Resource Spotlight: CYFAR Evaluation Online Community of Practice

Good evaluation practices can make a program more effective and contribute to sustainability. CYFAR has a particular set of evaluation requirements and resources, and CYFERnet now offers one more.

A new online community of practice called CYFAR Programs Improving through Evaluation provides a place to share information, learn and communicate with other CYFAR evaluators. Lynne Borden and Christine Bracamonte Wiggs of the CYFERnet evaluation team and based at the University of Arizona, are leading the group, which has 47 members so far. Most members are program directors and evaluators for CYFAR programs, and the rest are associated with Extension and evaluation some other way. This online community is hosted on ning.com, a versatile social networking site familiar to many.

The CYFAR evaluation online community has monthly topics, CoP Imagebroken down into specific learnings week by week.In February,the topic is "Developing an Evaluation Plan", with one week focusing on logic models, leading to a CYFERnet webinar called "Effectiveness Matters". The site contains a long list of recorded webinars and other resources for learning about logic models, with an opportunity to discuss and share. There is a listing of germane events in the coming year, such as the American Evaluation Conference in November and statewide evaluation events as well.

"We developed this group in connection with Ben Siliman's eXtension CoP," Borden explained. Ben Siliman, of North Carolina State University, is known across Extension for his writings on program evaluation, particularly of programs for youth at risk. The eXtension online community of practice uses the same monthly-weekly model, with webinars every month. Membership in the two online communities overlaps considerably, with Borden's ning site focusing on CYFAR-specific processes and questions. "I see it as a sub-set of eXtension's community of practice," Borden said.

By capitalizing on the broader Extension evaluation group, and utilizing CYFERnet webinars, the CYFAR evaluation online community provides a wealth of knowledge, and a springboard for conversation among practitioners across the country.  Participants in these conversations so far, hosted on the "forum" section of the site, include some names that will be familiar to CYFAR folk – people active in CYFAR and in evaluation, and from whom newcomers can learn much. Borden said she hopes to get more CYFAR evaluators active in leading the discussions each month.

The web site also acts as a repository of information very specific to the kinds of things that CYFAR evaluators do. "We are beginning to link together lots of resources. Nobody can keep track of it all. The ning is a way to think strategically about social networking and how to use it," she said.

Along with enlightening the participants, and fostering sharing, Borden hopes that eventually, the captured conversations will form a primer of CYFAR evaluation practice. The form of that compilation is not yet fixed. One of the possibilities, however, is to put together a monograph that could stand as a long-term document to guide CYFAR staff of the future as they evaluate their programs to make them as effective as they can be.

This is the second online community of practice CYFERnet has launched in recent months. Families Navigating Economic Crises focuses on the additional stresses placed on families by the current economy.

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