15 Establishing System - Wide Evaluations : Program - Centered Evaluation and The National Science Foundation ' s Industry - University Cooperative Research Centers

نویسندگان

  • Denis O. Gray
  • Denis Gray
چکیده

The new generation of "partnership-based" technology initiatives, including the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program, invariably involve a variety of stakeholder groups, including: federal and state-level sponsors, local institutions and their program staff, and customers. Since each group tends to have different information needs, the ideal evaluation should incorporate diverse evaluation approaches including, monitoring, summative, and formative evaluations. Unfortunately, a variety of forces tend to produce evaluations which are "sponsor-centered", that is, they emphasize the information needs of sponsors, often to the neglect of program staff and customer needs. This paper will describe a technology program evaluation which has avoided this problem by stressing a "program-centered" approach. Centers (IUCRC) Program attempts to promote research development and technology transfer by creating university-based industrial consortia. The IUCRC's program-centered evaluation emphasizes: flexibility, a focus on critical program processes and outcomes and timely feedback of information. The overriding goal of this element of the evaluation effort is to aide continuous improvement. The linchpin of the IUCRC evaluation system is the on-site, local evaluator. This individual is responsible for collecting qualitative data via observation and quantitative data via a standardized process/outcome questionnaire. The "real-time reconnaissance" obtained through the participant-observer role can be feedback quickly and informally and serves as an "early warning system". Use of feedback based on the standardized process/outcome questionnaire has facilitated national benchmarking and identification of empirically-based "best-242 practices" on a variety of dimensions including: satisfaction with research and administration and technical and commercialization outcomes. The IUCRC evaluation effort demonstrates that program, as well as sponsor, information needs can be met within the same evaluation effort. For the IUCRC program the payoffs from this approach include the active support of program staff for the evaluation, a climate which encourages and reinforces continuous improvement, and feedback from "customers" which indicate the program continues to meet their needs. Efforts to support continuous improvement will be enhanced with the imminent release of an "management handbook", another spin-off of the evaluation effort.

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تاریخ انتشار 1997