Model for Collaborative Evaluations as a Framework to Foster a Community of Collaborators

Abstract

The Model for Collaborative Evaluations (MCE) denotes an evaluation framework that supports a collaborative community. The six components of the MCE were designed to identify the situation, clarify the expectations, establish a collective commitment, ensure open communication, encourage effective practices, and follow specific guidelines to support collaboration. These six components instill strong relationships and trust among the stakeholders, fostering a community of collaborators that ensures the evaluation will be effective. The MCE uses a systems engineering approach to ensure the collaborative processes of the evaluation run optimally. As an exemplar of the applicability of the MCE, this chapter describes an evaluation of a grant‐funded project, Increasing Diversity in Engineering (IDE), an effort to increase female industrial engineering students’ motivation to complete their programs of study and promote their interest in healthcare engineering. The authors employed two conceptually related phases of the MCE. The formative phase provided feedback to the clients early in the evaluation process, affording an increased chance of achieving a positive outcome at the completion of the project. The summative phase of the evaluation provided information about the value of the project. Professors created a new course, entitled “Healthcare Engineering” and reconfigured the curricula of two existing courses to include material that highlighted healthcare engineering and case studies. In addition, workshops were offered to raise awareness of opportunities in the healthcare engineering field, and a seminar series was produced to focus upon women engineers from local healthcare agencies. The MCE and its application to this project provides lessons learned for evaluators working with collaborative communities and coalitions.