Evaluation Advisory Groups

Advisory committees are used often in evaluation studies, yet this practice is little discussed or reported. This issue is the first full-length text devoted to the purpose, practice, and scholarship about this type of formal, structured advice. It includes case studies and analyses of these to answer such basic topics as: What is an evaluation advisory group (EAG)? Why (not) use an EAG? How to organize an EAG, and how to evaluate it? The reader will learn how to view the EAG as a structure of expertise, its use for political legitimacy, and as a response to a variety of constituencies. Guidelines on how to recruit, select, orient, train, monitor, assess, and evaluate EAG members are also included. This is the 136th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Evaluation, an official publication of the American Evaluation Association.

Advisory committees are used often in evaluation studies, yet this practice is little discussed or reported. This issue is the first full-length text devoted to the purpose, practice, and scholarship about this type of formal, structured advice. It includes case studies and analyses of these to answer such basic topics as: What is an evaluation advisory group (EAG)? Why (not) use an EAG? How to organize an EAG, and how to evaluate it? The reader will learn how to view the EAG as a structure of expertise, its use for political legitimacy, and as a response to a variety of constituencies. Guidelines on how to recruit, select, orient, train, monitor, assess, and evaluate EAG members are also included. This is the 136th volume of the Jossey-Bass quarterly report series New Directions for Evaluation, an official publication of the American Evaluation Association.

Like many other agencies of the federal government, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relies extensively on external advisory committees for independent scientific and technical advice. Recognizing that the existing advisory committee system is essentially sound, this volume recommends ways of enhancing the use of these committees in the evaluation of drugs, biological materials, and medical devices; strengthening the agency's management of the system; and increasing the accountability of the system to the public. In doing so, it examines and makes recommendations on such issues as the recruitment of committee members, the FDA's management of financial conflict of interest and intellectual bias among members, and the operations and management of the advisory committee system.