How do we know the Telecentre real impact? Are TC working well?

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Permalink Reply by Partha Sarker on March 24, 2009 at 10:19am

Thanks Laia for this interesting topic.

I think one indicator could be to see 'third party validation' to telecentre activities. What community is saying with regard to a telecentre? Are they satisfied? If not, why? Do they visit the centre? How many times and why? What is their expectation of services? Posing these sorts of questions probably would give a better indication to the performance of a telecentre.

Actually this should root back to the installation of a telecentre. I know there are telecentres/related organization that do a 'baseline study' to map the needs in a community before they introduce a telecentre. That baseline study can be a reference point to see how far they've progressed in order to provide the services and what needs to be done more. It also true that needs and demands continue to change and the telecentre always has to invent-reinvent its services to be at the supply side of the community economy. So my point is, evaluation is an iterative process and telecentre needs to recognize that for its own sustainability. This adaptability can be another indicator to its performance and evaluation.

My 2 cents. Best wishes,

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Permalink Reply by Laia Fauró Gual on March 24, 2009 at 11:56am

Thanks Partha for your answer!

I completely agree with you. I guess first step would be the baseline study, which in our case, in Red Conecta (Esplai), all the entities that want to open a TC and join the network have to notify and check different issues like:
- Type of entity
- Accessibility (access for everyone)
- Facilities (computers, room, internet connection…)
- Entity activities directed to risk of exclusion target groups
- Community engagement (open to other entities, services…)
- Priorities / Key actions related to training, accessibility, community action…
- Communicational & sustainability plan, contacts with other community actors…

There is an “application form” that must be completed and evaluated before setting the TC.
I guess the most difficult part is when the “adapting” process to give response to changes or community priorities. Having a baseline may help but a constant dialog within the community is the only way…

There is an organisation that uses a system to monitor the TC daily activity. Check their site ...

Keep thinking about it ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Dean Mulozi on March 24, 2009 at 7:31pm

Hi Laila,
Your discussion you have introduced in quite relevant to the running of telecenters. There is a need to incoporate moniroing and evaluation systems in telcenters. After all every business need a M&E systems to chart the course of its direction and input correction measures.
However in telecenters, what are the key areas of M&E?

In my opinion, I have the following areas that I think need to put on the M&E sheet:
- Community telecenter patronage in terms of figures
- Usage of services
- telecenter Income levels
- ability to offset emerging expenes
- number of activities offered by a telecenter
- Collaboration with local and external partners in terms of service delivery,

I think these and other factors could be used in different telecenter environments

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Permalink Reply by Niranjan Meegammana on March 29, 2009 at 8:01pm

Hi All

My work mostly goes with M & E with integrated capacity building, training, tech support and content and services. I have to evaluate Telecenters everyday. I agree with you on type of attributes to monitor.
But the list can't be universal . I think the attributes we monitor should be based on local conditions and the purpose of evaluation.

A Telecenter serves 200 children and making $200 and another serving 50 Children and $30.
What if A has one staff member and other has 2 volunteers
What if A situated in a Town and B in an isolated village on a mountain.
what do you expect from your evaluation ?

Which one will sustain ? Which one will do better ? I have to answer questions like this everyday.

So we are using an Evalution model called E3 for monitoring sustainability of a TC network of 60 Telecenters
We monitor about 30 attributes (not common to all) and derive a ranking of 1-10 for TC capacity which describe TCs sustainability. The 30 charateristics is a long list that falls into 4 key areas

Network participaton (Workshops, assisting other TCs)
Availability of resources (internet, harware
Technology and Management Skills (Technology, Mangement, Leadership)
Served Quanity (people, volume, Revenue ...)

Some characteristics are qualiative and some quantity, final model has numerical views to help build

In this model we evaluate social purpose and finacial position to derive a Rank(Sustainability Index) for each Telecenter, Zone, District and Province by averaging data. We track SI, it's STDV like statistical factors to see the change. We are focused on individual TCs as well as the Network (include sub networks), when time added the model has 3 axis. TC, attibites and time.

Regards
Niranjan Meegammana
http://www.shilpasayura.org

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Permalink Reply by Laia Fauró Gual on March 30, 2009 at 11:30am

Thanks Dean and Niranjan for your contributions.

I support the idea of not having a universal evaluation system, I mean, has no sense because it should be adapted to the reality... As Niranjan said, "the attributes we monitor should be based on local conditions and the purpose of evaluation." It is difficult to generalize.

Anyway, it would be really nice to get more information about how to proceed with the TC evaluation. How did you create the systems you are using? Sources? Periodicity?

Thank you very much. Indeed, with your contributions the network gets more interesting every day.

Keep in touch.
Best,

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Permalink Reply by Shahid Uddin Akbar on April 10, 2009 at 7:57am

Hello,

Million dollar question ... and I am sure we are still struggling to see the real impacts in field. Though all of us have their own M&E mechanism, but reality may not be the same.

Recently, in Bangladesh, we initiated a Diagnostic study to understand the Impact as well as underlying causes of not getting expected results from telecentre activities. Hopefully this will give us a good direction.

Nice to see that a panel will discuss on these issues in the upcoming ICTD conference, I will be there and hopefully will learn more from others.

Best,
Shahid
Bangladesh

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