[Workshops] FOSS4G2008 workshop and lab evaluations

[burnie nawn]

Jeff

 

If you can do the webform thing it would be fantastic. One can build in all sorts of statistical analysis in the background that can then  be automatically served to the conference goers i.e. number of people attending a session, their ratings, etc.

 

The best part would be that all evaluation results will be available almost immediately.

 

This would save heaps of time. It took 6 of my data capturers a week to get everything in Excell. The collation took 12 hours to do. 

 

The sad part is that this is only a drop in the bucket of the actual amount of people who attended.


Kind regards,
Burnie Nawn  
Tel. No. (011) 773 1682
Cell No. 072 134 5352
Fax No. 086 613 2741
E-mail: jbnawn at hotmail.com


 



 
> Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 08:13:22 -0500
> From: jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com
> To: conference-workshops at lists.osgeo.org; foss4g2009 at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Workshops] FOSS4G2008 workshop and lab evaluations
> CC: 
> 
> (forwarding to the main 2009 list also)
> 
> Thanks Burnie, after the great work yourself and Graeme did last year 
> for the workshops your input on 2009 is much appreciated.
> 
> I agree that the location of the workshops in relation to the main 
> sessions is very important (we first hit this issue in 2004, and it 
> comes back once in a while). Not only does it affect the attendees 
> (difficult to find the workshop), but as you mentioned, it stretches the 
> resources of the workshop committee.
> 
> I'm also glad that you mentioned the workshop evaluations. Actually, I 
> remember Graeme and I talking last year after the event and we both 
> FIRMLY agreed that the only way to do workshop/tutorial questionnaires 
> at future events would be to do it through a web form. Why not? Every 
> attendee will be sitting at a computer, so why not point them to a 
> website for them to go through some questions. Big benefit: no more 
> converting/compiling from paper responses to digital! (TylerM is a big 
> fan of these online forms)
> 
> What do we think for 2009? After 6 years in a row of paper workshop 
> evaluations, I don't see ANY OTHER WAY to handle evaluations.
> 
> -jeff
> 
> 
> 
> burnie nawn wrote:
> > Morning All
> > 
> > I think it is time to put more information to the table supplied. This 
> > would then also serve to inform the new LOC on what can improve.
> > 
> > As you are well aware we actually ran workshops on 5 different locations 
> > at one time. One of the venues was more then 5km's away. Logistically 
> > this was a challenge and we were ensured that the new LOC will take this 
> > in consideration.
> > 
> > We further ran a record number of workshops and labs. The human 
> > resources available to do this was stretched beyond the limit in both 
> > setting up and preparing but also in running it and ensuring all goes 
> > well. Volunteers did help greatly in distributing the printed materials, 
> > including the evaluation questionaire.
> > 
> > We have however found that at certain venues participants did not return 
> > their questionaires as requested or did not fill them in. In certain 
> > case one or two pages might have gotten entangled in another pile when 
> > volunteers collected forms. As you would have seen under our planning 
> > for FOSS4G2008 we used a generic template. The problem was that 
> > participants did not fill in the workshop they attended and sometimes 
> > only wrote Tuesday Lab on it. My guess is there are two ways to improve 
> > this:
> > 1. Print the questionaire with the workshop/lab title, which means you 
> > need to know precisely how many is attending or do a maximum bulk print, 
> > which is too costly.
> > 2. Have a house keeping slide in every venue to remind participants to 
> > write the workshop title on teh form as well and have that re-inforced 
> > by presenters at the end of each workshop/lab.
> > 
> > So to get back to the comments thus far. Thank your for helping us out 
> > and finding the one or two that was mis-filed. I will change the 
> > settings this morning so you can at least see all the fields. I will 
> > chat to Gavin and see how we can optimise participation and insight into 
> > the feedback.
> > 
> > Looking forward to enhance everybody's experience at FOSS4G.
> > 
> > Kind regards,
> > Burnie Nawn 
> > Tel. No. (011) 773 1682
> > Cell No. 072 134 5352
> > Fax No. 086 613 2741
> > E-mail: jbnawn at hotmail.com <mailto:jbnawn at hotmail.com>
> > 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Jeff McKenna
> FOSS4G Consulting and Training Services
> http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/
> 
> 
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