External Evaluation Reports Research Articles

Reflections on Leadership and Governance from the Incident Manager of Liberia's Ebola Response.

The 2014-2016 epidemic of Ebola virus disease occurred in a region with a recent history of civil war, unstable health systems, and widespread poverty. Despite these contextual challenges, the national Ebola response in Liberia controlled transmission under strong leadership that was able to rapidly coordinate activities, to manage local and international players, and to adapt upon recognizing missteps. Such leadership has persisted to improve public health capacity in post-Ebola Liberia. This article highlights the progress made toward developing a resilient health security system with capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to disease threats before they reach epidemic level. In particular, Liberia's development of a Global Health Security Agenda roadmap, a Joint External Evaluation (JEE) report for International Health Regulation (2005) core capacities, and recent establishment of a National Public Health Institute are described. To better protect the country's population and the greater global community from health threats, emerging institutions and policies in Liberia will depend on leadership and governance that draws from the successes and lessons learned during the Ebola outbreak. The author provides insight based on his role as incident manager of Liberia's Ebola response.

The Struggle of Benchmarking and Ranking Gender Equality: The Case of the European Institute for Gender Equality

Abstract The aim of this article is to explore the conceptualisation of benchmarking, ranking and good practice sharing tools within European Union gender equality policymaking. In the first part, the article looks at these soft law measures applied within intergovernmental cooperation. Stemming from the extensive body of literature, the study approaches these measures as a form of scientific knowledge, which is diversely applied within policymaking. Next, the article directs various points of criticism at these policymaking tools through different variables that may hinder knowledge use. The second section of this article further focuses on the Open Method of Coordination and the role of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in relation to gender equality policies. The empirical part of this article is focused on the criticism of EIGE’s External Evaluation Report and the different conceptualisations of scientific knowledge use which are presented within this audit document. As such, this article aims to contribute to a new conceptualisation of the technocratic tools of benchmarking, ranking and good practice sharing within the highly ideological area of gender equality policies.

The Global Labour University: A New Laboratory of Learning for International Labor Solidarity?

The Global Labour University (GLU), now 10 years old, is a network of interdisciplinary faculties that offer master level courses and other training programs for trade unionists from around the world. The main purpose of these programs is to enable trade unionists to develop policy expertise for the challenges of globalization. In this article we offer a critical assessment of the activities of the GLU. To what extent does the GLU achieve its objective of building capacity for a critical engagement with policy issues arising from globalization? And to what extent does the international composition of the Masters programs and the ensuing alumni work actually strengthen solidarity among trade unionists across national borders? What we find is that the GLU provides one important approach for addressing these challenges. By helping prepare labor unions of the future with the theoretical understandings and analytical and research skills they need, the GLU contributes to the global labor movement a new generation of labor activists. Our answers to these questions are based on participatory observations, interviews with a wide range of stakeholders and several external evaluation reports.

Influências da avaliação externa das escolas no desenvolvimento de uma cultura de autoavaliação

The growing importance that accountability has in Portuguese public schools is the result of media coverage of the schools ranking phenomena and also to the external evaluation that schools have been subject since 2006. However, studies have shown that this accountability has been associated to an improvement goal that may not be promoted if schools do not evaluate what they do internally (Bolivar, 2003). This text aims to identify influences of schools’ external evaluation in developing a self-assessment culture within schools.Data were collected from the external evaluation reports of schools, performed by IGEC (Inspecao-Geral da Educacao e Ciencia) during the 1st and 2nd cycles of external evaluation, from a set of 52 schools belonging to North and Centre regions of the country. The reports were chosen as to belonging two different groups of schools: Schools with high marks obtained in the external evaluation process and schools with lower marks.The 104 reports were treated through content analysis, using the NVivo10 program. The analysis helped to confirm that the Schools’ external evaluation had influence the development of schools’ self-assessment, and this influence is higher in schools with lower marks. Schools with higher marks were also those to which Schools’ external evaluation process recognizes more consistent practices of self-assessment, inducing a culture of self-assessment.

A liderança das escolas em três regiões portuguesas: uma visão a partir da avaliação externa

A liderança escolar tem efeitos significativos na aprendizagem, desenvolvimento e sucesso académico dos alunos e na qualidade das organizações educativas, pelo que das suas práticas depende, em grande medida, a eficácia da ação da escola. Foi tendo estes pressupostos por referentes que desenvolvemos o estudo a que este artigo se reporta. Nele procuramos caracterizar a liderança das escolas e agrupamentos de escolas de três regiões portuguesas (Algarve, Alentejo e Lisboa e Vale do Tejo), com base na análise de conteúdo efetuada aos relatórios de avaliação externa produzidos pelas equipas da Inspeção-Geral da Educação nos anos letivos de 2006/2007, 2007/2008 e 2008/20091. O estudo teve como objetivos compreender como as organizações educativas põem em prática a sua visão de escola e como implementam a partilha e a circulação da informação para darem consecução a metas e propósitos que estabeleceram, dando assim corpo à linha hierárquica de exercício do poder. A análise dos dados agora efetuada permitiu-nos traçar um "perfil" das lideranças das escolas e agrupamentos de escolas avaliados, embora consideremos que os seus resultados não possam ser extrapolados, dados os limites da redação dos relatórios de avaliação externa e o facto de estes serem produzidos por equipas diferentes de região para região e nas próprias regiões.Palavras-chaveAvaliação externa das escolas; Relatórios de avaliação; Liderança; Exercício da liderança

Urban High School Students’ IT/STEM Learning: Findings from a Collaborative Inquiry- and Design-Based Afterschool Program

This exploratory study examines the impact of a collaborative inquiry- and design-based afterschool program on urban high school students’ IT/STEM learning—using information technology (IT) within the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The study used a mixed methods design, involving 77 participants within two cohort groups, each participating in an eighteen-month intervention period. Data were collected from the pre- and post-surveys, analysis of the participants’ IT/STEM projects, external evaluation reports, and follow-up interviews. Findings indicate that the program had a significant impact on students’ technology and IT/STEM skills, frequency of technology use, and understanding of IT use in STEM-oriented fields. Some degree of impact on attitude changes toward IT/STEM and career aspirations in these fields was also in evidence. The study demonstrates that IT/STEM experiences supported through technology-enhanced, inquiry- and design-based collaborative learning strategies have significant impact on urban high school students’ IT/STEM learning. Effect of afterschool programs on attitude changes and IT/STEM-related career aspirations of urban high school students are recommended areas of further investigation.

Community Involvement in School Management in Portugal

This article discusses the ways in which the community is involved in Portuguese school management. It is based on an analysis of the external evaluation reports of 298 Portuguese schools for the academic years 2006–07, 2007–08 and 2008–09. The corpus analysed allowed the identification of two main aspects of the participation processes: (1) local community involvement in school life and (2) the processes and limitations on the involvement of two groups of actors – parents/guardians and pupils. Although the growing involvement of different actors in school management activities has been verified, the participation processes are not consolidated in the same way in different school organisations and in the different territories in which they are located. The presence and involvement of different actors in the schools studied is congruent with a larger understanding of the school community including pupils, teachers, parents/guardians and other actors from the local community to which the school belongs. This involvement increasingly implies in-depth knowledge of the construction processes of cultural learning taking place in school organisations.

Student engagement in the Scottish Quality Enhancement Framework

The research addressed the interplay of student engagement and quality enhancement mechanisms in the Scottish higher education system. The paper demonstrates increasing focus on student learning, learning experience and high‐quality learning in the current quality enhancement approaches. The student–university coproduction model is used to distinguish theoretical and conceptual difference between student involvement and student engagement. Student engagement has the potential to contribute an added‐value by improving the quality of teaching and learning. Based on 21 external evaluation reports, the research demonstrates new opportunities for innovation changes in institutional mechanisms in response to student engagement. This has required new institutional structures that deepen relationships with students, develop opportunities for partnership and engagement, improve their representation and enhance their learning experience. Finally, student engagement itself has required changes in the quality systems and processes to incorporate notions such as student–university partnership, learner‐centredness, value‐added and the quality of the student learning experience.

“Inspiring Readers”: a cross border reader development project

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to describe a major reader development initiative delivered by a cross‐border partnership, involving two public library authorities (one in Ireland and one in the UK). It aims to outline the strategies and activities developed to support the wider political agenda of building a peaceful and stable society.Design/methodology/approachThe paper provides an introduction to the context within which the project was developed and an overview of the project delivery. It focuses on the development of project activities to address the peace and reconciliation agenda and draws on the external evaluation report findings.FindingsThe project demonstrates that public libraries are well placed to develop and deliver community‐based programmes to address sensitive and contentious issues, through the provision of reading activities and opportunities for meaningful discussion.Originality/valueThis paper is based on the experience of two public library services, operating in different countries, in communities divided by physical borders and sectarian divisions. It shows how libraries can capitalise on their local presence, and the imaginative space provided by books and reading, to move from their traditional role as a neutral space to a more dynamic role, in which the promotion of reading supports inclusion and diversity.

Implementing evidence-based guidelines for nutrition support in acute stroke

This work forms part of the South Thames Evidence-Based Practice (STEP) Project funded in 1996 by what was then South Thames Research and Development Directorate of the UK Department of...

What did we learn about early clinical experience?

This article explores the lessons learned by ten demonstration schools regarding the early clinical experience (ECE) component of the Interdisciplinary Generalist Curriculum (IGC) PROJECT: Students in ECE at these schools participated in longitudinal, one-to-one or two-on-one preceptorships with primary care physician preceptors in outpatient settings. Development of an ECE was a key component of curricular change at each of the IGC Project schools. Shattering the traditional barrier between preclinical and clinical years of the 2 + 2 medical curriculum model helped create a leading edge for innovation at each of the schools. In this article, the authors incorporated evaluation information from several sources, including the external evaluation reports of the IGC Project, final annual reports from demonstration schools, and curriculum evaluations from the coauthors' schools (the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine, and the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine).