Evaluating Engagement
Why evaluate?
Evaluation is crucial for public and community engagement with research. Reasons to evaluate include:
- Listening to the groups you engage
- Adapting your approach as findings emerge
- Measuring your impact
- Telling the story of your engagement’s difference
- Sharing what works and what doesn’t
- Being accountable to engaged groups, funders, and others
Evaluation should be embedded in engagement and involve engaged groups responsibly. See tools and resources below.
The difference framework
Engagement professionals and researchers co-developed the ‘difference framework’ to better tell the story of engagement at Oxford.
You can frame the evaluation of your engagement by considering the difference you aim to make, and to what extent it is made. The difference framework helps you plan, monitor, evaluate and report your engagement activities.
The framework suggests subject areas and groups affected by your engagement, such as the public and communities, researchers, or the research field.
Types of difference include changes in knowledge, skills, or behaviour. The impact could be short- or long-term, small- or large-scale, and in one or more areas.
The difference framework provides a common language for engagement at Oxford. It visualises how individual projects contribute to a greater whole. We hope you find it useful for planning, monitoring, evaluating, and reporting your engagement. For questions or feedback, please get in touch.
How to evaluate?
There is a wide range of tools and resources (Oxford SSO required) to inspire and guide your evaluation for different public audiences.