[bksvol-discuss] Re: Creating a Process for Creating Guidelines
- From: "Shelley L. Rhodes" <guidinggolden@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 21:55:59 -0400
Pavi,
It makes sense the way you have presented it, smile.
You could I reckon call this group what the Volunteer Advisory Committee, smile.
Shelley L. Rhodes, M.A., VRT
And Guinevere: Golden Lady Guide Dog
guidinggolden@xxxxxxxxx
Guide Dogs for the Blind
Alumni Association
www.guidedogs.com
The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of
their act as violence;
rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness.
The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.
-Gil Bailie, author and lecturer (b. 1944)
----- Original Message -----
From: Pavi Mehta
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: carrie.k@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, June 09, 2009 4:26 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Creating a Process for Creating Guidelines
Hi All,
As you know the recent guidelines that went out on Page Numbering have
generated some understandable concern and confusion among the volunteers. Some
of you have written in to staff with detailed emails articulating those areas
of concern and where the guidelines appear more inconvenient than helpful.
Others have expressed their opinions on the list. Carrie and I have had several
discussions recently on how best to address these concerns and modify the
guidelines so that they serve as a tool and not a hindrance. As hands-on
volunteers all of your input is valuable and we want the guidelines to reflect
the best practices and collective wisdom of the volunteer community.
Regarding page numbers Carrie will send out a note shortly to clarify some of
the areas of confusion and concern and explain how the guidelines for this
will be implemented. Bottom line is that we do understand the wide variety of
challenges volunteers face with including page numbers in books, and we're glad
to have had your feedback. We intend hereon for this guideline to be
implemented with a large degree of flexibility - and will be rewriting the
guidelines to clearly reflect the difference between page number requirements
for educational books and other submissions.
Moving forward though, for us one of the overarching questions that the Page
Number issue brings up is:
What is the most efficient and effective way for Bookshare to do the
following:
1. Identify volunteer areas that need guidelines
2. Draft guidelines and have them reviewed by a small pool of
volunteers(in a sort of beta phase)
3. Finalize and share these guidelines among the greater volunteer
community
Ideally, Carrie and I feel that volunteers should have a leading and more
transparent role to play in steps 1 and 2 above.
Here is a suggested approach, that it would be great to get your input on:
1. Form a self-selected team of "Bookshare Guideline Shapers" (we can
think of a better name down the line- smile). The Guideline Shapers are
Bookshare volunteers who step forward to help identify, draft and sound out
missing guidelines. Even if something is brought to staff attention regarding a
missing guideline, we would turn it over initially to this group with our
suggestions if any.
2. The Guideline Shapers would decide on areas that need guidelines,
work on an initial draft of these guidelines and then send them over to
Carrie/me for review from the Bookshare staff perspective. The Guideline
Shapers would go over any edits from us and come up with a revised guideline.
They would then solicit feedback on the guideline from the volunteer list
before making any final tweaks to it.
3. Once the guideline has been finalized, I will incorporate it in the
Volunteer Manual, and ensure that it is announced on the volunteer blog as well
as on the volunteer discussion list. (We will create a separate section of the
manual for Updates to the Manual so that it is easy for people to keep up with
the changes).
Participation from the volunteer community while shaping policy, we feel is
key and we think this approach could be a really invigorating way of
facilitating the creation of useful guidelines from the inside-out. Of course
we would be more than glad to help with the logistics of setting up a group
alias and other etcs for Guideline Shapers, and to provide assistance wherever
we can. We would love your feedback on this approach as well as to know if any
of you are interested in being part of such a team.
Warm regards,
Pavi & Carrie
Pavi Mehta
Volunteer Coordinator, Bookshare
Benetech
480 S. California Ave., Suite 201
Palo Alto, CA 94306-1609 USA
Phone: +1 650 644-3459
pavim@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.benetech.org
The Benetech Initiative - Technology Serving Humanity
A Nonprofit Organization
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