Introduction

While DIAL has been supporting and developing principles-informed evaluation resources and activities, a well organized, parallel, and independent effort led by evaluation thought-leader Michael Quinn Patton has been developing a model of evaluation practice that seeks to evaluate principles and principles-based social change initiatives: principles-focused evaluation (P-FE). This evaluation guide is intended to bridge these efforts and serve as a guide for principles-driven practitioners, specifically those who are within or working alongside Digital Principles endorsing organizations, to apply P-FE to the Digital Principles. As such, much of the material herein is a customized distillation of Patton’s 2018 book Principles-Focused Evaluation: The Guide coupled with other evaluation conceptual frameworks applied to evaluating the Principles for Digital Development.

Digital Principles-Focused Evaluation

Digital Principles-focused evaluation is a specific application of P-FE to the Principles of Digital Development. It means that the Digital Principles are the object of the evaluation and insights about the meaningfulness, adherence, and results of these principles can guide endorser organizations as they implement Digital Principles based initiatives in service of their respective digital development strategies. P-FE evaluates effectiveness principles. Therefore, it can be used to evaluate the Digital Principles, since they are effectiveness principles for digital development.

This primer has sought to sensitize principles-driven practitioners and organizations, especially endorsers of the Principles for Digital Development, to the premises, processes, and operational principles of the emerging model of evaluation supported by DIAL for evaluating the Digital Principles and initiatives seeking to apply them for meaningful digital development results.