Monitoring and evaluation play an important role in the management of NOAA education programs. Without good data to answer key questions, it would be hard to improve our programs and communicate the value of our work. While program staff are not expected to be professional evaluators, we are sharing the following pages as a resource for educators as they implement monitoring and evaluation of their programs. We are also sharing monitoring and evaluation resources developed and maintained by individual programs. 

Monitoring 

Monitoring involves regularly collecting and analyzing data about programs. Having a robust monitoring process in place helps program managers understand their daily operations. Our monitoring efforts help ensure a high standard of data quality and that the data is communicated to stakeholders regularly. 

Visit our monitoring resources to learn more!

Evaluation

Many people think of evaluation as collecting data and writing reports to explain the value of a program. But when done effectively, evaluation examines how programs are designed and challenges assumptions using evidence that can inform programmatic decisions. Our evaluation efforts identify key questions about our programs and attempt to answer them with available resources.

Visit our evaluation resources to learn more!

Office of Education evaluation staff

John Baek, Senior Education Evaluator
Ashley Turnbull, Higher Education Program Evaluator
Tim Zimmerman, B-WET Program Evaluator