In this preconference session at the ATE PI Conference, ATE project and center leaders and their evaluators will discuss common challenges and promising practices associated with evaluating ATE projects and centers. The facilitated dialogue will take place in a small-group/roundtable format, with participants selecting the topics of most interest to them. Experienced ATE projects and evaluators will share their real-world experiences, lessons learned, and examples as a means to stimulate conversation, innovative thinking, and practical problem-solving around evaluation issues among all participants. The topics will be determined in advance in consultation with ATE stakeholders, but may include issues such as how to work with a college’s institutional research office, integrating external and internal evaluation, establishing claims about project effectiveness and identifying appropriate and realistic evidence to support them, getting faculty to participate in evaluation activities, and determining what should be included in evaluation reports and who should receive them in what formats.

Funding available for evaluators to attend: EvaluATE will reimburse up to 25 ATE internal or external evaluators for travel and registration expenses for the 2011 ATE PI conference. This funding is intended to enable participation by evaluators who might not otherwise be able to attend the conference. It is mandatory that funding recipients register and participate in this preconference workshop. The funding application form must be completed by an ATE principal investigator.