The role of information systems in evaluation research

The author suggests four ways that management information systems can complement the efforts of program evaluators. These ways are: clarifying the purposes of and uses for collecting information; clarifying the relevancy of information that is collected and stored; constructing a data base that accounts for the differential needs of users; and generating reports in a timely and comprehensible manner. Interwoven throughout these ways is the premise that program evaluators need to attend more to the decisional needs of various users, particularly managers. An information system can assist program evaluators toward this end.