[OSGeo-Discuss] Evaluations

[Cameron Shorter]

Comments noted.
As I'm helping put in a bid for FOSS09 in Sydney, I'm keen to see the 
results of your evaluation analysis, but am daunted by the prospect of 
reading 700 scanned forms. Tabulated results + list of comments would 
certainly be of interest.
When do you expect to have this information? I'm hoping we can see it 
before our draft version of our bid is finished in around a month.

Dave Patton wrote:
> Cameron Shorter wrote:
>> With a globally distributed, tech savvy community such as ours, I 
>> think that we should avoid using paper for all but the essential 
>> legal documents.
>>
>> Paper can't be machine processed, eg: searched, and requires valuable 
>> man hours to read and processed.
>>
>> For evaluation forms, I suggest we use a web based system in future.
>
> For FOSS4G2007, the evaluation forms for the Conference
> were done on paper, and the tabulation of those was
> part of the services that the meeting management company,
> Sea To Sky, provides to their clients.
>
> For FOSS4G2007, the evaluation forms for the Workshops
> and Labs were done on paper. Using a web-based system
> was discussed, but was rejected in part because of
> concern that it wasn't practical when two people were
> sharing the same computer. The paper evaluation forms
> are going to be scanned to PDF documents(1 per Workshop
> or Lab), so they will be able to be searched and read.
> The tabulation of the numeric results will be done by
> hand, by members of the Workshop Committee, and made
> available in a PDF document.
>
> I don't have any hard evidence, but I think there will
> be a higher proportion of evaluations filled out when
> they are on paper, right in front of the attendees, with
> prompts from the Instructors to fill them in, than using
> a web-based system. Some people at FOSS4G2007(although
> not many) did complete the paper evaluation form and hand
> it in later at the registration desk. Scanning the paper
> forms to PDF allows for a distributed process of tabulation,
> and could possibly be done via Amazon Mechanical Turk:
> http://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome
>
> For future conferences, direct involvement of, and payment to,
> a local group for the management and tabulation of paper
> evaluation forms could provide a tangible local benefit.
>


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254