Creating a Support System for Doing Formative Evaluation within the National Diffusion Network / Adrianne Bank and Nancy Snidman.

The Center for the Study of Evaluation (CSE) developed a formative evaluation system for the National Diffusion Network (NDN). A national, federally funded organization, NDN disseminates innovative ideas to schools nationwide. A formative evaluation was designed as an ongoing low-cost series of activities to be carried out by NDN managers, Developer/Demonstrators (D/Ds) or State Facilitators (SFs). The conceptualization process involved CSE encouraging NDN personnel to consider purposes, outcomes, and uses for a formative evaluation of each project. NDN practitioners and leadership revealed their perception of evaluation needs which would be of benefit to them. The resources Guidebook evolved into two sections. The first included instructions generic to evaluation and the second contained NDN specific information. A category of dissemination tasks, Certified Trainer operations was added to the Guidebook during the development phase. Awareness activities, training in evaluation guidebook use and technical assistance comprised the implementation stage. The CSE acted as product developer as well as evaluator in this project. (D0H)

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