Developing Effective CommunityBased Evaluation Tools: Keewaytinook Okimakanak

1
Developing Effective Community-Based Evaluation
Tools Keewaytinook Okimakanak

• Briefing to CRACIN Workshop
• Ottawa, Ontario
• November 26, 2004

2
Keewaytinook Okimakanak

• KO has become a leader in First Nations
  connectivity and telecommunications in Canada
  that is gaining international notoriety
• Drawing attention to KO First Nations in
  Ontarios far north
• Keewaywin, Fort Severn, McDowell Lake, North
  Caribou, Deer Lake and Poplar Hill

3
(No Transcript)
4
Ten Years Ago

• Our Leadership wanted to explore new ways to deal
  with the socio-economic challenges facing our
  people
• Geordi Kakepetum chartered a bus to Ottawa to see
  Tele-medicine in action
• Our Leadership grasped the potential of ICTs to
  address community challenges
• Our people deserve the best

5
(No Transcript)
6
Major Challenges Facing KO

• How do we sustain KOs applications
• KiHS
• KO Telehealth
• KNET Services.
• Hosts over 11,200 web pages
• Hosts over 22,000 email
• Over 4.3 million hits a month

7
Major Challenges Facing KO

• How do we continue to address KO community needs?
• How do we continue to create new applications
  such as the KO RI
• How do we ensure that these applications remain
  relevant for our communities

8
Evaluating our Success

• What data is relevant to policy-makers and
  decision-makers?
• What data is relevant to the needs of our
  community members?
• How do we manage the inherent tensions between
  these two groups?
• How do we resolve some of these tensions?

9
Obstacles and Opportunities

• Our communities are reluctant to share data which
  may become part of the public domain
• Some of our communities are even reluctant to
  share data with each other
• It takes a long time to build trust

10
KOs strengths

• Responsive to community concerns and ideas
• attracting funding and,
• implementing programs

11
Areas of Improvement

• Data collection and storage,
• Evaluation and
• Assessment

12
How do we address this situation?

• What type of evaluation tools do we have?
• What types of evaluation tools do we need to
  develop?

13
KOs evaluation tools

• KORI was created by the Chiefs to address these
  challenges
• KORI is seeking to develop local capacity in
  research
• KORI is developing partnerships with the
  university community

14
(No Transcript)
15
(No Transcript)
16
(No Transcript)
17
KOs evaluation toolsStrategic Partnerships

• KO Telehealth Evaluation
• KORI working with Laurentian and Guelph to
  conduct a long-term evaluation of KO Telehealth
  and its expansion of its services to 24 FNs in
  the Northwest
• KORI is working with the Faculty of Education at
  Lakehead University to evaluate KiHS, KOs
  Internet High School

18
KOs evaluation toolsDigital Video

• Fort Severn canoe expeditions
• http//fortsevern.firstnation.ca/washaho/
• Washio Cree
• Ancestral Village

19
Digital Video

• Digital Video Cameras in each KO community
• Multimedia Workstations
• Fort Severn a leader
• Moose Hunting
• Paddling to Washaho, A Healing Journey 2004
• http//fortsevern.firstnation.ca/washaho/
• Traditional Medicine (Baby Powder)
• http//fortsevern.firstnation.ca/index.php?module
  ContentExpressfuncdisplayceid46

20
Digital Video

• Harnessing ICTs KO Study
• KO Telehealth
• NAN Legal Services

21
Where Do We Go From Here?

• How do we expand opportunities for community
  involvement in the evaluation process from the
  very beginning?
• How do we balance qualitative and quantitative
  analysis? What is the right mix?
• What role can CRACIN play?

22
Contact Information

• URL www.knet.ca
• URL http//research.knet.ca/
• Email brianwalmark_at_knet.ca brian.beaton_at_knet.ca

23
(No Transcript)