AEA has been my favorite professional conference since I started attending about 5 years ago. This year, I attended some of the same sessions as my colleagues, so I won’t report on those. Here are some other sessions that I thought were noteworthy. (more…)

I was only able to attend 1.5 days at AEA this year. But, for even a short time, it was well worth the drive to Portland. I loved seeing many of us RMLers at the meeting. I definitely agree with Heidi’s encouragement that everyone would benefit from participating in the conference in some way, some day.

Highlights of the conference for me…

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Really just thrown in the “bag” following the conference. I would encourage all liaisons to attend this at least once!!!

Some notable PEOPLE in the field (per Betsy Kelly):

Ray Maiotta (coding)
Michael Quinn Patton

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The American Evaluation Association annual meeting was held in Portland, OR last week and I attended two workshops and several sessions of interest. Here is a selection of tidbits that I picked up:

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The 4^th International Conference on Evidence Based Library and Information Practice will be held May 2007 in Chapel Hill, hosted by the School of Information and Library Science at UNC Chapel Hill and the UNC Institute on Aging. The conference will be held May 6-9, followed by 2 days of continuing education. EBLIP4 welcomes proposals for high quality papers and posters of research and innovative applications of evidence-based library and information practice in library and information management. The deadline for abstracts is December 1. Full information about the conference is available at: http://www.eblip4.unc.edu/

This article by Peter Drucker, written in 1999, talks about the important role of self-assessment (a.k.a. self-evaluation) in the nonprofit sector. I think one major “take-home message” of this article is that nonprofits, like for-profit organizations, have a bottom line for which they are accountable. The nonprofit’s “bottom-line” is changing lives. I also like his point that self-assessment is a critical aspect of leadership. Finally, his emphasis on “encouraging constructive dissent” speaks to the need to incorporate participatory methods into our evaluations. Click the link below to find the article:
Self-Assessment: The First Action Requirement of Leadership

Participatory evaluation methods are designed to bring a broad range of project stakeholders into decisions about program evaluation. These stakeholders make decisions about what is evaluated, how it is evaluated, and how results are analyzed and reported. Because of the NNLM’s focus on partnerships with other organizations, the OERC is emphasizing participatory methods during the current contract. For those planning to attend the American Evaluation Association 2006 conference in Portland, Oregon, here is a sample of sessions focused on participatory evaluaton methods. If you want more details, scroll down past the session titles to the conference program link. If you click on it, it will take you to the AEA program schedule page. You can see which sessions feature participatory methods by going to the line that says Sponsoring Group or TIG, choosing “Collaborative, Participatory, & Empowerment Evaluation TIG” and hitting submit.

AEA participatory methods sessions

The American Evaluation Association is an international professional organization for evaluators from more disciplines than most of us probably can imagine. Part of the organization’s mission is to provide affordable training to those who want to (or are required to) improve their evaluation skills This year, the annual conference is in Portland, Oregon, Nov. 1-4, with pre-conference professional development workshops conducted Oct 30-Nov 1 and post-conference workshops on Nov 5. Workshops last from a half day to 2 full days. The conference fee is $135 for members, $215 for nonmembers, and $70 for students.  Workshops range in price from $40 to $400 — you can attend the workshops without registering for the conference. If you are interested in learning more about AEA and the conference, here are some links to explore:

AEA conference page

AEA conference professional development workshops

AEA home

New research suggests that simply asking a question about a risky behavior, such as drug use, can increase that behavior. Host Frank Stasio talks to Gavan Fitzsimons, a marketing professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business about the power of suggestion and how researchers’ questions can have unintended effects.

Listen to this North Carolina Public Radio broadcast. (11min 30sec)