"Evaluations have two key functions: lesson learning and accountability. How well they can fill these tasks depends on the suitability of the evaluation design to address the evaluation questions of interest, and the quality of those evaluations. Unfortunately, many evaluations suffer from flaws whi
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ch reduce the confidence we can have in their findings, and their usefulness for both lesson learning and accountability. This blog lists 10 common flaws that I commonly come across. Not all evaluations have these flaws. There are many excellent evaluations. But these flaws are sufficiently common to deserve drawing attention to." (Introduction)
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"This CEDIL Synthesis Working Paper is a report on the first of its kind country evaluation map for a single country. The map identifies 617 evaluations in multiple sectors in Uganda. Nearly 60 per cent of the studies contain process evaluation evidence and over 40 per cent are impact evaluations. T
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his country evaluation map seeks to make recent development evaluations from Uganda visible and available in a single repository. It identifies potential gaps in knowledge and opportunities for synthesising existing evidence for the use of policymakers and researchers in Uganda. Users can submit studies for inclusion in the map, thus giving the map a repository function." (https://cedilprogramme.org)
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"These are the background case notes complied for MEMO 2018.1: Challenging Truth and Trust: A Global Inventory of Organized Social Media Manipulation. For details on the methods behind this content analysis please see the methodology section of the report. This document contains data from over 500 s
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ources organized by country. The sources include high quality news articles, academic papers, white papers, and a range of other grey literature. As an annotated bibliography, the country cases here make use of significant passages from these secondary sources, and every effort has been made to preserve full citation details for future researchers. The full list of references can be found in our public Zotero folder, with each reference tagged with a country name." (Page 3)
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"A randomized controlled trial (RCT) is a way of doing impact evaluation in which the population receiving the programme or policy intervention is chosen at random from the eligible population, and a control group is also chosen at random from the same eligible population. It tests the extent to whi
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ch specific, planned impacts are being achieved. In an RCT, the programme or policy is viewed as an ‘intervention’ in which a treatment – the elements of the programme/policy being evaluated – is tested for how well it achieves its objectives, as measured by a predetermined set of indicators. The strength of an RCT is that it provides a very powerful response to questions of causality, helping evaluators and programme implementers to know that what is being achieved is as a result of the intervention and not anything else [...] The distinguishing feature of an RCT is the random assignment of members of the population eligible for treatment to either one or more treatment groups (who receive the intervention treatment or variations of it) or to the control group (who receive either no intervention or the usual intervention, if the treatment is an innovation to an existing intervention). The effects on specific impact areas for the different groups are compared after set periods of time." (Page 1)
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"This book offers a view of the cultural, family, and interpersonal consequences of mobile communication across the globe. Scholars analyze the effect of mobile communication on all parts of life, from the relationship between literacy and the textual features of mobile phones to the use of ringtone
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s as a form of social exchange, from the “aspirational consumption” of middle-class families in India to the belief in parts of Africa and Asia that mobile phones can communicate with the dead. The contributors explore the ways mobile communication profoundly affects the tempo, structure, and process of daily life around the world. The book discusses the impact of mobile communication on social networks, other communication strategies, traditional forms of social organization, and political activities. It considers how quickly miraculous technologies come to seem ordinary and even necessary; and how ordinary technology comes to seem mysterious and even miraculous. The chapters cut across social issues and geographical regions; they highlight use by the elite and the masses, utilitarian and expressive functions, and political and operational consequences. Taken together, the chapters demonstrate how mobile communication has affected the quality of life in both exotic and humdrum settings, and how it increasingly occupies center stage in people’s lives around the world." (Publisher description)
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