First deliverable submitted

The first substantive deliverable for WP7 was submitted to the European Commission in July 2011. The Impact Evaluation Framework (IEF) report provides the basis for future impact evaluation work to be undertaken by the OU team and our partners. The IEF locates the approach to impact evaluation adopted by EGOV4U within a range of approaches found in the literature and in practice. It then describes how activity is structured to support impact evaluation over the life-cycle of an e-Service project as its effects mature in both depth and breadth, whilst also recognising that those effects need to be evaluated differently depending upon whether the impact is on the organisations delivering the e-service, the immediate beneficiaries, or the wider community/society. The impact factors that are the subject of the evaluation are then specified. These factors are defined at a level that allows each to be interpreted appropriately and meaningfully at a local level for each e-Service project, whilst also allowing comparison between projects in order to support identification of effective practice and obstacles to success in a pan-European context where cultural, political and other aspects of context come into play. The report concludes with a more detailed account of the structure of the IEF as this emerges from the considerations outlined in earlier sections of the report, and outlines issues that arise when it is applied in context.The IEF will be made available via the library section of this web site once it has been endorsed by the EC.