From ParticipatioNZ

Evaluating to learn, learning to evaluate. This section provides guidance for evaluating online participation.

Contents 1 Snapshot 1.1 Voices 1.2 Quote 1.3 Key messages 1.4 Highlights 2 Full story 3 Case studies

Snapshot

Voices

"The richness comes from the interaction between online and offline. So how do we use the ICT to enrich the experience of public participation?" -- Workshop participant

Quote

"Building systematic evaluations into e-democracy program development provides a process for establishing a much-needed knowledge base about what works and what doesn't work and under what circumstances in this rapidly evolving field." --- Queensland's E-democracy evaluation framework, 2005, p. 4

Key messages

• Evaluate to learn and improve online participation.
• Evaluate against the principles for online participation set out in this Guide.
• Consider participatory evaluation whenever possible.

Highlights

• Why evaluate? Evaluating online participation is too often an afterthought or left out altogether. But it is the only way to understand what works best, learn from past mistakes and improve the application and experience of online participation.

• How to use this evaluation framework Build considerations of evaluation in from the outset, embed evaluation in the process and consider this section as a tool for self-assessment.

• Evaluation as learning The theory and practice of online participation is still in its infancy. As a result, the purpose of evaluation is to learn -- rather than to assess or audit.

• Evaluation against what? This evaluation framework takes as its basis the set of principles for online participation set out at the beginning of this guide.

• Moving from principles to indicators For each of the seven principles we propose a set of indicators, measures and sources of data, which you can adapt to suit your own initiative.

• Why choose participatory evaluation? People usually participate in evaluation by answering questions. But their role could be far wider and more active -- both upstream, in formulating criteria for success and developing pertinent evaluation questions, and downstream, in analysing evaluation results. This is participatory evaluation.

• Learning to evaluate online participation We are all novices when it comes to evaluating online participation. Given the steep learning curve ahead, we can build our competence and capacity faster if we pool our knowledge. Share your evaluation findings with others.

• Tips for evaluating online participation A quick 'to do' list for anyone planning to engage online.

• Some examples So where do you start? By looking at what others have done. Check out existing evaluation frameworks for such tools as e-petitions, online consultation, webcasting and wikis.

Full story

This section offers strategic guidance for policy makers and senior government officials who are responsible for commissioning and using evaluations of online participation. We don't attempt to provide detailed technical instructions for evaluation professionals charged with conducting such evaluations.

For the full story on how to evaluate online participation read more here.

Case studies

For concrete examples of the design issues discussed here see the set of case studies in the Resources section.