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tackling technology together Andria Birch, DAIN Manager
tackling technology together
Andria Birch, DAIN Manager
What is DAIN?
An ESF ITM project
Innovation Transnational & Mainstreaming project
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Project Aim:
To develop, test and deliver approaches to challenge the digital divide and help widen participation in employment and learning across the East Midlands (England).
DAIN encourages people to use technology with the help of volunteers (Digital Activists).
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What is innovative about DAIN?
We rearrange existing pieces to fit new situations ... and create new pieces where needed, with a focus on
both process and product.
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What have we been doing?
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http://europa.eu/volunteering/en/relay/26
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdgyy0K5es
Update on results so far
85 Digital Activists (volunteers) completed training
400+ DA ‘tackling technology together’ outreach and drop in sessions held so far
1000+ community members engaged
300+ Community ICT courses (usually 20 hours long) 3800 enrolments and 1500+ learners
3 transnational study trips (research focused)
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Method:
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.
SROI
Developed as part of our
evaluation strategy with a
particular focus on the SROI
relating to the transnational
dimension of DAIN
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/
news/news_stories/090512_sroi.aspx
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Critical friend:
John [email protected]
John Bell brings many years of experience with the European Social Fund to his work with ESF-Works, Tribal, and Curved Thinking. As a researcher, an evaluator, and as director of the support units for the Employment, Adapt and Equal programmes. John has been the critical lead in developing and guiding the SROI evaluation of DAIN’s transnational work and has been doing an excellent job of guiding us through the process.
Why we are doing this?
SROI is of growing importance as a means to evidence impact and in particular influence policy makers looking for solutions and actions to support
Collaborative development and exchange between different partners of pilot and experimental work is an established process, but lacks ‘hard’ evidence of impact
In the context of ESF and EU funding, transnational exchange has been common in the past, but more under pressure now – there is keen interest from the funders in evidencing its specific contribution with a view to informing its future role
The transnational work of DAIN offers a well defined intervention which can be used to test SROI ideas in relation to collaborative, international exchange and how it might impact on practice
What we are looking at
We want to understand the impact that using a well prepared, intensive study trip method, using digital methods to record, reflect and disseminate findings, has on the project and participants
And to test the value of using a SROI methodology
The exercise focuses on a study visit to Belgium in November 2011
The hypothesis is that by delivering such an exercise there will be an identifiable impact on the ability of the project to achieve its goals
That this impact will be over and above what would otherwise have occurred
And that it will be possible to ascribe a value to the net benefit accrued, enabling us to assess the return achieved for the investment made
Our process and key elements
We are using a standard SROI process, involving:
Identification of and engagement with stakeholders to establish the nature of their involvement and to identify the inputs, outputs and potential outcomes of the exercise
Identifying other factors to be included in analysis, for example alternative explanations of observed changes in outputs and outcomes
As in all SROI exercises, the key issue is ascribing values to the different elements. Inputs will be relatively straightforward, outputs and outcomes less so
Next steps1. The next steps will involve tracking further development in the project
derived from the transnational work
1. These will be tracked over time with a view to being specifically clear as to what has been done, the consequences, and assessment of the extent to which this intervention can be identified as causal
1. The final stage will be to work with stakeholders to ascribe values to observed changes
We recognise that this is very much a pilot exercise, seeking to apply a technique with embedded rigour to an intervention which is intended to lead to largely qualitative changes and indirect impacts
We therefore expect the results to be used to stimulate debate and further questions, and provide source material for more robust future work to assess the value of transnational work, and to provide evidence in support of future project planning and investment
We aim to listen and learnWe would be particularly interested to hear from colleagues as to their experiences of assessing social return on investment in the context of:
Transnational exchanges, good practice identification, transfers of skills and experience
Interventions aimed at enhancing professional and volunteer practice, particularly where these derive from externally sourced experiences
Interventions with indirect impacts on organisational capacity and reputation, particularly measures which have proved useful in assessing how organisations and partnerships absorb and exploit new learning and ideas
