September_2023_OPEN Newsletter.pdf

August 2023_Oregon Program Evaluators Network.pdf

OPEN's DEIJ Committee is committed to changing how evaluators approach program evaluation, and new DEIJ Committee Chair Frances Hampton believes in change.

"The evaluation process is historically discriminatory, as seen in some of our evaluation practices. You also don't see many non-White evaluators or diversity in the field. I believe racism is woven into processes, and it's our job to intervene intentionally and unweave those negative threads by adding threads of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice as part of the new evaluation process."

The DEIJ Committee is single-minded about structural biases that influence evaluation and processes: this committee seeks to advance OPEN's DEIJ knowledge and skillset through continued education, implementing cultural competence in decision-making, and addressing disparities within underrepresented groups relevant to systemic assessments. The goal is to maintain ethical standards of professionalism by advocating for equity, inclusion, and justice for diverse groups impacted by program evaluation. 

If you are interested in joining the DEIJ committee, please contact us!

RFP: Small Qualitative Research Project

OPEN is seeking to contract with a student or new evaluator for a small qualitative research project.

In 2021, OPEN conducted two visioning sessions with membership to learn about preferences for the future of the organization. These sessions resulted in qualitative data that needs to be organized and reported out. 

Deliverables 

Deliverables for this project include a data file with raw data organized by theme along with a summary document highlighting potential action items for the organization based on the session data. 

Contractor will facilitate a working session with the current OPEN council to describe the key findings and deliverables.  

Timeline

The project is estimated to take between 15-20 hours. Work should be concluded by 4/29.

Compensation

Compensation is between $25-$30/hr, depending on experience.

To Apply

Please send a letter of interest and resume to info@orgeonval.org.

Outgoing OPEN President Kristi Manseth provides a review of OPEN's achievements in 2021.

The 2021 OPEN Council’s key focus was a strategic decision to invest in a membership management software, allowing the organization to develop a more modern website while streamlining communications. This transition also included a significant cleaning of OPEN contact lists. 

In 2021, OPEN offered 15 virtual events attracting nearly 1000 ticket reservations. Events included presentations by evaluation practitioners and program partners, tips and tricks for using R, evaluation journal clubs, and student-focused discussions. Two visioning sessions led by current and former OPEN presidents provided information that can inform the strategic direction of the organization moving forward.  

The special projects liaison focused on DEIJ work, which has transitioned into a small committee for 2022. A DEIJ resource list was compiled and is available on the OPEN website. 

The communications officer increased OPEN’s online presence through the reactivation of existing Facebook and LinkedIn pages as platforms for publicizing events and offerings. 

In 2021, we sold 92 regular memberships and 17 student memberships. Of the regular memberships sold, 58 were new members and 34 were renewals. 

OPEN had approximately the same revenue and expenses during the year, which was the goal of the council during a challenging year of solely virtual events. Revenue was generated from non-member event ticket sales and membership sales and renewals, while expenses included general administrative costs to ensure OPEN "kept its lights on" and maintained its status as a professional member organization.

The 2021 OPEN council consisted of seven members: President, President-Elect, Finance Officer, Events Officer, Communications Officer, Special Projects Liaison (DEIJ), and a Student Liaison.

As a member-driven organization, OPEN only exists with the leadership and efforts of members like you! To ensure the continuation of OPEN, we need to fill a number of 2022 OPEN Council positions, including the DEIJ Liaison role. Submit an Interest Form today to be a part of what's next!

Below, OPEN's 2021 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) Liaison, Andrea Steigerwald, shares her thoughts on the DEIJ role and responsibilities, and how an incoming 2022 DEIJ Liaison might craft their own experience in the position. This was her second year on the OPEN Council; in 2020, Andrea served on the OPEN Events Committee.

My name is Andrea Steigerwald, and I have been a part of the OPEN council for two years: first on the events team and this year as the diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) liaison. 

The DEIJ Liaison role was first created in 2021 to advance OPEN's DEIJ efforts. While the DEIJ Liaison helps move this important work forward, advancing DEIJ within OPEN is ultimately the responsibility of the entire OPEN council.

My Tenure as DEIJ Liaison

I stepped into this role because I am passionate about culturally responsive and equitable evaluation, and wanted to learn more about what it means in practice. I reached out to evaluation organizations (i.e., organizations like OPEN in other states) across the US and Canada to hear more about lessons learned in their approach to DEIJ and anti-racism work. Attending the monthly Local Affiliate Collaborative (LAC) meetings helped me build these cross-state connections. I valued the input from the Culturally Responsive and Equitable Evaluation learning community and virtual coffee dates with OPEN community members who reached out to talk about DEIJ complexities in their work. I organized an Evaluation Journal Club focused on inciting social change, which led to the beginnings of a DEI resource list shared out with the community.

Moving Forward

What has become clear to me is that advancing DEIJ is not a linear or fast-moving "initiative", but rather a mindful, action-oriented, and often slow, ongoing process that often involves some missteps. This year, we had great listening sessions, facilitated by past OPEN presidents, that provided rich feedback from the OPEN community to inform strategic planning and DEIJ efforts next year.

A year into this work, this role is still taking shape as we reflect on how to turn DEIJ inwards and rethink OPEN's internal structures and strategic planning. Moving forward, the hope is that this role evolves into a DEIJ committee that will work together, actively listen, and help the OPEN Council take the next steps. 

I want to emphasize that this role is fluid, and whoever steps into this role next, please reshape it and take it in new directions! 

Time Commitment

A monthly OPEN meeting, LAC meeting, phone calls with organizations and members, and compiling resources put me at about 5-10 hours a month -- The time commitment depends on what you choose to work on.

Please reach out if you want to learn more; we want to hear from you!

Author Andrea Steigerwald has been involved with OPEN for over two years as an active participant, an events committee member, and now as the Special Projects Liaison on the 2021 OPEN council. Her special projects role is focused on advancing DEIJ efforts and holding space for more leadership to emerge in this area. Andrea hopes to engage in conversations with the OPEN members and other affiliates about their DEIJ work and anti-racist commitments, to organize listening sessions to hear more from the OPEN community, and to center equity in OPEN's strategic planning. She has a lot to learn and would love to hear from you! 

Add to our OPEN List of DEI Resources!

Exciting update: We have compiled an OPEN List of DEI Resources to share with you!

This list is meant to provide resources related generally to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, in addition to tools for culturally responsive and equitable evaluation and research with culturally specific groups.

We hope to a) offer our community these resources so that we can foster our own learning and each "do the work" to understand and advance DEI in our evaluation practice and b) elevate the scholars and practitioners who have often been left out of conversations about our roots and the "tree of evaluation".

We honor the authors and creators of these works and are grateful to them for sharing their expertise, experience, questions, and deep knowledge with us!

We acknowledge this list is incomplete, and there is room to grow!

We invite you to submit any additional resources to this list by filling out this quick form on the OPEN Resources page. Please note: If the resource you are sharing is not your own work and is not published or been made available to the public, please make sure that you have the author's permission to share before submitting. Thank you! 

If you have any questions about this list, please contact Andrea. 

Author Aliza Lipman is OPEN's Student Liaison and a graduate student in the Portland State University Applied Psychology Program Community Track. Her main research interest is childhood trauma prevention, and her current research examines trauma experienced by juvenile offender populations. In Spring 2021, she led a discussion with OPEN's student members around converting a CV to a resume for program evaluation. 

Photo by Etienne Boulanger on Unsplash

Many graduate students are expected to catalogue their accomplishments in a curriculum vitae (CV) which, in the world of academia, is your ID and passport. For students who intend to work in the applied world, the CV, while expansive, just isn’t what employers are looking for. What employers are looking for is a resume: a document carefully crafted with the listed position and company in mind.

Below is a table showing some of the key differences in goal, content and formatting between a CV and a resume.

Curriculum Vitae	Resume
Gives future employer detailed knowledge of your entire academic career and work history Inclusive of all accomplishments Does not emphasize any particular component Experiences listed in chronological order 2-5 pages in length	Tells future employer the ways in which you are qualified and what sets you apart from other applicants Crafted with specific job type or organization in mind Includes recent or relevant academic history and work experience Only includes accomplishments pertinent to the job Approximately 1 page in length

via GIPHY

But this doesn't mean you have to start from scratch! A CV is a great document to pull from when making a resume. As we said earlier, it includes all academic accomplishments. The craft is knowing what to pull from the CV and what is superfluous information. 

Here are a few tips for making a resume from a CV:

1. Read through the job application for buzzwords and key tasks/experiences they are looking for in an employee. 
   
2. Search for other available materials about the job or the company including websites and social media accounts.
   
3. Scan your CV highlighting or pulling out experiences and skills that are relevant to the job listing and company.
   
4. Check the language in your newly formed resume. Try to use similar language to what is used in the job listing.  
   

Formatting is also important when crafting a resume. Employers expect a resume to:

• Use a small font like 11 or 12 point
• Use the past tense for work completed in the past and present tense for current work
• Avoid first-person when describing actions or accomplishments
• Use spaces and indentations to aid in legibility
• Use italics, bold, and underlining to aid in legibility

via GIPHY

For more information about building a resume from a CV, see the sites listed below:

• Career Profiles: Converting Your CV to a Resume
  
• ICC at UC Davis: Converting a Curriculum Vitae to Resume
  
• UPENN Career Services: Converting Your CV to a Resume

In addition to writing this piece, author Diego Catalán Molina led an OPEN event on 12 May 2021 about data analysis tips and tricks using R. Diego holds a PhD in Human Development at the University of California (UC), Davis, where he studied how, when, and for whom socioemotional school interventions work. He previously worked in Chile as a school counselor at a low income school, an advisor to school counselors and psychologists at network of charter schools, and an evaluator for the national agency that monitors education quality across the country. He has served on the OPEN leadership team since 2020.

Have you started using R and found obstacles to efficiently move from running analyses to reporting results? I know I have...

I started using R around 3 years ago. The first few months, I was frustrated often because I couldn't even read and manipulate data efficiently, when the REAL work was analyzing the data. And when I had analyzed it, I didn't know how to transfer the results efficiently into my documents and presentations.

Here’s what I tried:

• Manually type results into a word document--it’s really easy to make mistakes doing this!
• Copying and pasting the results from the console to a word document or a spreadsheet: This is a terrible strategy because the formatting of the results is not the same once pasted, and it’s really difficult to work this way when you have to re-run your analyses multiple times!

Looking back, I think most of my confusion had to do with me not understanding some of the core ideas behind doing data analysis in R.

Core ideas

After doing research and evaluation in R for almost 3 years, I realized there were a few principles or core ideas behind doing data analysis in R. On May 12th, I shared the following two ideas with OPEN members and friends:

1. Running analyses is like lazy shopping at the grocery store.
   

2. You need to tidy up your stuff to avoid wasting time.
   

Lazy shopping

You don’t realize it in the beginning, but running analyses in R is like throwing all kinds of groceries into a shopping cart.

In R language, your shopping cart is called a list. A list is an object that contains smaller objects within it, so it's just a "container". When you run any analysis, R will fill your list with the results of your analyses (and other stuff too).

If you are running analyses in R, you were probably taught to see the results by using functions like summary. However, this is the most inefficient way to use your results if you want to put them in a presentation or document.

Tidy up your mess

If you want to use your results efficiently, you need to learn how to clean up the mess that is the list in which these results live.

Here are simple steps to use your results more efficiently:

Do you want to learn more about efficient analyses in R and beyond?

Let's chat!