Project Thesis by Morgan Romero
As more museums shift toward centering their practices around the visitor, more museums are becoming interested in museum evaluation. In response, evaluation capacity building has emerged as a way to empower organizations to become more interested and knowledgeable in how to use evaluation through, primarily, education. The purpose of this project was to create an evaluation capacity building course for Bellevue Arts Museum, a museum that had prior experience and interest in evaluation but was struggling with how to integrate evaluative thinking into their daily practice. The deliverable for this project was a six-class introductory course into evaluative thinking and application through a series of narrated presentations as well as an accompanying activity book. This course, that can be accessed online, creates a baseline of knowledge and vocabulary while providing an overview of the evaluative process. Though the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic prevented the course from being held in-person, the online nature of the final deliverable will allow it to be a tool that could be utilized by the museum in the future when they are able to prioritize evaluation. The materials developed for this course could also be referenced by other institutions who intend to build their capacity in museum evaluation in order to enhance visitor-centered decision-making.
Citation
Romero, M. (2020). Developing an Online Evaluation Capacity Building Course for Bellevue Arts Museum. [Unpublished master’s thesis project]. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington.
Keywords
Project, evaluation, art museum, evaluation capacity building, evaluation capacity building course, activity book