Using the Internet to Measure Program Performance

Abstract

The Internet and World Wide Web are increasingly used to accelerate progress in a variety of fields. These applications go beyond the traditional technology- or computer-related fields and have expanded to nontechnical fields, which have benefited greatly from the use of the Web as a data-gathering and management support tool. The purpose of this article is to examine the Web’s use by a federal funding agency and its grantees for performance measurement and program monitoring. The analysis is based on the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment’s (CSAT) implementation of a Web-based data entry and reporting system. This system is used both as a mechanism for monitoring CSAT’s grant portfolios and as a tool to manage performance. The authors conclude with a discussion of the issues surrounding the effectiveness and efficiency of using the Web to measure and monitor program performance.

Keywords

government performance measurement performance monitoring Web-based systems evaluation

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