Architecture of Environmental Evaluation

Presenter

Kim Damm, Brown University

Abstract

Between the years 2000 and 2010 the environmental sector has experienced rapid growth in the fields of monitoring and evaluation. Though the capacity for evaluation within the environmental sector is increasing, the movement lacks coordination, collaboration, and a holistic strategy, resulting in disjointed and duplicative evaluation research, practice, and policy. In an effort to centralize the environmental evaluation movement, Kimberly Damm, recent Brown University Center for Environmental Studies Masters Graduate, and Matt Keene, US EPA Evaluation Support Division, designed a project titled the Architecture of Environmental Evaluation. Through the use of network, citation, and content analysis, this project establishes an adaptive framework and tools for mapping the practice, theory, and policy of evaluating environmental programs, policies, and interventions. This cafe session will focus on the project’s first phase, peer-reviewed environmental evaluation literature and will provide a demonstration of the interactive and adaptable tools that will be openly accessibly to the public at www.environmentalevalutors.net. Participants will leave the session with a basic understanding of the following tools: an adaptive and searchable database of journal articles’ citation information, a series of interactive network visualizations and Google Earth maps, and an environmental evaluation video compilation.