2019 SYMPOSIUM PRESENTATIONS
Understanding the take-up and use of information may be the most important measurement focus for government, not-for-profit and private initiatives in any time. It has even more importance in times of world crisis such as now. Over the last several years a uniquely tailored tool for assessing the uptake + use of information and knowledge across many domains has been developed in Canada. (The latest evidence available suggests that this Canadian developed approach has the potential to be a unique world leader in this kind of assessment.) The Knowledge Uptake and Use Tool (KUUT), originally developed by Dr Kelly Skinner of Waterloo to assess health promotion initiatives and since tried and evolved in a number of Canadian contexts, has shown itself to be an excellent means to gauge the reach and influence of information products, services and events. It tracks important responses based on a research based ‘influence’ pattern, and if used correctly can provide key insights on how context and conditions can affect information and knowledge use.
This one-hour webinar will provide an update on the initiative and will highlight one recent application of the tool which has been adapted for COVID 19 times and online information sessions, ‘fairs’ and conferences.
This session will highlight one of several on-going uses / users. The project is essentially a creative commons effort – so most applications and practices are shareable at this time. The key presenters for this session will be Kelly Skinner and Jasmin Bhawra of Waterloo University followed by Mark Shepherd of the Canadian Wood Council and Wood Works who will share their experiences using a streamlined version of the tool to gauge the influence of information products, solutions fairs, webinar sessions and even networking events. The session will be facilitated by Steve Montague of PPX and CES – and a keen user and secondary developer of versions of the approach. Brief presentations and a ‘show and tell’ component of the actual survey will be followed by a Q &A session. This event should be of keen interest to evaluators, performance measurement specialists, and / or anyone interested in understanding the reach and influence of the information they generate and produce from reports, sessions or conferences. A version of the tool will be used to gauge the value of this session – so registrants will get first-hand knowledge of the approach.
Panelists
Steve Montague, Moderator
Kelly Skinner, Waterloo University
Jasmin Bhawra, Waterloo University
Mark Shepherd, Canadian Wood Council and Wood Works
SPEAKERS
Steve Montague, partner of Performance Management Network Inc. is a credentialed evaluator, a Fellow of the Canadian Evaluation Society and has 35 years of experience as a practitioner in performance measurement and program evaluation as a management consultant, an adjunct professor and as an evaluation manager in a major Canadian federal government department. Mr. Montague has managed major and minor projects analyzing a wide variety of programs for Canadian federal, provincial, United States, Scottish and Australian governments, as well as conducting work for the OECD, the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations. He has published articles on measurement and evaluation in journals in Canada, the US and Europe and facilitated numerous presentations, panels and workshops on evaluation, performance management and information management. Steve is also a founding member and three times president of the Performance and Planning Exchange.
Kelly Skinner is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo where she leads the new online Master of Health Evaluation program. Kelly’s research and evaluation interests focus in two areas: (1) the health and well-being of First Nations populations and northern communities including the evaluation of health programs and food systems approaches; and (2) using evaluation theory and conceptual approaches to operationalize and build evaluation systems, with a continued interest in measuring knowledge uptake and utilization. Kelly has experience with stakeholder engagement, working with communities as an evaluation consultant, and currently teaches several courses she developed to online graduate students on evaluation theory, applications, practice, and management.
Jasmin Bhawra is a PhD Candidate and CIHR Health System Impact Fellow in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo. She is a population health researcher and program evaluator whose research interests include chronic disease prevention, health program planning and evaluation. Jasmin has worked with public health units, non-profit organizations, and governmental agencies coordinating research and leading health program evaluations.
Mark Shepherd has been working with the Canadian Wood Council for nearly 20 years as an advisor to Wood WORKS!, the association’s industry-and-government funded national market development program. In this role, he has worked with a diverse team of professionals to increase the use of wood in non-residential and multi-family construction projects. He also helped launch a similar program in the U.S. Mark is passionate about the Wood WORKS! program mission to ensure the built environment maximizes the use of wood-based solutions for the domestic wood industry and has developed strategies which leverage advocacy, education, collaboration, and communication. With the team, Mark has developed numerous national and regional strategic and operating plans and progress reports. He helped create and implement the program’s initial logic model, exit survey and methods for demonstrating funder “return on investment”.
Mark has a B.A. from the University of Waterloo (co-op) and M.A. from the University of Victoria.
Nick Rodriguez is one of the world’s leading experts in the theory and practice of Results and Delivery. He is Sir Michael Barber’s co-author of “Deliverology 101” and its successor, “Deliverology in Practice,” which have helped to institutionalize Results and Delivery as a discipline that can be taught, learned, and replicated. He has advised governments at every level on this discipline in the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Most recently, he co-founded and served as a Director for the U.S. Education Delivery Institute, a non-profit dedicated to bringing the Results and Delivery approach to the American education sector. Based in Washington, D.C. with Delivery Associates, he focuses his work on governments in Africa and the Americas.