How should an evaluation plan be organized: Budget

The Budget section of the plan describes the finances for the evaluation. Evaluation is usually a people-intensive process, and therefore, most of the money spent on evaluation usually will be for dedicated evaluation personnel and/or external consultant costs. If specialized equipment and facilities such as a software usability laboratory are used, additional costs will be incurred. For example, one round of usability testing in a professional usability testing lab can easily cost $3,000 - $8,000 or more. Budgeting for evaluation is challenging because most people are reluctant to spend money for evaluation in the first place. When things get tight during a digital library development project, people often look at cutting the evaluation budget first.

Unfortunately, many digital library initiatives have not included sufficient funding for evaluation. What should an evaluation cost? One rule of thumb is to budget 5-10 % of an overall digital library development budget to evaluation. Evaluation consultants often cost $800 to $2,000 per day depending upon their expertise and experience. It is sometimes feasible to hire graduate students from nearby universities to carry out many of the data collection duties that might otherwise be done by a higher paid consultant. Here is a very simple example of a Budget section:

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

• What items are included in the budget?
• What are unit costs per item?
• What are the total costs?