The book is highly relevant, and its publication comes at the perfect time to stimulate reflection on the benefits and challenges of integrating artificial intelligence and emerging technologies into evaluation. The various authors, all renowned experts in the field of program evaluation, draw on their knowhow to offer cutting-edge analyses and prospective solutions for integrating AI technologies into evaluation. In short, this book is an enriching and enlightening read, carried by renowned authors, designed to enlighten minds on a subject of crucial importance in our time.
Steve Jacob, Professor of Political Science, Laval University
AI is poised to change the field of evaluation in a multitude of ways, yet the evidence base is still slim. This book is a welcome addition to the literature on emerging technologies and their implications for evaluation. Key reasons that evaluators were not taking up big data approaches included a lack of relevant use cases for the public and not-for-profit sectors and a mistrust of big data approaches due to ethical concerns. This book provides a rich set of potential use cases, documentation and learning from those examples, and an exploration of ethics and equity themes related to data science and evaluation, and offers an important contribution to the literature base for the use of AI in evaluation. The work comes at an important time for the Evaluation field, when interest in AI is quite high yet, in many cases, capacity and knowledge need to be enhanced and supplemented. It offers a unique perspective on ways that AI can be integrated into Evaluation, drawing on the work of well-respected evaluation professionals and academics who have long-standing experience to share.
Linda Raftree, Founder, MERL Tech
