Technology

As e-Volunteerism enters its eighth year, it is clear that one of the original aims of this online journal project hasn’t been met: Namely, to get people in our field to interact more online.  Most of our online readers don’t make use of the interactive publishing features that make e-Volunteerism so valuable a resource to volunteer managers. In this Keyboard Roundtable, we explore why this might be. And along the way, we look at the whole issue of online interaction by people in the volunteerism field. 

GoVolunteer is the recruitment website of Volunteering Australia and is run in partnership with SEEK, an Internet employment website. From the 9th to the 31st of May 2005, a survey was placed on the website with the intention to collect data from people visiting the site. Analysing this data would enable a comparison of online tools for recruitment with more traditional methods, and help Volunteering Australia target its activities.

The survey gathered 1,413 responses out of a total number of 49,291 site visits. As sample sizes go, this ought to tell us a great deal about people using online volunteer matching sites.   What we do not know is whether the respondents are representative of users. For example, as we shall see below, the responses came overwhelmingly from women. Is that because more women use the site, or that women were more likely to answer the survey?

Happily the report also includes its own ‘applications of findings’ section to draw out the lessons of the research. This Research to Practice looks at the report and the findings.

In this quarter's issue, Harrison discusses her "logic model of decision making," designed to guide managers of volunteer resources through the steps and choices associated with managing virtual volunteering. This interview is a follow-up to Harrison’s interview in the last quarter of e-Volunteerism, where she discussed the misconceptions about virtual volunteering. 

After more than a decade of promoting virtual volunteering or online service as an important new development (which it is) for the volunteer field, it's time to step back and look at what is really happening as organizations put the theory into practice.  Yvonne D. Harrison, Assistant Professor of Nonprofit Leadership at Seattle University, has done some innovative research on virtual volunteering, particularly in Canada.  She also wrote her PhD dissertation on the subject and is devoted to helping practitioners understand the theoretical foundation of their work. In this interview with e-Volunteerism, Yvonne tackles misconceptions about virtual volunteering by sharing her research on such issues as how much is going on, who actually engages in it and how they engage, the appropriateness of virtual assignments and management implications, among other points.

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was held in Geneva, Switzerland in early December 2003 and included a pre-Summit "Conference on Volunteering and ICTS" (Information and Communication Technologies). To put a more personal face on this event, listen to a sampling of interviews with attendees from five different countries.

Modern technology makes it easy for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection to access training on virtually any subject. With the click of a mouse, you can learn how to arrange flowers or earn a degree without leaving the comfort of your home. You can log in to join a live class or sign in at your convenience. Training can include video clips, audio or chat rooms. There have never been so many options! But why would any organization want to deliver their training via the Internet? Not only is there the entire question of technology and the skills needed to use it effectively, but there is also the problem that whatever you put into cyberspace potentially becomes available free-of-charge to thousands and thousands of people. So is it all worth it?

As the Internet continues its pervasive growth through global society, attempts to utilize it in volunteer involvement also continue. This article will review efforts to use the Internet to address one of the basic questions in volunteering-- how can volunteers and volunteer organizations connect with one another to facilitate recruitment?