To take on the structural change of our economies' organisation at makro-level - related to notions as 'globalisation' and 'knowledge society' - productively comprises substantial shifts on meso-level in the role of learning in VET schools and in companies involved in organisa-tional change.

These organisational changes and developments can be regarded as collabo-rative knowledge production (Nonaka/ Takeuchi 2003, Gibbons et. al. 1994). SMEs involved in organisational change processes have to value the knowledge produced by collaborating in internal and external knowledge networks consistently. In many European countries there is an important lack of valuing the success of these efforts. For VET, especially further train-ing and lifelong learning, there is a need to empower the individuals to successfully take on these challenges. In this context evaluation as an reflexive activity of all the ones involved in the changes becomes an crucial task. Both challenges can be taken on by using more advanced methods of evaluation. During the last years, various European and other projects made important efforts of generating new knowledge on these problems. One important approach in this field are methods of partici-patory and interactive evaluation. One of their main advantages is the possibility of including the stakeholders, e.g. teachers, managers and functional staff thus moving evaluation away from being an expert task to a method carried out by the persons affected themselves - what is exactly needed for in a situation where evaluation will become a routine task.

These quality oriented evaluation methods allow to know how far partners from different backgrounds (either departments or course participants) face different perspectives and how far they can investigate the lessons learned from previous activity and how far they can de-velop new ideas for further action. The presented interventionist approaches are based on systematic group discussion, following analysis from the external moderators and facilitators. Experiences from the different evaluation cases shown in the Round Table will reflect on the question whether organisational change projects can benefit from these investigations. The question is how far better knowledge on the character of these knowledge networks was generated and whether they will help to study the performance of organisational change projects and processes in VET schools or in companies dealing with organisational change. The contributors shall describe briefly their different evaluation and quality management con-cepts used in the different cases. In the discussions following the guiding dimensions of the approaches will be compared in the discussion following and whether they rests mainly on discourse, multiple perspectives and participation principles or on other empirical investiga-tion principles.

The workshop will present a synopsis of advanced methods as well as presenting new tools for evaluating innovation networks and organisational change. Here, we will reflect on the experiences gained from several European and national/ regional studies and pilot projects, e.g. COVOSECO, EVAL-CERN, REBIZ (COVOSECO 2004; Kurz 2004; Heinemann/ Deit-mer 2003). For example the REBIZ pilot project wants to improve the quality of education and industrial training in Bremen's VET schools in a sustainable way by testing new modes of knowledge transfer that are to be converted to meet future needs of the regional industry. Assessing the effectiveness of initial vocational education and further training and imple-menting a quality assurance system is an urgent task. In order to broaden and intensify the regional and supra-regional cooperation with enterprises, institutions and school education providers and service institutions. To develop evaluation into a routine task, carried out by teachers and industrial trainers together with the courses/classes or change projects they work in, not only the evaluation methods themselves are crucial, but the way they actually can be displayed.

The round table will also discuss the skill needs for the stakeholders involved in the evalua-tion sessions as well as for appropriate approaches for different models of participatory evaluation and methods to acquire them. Three main areas of skills seem to play a crucial role in evaluation processes.

1. Practical skills: knowing how to carry out evaluation methods; planning evaluation sessions.
2. Moderation and communication skills: stimulating and mod-erating discussions; relating discussions to the topics of the evaluation; summarising results.
3. Theoretical and Interpretation skills: interpreting the results and data; linking evaluation to policy (COVOSECO 2004).

The roundtable will explore possibilities for development and recognition of curricula in this field. Organisation of the Round table: The four contributors to the round table would present short summaries of their methodologi-cal approach and reflections on their experiences. The following discussion would concentrate on three questions:

• Which kind of skills for participative evaluation can we define in such approaches, in particular with respect to the role and task of the moderators and the evaluation participants?
• To what extent and under what conditions could these methodological approaches lead to accumulation of conceptual knowledge for organisational development and in man-aging change?
• To what extent and under what conditions could the evaluation approaches contribute to innovation in VET?