Purpose

Speakn is a tool which allows for the self-evaluation of development projects, and allows the collected data to be aggregated at programme or regional level.

Internally within projects, it gathers information from each worker which looks at:

• How much time they have spent on ?housekeeping? tasks and where that time has gone. These are the tasks that are needed to keep the project on the road and would include such things as internal meetings and record keeping.
• The Target Groups that the worker is working with. That is, who are you actually working with?
• The Development Issues that you are addressing. For example, are you trying to address issues around literacy? Are you more concerned, in your work, with housing?
• The Working Methods that you are employing. Are you using Community Based Arts? Are you using training and education as a means of addressing your Development Issues?

In this way, a picture is built up of activity within the project. This can be compared over time to identify trends within the project, and can also be used to compare and understand the work of individual workers.

The software also tracks:

• Project Outputs. What did the project actually do? For example, if it is providing education and training, how many people attended courses, what were the courses in and who were those people?
• Project Impacts. What did that actually mean, both for any individuals involved or as a measure toward meeting the objectives of the project.

As this data is collected on a monthly or quarterly basis, it builds up a comprehensive picture of project activity. The software can also be used to get feedback from working partners as to their opinion on project effectiveness.

This data, or sections of the data depending on privacy or confidentiality issues, can then be amalgamated at regional or Programme levels toward developing an understanding of programme-level activity.

Technical Issues.

The package is a stand-alone application written in Visual Basic. It will run on any PC which has Windows 95 or higher installed. It will also run on Apple Macs which have Windows emulation installed.

Availability.

Speak?N is context specific. That is, it can only properly be used as part of a wider process involving the identification of indicators and categories. This can only really be done with the assistance of an experienced evaluator. The software is then modified to reflect the agreed evaluation procedures. This will be a relatively straightforward process in many cases, where only standard data is to be collected.