The only way to understand and capture the impact of cultural activities, projects, and programmes is through evaluation. That makes evaluation skills vital for arts, culture, and heritage professionals.

On this two-week course from the Centre for Cultural Value at the University of Leeds, you’ll examine the vital role of evaluation in the culture sector. Building on insights from interviews with researchers and industry leaders, you’ll learn how to design, implement, and communicate an evaluation plan.

Understand the role of evaluation in the cultural sector

You’ll start the course by reviewing the definitions and principles of evaluation. You’ll ask why evaluation matters in the context of culture, and discuss your own experience and views on the issue.

You’ll also gain an introduction to some commonly used evaluation frameworks, considering how these might be applied in your own setting and work.

Learn how to put an evaluation plan into practice

Once you’ve understood the key principles and challenges of evaluating cultural activity, you’ll start learning how to put plans into practice. You’ll look at a range of examples and case studies showing evaluation in action in the cultural sector.

You’ll discover a variety of methods, models, frameworks and processes that work together to produce robust, beneficial, and credible evaluation.

By the end of the course, you’ll have developed your own detailed evaluation plan that you can take home and implement in your own project or organisation.