Independent report

Evaluation of DFID Online Research Portals and Repositories

This evaluation focusses on 3 portals and repositories supported by DFID: Eldis, R4D, SciDev.Net.

• From: Department for International Development
• Published: 27 October 2016
• Last updated: 10 February 2017 — See all updates

Documents

Evaluation of DFID Online Research Portals and Repositories: volume 1

PDF, 6.72 MB, 113 pages

Evaluation of DFID Online Research Portals and Repositories: volume 2

PDF, 4.15 MB, 305 pages

Evaluation of DFID funded online portals and repositories: management response

PDF, 147 KB, 7 pages

Details

The evaluation comprised 3 primary methods:

• market research in the form of a global online questionnaire
• three country case studies in Ghana
• Tanzania and Nigeria consisting of interviews, contextual inquiry, a diary study and a heuristic evaluation
• a value for money assessment of Eldis and SciDev.Net

The evaluation found that the portals’ ‘Intended Users’ research evidence-seeking online is frequent, rapid and impatient: Intended Users frequently referred to their lack of time to devote to searching; they also rarely went beyond the first page of results in Google. Although there are some sceptics, Google gets results: Intended Users cited it as more efficient and often more effective than the DFID-funded portals’ own internal search functions.

Published 27 October 2016

Last updated 10 February 2017 + show all updates

1. 10 February 2017

   Management response added.

2. 27 October 2016

   First published.