SCEA Webpost Contribution Guidelines

The Southern California Evaluation Association (SCEA) is dedicated to advancing the field of evaluation by supporting and sharing topics of interest with evaluation practitioners and scholars within the Southern California region. SCEA is committed to disseminating content that provides perspective about the ever-evolving evaluation landscape and that will inform evaluation practice. We are a multi-disciplinary and forward-thinking organization that aims to address the ongoing interests and needs of those involved in evaluation in the Southern California area.

We are interested in timely and engaging topics that are informed by and provides open access to evaluative scholarship. If you have experience in the evaluation field–as a seasoned or novice evaluator–we invite you to share a topic of interest. Please consider submitting a draft post for our website. The post will also be disseminated via the SCEA Twitter and LinkedIn Group!

Your post should include:

• A title that is both descriptive and informative
• A brief introduction of yourself (1-3 sentences). Don’t forget your professional affiliation!
• Purpose of the post (e.g., “I want to share…”, “I’d like you to know more about…”)
• Study summary: include the purpose, methods, main arguments, and scope of your topic of interest. The summary should convey the results and conclusions of your topic. You are encouraged to include any relevant images (provided you have use permission) that you feel would enhance the reader’s comprehension of your topic.
• Lessons learned (e.g., what is the significance or implications of your study, what did you learn, what could you have done differently)
• Optional: 1-2 links to resources so that readers can learn more about the topic (e.g., website links, journal articles).
• Draft submissions should be limited to 300-500 words and written in first-person prose.

Need some ideas? Here are some topics our members stated they would like to hear more about:

• Strategies for communicating evaluation findings (e.g., data visualizations)
• Demonstrations of evaluator tools (e.g., Omigraffle, Dedoose)
• Issues unique to independent consulting
• Project management techniques
• Strategies for local community engagement
• Sector-specific issues and strategies (e.g., health, environmental, education)
• Quantitative methods & tools (e.g., social network analysis, R)

For an example of a contribution, please see this post by SCEA member Dr. Katy Nilsen.

Please submit materials to scea.comm@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!