An interesting example of programme evaluation that gets close to CSCW is the evaluation of a European project on computer-based learning technologies, DELTA, which was led by the Tavistock Institute's EDRU. Akin to the concerns Stern (1993, op.cit.) discusses, the question here was "in what ways are participants in DELTA learning from the programme?" (Cullen et al, 1993:118). They suggest that learning technology innovation can be considered in four ways: technological innovation (i.e. the building of new computer systems and models), economic innovation (new activities of selling products and services by educational institutions), educational innovation (changes im the learning capabilities and methods provided by the technology) and institutional innovation (changes in the interactions between and within institutions). Considering all four kinds of innovation is to take a systemic view of the programme, i.e. to see "external environmental characteristics as represented within system boundaries" (ibid., p.122). The complexities of this perspective has led them to a 'contingency' model of evaluation, not prescribing methods but rather providing tools to allow evaluators to "tailor their evaluations to the specific nature and needs of their innovation" and to provide "guidelines for methodological choices appropriate to their particular innovation circumstances" (ibid, p.124).
Finally, Patton (1981:42) writes: "To what, then, are evaluators called? We are called to help make the social technology of our era work to the service of humankind. We are called to enter the fray where knowledge combats ignorance, purpose attacks sloth; to reverse the entropy of routine mindlessness with the energy generated by insight and explication. We are called to care, to be tolerant of ineffectiveness and inefficiency even as we are tolerant of and sensitive to the individual human beings who are struggling in their own ways with their own callings. We are called to study, to understand, to hear and be heard, to act against the malaise and to expose the falsehood of self-indulgent impotency expressed in the cry, 'There's nothing we can do." We are called to help people figure out what they can do and then to engender a commitment to get on with the doing. But we are not called to do it for them."
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