WIREDGOV

We’re testing new ways to get feedback from the people who receive support from the digital inclusion services we provide. We want to let you know what we’re doing and invite you to help us with this work.

Why we want to measure impact

At Good Things, we’re really keen to improve the way we evaluate the impact of our services. This will help us learn more about how to make changes to improve the services we provide. It will also help us tell better stories of the difference we make for people who are digitally excluded, to share with funders, policy makers and other key stakeholders.

We’re currently working with Tectonic who are helping us explore different ways to collect data from beneficiaries to understand their experiences of receiving digital inclusion support from hubs in the National Digital Inclusion Network, and the difference it’s made to their lives. We’re keen to make sure we reach a wide variety of beneficiaries and to make it as easy as possible for them to answer questions about their experience. This will help us ensure the data we collect represents well the different types of people that receive digital inclusion support through hubs in the Network. This means we will be better informed about who we’re reaching (and who we’re not).

Learning how to collect better data

You may have seen that, with Tectonic, we recently launched a survey of Learn My Way users to understand the impact that using LMW has had on beneficiaries’ digital skills, confidence and wellbeing. We’re hoping to be able to share the highlights from this survey with you in the coming weeks.

The next part of our work with Tectonic is to try out some other methods for collecting data from LMW users, and people who have received support through the National Databank and / or the National Device Bank. Through this we want to see what works best for reaching beneficiaries, and for supporting them to tell us about the changes they’ve experienced as a result of receiving digital inclusion support.

What we’ll be testing

The data collection methods we will be trying out include:

1. Cluso: a voice-based survey platform through which beneficiaries will answer a few short questions by recording voice notes. We hope this method will be more accessible for people who might struggle to read lots of text in English. A link will be sent by email to beneficiaries who have given permission to be contacted by us. This link will take them to Cluso and an explanation for how to record their responses.
2. Questions by text message: we will send a few short questions by text to beneficiaries who have given permission for us to contact them by phone. They can respond to the questions in a text message, similar to the kind of text you might receive for customer service feedback.
3. Classroom-based data collection: we will be working with a small number of hubs to support them to help beneficiaries complete surveys on-site.

Tectonic have created a short video which explains what Cluso is and how to use it.

The data collection will take place between 18th September and 6th October. We then hope to be able to share with the Network highlights from the analysis in mid November.

Do you have a little spare time to help us?

While we will be contacting beneficiaries directly to invite them to participate via Cluso or via text, we’d be really grateful if you could support this work. You can do this by letting your beneficiaries know about what we’re doing, and helping them if they come to you with any questions about the surveys. 

We have prepared a poster that you can print off and put up in your hub to encourage beneficiaries to take part in the data collection. There is a QR code on the poster which links to the survey on Cluso, so beneficiaries can be supported to access the questions on Cluso directly from the poster. You can access the poster here.

Get in touch

Thanks in advance for any support you’re able to provide around this beneficiary impact data collection. It will really help us understand how we can better tell the story of the difference that your digital inclusion support makes to beneficiaries. 

If you have any questions or reflections on what we’re doing to improve our data collection, we’d really love to hear from you. You can email us at research@goodthingsfoundation.org