Basics of Evaluation for Practitioners

On February 11th, 2015 from 2:00 to 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time, the Smart Policing Initiative (SPI) presented a webinar titled “Basics of Evaluation for Practitioners.” This webinar was presented by Dr. Natalie Kroovand Hipple, SPI Subject Matter Expert and assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice at Indiana University. This webinar described the key components of SPI in the context of research and evaluation. Dr. Hipple described different types of evaluation and data collection, and how evaluation fits into the problem-solving process (i.e., the SARA model).  She addressed how to assess the evaluability of an intervention, including key questions to consider and possible obstacles to conducting an evaluation. She also discussed examples of SPI evaluations which occurred in the Philadelphia, PA; Los Angeles, CA; and Reno, NV SPI sites. Guest speakers from SPI sites accompanied Dr. Hipple to speak about their first-hand experiences in evaluation.