Professional Development Opportunities in Evaluation – What’s Out There?

To assist the EvaluATE community in learning more about evaluation, we have compiled a list of free and low-cost online and short-term professional development opportunities. There are always new things available, so this is only a place to start!  If you run across a good resource, please let us know and we will add it to the list.

Free Online Learning

Live Webinars

EvaluATE provides webinars created specifically for projects funded through the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education program. The series includes four live events per year. Recording, slides, and handouts of previous webinars are available.  http://www.evalu-ate.org/category/webinars/

Measure Evaluation is a USAID-funded project with resources targeted to the field of global health monitoring and evaluation. Webinars are offered nearly every month on various topics related to impact evaluation and data collection; recordings of past webinars are also available. http://www.cpc.unc.edu/measure/resources/webinars

Archived Webinars and Videos

Better Evaluation’s archives include recordings of an eight-part webinar series on impact evaluation commissioned by UNICEF. http://betterevaluation.org/search/site/webinar

Centers for Disease Control’s National Asthma Control Program offers recordings of its four-part webinar series on evaluation basics, including an introduction to the CDC’s Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health. http://www.cdc.gov/asthma/program_eval/evaluation_webinar.htm

EvalPartners offered several webinars on topics related to monitoring and evaluation (M&E). They also have as series of self-paced e-learning courses. The focus of all programs is to improve competency in conducting evaluation, with an emphasis on evaluation in the community development context.  http://www.mymande.org/webinars

Engineers Without Borders partners with communities to help them meet their basic human needs. They offer recordings of their live training events focused on monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. http://www.ewb-usa.org/resources?_sfm_cf-resources-type=video&_sft_ct-international-cd=impact-assessment

The University of Michigan School of Social Work has created six free interactive Web-based learning modules on a range of evaluation topics. The target audience is students, researchers, and evaluators.  A competency skills test is given at the end of each module, and a printable certificate of completion is available at the end of each module. https://sites.google.com/a/umich.edu/self-paced-learning-modules-for-evaluation-research/

Low-Cost Online Learning

The American Evaluation Association (AEA) Coffee Break Webinars are 20-minute webinars on varying topics.  At this time non-members may register for the live webinars, but you must be a member of AEA to view the archived broadcasts. There are typically one or two sessions offered each month.  http://comm.eval.org/coffee_break_webinars/coffeebreak

AEA’s eStudy program is a series of in-depth real-time professional development opportunities and are not recorded.  http://comm.eval.org/coffee_break_webinars/estudy

The Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) offers webinars to members on a variety of evaluation topics. Reduced membership rates are available for members of AEA. http://evaluationcanada.ca/webinars

­Face-to-Face Learning

AEA Summer Evaluation Institute is offered annually in June, with a number of workshops and conference sessions.  http://www.eval.org/p/cm/ld/fid=232

The Evaluator’s Institute offers one- to five-day courses in Washington, DC in February and July. Four levels of certificates are available to participants. http://tei.cgu.edu/

Beyond these professional development opportunities, university degree and certificate programs are listed on the AEA website under the “Learn” tab.  http://www.eval.org/p/cm/ld/fid=43