Internal Eval TIG Week: Harnessing the Value of an Online Collaborative MEL Platform

Abstract

The FISH-CRP uses the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Platform, or MEL Platform, to monitor, evaluate, and share the results of its research and development investments. It is an open-sourced digital platform that promotes collaboration and group learning when it collects, visualizes, and shares data to be trackable and accessible. It employs a user-driven approach that centralizes data and archives it unto other primary data repositories. Because of the platform’s innovative digital solution that several centers adopted and as one of the outstanding projects in knowledge management and enterprise collaborations it won the silver prize at the 2018 Enterprise Business Collaboration Award in Berlin in ‘Best Collaboration Infrastructure’. The MEL Platform is a powerful tool, although sometimes not all reports are available for smaller organizations. Aside from MEL team expertise, we complemented the MEL Platform with available technologies such as PowerBI for customizable data visualizations and MS Sway, an application that packages PowerBI reports in an online newsletter format.