All that research for NOTHING?

A very accessible video by 3ie starts with evidence from a recent study by the World Bank. It has found that a third of the research reports published by the World Bank on its website have never been downloaded by anyone and 87% never referred to in any subsequent research. This is extremely wasteful. Remember, our tax money pays for such research.

So the big problem is maybe not that too few research reports and evaluations are published - the big problem is that people don't use them, because they don't look for such evidence, or they find the reports too hard to understand. The latter can be dealt with by writing in a more accessible style. Finding time to think and explore may be more complicated.

3ie comment on video tutorials

3ie, the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, has sent a comment explaining why you need to register if you wish to take the useful tests that come with their video tutorials on impact evaluation. For some technical reason their comment cannot be displayed under my original post (below), so I am taking the liberty to post it right here:

Video tutorials on impact evaluation

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation (3ie) have published a set of six video lectures on impact evaluation. They are available here. The lectures are presented by different specialists; the slides accompanying the lectures can be downloaded from the same website.