The Research, Technology and Development (RTD) Evaluation Topical Interest Group (TIG) within the American Evaluation Association has as its mission to advance the field of performance measurement and in-depth assessment of programs, particularly publicly funded RTD programs.
We provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, good practice, and emerging tools by:
- organizing the RTD portion of the AEA conference each year
- collecting and disseminating information related to good practice, as well as events of interest, and gray literature
Announcements
Submit to the 2024 AEA Annual Conference!
We invite you to submit an abstract for RTD TIG program at the 2024 AEA Annual Conference. The conference will be held in Portland, OR, October 21-26. Submissions are due at 11:59 pm eastern time on March 22, 2024: https://www.eval.org/Events/Evaluation-Conference/Conference-Theme.
*Please note there is a new process for submitting abstracts this year.* To have your abstract reviewed by the RTD TIG follow these steps:
- First, select the *Stream*: 'Government and Public Policy'
- Only after that will the *Topical Interest Groups *appear. Select *'*Research, Technology, and Development Evaluation' TIG.
Eval2024 Pre-Conference Planning
For Eval2024 (Oct 21-26, 2024) in Portland, Oregon, the RTD TIG wants to re-establish a half-day pre-conference to allow more time to learn from one another. If you are based in the Portland area and/or are interested in serving as a TIG ambassador, or more generally in helping to program this pre-conference, please let the TIG leaders know. Watch this space for more information as the program develops.
RTD TIG Webinar Series
The RTD TIG hosted on Monday, February 12, a webinar that consisted of a series of lightning talks.
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The Promise and Perils of Data Linkage by Andrew Miklos (NIGMS/NIH)
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AI and Evaluation by Madeleine F. Wallace (Windrose Vision)
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Predictive Data in Evaluations by B. Ian Hutchins (University of Wisconsin)
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Simulation in Evaluations by Anand Desai (Clarivate), Cynthia Phillips (Decision Catalyst, LLC), and Lisa Gajary (Caspian Strategy and Analytics, LLC)
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Evaluations of Research Infrastructure/Instrumentation by Jeff Alexander (RTI) and Josh Schnell (RTI)
You can view the recording of this and previous webinars at the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNZXXFRu6KHyIs_r2HWBZtQ. Additional information on future webinars will be forthcoming at our TIG business meeting and in future announcements.
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The RTD TIG membership held its 2023 business meeting earlier last week, with a recap of TIG activities from this year, including Eval 2023 in Indianapolis, and re-electing the current officers for 2023/2024. Thanks to all Eval 2023 presenters and participants and to our proposal reviewers for making Eval 2023 another great conference. Congratulations to our 2023/2024 officers:
- TIG Co-Chairs: Robin Wagner and Josh Schnell
- TIG Program Co-chairs: Didi Cross and Gavin Reddick
- TIG Leadership Member-at-Large representative: Paula Fearon
Program Input Sought
As we are committed to providing the RTD TIG community with engaging and educational programming, we are seeking your input via a very short survey here. Please fill this out right away to have your input included in our planning for the year.
RTD TIG Webinar Continues
To expand our engagement beyond the annual conference, the TIG hosts webinars on relevant RTD topics and posts them on a Youtube channel here. Our next session will be on November 13th, 12pm US Eastern. Josh Schnell will host a discussion of recent developments, such as new conceptual models (e.g. convergence research) and evaluation of ARPA funding models. Another goal of this session is to hear from RTD TIG community members about issues/topics they are interested in that can be incorporated into a) the 2024 annual meeting call for proposals, b) the program of the proposed 2024 pre-conference meeting, and c) the monthly webinar series.
https://rtiorg.zoom.us/j/99736280248?pwd=dkZNdFl6cXJSY1pLNjBsenIyMUgyUT09
Meeting ID: 997 3628 0248
Password: 339771
Find your local number: https://rtiorg.zoom.us/u/aJmfYHu9R
Other TIG Resources
RTD Topical Interest Group (TIG) Paper, February 2015
Evaluating Outcomes of Publicly Funded Research, Technology and Development Programs: Recommendations for Improving Current Practice (FINAL)
White paper SUMMARY slides
Generic Logic Models, collection over time