to show progress and then to create a document at the end, about the evaluation...

Who are you going to share it with and how? 

• It will be useful to anyone who organised, funds, delivers or takes part in participatory arts projects, although its specific focus is education. 

What are the five stages of evaluation? 

• Planning - Why are we doing this project? What specific things do we want to achieve? How will we identify success? 

• Collective evidence - How will we collect the evidence we need? 

• Assembling and interpreting - What does the evidence tell us?

• Reflecting and moving forward - What have we learned from the evaluation? How will we do things differently in future? 

• Reporting and sharing - Who will we tell about the project and why? How will we tell them? What will we tell them?

Judging success and quality: the coordinators during and after the project 

What was your role/s in the project? 

• Organizing awards and judges, while also helping with installation and being an MC for the opening night of the exhibition.

What tasks were you responsible for over the duration of the project?

• Helping installation and making sure everyone is entertained being the MC for the night.

Did you complete all tasks as expected on time and within budget? If not, why not? 

• We have completed most of the task on time but have had a wee bit of failure with our judges as our plan A judges pulled out due to reasons. So had to quickly find plan B judges.

How do you think your sub-committees performed—outline your sub-committees’ strengths and weaknesses?

• The only sub-committees I am apart of are...

AWARDS sub-committee - The performance of the awards committee was pretty good we all try and turn up for meetings. We had to contact each other through messenger rather than the original platform Discord. Just because it was too much of a hassle and half of our discords wouldn't work. The leadership role taken by Micayla was performed to standard she has done an amazing job. The weaknesses that occurred in our committee was miscommunication with discord, distribution of task's, not pulling their weight.

INSTALL sub-committee - Installing the works was a bit messy but all went to plan and figured who's work was who's as someone made themselves anonymous. Along with people mucking up with their artist statements having names which wasn't theirs and punctuation and grammar was not up to standard. Along with having to refuse some people's work as it was not up to requirement standards due to unfinished work or wet paintings.

How do you think the committee as a whole performed—outline the committees’ strengths and weaknesses. 

• There was a lot of pressure for us as well as trying to work around our budget but overall was a good effort. We have all worked together as hard as we could, some miscommunications especially with the chat group discord. But overall no head banging and getting angry with each other. We worked well as a team.

On reflection, how do you think you could have improved your performance as a team member?

• As a team member I believe I should have put my hand up for leadership roles. To improve myself for next time I need to be a little pro-active and get deadlines done as soon as possible and not let my job get in the way of my study. But overall I have tried my best and have done the best I could. Along with actively participating and helping other committees as well.

How will you identify the realistic increase in skills, knowledge and understanding you might expect to see as a  result of the project? 

• To identify the increase in skills, knowledge and understanding I might expect a project review meeting to help give us an update on our understanding and what skills that we need to undertake in the project. Such as every week we have Friday meetings that go for an hour. To give us an update on what we need to be doing, what knowledge we need for it and also the skills we need to make this project happen.

How would you define your levels of personal/professional development in relevant areas prior to the  project? 

• At the start of the project I felt like I didn't really know what to do but on a professional basis I asked for help for a clear understanding of the project. In areas such as installation of the Visual artist's works. I professionally put my hand up to be apart of layout and helping Phil organised it as I already have had experience on helping curate and exhibiting art works.

What kinds of changes in personal/professional development did you expect to achieve?

• I expected to achieve more development in communication skills and organizing skills. Especially time management to help me with later projects. On a personal level I expected to develop more social skills especially getting up on stage for MC, and speaking for all of the students in front of the student...

What do you think was achieved in terms of your personal/professional development by the end of the project? 

• I have learnt more about networking and working in a group to develop an idea.

What do you think was achieved in terms of your personal/professional development in the longer term? 

• I have achieved a bigger and wider network personally and professionally to develop my career further in the art industry

Were there any outcomes that you did not expect?  

• A lot of miscommunication that I did not expect to happen especially with the close exhibition nights with fashion student and art,film,animation students. Another outcome we did not expect was work handed in unfinished and not meeting task criteria, which had to be declined from the exhibition.

Evidence...

What is quantitative evidence? Give an example.

• This is numeral or statistical information collected from surveys or administration records.

What is qualitative evidence? Give an example. 

• This is descriptive information that comes from interviews, groups or for us artistic depictions such as photography etc... 

37. What kind of evidence did you collect and why? 

• We collected a mixture of quantitative and qualitative evidence, prioritizing on qualitative evidence for the sake of improvement and leaving a good impression of ourselves for future generations. 

38. Are there any ethical issues associated with your collection of evidence? 

• Letting people know that they are being surveyed
• Not attaching names and personal info to data
• Not leaving the data on an open drive

39. What are some of the techniques associated with collecting evidence? 

• Comment boxes and books
• Displays of work or performance at the end of a project
• Drawings, charts and diagrams
• Graffiti walls
• Interviews
• Observation
• Online websites, chat rooms and email
• Participatory techniques
• Photography
• Questionnaires
• Small group discussions
• Audio/Video recordings
• Written diaries

40. What technique did you use to collect your evidence? 

• Displays of work or performance at the end of the project
• Drawings, charts and diagrams
• Interviews
• Observation
• Online websites, chat rooms and email
• Participatory techniques
• Photography
• Questionnaires
• Small group discussions
• Audio/Video recordings
• Written diaries

41. Do you believe that the evidence you collected was sufficient?  

• We could have tried a few more techniques to gather evidence but I believe we still have enough

42. Discuss what might be the advantages and disadvantages of your kind of evidence and how it was collected. 

• Advantages
• Accurate count of numbers (until we ran out of raffle tickets.) lots of information on
• Disadvantages
• We had ran out of raffle tickets
• Were unable to ask dedicated questions on the night (Eval committee fell apart a bit)

43. On reflection is their any further evidence you could have collected to future proof the project?  

• Further public opinions.

44. How would you go about collecting this evidence, e.g. what technique would you employ? 

• Have a more organised evaluation committee, have dedicated volunteers asking questions to audience members on the night.

45. What kind of conclusions could your draw from the projects outcomes based on your collected evidence?  

•  The project managed to exceed expectations in terms of presentation and audience turnout.

SWOT Analysis (Pp36/37) 
46. What is a SWOT analysis? 

• A study undertaken by an organization to identify its internal Strengths and Weaknesses, as well as its external Opportunities and Threats.

47. How could a SWOT analysis be useful in evaluating the project? 

• It helps focus on the groups' strengths, minimizes threats, and takes the greatest possible advantage of opportunities available to the group. It can be used to "jump-start" strategy formulation, or in a more sophisticated way as a serious strategic tool. Groups can also use it to get an understanding of their competitors, which can bring the insights needed to craft a coherent and successful competitive position.

48. Compile a SWOT analysis of Think and Create.  Think and Create SWOT

1. Strengths - We are able to respond very quickly as we have no red tape, and no need for higher management approval.We are able to give really good customer care, as the current small amount of work means we have plenty of time to devote to customers.Our lead consultant has a strong reputation in the market.We can change direction quickly if we find that our marketing is not working.We have low overheads, so we can offer good value to customers.
2. Weaknesses - Our company has little market presence or reputation.We have a small staff, with a shallow skills base in many areas.We are vulnerable to vital staff being sick or leaving.Our cash flow will be unreliable in the early stages.
3. Opportunities - Our business sector is expanding, with many future opportunities for success.Local government wants to encourage local businesses.Our competitors may be slow to adopt new technologies.
4. Threats - Developments in technology may change this market beyond our ability to adapt.A small change in the focus of a large competitor might wipe out any market position we achieve.As a result of their analysis, the consultancy may decide to specialize in rapid response, good value services to local businesses and local government.Marketing would be in selected local publications to get the greatest possible market presence for a set advertising budget, and the consultancy should keep up-to-date with changes in technology where possible.
5. Reporting & sharing (Pp42,43,44,45,46) 

49. What might you need to consider prior to sharing evaluation material with stakeholders? 

• Ethical concerns, no personal information
• Presenting a summary - one page, personalized to each sponsor's involvement 

50. Who are the stakeholders that need to receive evaluative documentation and why? 

• Sponsors with financial investment in the event 

51. Will you present the same material to all stakeholders? Why/Why not?  

• No, they should be personalized for each stakeholder's involvement. 

52. What are the advantages associated with writing a project report? 

• Comprehensive document, professional.

53. Discuss some of the common pitfalls associated with a written report? 

• Too long, walls of text, too detailed, no pictures.

Reporting & sharing (Pp42,43,44,45,46) 
54. How would a project report commonly be structured? 

• Context

• Why partnership came together

• Project setting

• Basic data of people taking part

• Timetable of project

• How and why artists and organisation was selected

• Thanks to funders/sponsors

• Project Description

• Project summary

• Documentation (photos, examples of work, programmes, audience figures and press cuttings)

• Aims, objectives and measures of success

• Aims, objectives and measures of success as agreed during planning with changes made after the review meeting

• Explain how project was reviewed

• Examples (questionnaire formats, judge questions etc. in appendices)

• What we found out

• What the evidence told you

• If aims and objectives were achieved

• A summary of the success

• Unexpected outcomes

• I nclude evidence collected and its interpretation in appendices

• Project overview

• SWOT

55. Compile a 3-5 page project report/evaluation (see page 46/47). Do not format in a graph but head each section as detailed  on P46 e.g. Context; Description of project; Aims, objectives and measures of success; What we found out; Overview of the  project. Your report should be accompanied by a SWOT analysis, your complied  evidence and the responses to the  questions outlined on pages 1-3 of this handout. Your report should be typed and appropriately and neatly formatted for  presentation to stakeholders.