- INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
This page is dedicated to the questions we may be too scared to ask.
I will start by asking how can we measure the social impact that we make?
The word evaluation gives me an ache in the pit of my stomach at the memories of clicking a counter for each person that walks into an exhibition, or standing with a clipboard to accost passing visitors. But I think that we all personally evaluate and believe that our work is making a difference , or we wouldn’t be here. For me it’s little things like a teenage girl coming straight back to a project after two days in hospital “because she was bored” or a woman from a community group saying with true excitement and pride “I’m a celebrity”, when seeing her artwork on display.
Maybe these things aren’t so little but I can’t capture them on an evaluation form so how can I demonstrate that ?
hello! wondering if you could put the Open Musuem’s telephone number on the website? thanks.
Of course. We are often out and about in the community but if you call 0141 276 9368 you will get John, our friendly Administrator. It is 0044 141 276 9368 if you are calling from outside the U.K.
I think that its often difficult to measure the social impact that we make with the type of work that we undertake within the community. When a project is finished and an ‘official’ evaluation form is completed by the group involved, it is often the group leaders who complete these and therefore one person’s opinion is given who was not necessarily overly involved with the project.
As Lyndsey states, much of the impact is measured, through verbal comments or visible changes that occur at the time of the project or session… but these are difficult to note or quantify… perhaps we need to rethink our idea of ‘evalution’ and just as museums are evolving to fulfil the needs of the visitor or non-visitor, surely our method of evaluation should follow suit and be more adaptive and flexible?