Evaluation as a Field - Evaluation Methods in Biomedical Informatics - page 39

FIGURE 2.5. Roles in an evaluation study.
viduals. In general, the smaller the scale of the study, the greater the overlap
in roles.
The first set of roles relates to the individuals who conduct the study.
These individuals include the director of the evaluation, who is the person
professionally responsible for the study, and any staff members who might
work for the director. As soon as more than one person is involved in the
conduct of a study, interpersonal dynamics among members of this group
become an important factor contributing to the success or failure of the
study.
There is a separate set of roles related directly to the development of the
resource under study. Those who fulfill these roles include the director of
the resource's development team, his or her staff, the users of the resource,
and their clients. For an information resource supporting health care, the
resource users are typically healthcare professionals and their clients are
the patients receiving care.
The third set of roles includes individuals or groups (or both) who,
although they are not developing the resource or otherwise direct partici-
pants in the study, nonetheless may have a profound interest in the study's
outcome. In the jargon of evaluation, these individuals are generally known
as “stakeholders.” These individuals or groups include those who fund the
development of the resource, those who fund the evaluation (who may be
different from those who fund the resource), supervisors of the director of
resource development, those who use similar resources in other settings,