First, I’m interested in how (or even whether) CAISE members are thinking about how social media tools will shape the ways we will be doing evaluations in the future? What this means is that the “traditional” methods will still be critical, but sites like Facebook, Flickr and YouTube are starting to be used experimentally to gather feedback while also engaging audiences in new and exciting ways on their own terms.

Second, in terms of professional development and sharing, sites like ning can facilitate this process more broadly. I encourage you all to join us - go to Museum 3.0and follow the prompts. There is also a group discussion about future of audience research on that site and would be great if you became involved.

Third, I note in the publication that mostly North American examples and readings are cited - there has been lots of work on impact in Australia (see this wiki for some resources). As well, a huge study of assessing learning impact was undertaken in the UK - Inspiring Learning for all. These may also help inform your work?

Finally, although this project is NSF-funded, to be taken up by other countries I think you need to broaden your base a bit - not being critical, but an offer to collaborate and share if you want to. There is a huge museum research community out there and I’m seeing particular growth in Europe and the Asia-Pacific areas. For example, in one week on my Audience Research blog I got queries from India, UK, Germany and Malawi! Social media tools offer great ways to share our work quickly and expand our reach.

BTW these comments were inspired by my interview with Scott this morning and learning more about CAISE and it’s goals. Good luck - it’s a great project.