i-EVAL is tailored to suit the requirements of providers of national and international youth work activities and follows scientific standards. The project to re-program and relaunch the online platform was made possible thanks to close cooperation between nine partners: the Franco-German Youth Office, the German-Polish Youth Office, ConAct – the Coordination Center for German-Israeli Youth Exchange, the German-Greek Youth Office, transfer e.V., the Austausch macht Schule initiative, Judith Dubiski and Professor Wolfgang Ilg from the Camp Evaluation Research Cluster, and the European higher education research cluster for confirmation work (i-konf), all led by IJAB, the International Youth Service of the Federal Republic of Germany. This consortium is a unique partnership between researchers and practitioners, the outcome of which will be very helpful for a large number of stakeholders and youth work fields. Financial support came from a number of sources including the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth.
The launch event began with IJAB Chairman Rolf Witte acknowledging this collaboration which, he said, was instrumental in ensuring that the early debates around a dedicated evaluation tool for youth work back in the 1990s eventually culminated in the development of such a tool, namely i-EVAL, that would be consistently updated and adjusted to reflect the new circumstances. The current partners are largely motivated by a desire to increase the quality of international youth exchanges by means of systematic evaluation, while providing more robust proof of the relevance and impact of international activities and communicating it more effectively. This was clearly confirmed in the subsequent interview with Elisabeth Berger from FGYO, a founding member, and Christine Mähler, the head of ConAct, a new i-EVAL cooperation partner.
Following this, Judith Dubiski and Wolfgang Ilg from the Camp Evaluation Research Cluster gave an overview of new developments associated with i-EVAL.
Three tools – three platforms. It doesn’t get better than this!
Now the i-EVAL prototype has been relaunched, the tool offers three platforms with a fresh, modern layout and new user-friendly functions:
- i-EVAL, for youth exchanges (bi-, tri- and multilateral) and expert events: https://i-eval.eu/
- i-EVAL, for child and youth camps: https://i-eval-freizeiten.de/
- i-konf, for providing feedback on work with confirmation candidate groups: https://i-konf.eu/
In addition, two new features have been added to i-EVAL for youth exchanges:
To raise awareness of the existence of the i-EVAL platform among organisations, short explainer videos will be produced. Using i-EVAL for camps as an example, the audience at the launch event were shown an impression of what they will look like. And organisations that would like to receive regular updates on i-EVAL news can now sign up for the free i-EVAL newsletter at https://freizeitenevaluation.de/service/newsletter/.
In the workshop that followed, led by transfer e.V., participants had an opportunity to trial the brand-new platforms themselves. Using a report from the Kinderdorf Pestalozzi foundation in Trogen/Switzerland as an example, they learned hands-on how i-EVAL can be integrated into organisations’ own quality management systems.
IJAB would like to thank all contributors to the event and hopes the new tools will be taken up by many youth work organisations.
Contact persons:
IJAB: Kerstin Giebel (e-mail), www.ijab.de
FGYO: Elisabeth Berger and Sandrine Debrosse-Lucht, www.dfjw.org
GPYO: Maria Albers, www.pnwm.org
ConAct: Falko Kliewe, www.conact-org.de
GGYO: NN, agorayouth.com
Austausch macht Schule: Bernd Böttcher, www.austausch-macht-schule.org
