More thoughts on phase 1 interviews

I've been reading through each of the interviews and marking up the themes that I have and I've come across another theme that is partially related to evaluation but also related to grants and projects.

It seems that more than a few people I interviewed complained about the fact that even though their project created or produced some wonderful outputs, not everyone was willing to take up these new ideas.  For example redesign of some units into online units with chunking up of content meant that there were now more opportunities to interact with the material but the students felt this was too much work and the tutors felt this was too much work (marking). This kind of leads then to the point that if you don't fully involve your stakeholders then the project outcomes can't really meet their needs.

On the other hand another participant talked about this and said that there has to be a balance because when you try to please all of the stakeholders in this way you end up with a substandard product ie you 'dumb it down' to keep everyone happy and some of those novel and 'out there' ideas are lost in translation. This participant said that often it is a case of good timing. If no one takes up your new idea/product as you intended then it may because they are just not ready yet.

That then in turn leads to the conclusion i keep coming back to that evaluation has to be done later down the track (as well as formative and summative in the terms of the project). Often it is too early to say whether this project has been successful or not. You can say whether you met your outcomes or not but you cannot say whether those outcomes have had impact. Neither do people report what didn't work or rather why they may not be being taken up.

I think perhaps also there is some confusion between steering groups and stakeholders. A steering group may well reign you in, but stakeholders will be sure to tell you what they want and why/how they want it. Its one thing to listen to their needs then made an informed decision on how you are going to design your product (say). It is another to present it to a steering group because then you pretty much have to make the changes they request.