Clik here to view.
3 Steps to Be a Data Minimalist: Collecting Less While Learning More
The “Data Minimalism – How to Collect Less and Learn More” session at the MERLtech conference taught us how to collect less data. More importantly, it taught us how to ask fewer questions to get the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dashboards: A Force for Good, Great, or Greater Confusion?
In this era of big data and real-time data sharing, projects and organizations are increasingly trying to organize their analytics with dashboards that share key insights at a glance. At the 2015 MERL...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What’s Your ICT4D Cyber Threat Model?
Threat models can make ICT4D more secure and safe to use. In computer science, “threat modeling” is the approach of playing through attacks and hacks ahead of time. Being alert to digital risks can...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Learn How to Use Excel for Data Visualization in Just 2 Hours
We have all worked with Microsoft Excel, but few of us really know its power to meet a wide range of data analysis and visualization needs. Used correctly, we can beautifully visualize M&E results...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sensors for MERL: What Works? What Does Not? What Have We Learned?
Sensors promise rapid insights into development programs. Exciting and quickly evolving technologies are expanding the range of what can be measured, while the precision, accuracy and frequency of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Can We Integrate M&E Across Sectors?
I was very excited to attend the MERL Tech Conference. I’m from Egypt and currently work at UNICEF, and one of our biggest challenges with development programs is M&E. The lack of M&E...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can Monitoring Drive a MERL-Led Future?
Angus Deaton, the economist and noted aid critic, was recently awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. In a speech following the award, AFP News reported that Deaton expressed “great sadness regarding...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Do ICTs Make Evaluation More Inclusive Or More Extractive?
ICTs can help make evaluation more inclusive, yet they also bring new challenges and new kinds of inequities and exclusion that we need to be aware of and solve for. Evaluations that address equity...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Trials, Tribulations, and Triumphs of Choosing an M&E Platform
At the recent MERL Tech conference, Tania Lee (Caktus Group), Tom Walker (Engine Room), Laura Walker McDonald (SIMLab), and Lynnae Day (Oxfam America) led a session called, “The Trials, Tribulations,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
5 Insights from MERL Tech
Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in the 2015 MERL Tech conference that brought together over 260 people from 157 different organizations. I joined the conference as a “visual...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Please RSVP Now for MERL Tech 2016 and Submit Your Session Ideas
The use of technology for monitoring, evaluation research and learning (MERL) has become increasingly sophisticated and more openly accepted in the international development and humanitarian space. We...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Please Register Now for MERL Tech 2016
Please register now for MERL Tech 2016, the premier conference on the use of technology for monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning. Over 300 of your peers will experience 18 breakouts, 12...
View ArticleClik here to view.
9 Tricks for Hacking Google Sheets for Better M&E
Google Sheets can be a powerful tool for real-time monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning. But how can you optimize your setup to work with data that is streaming in from survey forms or other...
View ArticleClik here to view.
We Need to Ask the Difficult Questions About Collaboration and Collective Impact
No single organization can solve the challenges that the international development sector addresses. Collectively, we can achieve a lot more. Collaboration is a hot topic at conferences like MERL...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Mine All Your Existing M&E Data Without Breaking the Bank
A common challenge faced by organizations in a world where information systems are changing rapidly is a large amount of data that is not easily accessible. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lessons From a MERL Tech Confessional: It’s All About Assumptions
It’s been said that good science is the art of getting less wrong over time. Maybe the same principle applies to the use of technology for monitoring, evaluation, research, and learning? That’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rethinking Informed Consent in Digital Development
Most INGOs have not updated their consent forms and policies for many years, yet the growing use of technology in our work, for many different purposes, raises many questions and insecurities that are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Can We Better Manage Informal Feedback?
Institutional deficits persistently obstruct our ability to ‘close the feedback loop.’ The most valuable community feedback is often given informally or face to face and is largely left undocumented....
View ArticleClik here to view.
How to Develop and Implement Responsible Data Policies
A friend reminded me at the MERL Tech Conference that a few years ago when we brought up the need for greater attention to privacy, security and ethics when using ICTs and digital data in humanitarian...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Using Indirect Data for Direct MERL Impact
The above example shows how secondary data across 100 hypothetical villages can be integrated so that signals appear within the noise of data, highlighting the least resilient — and most vulnerable —...
View Article
