2016
The editorial team of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation (CJPE) is pleased to announce that volume 31(2) is now published on-line. In conformity with the CES embargo policy, this issue is reserved for CES members until three more issues are added. Reproduced below is the introduction to the fall 2016 issue.
What articles come together in a regular issue of CJPE is simply a function of which of the submitted articles has completed review and revision process at a given point in time. Sometimes, randomly, this results in articles that seem to have been assembled purposively around a more or less broad theme. Issue 31(2) is such a case. Five out of the seven articles and practice notes address evaluation in public health, including two about alcohol.
The lead article by Quiroz Saavedra et al. is a conceptual piece illustrated with a case study about the co-production of program theory in a participatory stakeholder process. The next three articles by Bourgeois et al., Richard et al., and Soura et al. address public health evaluation in a more empirical and practical fashion. Bourgeois et al. focus on measuring evaluation capacity in Ontario's public health units adds considerable empirical backing to previous work in this area. Richard et al. follow on the same general theme, exploring organizational knowledge creation in three local public health organizations in Quebec. Last in this group of articles is Soura et al.'s evaluability assessment of an intervention to prevent the initiation of substance use during the transition from primary to secondary school.
Two of three practice notes address the evaluation of alcohol strategies. Paradis offers a critical assessment of the challenges and achievements of the monitoring and evaluation framework for Canada's National Alcohol Strategy. Closely related, Poth et al. address challenges experienced and addressed in a systems-level evaluation of Alberta's Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Strategic Plan. Closing the issue is a practice note by Dionne and Fleuret that surfaces flaws in the theoretical foundations of secondary data analysis and recommends improvements.
In keeping with CJPE's mission and practice, articles in this issue range from quite theoretical to very practical. I am especially excited to see authors addressing complexity and strategy evaluation.
Robert Schwartz
Editor-in-chief