This example details a monitoring and evaluation plan for a national system which was set up to assess academic research output (the Performance Based Research Fund - PBRF). Such systems present interesting challenges for monitoring and evaluation because they are monitoring and evaluation systems in their own right. Therefore the usual approach which is taken to evaluation - taking an aspect of a system and measuring it in more detail for the period of the evaluation - could end up just duplicating the system itself. This case study uses Systematic Outcomes Analysis under its earlier name of REM Logic, but it is exactly the same approach. The effort required to set out this monitoring and evaluation plan in narrative format and update the different components across the model (e.g. evaluation questions, indicators) as they were amended during discussions with stakeholders, led to the development of DoView outcomes software, which as used within the Easy Outcomes approach (a more user-friendly version of Systematic Outcomes Analysis) is a much more efficient way of setting out the content monitoring and evaluation plans.
Academic research output assessment system evaluation strategy
Academic research output assessment system evaluation (PBRF)
