Date: May 16, 2024 Time: 12pm to 1:30pm ET Format: Online via Zoom - REGISTER NOW Cost: Free for CES members and non-members Language: English
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the landscape of evaluation practice for independent consultants (ICs). In this webinar, we offer guiding principles, insights, and practice uses for ICs.
Drawing on our practical experiences, we explore how ICs can leverage AI to improve the quality and efficiency of our work. Our journey will begin with a review of foundational principles that should underpin IC’s use of AI to ensure ethical, effective, and equitable outcomes. Next, as colleagues, we share practical ways that we have learned to leverage AI in our IC practice, from the proposal development process through to report writing and even extending into business management practices. Our presentation will conclude with a discussion of the broader impact of AI on the evaluation consulting landscape.
While tailored for ICs, this presentation promises relevance for evaluators across diverse contexts. Join us as we navigate the possibilities of AI in evaluation that are shaping the future of our profession.
Learning Objectives
1. Reflective practice 2. Technical practice 3. Management practice
REGISTER NOW
About the Presenters
Carolyn Hoessler, PhD, CE Carolyn is a national award-winning leader, and experienced facilitator consulting nationally with professional associations and post-secondary institutions on evaluation and assessment of learning outcomes. Navigating complex systems to achieve change, Carolyn facilitates integrative and engaging decision-making and co-created adaptive approaches to strategic change and emergent trends like AI. As an educator, Carolyn has offered over 30 international/national workshops and graduate courses as an Adjunct Professor with the University of Saskatchewan School of Environment and Sustainability including statistics, rapport-building, creating space for more voices and qualitative methods. Carolyn is the treasurer for CES-SK, and a member of the new Independent Consulting Community of Interest (ICCI) Working Group.
Claire Reynolds, PhD After a decade as an educator, Claire discovered her love for evaluation during her graduate work. She is now an emerging evaluator with experience conducting evaluations in various educational and workplace settings. With ambitions to become an independent consultant, she joined the new Independent Consulting Community of Interest (ICCI) Working Group to learn about the industry. Claire’s interest in AI started when she realized its potential as a writing assistant and now uses it in diverse ways, including helping with data analysis.
Gail Vallance Barrington, PhD, CE Gail is a certified teacher, CES Fellow, and long-time independent consultant. Books include Consulting Start-up and Management (SAGE, 2012) and Evaluation Time (co-author B. Triana-Tremain, SAGE, 2022). She won the CES Contribution to Evaluation in Canada Award in 2008 and the AEA Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Award for Evaluation Practice in 2016. Gail is also co-chair of the new Independent Consulting Community of Interest (ICCI) Working Group. She currently enjoys mentoring CE applicants and is learning to write fiction. Her latest project is an eco-adventure novel for young adults.
Harry Cummings, Phd, RPP, CE Harry Cummings is a Credentialed Evaluator, director of Harry Cummings and Associates Inc. a retired professor, and past president of CES. He is involved in 10-20 evaluations a year in Canada and internationally. His evaluation experience is diverse, covering not for profits and all levels of government. He has used AI extensively in his evaluation work, developing instruments, summarizing agency experience, summarizing reports, summarizing the merits of methodology and other tasks. He finds it to be an effective tool for speeding up the writing process. A cardinal rule that he follows is that all material generated is verified as representing Harry before it goes out.
Susan M. Wolfe, PhD Susan has been working in communities, and evaluating for over 38 years across a variety of settings. Since 2009 she has been an independent consultant with Susan Wolfe and Associates, LLC, where she evaluates programs, engages in strategic planning, and coaches and evaluates with community coalitions. All of her work is conducted through an equity and liberatory lens and she is an outspoken anti-racism advocate. She uses ChatGPT as another personal assistant and is still exploring the possibilities to support her independent consulting practice. She is also a wife, mother, chihuahua mom, grandmother, great grandmother, Baha’i, lifelong learner, mentor, and facilitator.
Ted Weicker, MBA, CMC, CE Ted Weicker is a co-founder and President of the Qatalyst Research Group, a leader in evaluation in Canada. He has completed more than 400 evaluations with all levels of governments and non-profits across Canada. With a staff of more than 20 professionals and an active network of more than 200 largely consultants, Qatalyst works across virtually all disciplines from health, justice, environment, natural resources, immigration and education to science, technology, social finance and economic development. Qatalyst differs from many other firms in that it places a high priority on incorporating leading-edge technology into our practice. Since the beginning of 2023, it has made increasingly significant investments in the development, testing and integration of a wide range of proprietary and commercial AI-based tools. Qatalyst works closely with several software firms in the further development of new tools and is working with clients in testing new approaches in evaluation that are becoming possible because of AI. At the same time, Qatalyst has provided strategic advice to the federal and provincial governments in Canada related to their development strategies and investments in artificial intelligence.
Vanessa Anastasopoulos, PhD, CE Vanessa has been an equity-driven evaluator for 25 years and an independent consultant for the last 6 of these. Recognizing the need for a forum through which consultants can learn from and support one another, she teamed up with Gail Barrington in the summer of 2023 to launch and co-chair the new Independent Consulting Community of Interest (ICCI) Working Group for Canadian evaluation practice. Around the same time, Vanesssa delved into AI when faced with the challenge of analyzing an unexpectedly large volume of qualitative survey data within tight project constraints. This experience marked a turning point by revealing AI’s potential as a tool for enhancing the quality of her evaluation practice.
Contact Support
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact admin@evaluationcanada.ca and CC professionallearning@evaluationcanada.ca.