Week 1 Introduction to Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice

Introduction to Evidence-Informed Policy and Practice

• Introduction and overview of the course
• Check ourselves and the assumptions we make about 'evidence' and policy informed by evidence - is evidence-informed policy as "comment sense" as it sounds? How is it distinguished from evidence-based policy?
• Identify many of the key concepts and ideas that will be attended to in the course - the beginnings of a shared language and literacy for our discussions throughout the semester
• Cover the delivery of the course including the approach to online workshops as well as course assessments.
• Any and all your questions beyond the above

Preparation

TASK 1

Review all canvas content, in particular the assignment information - bring any questions you have to the workshop - we'll set up a starting point for the first submission with some discussion on the approaches you might take.

TASK 2

In conjunction with the set weekly reading consider for yourself

• what assumptions do you hold about evidence in relation to policy?,
• what might explain your assumptions?
• what distinctions do you see between evidence, truth & knowledge in their relationship to policy?

We'll address these questions in the workshop discussions. Almost certainly these discussions will raise a wide range of responses. Our findings will be very useful for setting a baseline that we can return to and (re)assess in week 12 informed by all that we cover through to that point.

TASK 3

• Reading and note-taking from the Week 1 Reading List