Course+proceedings


 * Course proceedings**

//**Pre-activities**//

Course design Concept Content Organization of content Webcasts and written instructions on using the platform Flow and methodology of course: intro week, followed by 3 official weeks structured as follows:

This workshop is divided into five sections:
 * Pre-course activities (25-30 Oct. 2011)
 * Week 1: The theory of change and indicators (31 Oct.-6 Nov. 2011)
 * Week 2: The counterfactual (7-13 Nov. 2011)
 * Week 3: A final impact assessment plan (14-20 Nov. 2011)
 * Course wrap-up and evaluation (21-27 Nov. 2011)

The sections will appear on the website on the days they start. Once the sections appear, they can be found by scrolling down from the main page, or by clicking on the section icons titles in main page - these icons will only be active when the sessions are available.

A key outcome of this course is to teach you to put together an Impact Assessment Plan. An Impact Assessment Plan is a document that provides the overall strategy for assessing impact for a given programme as well as the manner in which that strategy will be implemented. Ideally, the Impact Assessment Plan is included as an annex to the programme documents and provides a sufficient level of detail so that the programme execution unit has enough information to implement the plan.

The course will lead you through the process of designing an Impact Assessment Plan, step by step. Each student will focus on an assigned case study (adapted from FAO programme documents shared by your fellow participants) for the entirety of the course. The Impact Assessment Plan includes several components and these will be built week-by-week during the course for your particular case study. The material provided each week will help you in completing this task. The “case study discussion forums” will provide an opportunity to raise questions related to this task.

At the same time, the “general discussion forum” will provide you an opportunity to relate the concepts introduced to your own work, to learn from the experience of your peers, and to ask any questions that may arise regarding the course content.

Aside from the pre and post-course activities, each of the 3 weeks of the official workshop were structured as followed:

**Completion of relevant FAO self-guided e-learning module ** as background


 * Completion of new tutored model on integrating impact assessment into program design, including responding to discussion questions **. This material will include interactive quizzes to assess your understanding of the material, and discussion questions which will give you an opportunity to apply the concepts to your own work and learn from the comparative experiences of your peers. To reply to the discussion questions, visit the relevant thread in the “general discussion forum” (link on the top left-hand corner of the course homepage). Responding to each of the discussion questions is a required component of the course. Please also have a look at the responses of your classmates, and feel free to react to them in your own posting(s). Please also pay attention to the periodic interventions of the tutor.


 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Case study analysis: group discussion. **<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Participants are invited to take part in the group discussion around their assigned case study. At least one posting per participant is required.


 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Case study analysis: Final assignment: **<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Participants must individually complete a final assignment at the end of each week of the course. The assignment is due by COB on Sunday of each week, and must be uploaded to the course website. The tutor will post general feedback on the assignments on the case study discussion forum, and will also share feedback individually with participants.

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//**Week 1**//

Tracking participation.

We received 28 completed assignments from the 40 participants.

In total, we have seen an average of nearly 4 discussion postings per participant (a total brought down a bit by 7 participants who have not yet participated). This is positive since we only incorporated 4 discussion questions (one in intro, 2 in content, 1 in case study forum) in the first week.

Amongst those actually participating, the average is 4.5 contributions, showing that participants are going even a bit beyond what is required of them in this intensive program. The tutor made timely interventions, responses, and summary message, and was guided in using the platform to provide feedback to students on discussions and assignments.

We checked in with those who have not participated to see if they have encountered any problems.