TRAINING MANUAL

FOR

AN ECOSYSTEM MODEL

Stage V

Redesign and Evaluation

The team's primary goal in Stage V should be the implementation of at least one redesign project for the population that responded to the assessment and the evaluation of the design by members of that population. The tasks contained in Stage V are those that the team must accomplish to complete this initial work on an ecosystem project. Redesign projects are based on the assessment's data, take school values and goals into consideration, and can be multifaceted. The focus of redesign activity may be trained upon policy, programs, people, physical properties, or any combination of these. An integral part of environmental redesign is an evaluation of the design's results.

Through their design efforts, team members will deal first with the ecosystem model's step to fit environments to students. Then, through evaluation procedures, the team will deal with the model's steps to obtain a monitoring of and feedback on how successfully the design achieved its purpose. The evaluation can often recycle the model's step for measuring student perceptions as well.

Generally, the team's first task is to select which among the possible redesign projects have highest priority or potential. After redesign projects have been selected, the team will need to determine the strategies or methods necessary for their implementation. A master implementation schedule can then be drawn up that takes into consideration the methods to be used and when evaluation is expected to be completed. The team's concluding tasks in Stage V would then be implementing the scheduled design projects and conducting their evaluation. In most cases, both the implementation of projects and their evaluation will be conducted in stages with at least one project fully completed before the original assessment population can change significantly.

Stage V processes offer suggestions and guidelines for accomplishing the team's tasks in selecting, implementing, and evaluating redesign projects. If the team decides to follow up this initial work on the ecosystem model with further analysis of data and subsequent redesigns, it will learn even more about the model and how it might be used to achieve a greater degree of fit between environment and population.

Selecting Redesign Projects

Discussion

After completing its analysis on items of greatest importance to respondents, the team must decide which among the courses of action suggested in the ER data it can undertake to design. The development of programs will be a logical design response for some of the suggestions. The redesign of policies and accompanying rules and regulations will better suit other suggestions. Another major area for redesign might be adjustment in physical facilities. It is important for the team to identify several design projects for each category of suggestions being considered so that, as the feasibility of projects is considered, there are alternatives to use in the event one or another project proves to be impossible. It often makes sense to choose one or more redesigns that might be accomplished quickly, and one or more that would take more time and effort to implement.

Because there are a number of strategies and methods that the team can employ to accomplish its design goals, it is advised that only fiscal and major political considerations should act as restraints in the determination of which design projects are most feasible. In this manner, the environment takes precedence and design projects can be rank ordered according to their importance and/or their potential benefit. Those projects given highest priority and/or deemed to have greatest potential can then be selected for implementation.

Process

To select its redesign projects, the team should:

1. Brainstorm or use a similar process to identify possible projects that might be implemented in response to the suggestions that were analyzed in the team's first round of data analysis.

2. Use a field force analysis or similar process to determine the most feasible projects given the rich resource of inventive and skilled people on campus weighed against fiscal and major political constraints.

3. Rank order or otherwise determine a priority for each of the feasible projects.

4. Select as many high priority projects as deemed possible to implement, taking into consideration that the team as a whole does not have to be directly involved in the implementation of each project.

Discussion

The strategies and methods most suitable for implementing the team's selected high-priority projects should now be determined. There are many methods and strategies which can be employed to plan and implement designs. The team will need to review its high-priority projects from the standpoint of who can best effect the changes and then develop an appropriate strategy or method that the team can use to reach these people and get them involved in the redesign projects.

Obviously, the design projects that involve making changes in programs, policies, or physical conditions over which team members have direct authority can be designed and implemented by the team. Design projects that involve changes which could be accomplished by a team member's service, department, or agency might be set in motion by that team member. In this case the planning team's strategies could include activities such as consultation or technical assistance in support of the service's design project team. Or the planning team's strategy could be to launch that design project by offering some kind of workshop to familiarize the service's staff and team with the ecosystem model and environmental design.

A workshop is suggested as a primary strategy for initiating design projects that are best implemented by a service, agency, or department not represented on the planning team. A planning team member might then serve as special liaison to that service and procure the help of other planning team members when needed. A workshop is also suggested as a useful strategy to initiate design projects that are best implemented through the cooperative efforts of several services, agencies, or departments. In this instance, the team members would select and recruit participants in much the same manner as they themselves were selected and recruited. Care should be taken to include representatives from among the design project's intended recipients. One goal of the workshop could then be the formulation of a planning team for the interservice design project. A member from the original ecosystem planning team would take part in the new team's activities for planning and implementing the design project. Other members of the original planning team could serve as consultants when needed.

Another strategy the planning team might use to initiate design projects not directly implemented by the team is that of consultation. This would entail offering the service that has undertaken a design project or those in authority to implement the design consultation concerning the ecosystem model, the team's project, accomplishments, and design suggestions as documented by the assessment's findings.

Whatever implementation strategy the team uses to initiate design projects some of the projects may entail the development of new programs. When this is the case, the designers may wish to read Training Manual for Student Service Program Development, written by Marv Moore and Ursula Delworth. This model for program development has undergone thorough testing and refinement through a series of campus applications conducted by the Improving Mental Health Services on Western Campuses program at WICHE.*

*The manual can be obtained free of charge from the Publications Unit, WICHE, P.O. Drawer P, Boulder, CO 80302.

Process

To help the team determine appropriate strategies for implementing design projects, the following guidelines are suggested:

1. Identify which high-priority projects are possible for the team itself to implement. Make a list of those that the team agrees to implement.

2. Identify which projects are best implemented by a member's service, agency, or department. Make a list of those agreed to be undertaken.

3. Identify and list those projects which are best implemented by other persons or groups not represented on the team.

4. Review the above lists of design projects and determine strategies for initiating their implementation. When strategies include workshop presentations, team members may want to review the workshop format for environmental design given on p. 131 of the Technical Appendix and the example of an ecosystem model simulation on p. 121 in preparation for designing their workshop.

Discussion

After design projects have been selected and the team has determined what strategies or methods are suitable for each project's implementation, a schedule should be prepared. In making up this schedule, priority should be given to those design projects with implementation strategies that can be conducted and evaluated before the assessment's population significantly changes. Experience gained through on-campus application suggests that team-implemented design projects probably will offer the best opportunities for this to occur. Many design projects that might be planned and implemented by a team member's service, agency, or department can also have good potential for being initiated and evaluated before the population changes.

Whichever design projects the team feels confident can be completed in a relatively short time should be scheduled first and the dates noted for completion of the evaluation procedures. The other design projects can then be scheduled in accordance with their implementation strategies, and take such considerations into account as the best time to conduct a workshop or contact a group.

As design projects are scheduled, a team member should be assigned to implement or oversee the implementation of each. The team should schedule arrangements for publicity or other feedback mechanisms that can keep its constituents informed about design project activities. This will sustain interest and support for the ecosystem project and be helpful to the recruitment of respondents if any mass assessment procedures are incorporated into the team's evaluation plans.

In setting up a schedule for its design projects, the team should:

1. Determine which designs projects could be implemented and evaluated before the assessment's population would change. Schedule these projects first and note dates for the completion of their evaluation procedures.

2. Schedule the remaining design projects in accordance with the time needed to prepare and conduct their implementation strategies.

3. Assign team members to oversee or implement each project.

Discussion

The team's initial work on an ecosystem project concludes when evaluation procedures on the redesign projects that have been implemented for the assessment's population are complete. A further reading on the team's efforts will become available when evaluation results are in on the remaining design projects that were scheduled. Thus a full evaluation of the team's work is conducted in stages and comprises the results of evaluation data from all the projects implemented as a result of the initial data analysis.

As was the case in analyzing the assessment technique's data, the team again will need to establish analysis procedures for its redesign project evaluations. A form which easily displays the evaluation findings should be developed and distributed with a report on the team's conclusions after its first complete cycle of using the ecosystem model.

Process

Suggested guidelines for planning evaluation include:

1. Whenever a specific program is the result of a design project, that program should make provisions for and schedule its own evaluation procedures. (Program planners may find the evaluation and research design sections of the Training Manual for Student Service Program Development of help in setting up evaluation procedures.) Results of the evaluation can then be forwarded to the planning team for inclusion in the project's overall evaluation report.

2. Whenever a policy change is the result of a design effort, the team should identify and gather appropriate statistics from any routinely collected data that could reflect the impact of the policy change.

3. Whenever a physical change is the result of a design project, a simple questionnaire could be developed on which people could report their reactions to the change.

4. The team may also wish to replicate those portions of the original assessment technique which cover the areas of redesign.

5. All evaluation procedures should be incorporated into the team's master schedule and team members assigned to oversee evaluation efforts. Obviously, those team members involved in design projects can oversee whatever evaluation procedures are applicable to these. If the team plans to replicate portions of the original assessment, this will necessitate a separate evaluation assignment.

If past experience is an indicator, the team will have found the model to be a successful tool for environmental design and the subsequent delivery of services to an environment's population. Most team members will be encouraged over the prospects of recycling Stages IV and V in order to make further environmental adjustments often focused on subgroups within the environment's population. And certainly after the first complete cycle of the ecosystem model, each team member will have acquired the skills necessary to apply the model to another environment. Thus they will have the additional reward and benefit of being able to take their knowledge back to their respective agencies or departments for application on a project pertinent to their concerns. In this manner the benefits of an ecosystem approach are multiplied throughout a campus.