A self-defined professional development approach for current and aspiring educational developers

Professional development offerings for current and aspiring educational developers can be sparse and neither fully contextually appropriate nor personally relevant given the range of experiences people bring to the field. In the absence of suitable professionalization programs, we created a self-defined professional development approach to support us in our educational developer work. Using a framework for reflective writing, we describe our approach and the strategies we implemented, and we consider at a “meta” level what contributes to the viability or success of our self-defined professional development plan. Measures for assessing success were framed using utilization-focused evaluation. We outline implications for future practice and propose that a self-defined approach to professional development could be adopted and adapted by other current and aspiring educational developers.

Evaluating complex transformation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed case study of the evaluation strategies of a complex, multi-faceted response to a public health emergency: drug-related overdose deaths. It sets out the challenges of evaluating such a complex response and how they were overcome. It provides a pragmatic example of the rationale and issues faced to address the what, the why and particularly the how of the evaluation. Design/methodology/approach The case study overviews British Columbia’s Provincial Response to the Overdose Public Health Emergency, and the aims and scope of its evaluation. It then outlines the conceptual approach taken to the evaluation, setting out key methodological challenges in evaluating large-scale, multi-level, multisectoral change. Findings The evaluation is developmental and summative, utilization focused and system informed. Defining the scope of the evaluation required a strong level of engagement with government leads, grantees and other evaluation stakeholders. Mixed method evaluation will be used to capture the complex pattern of relationships that have informed the overdose response. Working alongside people with drug use experience to both plan and inform the evaluation is critical to its success. Originality/value This case study builds on a growing literature on evaluating large-scale and complex service transformation, providing a practical example of this.