How It All Started and How It Evolved: Ray’s Whip

Abstract

Background: The chapter reconstructs the origin of the concept of “streams of evidence” in the collective work of the Inteval group, as proposed in the book From Studies to Streams (Rist, Stame, 2006). Contrary to insisting on the (scarce) utilization of single studies, answering the evaluation demands of static organizations, based on their “own incentives and reward structures”, Ray challenged the group to engage with the new scenario of the learning organizations “that embraced learning and knowledge as fundamental to their own existence and success”. Such organizations needed evaluative knowledge that was “timely, proactive and drawing on multiple sources of knowledge”, that could be provided by different sources, evaluations and research, internal or external to the organizations.

Purpose: The chapter aims to show the far-sightedness of Ray’s intuition. He was able to capture the spirit of time and to encompass different converging trends. His intellectual leadership oriented other people’s work, creating a wide space for innovation and adaptation. Moreover, in the new current conditions of pandemics and multi-crises, Ray has been able to revive and update that thrust, adding a multidisciplinary dimension to the idea of streams.

Setting: The concept of streams of evidence is a powerful and versatile metaphor. New instances of flowing stuff can be added to the original taxonomy, based on the source of the evidence and on its organization. It has entered many different fields as an autonomous cognitive tool. In evaluation methodology it has contributed to meta-analysis, realist syntheses, and a broad reinterpretation of mixed methods. In the study of evaluation systems, it has provided the basis for organized practices, from well-tempered forms of Knowledge Management to the elaboration of evaluation demands through Learning Agendas.

Intervention: N.A.

Research design: N.A.

Data collection and analysis and findings: N.A.