At the American Evaluation Association’s annual conference in October 2013, I led a roundtable titled “The Conference is Over, Now What? Professional Development for Novice Evaluators.” We discussed ways that novices can deepen their knowledge, build their skills, socialize with other evaluators, and get involved in leadership positions. I compiled the notes here so more people can benefit from these resources.

Here are the best resources for novice evaluators:

aea365

This is the American Evaluation Association’s daily blog located at aea365.org. You can read about everything from item response theory to slide design. Confession: I rarely read an entire post. Instead, I’m skimming the posts just to see the title, author, author’s organization, and the main gist of the content. This is a great way to stay up-to-date on the biggest trends in the field.

You should seriously write for aea365, probably 2-3 times a year, even if you’re new to the field. Just make sure you follow the contribution guidelines.

Affiliates and other organizations

AEA is the national-level mothership and there are more than 20 local and regional affiliates. You can find a full listing of affiliates here:http://www.eval.org/p/cm/ld/fid=12.

Every affiliate is different. For example, the Washington Evaluators hold monthly brown bags, quarterly happy hours, and an annual holiday party. The Eastern Evaluation Research Society holds an annual 3-day conference. Other affiliates hold virtual book clubs, maintain blogs, or simply hold member meetings via teleconference.

You should join your affiliate. Seriously. The mailing lists are little nuggets of gold and worth every penny of that $25/year membership. The Washington Evaluators, for example, send job announcements almost every day, so you’ll always know which organizations are hiring and expanding. Don’t forget to attend the affiliate events too. (Sometimes people just pay dues but skip all the events, and then they don’t know why they’re not meeting anyone? This confuses me.) After a year, start planning small events yourself, like a brown bag. Then, join the Board.

Here are some additional reasons to join affiliates and ideas for getting involved:

There are tons of additional evaluation groups. For example, the Environmental Evaluators Network, led by Matt Keene, holds forums for evaluators interested in environmental issues. If you’re in Washington, DC, the Aspen Institute holds quarterly breakfast panels focused on advocacy evaluation. At Innovation Network, we hold Ask an Evaluator sessions for nonprofit leaders. Tony Fujs and I also attend Data Science DC, Data Visualization DC, and Data Community DC monthly meetups. No matter your city, there are probably lots of events that fit your interests.

Blogs

First, check out evalcentral.com, run by Chris Lysy. Chris pulls in feeds from 60+ evaluation blogs so you’ll get exposed to a diverse set of perspectives. Chris even developed a daily email digest, so you can subscribe once to all 60+ blogs rather than monitoring your subscriptions to all the individual blogs. I suggest setting EvalCentral as one of your homepage tabs (along with your other must-haves like Gmail and Pandora) so it’s there every time you log into your computer. And again, I rarely read an entire blog post but I skim everything for the title, author, and main gist of what they’re talking about.

Second, check out AEA’s listing of evaluators and evaluation organizations who blog: http://www.eval.org/p/cm/ld/fid=71

I started blogging after watching Chris Lysy’s Ignite presentation at the 2011 AEA conference. Here’s Chris’ Ignite, which outlines just a few of the infinite reasons why evaluators should blog:

Coffee Break webinars

Coffee Break webinars are just 20 minutes long, so they’re a perfect way to squeeze in some quick professional development in the middle of a busy work day. The best part? They’re free for AEA members. I like to sign up for topics that I know nothing about. After 20 minutes, I’m not an expert, but at least I’ve got a basic understanding of that flavor of evaluation.

Conferences

Evaluation conferences include:

• the African Evaluation Association’s conference
• the American Evaluation Association’s conference
• the Aotearoa New Zealand Evaluation Association’s conference
• the Australasian Evaluation Society’s conference
• the Canadian Evaluation Society’s conference
• the Eastern Evaluation Research Society’s conference
• the Environmental Evaluators Network forum
• the European Evaluation Society’s conference
• the International Program Evaluation Network’s conference
• the Monitoring and Evaluation Network of Latin America and the Caribbean’s conference
• the Oregon Program Evaluators Network conference

Do you know of additional evaluation conferences? Please link to them in the comments section below.

I also like to attend non-evaluation conferences to hear how non-evaluators are describing our work (they have completely different lingo and tend to value qualitative data way more than evaluators do).

eStudies

An eStudy is a 3- to 6-hour webinar run by AEA. eStudies are like mini grad school courses because they go in-depth on a particular topic (as opposed to 20-minute Coffee Break webinars, which just provide an overview of a topic). eStudies are broken into 90-minute chunks and there’s typically a homework assignment between each segment to help you practice your new skills.

For example, I participated in an eStudy about nonparametric statistics in which the instructor covered about 20 different nonparametric statistics, when to use each one, and how to perform the calculations in SPSS. We even got to keep her slides, which were full of step-by-step SPSS screenshots. Almost two years later, I still pull out my eStudy notes whenever I need to use some nonparametric statistics.

Journals

AEA offers two journals, the American Journal of Evaluation and New Directions for Evaluation. Both of these journals are included with your AEA membership. What a steal!

LinkedIn

These days, I can’t imagine an employer not doing a full internet search on new applicants. Make sure your LinkedIn profile has, at the bare minimum, a professional photo, your full work history (including dates), and your education history. You can also use LinkedIn to build your online portfolio (e.g., embedded slideshows from recent conference presentations, links to publications and projects, and your list of certifications).

Want to connect with other evaluators? Some awesome evaluation groups on LinkedIn include:

• American Evaluation Association
• Baltimore Area Evaluators
• Chicagoland Evaluation Association
• Eastern Evaluation Research Society
• Environmental Evaluators Network
• European Evaluation Society
• Evaluation Jobs (a giant jobs board – great for job seekers and employers wishing to advertise for evaluation positions)
• Evaluators Group
• Indiana Evaluation Association
• Ohio Program Evaluators’ Group
• Oregon Program Evaluators Network
• Program Evaluators Northwest
• Michigan Association for Evaluation
• Monitoring and Evaluation Professionals
• RTP Evaluators
• New Mexico Evaluators
• San Francisco Bay Area Evaluators
• Southeast Evaluation Association
• Washington Evaluators

Do you know of additional evaluation groups on LinkedIn? Share your suggestion in the comments below. Thanks!

Listservs, mailing lists, and newsletters

First, check out EvalTalk: https://listserv.ua.edu/archives/evaltalk.html. This is a traditional listserv that goes directly to your email inbox. Subscribing to EvalTalk is a must (if only to watch the bloodbath as evaluators battle each other online). Make sure you adjust your settings so that you get a daily or weekly digest – otherwise you’ll drown in the sheer volume of messages.

Second, subscribe to mailing lists and newsletters specific to your client projects. Whenever I begin a new project, I search the client’s website and subscribe to everything I can (like their Twitter feed, email newsletter, and blog). As a consultant, I only see one slice of their work. Subscribing to all of their updates helps me get a fuller picture of their work, so I can make sure the evaluation fits their organization’s culture and needs.

Thought Leaders Discussion Series

AEA’s Thought Leaders Discussion Series is like a big message board to debate bigger-picture, theoretical issues in the field. Each series is led by a different person and has a different flavor.

Topical Interest Groups (TIGs)

Topical Interest Groups (TIGs) are known as affinity groups in other professional associations. You get to select five TIGs when you join AEA, and you can change your selection at any time. Each TIG is different–different sizes, leadership and committee structure, and different business meetings. I suggest attending business meetings for multiple TIGs at each conference. See which culture fits you best. After a few years, get more involved by running for a leadership position.

Twitter

Just getting started on Twitter? Here’s my list of 275+ evaluators and 80+ evaluation organizations who are using Twitter. Use #eval13 to tweet about that year’s AEA conference (not #AEA13 – the poor folks at the American Equine Association will get confused). Use #eval for all your regular evaluation-related content.

White papers and other gray literature

There are approximately 8000 evaluators in the American Evaluation Association. I estimate that maybe… 5%?… aim to publish articles in academic journals. Most of us are practitioners and consultants (not academics, theorists, or professors). White papers and other gray literature are a great way to learn about our work, our insights, and our tips. For examples, check out innonet.org/research and evaluationinnovation.org/publications.

Additional resources

What are your favorite resources? Which resources were most valuable during your first few years in the field? And, most importantly–do you have different viewpoints on any of the resources I described? Share your perspectives! I’ve presented one opinion and there are many more to add to the mix.