ABSTRACT
Professional identities develop and change with one’s role, but for me evaluation has always been part of what I do as a distance educator. In the early 1990s I published a book on evaluating open and distance learning that was also about practitioner evaluation (Thorpe 1993). I wished to draw together and reflect on a period of intensive work with colleagues in the regional system of the Open University in the United Kingdom (OUUK), evaluating the role of tutors and others involved in supporting learners. Although I had already discovered many of the key truths about evaluation by that stage, I have now been for six years in the different position of Director of the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at the OUUK (https://iet.open.ac.uk), where evaluation is the sole focus of a large group of professional survey researchers and academics. In many ways, all the personal discoveries I made earlier through direct experience as a practitionerresearcher are still relevant. Here are some key learnings: evaluators are often at risk of drowning under the weight of their own data; questionnaires are always improved by piloting; and writing the report always takes longer than anticipated.
