Dear members,
Welcome to the first newsletter of the Impact Evaluation Practitioners Network (IEPN). We hope this will be the start of many fruitful conversations and deeper collaboration in the field of Impact Evaluation.
Our Network is a dialogue between government, academia and other evaluators and researchers who work with evaluations involving causal inference. We invite you to be part of the conversation. Our first event will be on the 13th of August, 2024 at 1:30 pm. Read on to find out more.
Establishing the Network has been a joint effort between the Australian Centre for Evaluation (ACE) and the Australian Education Research Organisation (AERO), but the Network will be a collaborative effort, managed by our members. If you would like to contribute to how it is run, please consider joining the Network’s secretariat. There is more information on what this would involve below.
Finally, you can help the Network to grow. Please invite your colleagues to join us by emailing evaluation@treasury.gov.au.
Look out for our next newsletter, and we look forward to meeting you at our upcoming events.
Yours in impactful impact evaluation!
Harry, Julie, Campbell and Tony
The IEPN Secretariat
Network update
Network launch
Harry Greenwell (ACE) and Zid Mancenido (AERO) launched the Impact Evaluation Practitioners Network in June at the ACE’s flagship event, Impact Evaluation: Assessing the effectiveness of Australian public policy. The announcement was part of a collaborative workshop that brought together impact evaluators from government, academia and industry. The workshop discussed data availability, capacity building and other enabling factors that will help us to improve the volume, quality and use of impact evaluations in public policy.
A short summary of the workshop discussions [PDF, 400 KB] is attached to this email.
In the lead up to our network launch we conducted a consultation meeting. Thanks to all those who participated in creating the network. Discussion at the consultation meeting centred around defining the purpose of the network, terms of reference, establishing a governance structure, organising online events, and exploring ways to improve collaboration and networking. The findings from that meeting helped us to refine the model and we are still using your ideas as we develop the terms of reference.
Join the IEPN secretariat
The IEPN secretariat is seeking new members to help the Network thrive and grow. Responsibilities for preparing newsletters and organising events will be shared among secretariat members. We anticipate the work will require approximately 5 hours each month, with peaks around the time of events and depending on the number of people who join the team. The secretariat will also work on the terms of reference for the Network.
Roles are open to all members. If you would like to join the secretariat, please email harry.greenwell@treasury.gov.au or julie.people@edresearch.edu.au
Upcoming events and training
The first IEPN seminar
Please join us for the first in a series of online seminars, hosted by the IEPN. After a short discussion of network business the seminar will feature two guest speakers:
Professor Nick Biddle from the ANU will present Evaluating data, and data for evaluations: How to make the impact evaluation and data science communities more than just a marriage of (in)convenience. Professor Biddle will review the current administrative data environment in Australia and the ways we can put this data to better use.
Bethany Jones and Andrei Turenko from the Behavioural Economics Team of the Australian Government (BETA) will present their report Prompting Accuracy: Using behavioural insights to support accurate registrations. They used a randomised trial to evaluate changes to the Personal Property Securities Register.
Event details
Date: Tuesday 13 August
Time: 1:30 – 3 pm
Location: Online via Microsoft Teams
Registration: All network members will receive an invitation to the Teams meeting closer to the date.
Evaluation spotlight
In each newsletter we plan to highlight interesting and impactful evaluations that have come to our attention. Submissions are very welcome, please send them to us at evaluation@treasury.gov.au
Building Capacity for Quality Teaching in Australian Schools 2018 – 2023
Laureate Professor Jenny Gore, Dr Drew Miller, Dr Leanne Fray, Dr Sally Patfield, and colleagues of the Teachers and Teaching Research Centre (TTRC)
This multi‑site series of randomised controlled trials was conducted across three states with support from the Paul Ramsay Foundation. Through three interrelated activities – research, scaling, and setting up a sustainable business model – the team set out to comprehensively explore what the ‘Quality Teaching Rounds’ (QTR) approach to teacher professional development could do for schooling in Australia.
Read more about this multi‑site research program on the TTRC website.