How should an evaluation plan be organized: Questions

The Questions section of the evaluation plan should flow naturally from the Decisions section. For each decision that the evaluation should inform, there will be one or more (usually several) questions that the evaluation must address. The answers to these questions provide the essential information the decision makers need to make their decisions in a timely manner. Questions will rarely be posed in a form that can be answered with a simple Yes or No response. The issues involved in digital libraries are usually too complex for simple questions. Instead of asking a question such as “Is there a real audience for this digital library?”, an evaluation question might be posed in this way, “What evidence can be provided that describes the nature and size of the likely audience for a digital library focused on engineering education?” Here is a brief example of a Questions section:

The Questions section of an evaluation plan should answer the following questions:

• What questions must be addressed to answer all of the decisions that the evaluation is intended to inform?
• How do the various evaluation questions align with the anticipated decisions?
• What priorities, if any, can be established for addressing the various questions?