Supporting Volunteers

Hosts of a data help desk can support their volunteers in numerous ways. By proactively offering example questions and categories, ensuring clear schedules and reminders, and actively seeking and utilizing volunteer feedback, hosts can create a supportive environment that enhances the effectiveness and satisfaction of their data help desk volunteers.

Volunteer satisfaction is important - we want volunteers to feel like their time was well spent and that they would like to participate in subsequent years. Being able to track views or use of their resources during the event or likely as a result of their event is one way to show this value.

Additionally, it is good to try to be as inclusive as possible both with respect to volunteers and with respect to inviting questions from researchers. Careful thought should be given to creating a welcoming environment both in-person and virtually.

General Support

  • Ensuring that volunteers find participation to be a good and productive use of their time is an important undertaking because it increases the likelihood that they will be willing to participate again in the future. Constantly striving to collect and share metrics that show the event is having an impact can help with this. It can be helpful to survey volunteers post-event to get their thoughts on what worked well and what could be improved.
  • Because not all volunteers may be comfortable using Twitter or want to have to constantly monitor a Twitter feed, it is ideal to set up a separate mechanism for them to identify and address researcher inquiries. A Slack channel has been used in the past that enables discussion amongst the experts, as well as triaging of researcher questions. The form for contributing questions has even been automatically set up to post questions in the Slack Channel.
  • A moderator can then take experts’ responses and share them with the inquirer and also post the thread back to Twitter, so that others can benefit from the exchange. The moderator can also take questions asked on Twitter and post them to the Slack channel.
  • Experts can then either respond directly on Twitter or share their answers in Slack for the moderator to then push back out to Twitter.
  • There is the need to balance the number of question channels with the capacity of volunteers to monitor and respond effectively. Creating too many places for questions can overwhelm volunteers and lead to some inquiries being missed. Opt for a limited number of well-managed channels. In the past, a combination of one public (Twitter) and one more private (survey form) option has been used.
  • To support volunteers in managing questions from various channels, The use of a backchannel communication platform like a Slack channel can be very helpful. This allows experts to discuss questions, triage them, and coordinate responses, especially for volunteers who are less comfortable with public-facing platforms like Twitter. A moderator can then relay answers from the Slack channel back to the researcher on the original platform (e.g., Twitter).

Provide Categories of Questions

  1. Analysis of questions from past events has shown common topics such as Organizations, Data Management, Sharing data, Data storage, Data analysis, Finding data, Accessing data, and Software.
  2. Providing these categories can help volunteers organize their knowledge and prepare for different types of questions.
  3. Past survey forms from volunteers indicate general data topics volunteers could provide help with, listing examples like General Data Management, Information Management, Metadata, Data Repositories, and Data Management Plans. This list can serve as a set of categories for volunteers to consider.

Provide Example User Questions to Prepare For

  1. Hosts can provide volunteers with lists of common questions from past help desks. Examples of frequently asked questions include where to find or deposit data, how to create data management plans (DMPs), what FAIR principles are, how to cite datasets, and questions about data repositories and storage.
  2. Organizers can also create a starter set of question topics, specific questions, and suggested answers to inform volunteers.
  3. During planning, it’s helpful to consider what user topics volunteers may be asked about.
  4. Analysis of past Data Help Desks has revealed dominant themes in questions, such as data repositories and storage, rising interest in FAIR data, and challenges with large volumes of data. Sharing these insights can help volunteers anticipate common areas of inquiry.

Provide Schedules and Reminders for Staffing the Desk

  1. Hosts should create a schedule for the Data Help Desk.
  2. It’s important to have a solid communication plan both prior to and during the event. This includes communicating the schedule to volunteers.
  3. Remind and encourage volunteers, including deadlines and support provided via email just after the volunteer deadline.
  4. Sending calendar invites can help volunteers keep track of their scheduled times.
  5. During AGU24 planning, it was noted the importance of multiple phases of communication, including when the Data Help Desk is open, and to support and encourage volunteers during the meeting week once the schedule is released.
  6. Volunteers for AGU24 were informed of their time slots and encouraged to consider the booth a home base throughout the week.

Provide Surveys for Feedback on How to Support Volunteers in the Future

  1. It is recommended to survey volunteers post-event to get their thoughts on what worked well and what could be improved.
  2. A post-event survey can gather volunteer feedback on how the events could be enhanced in the future.
  3. Feedback from early career volunteers at AGU24 indicated a desire for more hands-on training and a definitive guide. This highlights the value of such feedback for improving volunteer support.
  4. Surveys can also ask about the benefit of staffing the desk and whether volunteers would want to do it again, providing insights into their experience and areas for improvement.
  5. Collecting feedback from volunteers is crucial to understand their needs and enhance their experience, increasing the likelihood of their participation in future events.