The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.
Volume I, Number 1, Winter 1995
Issue Topic: Systems Reform
New & Noteworthy
An annotated list of organizations and initiatives related to the evaluation themes in this issue.
Bruner, C. (1994). Charting a course: Assessing a community’s strengths and needs. New York National Center for Service Integration. To order, write to: NCSI Information Clearinghouse, National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University, 154 Haven Avenue, New York, NY 10332. This report presents examples of successful community assessment techniques, and outlines how assessment results can be used to help shape community actions.
O’Looney, J. (1994). Evaluating human services collaboration and integration at the state and local levels. Athens: Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia. O’Looney has developed a set of measures to document collaboration. He presents these measures and the results of his study in this paper.
University of Kentucky/University of Louisville Joint Center for the Study of Educational Policy. (1993). A review of research on the Kentucky Education Reform Act. A Report submitted to the Board of the Kentucky Education Research Assessment Foundation. Louisville: University of Kentucky and University of Louisville. This report synthesizes the wide array of studies that have been conducted thus far on one of the most ambitious school reform efforts in the country.
Chaskin, R., & Ogletree, R. (1993). The Ford Foundation’s Neighborhood and Family Initiative. Building collaboration: An interim report. Chicago: The Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago. A good example of how evaluators can operationalize and measure the collaboration process that occurs in a comprehensive community initiative.
Gray, S. T. (Ed.). (1993). Leadership Independent Sector: A vision of evaluation. Washington, DC: Independent Sector. 1828 L Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036. 202-223-8100. A compendium of essays that highlight evaluation issues that are particularly pertinent to the independent sector, such as using evaluation as an organizational tool, evaluation as a roadmap for effectiveness, and common barriers to effectiveness.
Forss, K., Cracknell, B., & Samset, K. (1994). Can evaluation help an organization to learn? Evaluation Review, 18(5), 574–591. This article reviews evidence suggesting that evaluations are seldom used to improve an organization’s effectiveness. The paper also presents a series of recommendations for better utilization of evaluations within organizational settings.