Difference between revisions of "Talk:Monitoring Impacts of Project reports and other written outputs"

Latest revision as of 09:00, 21 September 2010

Grant Ballard-Tremeer, 2009/02/18

I'm currently trying to develop a methodology for monitoring the impacts of project reports, policy briefs and other briefing papers. In one particular project which is producing these sorts of products we could quite easily track dissemination - where copies generally go, how many copies are distributed, potentially even who downloads/receives what - but that tells us little about who actually *reads* the reports, and even less about whether anyone uses them.

While this is clearly related to the earlier discussions on the monitoring of networks we haven't yet identified much best practise in this specific area.

Any suggestions and experiences would be warmly welcomed.

Jane Lennon, 2009/02/18

This sounds similar to some work I am trying to do - to monitor both the dissemination and IMPACT of CAFOD produced short tools/resources with staff and partners. So I would broaden this request to include this kind of publication when talking about 'reports'.

HIV Knowledge Management Coordinator, CAFOD.

Peter J. Bury, 2009/02/18

If you ever look into the impact of writing case studies and above all do some kind of cost-benefit analysis (provided you find something on the impact), I would be VERY interested in the outcomes. I would even be tempted to participate in some research, provided some of the costs (basically time)

would be covered!

IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

Simon Hearn, 2009/02/18

Hi Grant and Jane and others,

ODI have published a paper on M&E of Policy Research. It has sections on evaluating outputs and uptake.

Another tool I've heard people using to track usage of publications is Plagiarism software. It works by scanning your document and searching the web for excerpts.

Let us know if it's successful.