There is a need for stakeholders and funders to perceive their dollars are being utilized cost effectively, while reaching objectives presented. Program evaluation is needed to demonstrate to stakeholders the impact achieved by the intervention, or program.

Program evaluation is a very time consuming effort, which requires the need to develop skills and seek guidance by those with expertise and experience in the field. As educators, time constraints, commitments, the excitement of providing positive educational opportunities to participants and administrative functions contribute to the challenge of conducting meaningful program measurement to demonstrate impact.

Participation records for a number of individuals or merely showing frequency of activities are no longer accepted as viable evaluation. Skills are needed to: correctly develop the data collection instrument, administer the instrument to participants, analyze the collected data, develop reports of the analyzed data and then present the results of the evaluation to the necessary stakeholders. This process is very time consuming and can negatively affect the delivery of the program.

This site for educating individuals on the basics of program evaluation & measurement was researched and designed to meet the needs of educators and programmers alike. A data base demonstrating data collection instruments, several analysis reports, interesting links and program evaluation/measurement information was organized to contribute to making program measurement a more convenient activity.

The World Wide Web was chosen as the vehicle to deliver this resource to educators due to the ease of accessibility.  The World Wide Web provides not only easy access but the ability to "save as" or download various data collection instruments, in the ASCII format, enabling educators to customize the instrument by opening the file in their current word processing program. Names of activities, dates, locations and the ability to add or delete specific statements provide a time saving resource for program evaluation/measurement.