ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Alan,
As always, you are the voice of wisdom!
Beryl
On Nov 1, 2011, at 1:11 PM, Alan Friedman wrote:
> ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
> Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
> *****************************************************************************
>
> Hey, my responses are getting shorter!
>
> 1. Joe, front-end evaluation is all about finding out what the visitor
> wants, as well as what the visitor believes and knows. Formative
> evaluation can also find out what the visitor wants and needs, even if the
> visitor doesn't know until he/she sees what we are proposing (e.g., people
> didn't know they wanted a planetarium until they saw one for the first
> time). So yes, the visitor counts at least as much if not far more than
> the exhibit developer or curator does, when we find out using evaluation.
>
> 2. Adela, Beryl, Erich, Jeff, Paul, and everyone who is concerned that
> some funders' preferences for proposals with evaluation put small
> institutions at a great disadvantage, I note that some smaller
> institutions win a large number of highly competitive grants and awards,
> from NSF, IMLS, private foundations, and others who require evaluation.
> I'm thinking Sciencenter in Ithaca NY, Montshire Museum of Science in
> Norwich Vermont, Explora in Albuquerque NM, Chabot Science Center in
> Oakland CA, Manhattan Children's Museum in New York City. I serve on a
> foundation board that regularly makes grants to organizations with just
> two or three paid staff, and we require (and pay for) evaluation every
> time. I'm sure this listserv could come up with many more examples here
> and abroad.
>
> Perhaps a good ASTC session could be on how at least some smaller
> institutions manage to do evaluation and compete successfully with much
> larger places.
>
> Beryl, I've sat on NSF panels where people said "this proposal is such a
> small part of that giant institution's work that they will not give it any
> attention," and penalized the giant proposal because of that. So both
> small and big institutions can experience bias. I've also seen positive
> votes on small institution proposals just because they were small
> institutions, and the project would be so important to them that they
> couldn't let it fail. Hmmm, too small to fail. I like that better than
> the banks' claim that they are too big to fail.
>
> Alan
> ________________________________________
> Alan J. Friedman, Ph.D.
> Consultant for Museum Development and Science Communication
> 29 West 10th Street
> New York, New York 10011 USA
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>
>
>>
>
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Beryl Rosenthal, PhD
Executive Director, Waterworks Museum
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www.waterworksmuseum.org
2450 Beacon St., Boston, MA 02467
617.277.0065
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For information about the Association of Science-Technology Centers and the Informal Science Education Network please visit www.astc.org.
Check out the latest case studies and reviews on ExhibitFiles at www.exhibitfiles.org.
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