Welcome to the MERL Center

A community of MERL professionals

The monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL) Center is a community creating resources about the intersection of MERL and open source, data science and human-centered design, for people of any technology capacity.

Explore our work

MERL Technology Workflow:

Read more about these categories in this post. Selecting multiple checkboxes will return content that fits into at least one of the selections.

Content Type:

The Pros and Cons of Open Data

Melissa Edmiston, Stephanie Coker, Stephanie Jamilla, Thembelihle Tshabalala

Guides Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

Leveraging Open Source Software to Build a Data Mature Ecosystem in the Social Sector: An Introduction

Benjamin Kinsella

Guides Data AnalysisData Collection and ManagementReporting

A Guide to Evaluating Open Source versus Proprietary Software for Data Workflows in the Social Sector

Stephanie Coker, Ben Kinsella

Guides Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

Dispelling myths and qualifying assumptions about open source for MERL practitioners

Melissa Edmiston, Brittany Stubbs, Anh Bui, Mala Kumar

Guides Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

Open Source for MERL Workflows

Mala Kumar, Stephanie Coker, Vidya Mahadevan

Guides Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

Tableau or Bust: Evaluating Proprietary and OS Data Visualization Tools for Social Sector Needs

Benjamin Kinsella

Case Studies Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

Lessons Learned from Evaluating an Open Data Platform - The Impact Assessment of Global Forest Watch

Stephanie Jamilla

Case Studies Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

How to make open source projects contributor friendly, Contributor engagement (Part 2 of 2)

Andrew Pham

Case Studies Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

How to make open source projects contributor friendly, Initial setup (Part 1 of 2)

Andrew Pham

Case Studies Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

Building an Open Source Data Management System for Monitoring and Evaluation based on Data Standards

Munir Mahomar

Case Studies Data Collection and ManagementData Analysis and VisualizationReporting

Ruby for Good, Building Community in Open Source

Gia Coelho

Case Studies Data Collection and ManagementReporting

United Nations LGBTQI Staff Rights Platform

Mala Kumar

Case Studies Data Analysis and VisualizationReporting