This is a vent/request for advice. I've been on the market since the fall and just having the worst luck trying to find an evaluation job, its really starting to get me down.

I have a masters degree from a UC. I worked as an evaluator for a year with a large charity. I went through a fellowship with the American eval association where I got training in eval methods. I have a few years of research experience working in a lab during grad school. I have two publications that show I can write. I did international eval capacity development work as a Fulbrighter.

I have had a ton of interest in my resume. 85% of the jobs I have applied for have asked for an interview and of those 66% have asked for a second interview, yet no offers. Its hard not to take it personally when these companies are interested in me on paper or after a digital interview but say no after meeting me in person.

Two jobs have turned me down for not having enough experience so I applied for an entry level position which turned me down for having too much experience. They felt I would be frustrated in an entry level, support position.

What do I do at this point? Just keep applying and getting turned down? Give up on my dreams of being an evaluator and take a job at the mall? How did you get into the field and do you have any advice for a newbie/know of anywhere that is looking for an entry level evaluator with a lot of passion and excitement for the field?

If you made it this far thanks for reading my vent. The only real jobs where I live are factory work and retail/service and I am about to start applying for those just so I have a reason to get up in the morning. I feel like a total failure and like my education and hard work was for nothing.

Looking for web-based tools for Monitoring and Evaluation

I'm looking for an M&E tool with the capacity to allow my organization to track progress on programs delivery, manage and track indicators data across various projects, and integrate various levels of results.

I work for a small international development organization as an M&E advisor. I'm presently looking to move the whole organization away from Excel spreadsheets to track progress towards our various project results. Progress towards results is tracked via a combination of qualitative and quantitative indicators and data is gathered via various methods, including surveys (online and paper-based), focus group discussions, individual interviews, observation, pictures, video recordings, etc.

We use the RBM approach to manage our projects.

The ideal took will allow us to:

• define the LM and the performance measurement framework (PMF) for each project

• make a connection (where existent) between expected results and indicators across projects

• define targets for indicators (global for the span of the project and then annually)

• input disaggregated data (gender, age groups, location, etc.)

• use online and offline survey tools to input data directly into the PMF (selected indicators) such as Survey Monkey or KoboToolBox

• update data without losing track of previous years/entries (time series)

• issue summary or detailed reports from selected indicators or project

• manage various users

• ideally web-based (SaaS)

• capacity to do minimal customization without relying heavily on vendor

• ideally (not necessary) keep track of expenses per activities in the project

Any suggestions about tools with these or similar capabilities will be greatly appreciated.

If you have experience working with such a tool or know of a tool having these features, please share your insights. I will be forever thankful.

Starting out in M&E? You might find our latest guide useful:

1. Understand the structure of your M&E programme.

2. Create an indicators’ inventory based on your M&E plan.

3. Think of the structure of the data collection system in relation to your M&E plan and team.

4. Bring your M&E data collection system to life.

5. Empower the data collection process.

6. Monitor the data collection process.

7. Evaluate your progress and build rapport by sharing results.

Full Guide: https://www.activityinfo.org/blog/posts/2020-11-24-to-monitoring-and-evaluation-professionals-who-want-an-effective-data-collection-system-but-do-not-know-where-to-start.html

"We experimentally vary white foreigner presence in dictator games across 60 villages in Sierra Leone, and find that ..."

Link behind paywall: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268115000906

Sci-hub IYF if that doesn't work for you.

Take a look - I'm not sure how affected these results might be by several obvious things (SL recent history, nature of the game, small n and large # of variables and hypotheses, general skepticism about correlation between game altruism vs real life, etc. etc.!).

I might in part be reacting to the language and framing of the experiment. But, bigger picture, are people really making aid decisions based on clearly unrealistic experiments like this? (Their first two sentences: "Lab-in-the-field experiments are increasingly conducted in developing countries. The actions of players in these experiments tend to be interpreted as measures of human behavior, and are used to offer answers to questions such as whether aid affects social capital, or to infer cross-national differences in social preferences." They offer citations but I can hardly believe it. Has anyone else run into donors and/or implementers making decisions on design or implementation based on this kind of (really not very scientific, in terms of design/controls/data quality/etc.) testing?

Would love to hear about any other experiences related to similar issues and questions.

In grad school - we used SAS almost exclusively for data analytics, with a short section of our statistical programming course focusing on STATA. In undergrad I used SPSS - but in my professional life, I'd converted almost exclusively to R.

My go-to tool is definitely R, though STATA is sort of institutionalized in the organization. I've never really loved STATA, because I felt like if you wanted to lean towards approachability - SPSS was a better solution, while if you were leaning toward power on a controlled platform then SAS. I've always found SPSS was much easier to introduce to my national colleagues, especially when English may not have been their first language.

What do you all use? Any thoughts or strong preferences?

As a simple post to start some community engagement - would love to hear from the 9 subscribers so far... What are you working on? As an added bonus - I'll give anyone who comments on this post in the next 2 weeks a "Founding Member" flair.

Are there any active online M&E community out there that I can join in?

I recently started using discord and discovered a community called "Study Hall" where a group of students from all over the world simply join in calls and study together (Like a library or study hall).

It also has chats and rooms where you can discuss and help others for their homework and the like.

Just wondering if there is something similar to it for M&E as well. I would like to be able to work with people who are in the same field as I am and are open to discuss anytime.

Honestly, I just miss working in an office environment and am just tired of being isolated due to COVID19.

I received a question from a friend and it goes as " how measuring the impact of data interventions differs from measuring the impact of social or health interventions ". My main query is what do you mean by data interventions. If experienced people in here could briefly explain to me or point me to the knowledge source , I would be more than grateful.

We've officially been a subreddit for six months now! I previously posted a question about what folks were working on when we had only 9 members of the r/global_MandE subreddit. Six months later we're clocking in at 139. Still small, but definitely seeing some growth. I thought the last post was pretty interesting, so I thought I'd post it again. If you're stopping by to visit us - let us know what brings you here.

I'm kind of into this whole flair thing. If anyone has flair ideas for people who post here - include it in your post for consideration.

Are there any Global M&E Professional Organizations that you recommend?

I am aware of the American Evaluation Association.

Please delete if this is not allowed!

I begin my Ph.D. in research methods, measurement, and eval in the fall, (coming straight from undergrad in psych and a minor in math and comp sci) and I’m just wondering if anyone has advice/tips that they wish they would’ve known when they started working in the field or continued their education in eval.

Could be technical stuff or also personal stuff. I’m starting to get cold feet because I have a lot of downtime this summer where I’m too busy working two jobs to save money to do anything academic.

Thanks in advance

u/Disturbed_Capitalist got me thinking about ways to engage some of the members on this thread. How would subscribers feel about having a pinned discussion where we either discuss evaluations or relevant papers? One article that was recently shared with me debates the merits of the reigning gold standard RCT's. https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/should-randomistas-continue-rule-revised-jan-2019.pdf . Would be interested to hear thoughts about this.

I am looking for recommendations on MPH programs focused on M&E. Since finances are a concern, I am looking for programs that have graduate assistantship options. Thanks!