A Planning and Reporting System Enhances Accountability, Communication, and Evaluation Capacity
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A Planning and Reporting System Enhances Accountability, Communication, and Evaluation Capacity Robin Lockerby - UVM Extension Stephen Judd - UNH Cooperative Extension National Association for Extension Program and Staff Development Professionals Annual Conference December 4, 2013
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Presented by Robin Lockerby and Stephen Judd at the 2013 National Association of Extension Program & Staff Development Professionals Annual Conference in Kansas City, Missouri. The use of an online, web-based, system has enabled us to capture and aggregate this data efficiently. The Logic Model Planning and Reporting System (LMPRS) provides a central application to input, store, and retrieve information about an Extension organization's planned and completed activities. It is imperative to get beyond simply counting activities, participants, and staff days spent. LMPRS aggregates data on impacts, as well as narrative or qualitative information. Once entered into the system, administrators, staff, and the public are able to retrieve this information to see how Extension is working in specific locations, with specific audiences, and across programmatic areas. A unified and comprehensive system allows information to be useful to individuals, work teams, program areas, and geographic teams. The work Extension does is too important to be relegated to occasional federal reports and press releases and Extension professionals are too busy to respond to ad hoc requests for what they're doing. Through our use of LMPRS we have been able to streamline the process for our staff and have plenty of information to tell the Extension story.
Transcript of A Planning and Reporting System Enhances Accountability, Communication, and Evaluation Capacity
A Planning and Reporting System Enhances Accountability,
Communication, and Evaluation Capacity
Robin Lockerby - UVM ExtensionStephen Judd - UNH Cooperative Extension
National Association for Extension Program and Staff Development Professionals Annual ConferenceDecember 4, 2013
Who are we, anyway?● Robin does Planning and Reporting Support at UVM
Extension● Steve is a techie and former Ag Educator at UNHCE● Four states (MA, ME, NH, VT) came together to create
a web-based planning and reporting system in 2005 (first plans in system for 2007)
● Seven states (+ CO, DE, MI) currently use the system to meet planning, reporting, program development, and evaluation needs.
Why planning?
Planning is a critical organizational and individual activity to ensure focus on stakeholder needs.
● Organizational coordination● Accountability● Prioritization
Why reporting?
Reporting lets us know what actually happened (often quite different from what was planned)
● Accountability● Evaluation● Communication with stakeholders
Why have one system?
A single, centralized system allows for:● Aggregated data● Single source of info● Workflow rules● Awareness● Communicate with stakeholders● Transparency
Outside the system
Having a central planning and reporting system still requires:● Communication and coordination outside of
the system● Raw data needs to be converted to
digestible format● Organizational culture
Benefits / Products of system
● Logic Model view of plans● Meets individual needs● Meets team / group / project needs● Stakeholder reporting● Data for visualizations
Faculty use their LM plan in the system to populate their annual union contract.
Using a free form text box during reporting users can list Citations for report out when desired, for example - Annual Review.
Individuals can easily create reports of what they did and the impact measures they’ve contributed to.
Individual effort report - cumulative effort and effort type.
How is the state’s effort distributed across projects?
Aggregate all individual plans that contribute to a defined group plan.
Individual Planned vs Reported LM view.
Identifying what’s being accomplished in a specific location.
Commodity groups or participant types are searchable (left). Report shows number and what programming is reaching a particular audience.
Searching Program Collaborators provides a listing of those working statewide with a collaborator and those activities they are involved with.
Capture narrative or qualitative information and relate it to outputs, indicators, locations, participants, etc.
Statewide data is easily available by year or date allowing over-time comparison.
http://public.tableausoftware.com/shared/RD83NQNKT?:display_count=yes
Numbers of contacts reported, compared with census data, by county was presented to give a different view of how we were reaching all corners of the state.
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/CountyPopulationReachedbyExtensionProgram/Dashboard1?:embed=y&:display_count=no
A virtuous circle
Logic ModelPlanning and
ReportingSystem
Groups and individuals work together to assess situation, needs, etc. and develop plans and programming to address. Define evaluation measures.
Individuals “buy-in” to plans, customize, and report on what they actually do. Use data for accountability, program development, communicating with stakeholders.
Information is shared with decision makers, funders, stakeholders to communicate the activities and impacts of Extension
Information is used by groups and individuals to assess impacts, modify plans, refine evaluation measures, determine impact, set priorities.
What we’ve learned
DON’T:● Make staff use many different systems● Ask for what you don’t need or won’t use● Expect people to love planning and reporting● Expect change to happen quickly!
What we’ve learned
DO:● Share what you discover / uncover● Use data in meaningful ways● Help individuals see how to use the
information for their own purposes● Create an organizational culture of value of
information, accountability, and set uniform and reasonable expectations
What we’ve learned
DO:● Provide appropriate technical support and
around effective planning and reporting● Be creative to engage users in looking at the
data, spotting issues or inconsistencies, interpreting, etc.
More information
Robin Lockerby - [email protected] Judd - [email protected]
Site - https://lmprs.net
