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Volunteer guide


Before you start

We would like to know:

  • What are your web skills, for instance:
    • HTML or XHTML
    • CSS
    • HTML authoring tools (e.g. Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Expressionweb)
    • Content management systems (e.g. Drupal, Joomla, Contribute)
    • Web scripting languages (e.g. Javascript, Php)
    • Web databases (e.g. Mysql)
    • Basic digital image skills (e.g. digital photography, Paintshop Pro, Photoshop, Fireworks, GIMP)
    • Web 2.0 tools (e.g. Flickr, WordPress, Wikis)
    • Search engine optimisation / website marketing
    • Foreign languages
    • Editing English text (spacially where author has English as a second language).

    Please include your depth of experience in the above. 
    If you dont have web experience, we can suggest ways in which you could get it.
    For instance, you could set up your own blog, wiki or website, for which we can mentor you and suggest helpful websites and books

  • Would you prefer to involve yourself with:
    • Projects involving client contact
    • Projects where you are closely mentored
    • More technical projects
    • Projects involving considerable use of English editing skills
    • Graphic design
    • Short training/mentoring projects (e.g. "How to create a wiki", "How to scale and crop your Photos", "How to change text on a webpage")?

  • Do you have any personal development/employability goals,e.g.
    • IT/Web skills
    • Project management experience
    • Communication skills
    • Voluntary sector experience?

  • When you can commit to work and for how much time?
  • Have you been inducted by communi and have you any voluntary sector experience or other useful skills / experience?
  • What areas can you travel to for meetings?
    (we can fund your travel costs)

  • What are your contact details?

Please contact Guy Lancaster on the Web Angels desk (0161-247-3446) to arrange a meeting to discuss the above.

When we have the above information…

We will try to find appropriate volunteering opportunities for you, matching your:

  • skills
  • time-commitment
  • location
  • client type
  • project type

Working on a Project

For projects involving creating or updating webistes, wikis, blogs or content management systems:

  • Work to be done should be documented in an agreed ‘spec’. Once the spec is agreed, it shouldn’t be changed except for minor points of clarificaion.
    Major changes should be put into a Version II spec, This should help to avoid never-ending project syndrome, which leaves both developer and client frustrated (also known as ‘project drift’)
  • Websites should where possible be developed on ‘test’ directories of the client’s webspace and only copied to live with their agreement. Sometimes this will be done a number of times within a project.
  • Websites should be created / updated with accessible CSS-based valid XHTML
  • Images should be web-resolution not print-resolution.
    Images of identifyable people should be used only with their written permission (or if apropriate, of their parents)
  • Websites should be internal and external link-checked, and pass W3C XHTML/CSS/Accessibility validation tests, as well as tested on a number of browsers (e.g. Mircosoft IE7 and IE8, Firefox, Google Chrome).
    Clients should be aware that the site is tested on a finite set of browsers and not all platforms and all browsers.
  • Just as we would hope that voluntary sector clients will produce material within agreed time-frames, we would also hope that you will complete your tasks as agreed.
    If this seems unlikely to happen, or if there is any other problem, please contact us as soon as possible.
  • Websites should be delivered with a long term client maintenange strategy in place (maybe involving training the client’s staff/volunteers or use of Web 2.0 based features)

For projects involving training or mentoring :

  • You should be careful not to oversell your skills, when offering training: it might be a good idea to provide a succinct list of things you can offer – and those that you can’t
  • It’s a good idea to structure your presentation, using the "Tell ‘em what your telling ‘em, Tell ‘em and Tell ‘em what you told ‘em" method – in any event, doing your best to keep your presentation as clear and as useful to the client as possible
  • You should practice your presentation with fellow students – this is a good way of polishing your delivery and rehearsing the sort of issues that might then arise when you deliver it live.
  • When you deliver the training, you should bring at least a basic handout with a summary of points that you make, references to sources of further help (websites, books, or articles) where clients can find out more about these skills and/or see them demonstrated.
    Remember what the function of this handout is: it is to explain in accessible terms what you can do, not to impress or bamboozle!.
    Web Angels can give you feedback on handouts that you intend to use.
  • Don’t go to a presentation assuming that the web connection will work, Powerpoint will work or that your memory stick will work.
    Always have a ‘belt and braces’ Plan B that you can drop seemlessly into!

When the project is complete

Please can you deliver:

  • Your Feedback to WebAngels
  • Client feedback and permission to use it on the WebAngels website as a casestudy
  • The communi Volunteer’s Record of Achievement Log (if you are working through communi)
  • Feedback required by your academic department (if participation in Web Angels is assessed)

WebAngels will be happy to supply references for your future job applications based on your volunteering achievements