This practice is about ensuring the evaluation process facilitates collaboration, dissemination, and mutual support and specifically, that before the evaluation takes place there is a plan in place to share the process and outcomes from the evaluation with all relevant stakeholder groups. Evaluation practice 1.1 has already highlighted that the evaluation should be participatory and inclusive in that it should engage all stakeholders, including involving them in collaborating on evaluation activities and when sharing the lessons learnt. The role of students in the evaluation process has also been explored in several of the evaluation practices including evaluation practice 1.1.
This evaluation practice is concerned with ensuring that there is consideration of both how the process and the product of the evaluation will be communicated to all stakeholders and the level of engagement anticipated / requested (aligned with relevant ethical and organisational considerations – see evaluation practice 3.5). Clearly such involvement and communication must be proportionate to the endeavor, but many interventions and evaluations flounder because of a lack of attention to engagement and communication.
Below is a table highlighting different levels of stakeholder engagement in an intervention / project and some of the engagement tools / communication strategies that can be planned and employed. This evaluation practice recommends planning for such engagement and communication from the outset of the intervention and its evaluation, proportionate to the scale and scope of the intervention.