Outreach Evaluation Resource Center
Quarterly Report: February-April, 2006
Training and continuing education
Susan Barnes and Cindy Olney presented the new "Planning and Evaluating Health Information Outreach Projects" workshop on February 3, 2006 in Houston, TX to staff from three regions plus network members and others from the South Central Region; and again on February 28, 2006 in Oakland, CA to staff from two regions plus network members from the Pacific Southwest Region. On April 25, 2006 Susan Barnes and Maryanne Blake presented the "Measuring Your Impact: Using Evaluation to Demonstrate Value" class to the Ohio Health Science Library Association in Columbus, OH; Maryanne and Betsy Kelly presented the class again on April 27, 2006 in Des Moines at the Iowa State Library Association's Health Sciences Subdivision meeting.
Consultation with Network members and NNO
Planning for end-of-contract reporting continued with NNO. The updated survey regarding the Public Health and Public Libraries outreach initiatives was administered to all eight regions in March, and Cindy Olney analyzed the data for the RML Directors' Meeting on 5/20 in Phoenix. Cindy also conducted a final compilation and analysis of results from the PubMed/MedlinePlus followup survey.
Assistance with analysis, synthesis, and reporting of evaluation results
Susan Barnes provided further consultation regarding Tribal Connections Four Corners collaboration reporting and an effective practices entry for the Corporation for National and Community Service web site.
Susan Barnes began the migration of the OERC web site into the new templates that resulted from Web-STOC's Usability Evaluation and Redesign effort.
Communications and collaboration
In early March, the NNO formed the Outreach Activities Working Group, co-chaired by Susan Barnes and Keith Cogdill, to assist NOMC with enhancements to the Outreach Activities Report Form, to address issues related to outreach activity reporting, and to discuss the PubMed/MedlinePlus followup survey. Discussions took place via email and in two conference calls. Recommendations were submitted to NNO and the OAWG final report was accepted by the end of April, 2006. Details about the OAWG are available in the Outreach Activities Working Group section of the NN/LM StaffWiki (access restricted to NN/LM and NLM staff).
Utilization and promotion of the evaluation guide
Copies of the first, beta, version of the three booklets in the Planning and Evaluating Health Information Outreach Projects series were distributed to all participants in the Houston and Oakland classes. Feedback was received and revisions were made with a target of publication of the final versions in June, 2006. A no-cost budget extension through July 31, 2006 made it possible to extend this target date past the original date of April 30, 2006. The booklets were made available on the OERC web site in pdf form at http://nnlm.gov/evaluation/booklets/. The last remaining printed copies of the beta version were provided to the Texas Library Association following a request received from a participant in the Houston class.
Administration
To increase her expertise in various areas of program evaluation, Ms Barnes participated in two Evaluator's Institute classes in Chicago: "Optimizing the Influence of Evaluation Findings on Policy" on April 27 and "Cost-Benefit Cost Effectiveness Analysis" on April 28 and April 29.
Susan Barnes compiled responses to questions from the National Library of Medicine regarding the proposal for the 2006-2011 OERC contract, and submitted the Final Revised Proposal to NLM in late April. At the end of April, news was received that the contract for the NN/LM Outreach Evaluation Resource Center at the NN/LM PNR in Seattle had been renewed.
