Strategic Plan Endpoint Evaluation Report
As many of you already know, June 30, 2012, marked the close of our 2007-2012 Strategic Plan, and in order to gauge the efficacy of our efforts, a third and final telephone opinion poll was conducted. The final component of this evaluation process, the 2007-2012 Strategic Plan Endpoint Evaluation Report, is now available to view, along with a short video guide to aid in its interpretation.
As you flip through the pages of this detailed report, please take a moment to reflect upon the many contributions that you and your colleagues have made toward achieving these favorable results, and consider potential ways in which we might achieve even more favorable results as we look back three years from now.
As always, those who seek additional information regarding this study are encouraged to contact the Library Analyst at (405) 606-3821 or [email protected] with any questions or comments that they may have.
I look forward to hearing from you!
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The 2007-2012 Strategic Plan Endpoint Evaluation Report has been specifically designed to compare measurements of prevailing awareness and perception of the services we provide to the residents of Oklahoma County. Essentially, this study is analogous to taking a measurement of each plant in a garden when it is small, taking those same measurements again after allowing some time for growth, and then comparing the differences.
After comparing each plant's before and after heights and determining their amount of growth, one may also wish to determine how the final height of a given plant compares to the other plants in the garden. This is the essence of the gamma association matrix in Appendix D.
Suppose a particular plant thrives and another thrives as well. This would be an example of positive association. Whereas, the same plant thriving and another wilting, would be an example of negative association. Each figure in the association matrix represents this relative similarity or difference between items. Basically, a positive number indicates a similarity between items, and a negative number indicates a difference, with each being a value between 1 and -1. (1 indicating perfect positive association and -1 indicating perfect negative association)
So, as we look down a particular item's column, we see each level of association between it and the item corresponding to the current row. This allows us to see how that item relates to every other item being studied. For example, suppose our research shows that a particular plant thrived, and that that plant was also strongly, positively associated with two other plants. This would indicate that for some reason, these three plants similarly thrived while others did not.
Now, if you took the time to perform all of these measurements and comparisons, and found differences in each plant's growth, you would probably want to know why some did better than others, right? Well, this is where a potential problem exists. The many exciting glimpses of future directions that this study exposes may tempt us to draw conclusions that have not yet been tested. In fact, a person could literally look forever at the measurements and comparisons used to evaluate our hypothetical garden's growth and never determine why some plants grew more than others. The reason for this is that answering the question why is fundamentally different, and requires different measurements all together.
The very same is true for the 2007-2012 Strategic Plan Endpoint Evaluation.