P.O. Box 51, Truro,
Cornwall, TR1 1WJ
T: 01872 273 492
01872 264 603
Managing monitoring and evaluation
A short extract from an article which appeared in Manager's Corner section of Early Educator magazine, October 2004.
Monitoring and evaluation - what's the difference?
Monitoring
The term monitoring refers to the ongoing collection of data during the course of any project. Included in this are both a definition of what information or data you intend to collect and how you are going to establish a robust system for collecting this data.
Deciding the information needed to monitor any particular initiative should be done at the time you are compiling the detailed implementation plan for that initiative. This is the time when you will be defining your objectives and agreeing the targets you hope to achieve. During this process it will be evident that there is certain information you can collect which will help you build up a clearer picture of your initiative.
Some of this information will be quantative and involve numbers and other statistical information, and some will be qualitative and involve comments, notes and records of people's responses and impressions..
Evaluation
In contrast to the 'day to day' collection of data involved in the process of monitoring, evaluation takes a 'longer term' view of the progress of an initiative and sets out to answer the important questions such as:
- how effective an activity is in delivering the objectives set out in the original plan;
- how cost effective it is;
- what impact it is having.
Evaluation can be carried out at different times during the course of a project, as a final evaluation, as an interim evaluation part way through, or as part of a rolling programme of evaluation. Each of these types of evaluation serves a different purpose...
