Difference between revisions of "Outreach and Volunteer"

Revision as of 07:03, 29 January 2014

SCShopManagement SCNewsletter SCAnnounceAcrossNetwork SCVolunteerRecruitment

OutreachPasswordPage

Members

Chair: Surya Saha ET advisor and Update Coordinator: Teresa Szczepińska Members: Alexander Goncearenco, Ali Faisal, Angela Jean, Karen Dowell, Muhammed Ilyas, Xiaoyu Liang(?) Advisors: Nils Gehlenborg

Responsibilities

- Design of website, promotional materials - Website content and news items - Maintain and keep website content up to date - Maintain SC account at social networks LinkedIn, facebook, Tweeter - Keep advertising material up to date (e.g. flyer) - Compose and send regular newsletter - Operate the SC shop - Information dissemination (“public relations”) - SC member recruitment

ET accounts

We have created ET accounts on social networks that can be used to spread the information among members and outside SC.

OutreachPasswordPage

Procedure for updating the web site

If someone notice that something should be updated on the website should inform Update Coordinator. One can do it by email or there is a special Basecamp tread for that on General Operations project. Update Coordinator contact helpers (people from the Outreach and Volunteer Committee) to make the update. Update Coordinator shouldn't do it alone, but if no one volunteer she/he is responsible for it to be done. People who have access to edit the website can do it themselves without request from Update Coordinator (it is very appreciated). However somewhere on the basecamp should be at least general information what has been changed with email notification to Update Coordinator.

Objectives

Outreach

The Challenge

A major challenge for the Student Council is to spread information about its events and activities to a broad audience. Theoretically, we can easily reach a very large number of students online through mailing lists, social networks and our website, however, in practice this is a big effort. In order to become better known in and to better serve the student community we need to improve how we are disseminating information about our events and activities online. Primarily, this means that we need to raise the quantity and the quality of the announcements that we distribute in the community. We envision an efficient, streamlined process that will enable the Student Council to reach a large number of students with little effort. The diagram below gives an overview of this process.

The process

A vision for information flow from the Student Council. The central figure is the Public Relations Officer, who is part of the Outreach Committee. Different groups of recipients of information are indicated by colors (red: Student Council leaders; green: ISCB members; blue: general public including RSG members). Levels indicate the relevance of information that should be distributed to the different outlets.

• Level 1: everything, including new information on the SC website;
• Level 2: any event and activity announcements;
• Level 3: major event and activity announcements, primarily for students;
• Level 4: major event announcements beyond student community;
• Level 5: very special events and initiatives that are relevant for the whole computational biology community.

Indirectly levels indicate the frequency at which the different outlets will be used and the effort required. The "active delivery" star indicates direct delivery by email.

The key player in the envisioned process is the Public Relations Officer (or Public Relations Officers). The Public Relations Officer is assigned three main tasks:

• To receive (or if necessary to actively request) information from various entities within the Student Council, such as the Regional Student Groups, the various committees, the events teams and the Executive Team. This also includes regular messages that are sent out to RSG leaders, committee and events chairs to remind them about the procedure and to encourage them to provide information about their activities.
• To prepare the information for dissemination, by checking for completeness and correctness and by copy editing to make it suitable for the intended audience. Usually a longer text will be required that will be posted on our website as well as a brief summary that will be send out and that links back to the information on our website.
• To post the information the appropriate outlets, where necessary with the assistance of a team of designated helpers who can post to particular (non-public) mailing lists, forums and social network groups (similar to how the symposium has been publicized). If necessary the Public Relations Officer will consult the Executive Team and other members of the Outreach Committee to decide about appropriate outlets.
• Together with a Newsletter Editor the Public Relations Officer will also be involved in the production of a regular newsletter that will consist mainly of announcements that have been made previously.
• Furthermore, together with the Outreach Committee and the Executive Team the Public Relations Officer will define new strategies to increase the number of students that we reach through our announcements, e.g. by identifying additional outlets and develop means to evaluate the effectiveness of the described process, e.g. by tracking visitors who come to particular pages of our website.

We expect that this process will be an improvement over the current situation primarily because:

• Everyone who wants to publicize an event or an activity just has to contact the Public Relations Officer, thus the barrier for publicizing is lowered.
• The Public Relations Officer will check all announcements before they are posted, thus the quality of the announcements that we publish will increase, which will have a positive impact on how we are perceived as an organization.

Volunteer

Problem identification

• Lack of incentive for volunteers

One of the reasons for our lack of human resources may be that potential volunteers do not experience enough incentive to join the SC. Although for each person the reason for participating in the SC may be different a list of possible reasons for joining, based on the experience of previous leaders, is lacking. Furthermore, there is currently no mechanism through which contribution to the SC is recognized, potentially resulting in a lack of satisfaction by the concerning volunteer.

• Lack of communication with the community

Due to the fact the SC is a virtual organization (we have no office) it is hard to reach potential volunteers. Currently, the ISMB and SC Symposium are the only events at which we can speak to people face to face, and enthuse people into joining the SC. Currently, for the purpose of volunteer recruitment, the RSGs are not exploited sufficiently. All together, it is observed that the current forms of communication are too passive (we rely on people coming to us). Related to this, it may be that the marketing and branding of the Student Council is insufficient (resulting in poor visibility) to entice people to show their interest.

• Expectations are unclear

Even if we succeed in recruiting a volunteer, it has been observed that it is hard to make these persons involved in the Student Council. Potentially, this is due to the fact that the organizational structure is unclear for new people. This may have a few important repercussions. Firstly, it is hard to determine which committees are there to participate in. Secondly, a good description of each committee - including the tasks associated to it - is either lacking or not accessible to interested candidates. As a result it is impossible to assess one’s responsibilities whilst participating in a committee. Thirdly, even those determined to figure out what they can do may have a hard time contacting the right person.

Activities

• Volunteer recruitment drive at ISMB
• Positions vacant advertisement for SC committee positions

Future Ideas

Website

One of the most important ways of communicating who we are, what we do and why we do it, our website, is currently very ill equipped to inform interested volunteers. The following should be implemented to remedy this.

• Student Council Introduction: this section should be improved to better outline who we are, what we do and why we do it. In particular it is important that the SC's organization is clear. It should include clear details on who to contact on what subject.
• Thank you page.
• A page in which we name our volunteers and thank them for their efforts.
• Volunteer webpage, specifically geared towards explaining the benefits and responsibilities of new volunteers. This page should include:
  • Case stories or testimonials by previous leaders, perhaps in the form of interviews, explaining how they benefit from and enjoyed their time with the SC.
  • Overview of open positions with a clear definition of the responsibilities. In particular, it should be made clear how these positions fit within the SC’s organization.
  • List of incentives. A (hopefully) long list of reasons why one would actively participate in the SC.
  • List of contact person(s). A list of people that can answer specific questions in relation to the SC and its committees.

Active marketing

In addition to the website - which is a passive way of communicating messages - we should also spend more effort on active communication in the form of e-mails and newsletters to the community. While the main aim of these can be the marketing of the SC, these forms of communication can also contain a paragraph on becoming an active member of the SC. Care has to be taken not to become considered as spam. In addition, communication can also be directed through our RSG leaders. While joining the SC, there should be a checkbox to indicate one is interested in volunteering in one of the committees.

Active Recruitment

We can (and should) more actively seek interested volunteers rather than relying on them coming to us. This means that during the ISMB, and other events in which we participate, we should clearly communicate the message that we are open for new people and actively ask people for specific positions that seem interested in joining. Moreover, we should organize a special event during ISMB for this purpose. The RSGs are another source of capable people, as they have shown their interest in participating in and organization of student events. We should be careful however not to deplete the RSGs from their own leaders.

Increasing the sense of recognition

The following ideas can help to increase the sense of recognition

• A thank you page on our website (see above)
• It is worth to explore if we can send letters of recognition or certificates to accomplished volunteers.
• Distribution of TFs among active SC members