From Studies to Streams: Managing Evaluative Systems

In From Studies to Streams, the twelfth volume in the Comparative Policy Evaluation series, authors from fourteen nations address issues from multiple vantage points.

Abstract

In From Studies to Streams, the twelfth volume in the Comparative Policy Evaluation series, authors from fourteen nations address issues from multiple vantage points. The current era is characterized by the emergence of an increasingly global set of pressures for governments to perform effectively, not just efficiently, and to demonstrate that their performance is producing desired results. Information technology allows enormous quantities of information to be stored, sorted, analyzed, and made available at little or no cost. The result for those in the evaluation community is that, while individual evaluations are still conducted and reported upon, they are a diminishing source of information. In the new environment, ever accelerating political and organizational demands and expectations are reframing thinking about the definition of what, fundamentally, constitutes evaluation and what we understand as its applications.