The NSU Qual-AID Center Concept Notes

Transcription

1 The NSU Qual-AID Center Concept Notes At its essence, international development is one group of people aiding another group of people. Be the aid science and technology innovation, healthcare improvement, food and water safety, or business logistical support, the people involved must manage the process effectively and transparently so all stakeholders can know what the results of the aid were, how these results were produced, and why the efforts were successful or not. USAID has recognized this human dimension in international development by making Strengthening Monitoring, Evaluation and Transparency one of the key areas prioritized in USAID Forward. To assist the Agency in this strategic effort, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) will create the Qualitative Assistance for International Development (Qual-AID) Center to help USAID enhance its monitoring and evaluation performance by serving as the Agency s qualitative evaluation and mobile technology hub. The Qual-AID Center will work closely with USAID s Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning, Office of Learning, Evaluation and Research (PPL/LER) to create a qualitative evaluation community of practice and knowledge exchange to support the Agency's transformation into a learning organization in Washington and across the world. The Qual-AID Center s activities will also be aligned with the goals and objectives outlined in USAID s January 2011 Evaluation: Learning from Experience policy statement and build upon PPL/LER s initial monitoring and evaluation successes as part of the USAID Forward effort. In Washington, the Qual-AID Center will enhance PPL/LER s data-driven monitoring and evaluation efforts by (a) developing qualitative training, curricula, technical resources, and evaluation tools that have wide application across the Agency s portfolio and can be accessed through open-access, mobile and cloud technology; (b) improving USAID s qualitative research, qualitative meta-analytic, metasynthesis, meta-evaluation, and meta-method competencies to improve the Agency s abilities to learn from implementation experiences and to use that knowledge to enhance future strategic decisionmaking; (c) streamlining the flow of monitoring and evaluation qualitative information between Washington and the missions via the use of mobile and cloud technology; (d) identifying common factors and best practices in successful monitoring and evaluation to produce a set of core competencies, training materials, and educational products for international development monitoring and evaluation; and (e) undertaking performance and/or impact evaluation, thematic or metaevaluations, post-implementation evaluations, and technical audits of operating units compliance with the evaluation policy. Also, building upon PPL/LER s success with its efforts to improve monitoring and evaluation as part of its USAID Forward activities, the Qual-AID Center will provide technical assistance on (a) the qualitative components of the performance evaluations for major program initiatives and any untested or innovative interventions, (b) the integration of qualitative evaluation into program designs, (c) the review of preliminary and final qualitative evaluation reports to the Development Experience Clearinghouse (DEC), (d) the LERning Competition s proposed and on-going qualitative evaluation components, (e) the production of transparent findings from qualitative data, and (f) the integration of these qualitative findings into decisions on strategies, program priorities, and project design. In addition, the Qual-AID Center will (a) enhance PPL/LER s Evaluation Service Center by providing customer-focused advice and support regarding qualitative mobile evaluation; (b) infuse the Evaluation Interest Group with new qualitative and mobile evaluation resources and develop subgroups for further learning in these areas across the newly developed centers as part of the USAID s University Engagement program; (c) contribute qualitative and mobile training and educational content to the Evidence Summits; and (d) develop and deliver trainings and educational products in the service of the Agency s on-going efforts to train 1400 staff members in evaluation management by FY Throughout USAID s worldwide network of bureaus, missions, university-based centers, and partners around the world, the Qual-AID Center will provide training and technical assistance by (a) staffing a virtual fulfillment service for the Agency s worldwide training and technical assistance needs, (b) 1

2 providing training for in-country qualitative evaluators on evaluation teams, (c) creating a research and development lab to produce the next generation of handheld and cloud-based monitoring and evaluation technology; and (d) assisting PPL/LER in its efforts to competitively procure evaluation expertise, review and approve evaluation scope of work, coordinate access to evaluation services, and provide estimates of evaluation costs. The Qual-AID Center s focus will be on improving monitoring and evaluation accountability and learning throughout the USAID system and its international network through the use of qualitative inquiry and mobile research best practices. Qualitative approaches with their exploratory and discovery-oriented narrative case study methodologies and methods are very helpful in the investigation of the human dimension in complex, naturally occurring phenomenon from the perspective of participants and consumers of locally delivered development projects and products. Qualitative methodologies when practiced well also transparently present the voices of indigenous participants leading to better quality evidence for evaluating program outcomes. Through this family of qualitative and technology approaches, the Qual-AID Center will meet USAID s monitoring and evaluation needs by (a) capturing and disseminating knowledge gained from diverse and complex experiences, (b) generating evidence through effective and ethical research and evaluation for what does and does not work in development, and (c) using local evidence to guide global program and policy decisions. These qualitative designs, methodologies, and procedures are especially helpful in impacting performance evaluation, performance monitoring, performance indicators, and performance management due to their usefulness when working with naturalistic, complex, and context-specific cases wherein objectivity and subjectivity need to be managed effectively and transparently. Also by incorporating the latest hand-held and cloud technologies into qualitative monitoring and evaluation, the Qual-AID Center s programs will help the Agency streamline and improve its overall monitoring and evaluation results, leading to better data-driven policy making. The Qual-AID Center, in support of USAID s openness to fulfilling obligations to all of its stakeholders, will conduct mobile qualitative research utilizing the best-in-class hand-held and cloud technology. This technology innovation will help the Agency increase the transparency of its work by supporting USAID s efforts to gather monitoring and evaluation information at the country level and to improve the Agency's ability to utilize handheld and cloud technology to generate qualitative development data, evidence, analysis, and analytics that can feed into monitoring and evaluation leading to improved policy and programming in Washington. Through these efforts the Qual-AID Center will (a) strengthen the Agency's policy and program development, monitoring, and evaluation capacities; (b) catalyze methodological and technical innovation around development; (c) support the monitoring and evaluation capabilities in science, technology, and engineering; (d) attract and retain talent for optimizing international development efforts; and (e) position the Agency to deal with future development challenges effectively. Through its Mobile Monitoring and Evaluation Lab (MME Lab), the Qual-AID Center will assist in facilitating a range of technology solutions to address the Agency s monitoring and evaluation challenges. Among its functions, the MME Lab will engineer new hand-held and cloud technology solutions to improve the speed, accuracy, rigor, and usefulness of field-based qualitative research and evaluation methodologies and to enhance the monitoring and reporting of these efforts. The MME Lab will design, adapt, and rigorously test emerging mobile qualitative research, evaluation, and monitoring technologies and systems for development with partners in less developed countries and for incubating new mobile development technologies and entrepreneurial business models. The ultimate goal of the MME Lab is to create the technology needed for investigations to go from the qualitative data analysis of single data sets to the qualitative analytics of integrated data. To accomplish these goals, the MME Lab will integrate qualitative data collection, qualitative data processing, and qualitative data analyses processes to create a better logistical supply chain from the qualitative data collected in the field via the Agency s mission system to the data-driven policy 2

3 decision-making by USAID in Washington. Through its Human-Computer Interaction Research (HCI), the MME lab will also study how these technologies are used in the field. It is anticipated that the creation of such technology tools and HCI research will increase USAID efficiencies, reduce costs, and strengthen its impact in solving complex and interdependent world challenges. To create the Qual-AID Center, NSU will leverage the resources it already provides to the world through The Qualitative Report and its associated educational activities. Since 1990, as the first online, open-access, English-language qualitative research journal in the world, TQR s team of international editors and reviewers have provided guidance to over 1,300 professional and student authors from the United States, Puerto Rico, and 55 other nations from around the world, including Bangladesh, Bolivia, Botswana, Ethiopia, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Nepal, New Guinea, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, South Korea, Uganda, and Zambia. We are also one of the few journals in the world who has a reviewer and editor development program designed to train the next generation of qualitative research appraisers. Our success as an open-access journal led to the Soros Foundation in 2004 to award TQR a grant for our work with authors from developing and transition countries. A hallmark of our approach has been to mentor authors, reviewers, and evaluators with the goal of improving the quality of qualitative research reporting and evaluation worldwide, regardless of the professional setting, field or discipline of the collaborator. For over twenty years, we have cultivated this group of professionals and students by mentoring our editors, reviewers, and authors through our unique editorial system. A major participant group in this editorial process as both authors and reviewers has been students; many of whom were taking their first steps as scholarly writers and academic journal jurors. Across time and space, we have demonstrated a positive and unconditional acceptance of the people with whom we work while also taking a critical and conditional appreciation of their work products. We hold that this mentoring model is an ideal approach to conceptualizing and implementing an effective monitoring and evaluation program on a global scale with professionals and students alike. Through our open-access weekly journal, web site, and downloadable resources, we also serve as a virtual learning community for students, consultants, academics, and independent researchers around the world. This just-in-time and just-in-case learning philosophy means we have been able to reach a world-wide audience of beginning and experienced learners, practitioners, and evaluators to provide to them a valuable informational resource. By leveraging this well-trained and tech-savvy education workforce, the Qual-AID Center will create the Qual-AID Associates who will work with the Center s full-time technical assistance and training staff to provide USAID and its international partners a ready-made system of networked monitoring and evaluation experts already deployed around the world and connected with the latest mobile and cloud technology. In addition to these existing TQR resources, the Qual-AID Center will further develop its collaborative relationships with other qualitative research and evaluation associations to add new Associates to the existing TQR system of resources. Under the leadership of the Center s Director of Qual-AID Associates and Interns, the Center will provide a group of experts and experts-in-training to meet the online and on-the-ground monitoring and development needs of USAID. To power the MME Lab, the Qual-AID Center under the leadership of the MME Lab Director will also leverage NSU s internal mobile/cloud technology faculty and staff, the University s software development lab, and the high-speed network facilities resources located in the Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences and the institution s Office of Innovation and Information Technologies. In addition to these facilities, the MME Lab will also collaborate with the leading developers of mobile and qualitative research applications. To support the translation of the MME Lab s innovations in mobile and qualitative technology, NSU s Office of Technology Transfer will provide the infrastructure to manage the intellectual property rights matters that will emerge with innovation. By working with this internal and external network of ground-breaking innovators in 3

4 mobile and cloud technologies, the Qual-AID Center will be able to deliver the latest innovations to the worldwide USAID system. The Qual-AID Center s virtual world network will allow the Center to work collaboratively with USAID s PPL/LER and the Agency s system of Bureaus, Missions, and Program and Technical Offices to provide guidance, tools, and technical support specific to the types of evaluations required for the country, region or topical area in the domain of and required by the operating unit. USAID personnel worldwide will be able to submit their technical assistance and educational need work orders through the Qual-AID Center s online portal. The Center s staff then will assign each request to a team of international experts who will fulfill the support or educational need. These experts will consist of the Qual-AID Center s virtual network, which will be an expansion of TQR s large and diverse existing worldwide community of evaluators, researchers, editors, reviewers, authors, and readers, as well as the leading developers of mobile and cloud research and learning technologies. needs work orders through the Qual-AID Center s online portal. The Center s leadership including the Executive Director, Director of Technical Assistance, and Associate Director of Technical Assistance then will manage each request assisted by a 2 to 3 person team of Qual-AID Associates and Qual-AID Student Interns who will provide support. Educational and training requests will be managed by the Executive Director, the Director of Training, and the Associate Director of Training along with members of the Qual-AID Associates. The Center leadership team and the Qual-AID Associates will also serve as members of the teams working with USAID staff in Washington and groups traveling to the 6 USAID regions to provide in-the-field training and technical assistance. The Center s Director of Educational Product will work with the other members of the Center s leadership team and Qual- AID Associates and Interns to translate the knowledge produced by the Center through its metaanalyses and internal review process to create open-access monitoring and evaluation resources and tools. We are proposing a range of technical assistance, training, and mobile computing R&D activities as part of the Qual-AID Center. These activity hubs will be delivered via a mixture of virtual and faceto-face modalities. The expected results of these hubs are as follows: 1. We will design and maintain a monitoring and evaluation portal so we can receive to manage 200 technical assistance and training requests. We will review these requests and set up teams of 2 to 3 Associates to provide the support requested. Team members will receive stipends for their work. 2. We will travel to Washington 4 times per year to work with USAID and to provide training and technical support. 3. We will travel 1 time each year to each of USAID s 6 regions to conduct trainings, provide technical assistance, and offer seminars/workshops. 4. We will work with software and hardware developers to produce mobile computing innovations in support of monitoring and evaluation. It is hard to estimate how many patents and products we will produce each year but we estimate a total of We will conduct 1 to 2 meta-analysis projects per year on USAID data to identify Monitoring and Evaluation trends, best practices, and common factors. 6. We will produce up to 8 educational products per year such as white papers, guides, reviews, learning modules, reusable learning objects, templates, and rubrics. 7. We will add a Monitoring and Evaluation section to The Qualitative Report through which we will publish 8 reports of innovations utilizing qualitative and mobile technology means to effective ends. We will work with authors from around the world to create these pieces. We anticipate publishing 20 4

5 monitoring and evaluation reports each year. We will also add a Monitoring and Evaluation Resources web page as part of the Qual-AID Center web site. Even though the Qual-AID Center is a single institution center, NSU will collaborate with a number of external entities. These relationships will help the Qual-AID Center enhance and sustain its activities in a number of ways. For example, qualitative data analysis software companies can provide in-kind training and access to basic and in-development software packages. Mobile application developers can take a similar tact providing no-cost downloads of their basic software. The Qual-AID Center will also collaborate with other research centers and associations. In working with these research centers, the Center will enhance its skills and knowledge base and will introduce monitoring and evaluation practitioners to potential new partners. In collaborating with professional associations through presenting at their annual meetings and publishing through their internal and external media, the Qual-Aid Center will secure outlets and venues to present monitoring and evaluation accomplishments, build networks, and identify emerging innovations in qualitative research and mobile computing. The virtual network supporting the Qual-AID Center will become the worldwide workforce who will become the next generation of monitoring and evaluation professionals serving the needs of USAID and its associates for many years to come. In preliminary, grassroots social networking conducted by NSU in the development of this concept note, over 260 professionals and students from 54 countries representing 167 universities plus 25 other organizations and associations have expressed interest in working with the Qual-AID Center. Included in these positive responses are expressions of participation from QSR International, a leading developer of qualitative data analysis software; AudioTranskription.de, an international leader in recording, dictation, and transcription systems; RTI International, a significant provider of international research; and the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, the largest association of qualitative researchers in the world. By building this workforce, the Qual-AID Center can compete for new funding from other organizations needing monitoring and evaluation support, pursue research funding, and develop other contractual relationships for conducting qualitative research and evaluation. Lastly, the Qual-AID Center will develop collaborative relationships with other units within NSU. Nova Southeastern University has long been a leader in distance and online education having initiated external degree programs in the 1970 s and online programs in the 1980 s. The university continues to provide learning opportunities for students at times and places convenient for them to pursue their educational and training needs. The goals and objectives of the Qual-AID Center align with the university s mission, vision, and values and support the university s priorities as presented in its new strategic plan--vision The Qual-AID Center will work with the colleges and schools at NSU to develop new curricular offerings in international development and monitoring and evaluation. With NSU s considerable online and distance education programs and infrastructure, knowledge and skills developed through the activities of the Qual-AID Center will be made available for learners around the world. The Center will also work with NSU researchers to pursue grants and contracts in international development as well as in other complementary areas such as mobile or m-learning, human-computer interaction, and conflict resolution. To finance the Qual-AID Center, NSU is requesting $2 million dollars (US) in funding from USAID. Nova Southeastern University will match this request with an additional $2 million dollars (US) through its own internal cost-shares and leveraging as well as in-kind contributions from its external relations with other research and software companies and associations. 5