Group items tagged

"Welcome Evalsed is an online resource providing guidance on the evaluation of socio-economic development. It promotes exchange of experience and good practice as well as increasing the relevance of evaluation in decision-making. Whilst the resource has a specific focus on evaluation in EU cohesion policy, it is also relevant to the evaluation of other socio-economic development tools. Evalsed is currently under development. In the policy debate, there is an ever increasing focus on the need for evidence on the performance of cohesion policy.  Policy makers need to know "what works?" and "why?".  The experiences of ongoing evaluation for 2007-2013 and the thematic ex post evaluation of the 2000-2006 period also demonstrate the greater potential for evaluations of themes or interventions to deliver credible results. Evalsed has traditionally focused on programme evaluations. Following these recent evaluation experiences and discussions at the Warsaw conference on evaluation methods [http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/conferences/evaluation2009/index_en.htm], Evalsed will be redeveloped. Evalsed consists of two parts: THE GUIDE and three SOURCEBOOKS."

"Method and techniques Introduction Structuring evaluation Collecting information Conducting impact assessments Evaluating alternatives Regression analysis Counterfactual impact evaluation Theory-based impact evaluation Modelling"

"An introduction illustrates the two conceptually distinct sets of questions behind impact evaluation.  The first set of questions is devoted to establishing whether a given intervention produces the desired effects on some dimension of interest.  The key question here: "does it make a difference?" This is answered by identifying and estimating causal effects through counterfactual methods.  The second set of questions is primarily devoted to understand why an intervention produces intended and unintended effects, for whom and in which context. The key question here: "why and when does it work?". This is answered by identifying the theory of change behind the program and assessing its success by comparing theory with actual implementation."