CW21 Event Roles

We had similar event roles as at CW20. Again we ensured that we had at least two people assigned for each role/duty as contingency in case someone had to drop out of the event for any reason. CW is the premier event of the Institute, so all staff were expected to attend and able to fill most roles. Institute Fellows, collaborators and CW21 Sponsors filled remaining roles on the Code of Conduct Committee and Hack Day judging committee.

We reused documentation from CW20 to make sure that everyone knew their roles and responsibilities: we created a duties roster, wrote instructions for Zoom Hosts and Co-hosts, created a spreadsheet of the various roles and Zoom room links for the parallel sessions, and provided an index of links to point to all these documents and to help people find anything else related to CW21 that they would need (links to each day’s collaborative notes document, Zoom rooms, communication channels, session information, etc.).

We organised test calls for CW21 helpers and Zoom Hosts to make sure all the necessary features were enabled for each account (breakout rooms, co-hosts, non-verbal feedback, automatic recording, live transcription and captioning via Otter.ia, etc.) and to let the Hosts gain experience using these features.

See the CW21 Timeline for a breakdown of the various tasks and when they took place.

Before the event

  • Event Lead/Chair

    • Chair Steering Committee meetings
    • Chair Organising Committee meetings
    • Invite and coordinate with speakers
    • Process and caption pre-recorded keynote presentations
    • Invite and coordinate with sponsors
    • Deliver sponsorship benefits
    • Prepare publicity and content
    • Prepare, procure and test event infrastructure
    • Facilitate registration
    • Facilitate calls for submissions (mini-workshops and demo sessions, lightning talks)
    • Prepare for and mitigate risk of disruptions to the event
    • Procure prizes for Collaborative Ideas and Hack Day winners
    • Create duties roster and assign roles and tasks
    • Draft the “Before the event” Publicity

  • Organising Committee members

    • Attend Organising Committee meetings
    • Perform agreed Organising Committee actions
    • Help with event infrastructure

  • Steering Committee members

    • Attend Steering Committee meetings
    • Perform Steering Organising Committee actions

  • Keynote speakers

    • Pre-record presentation and send to Event Lead

During the event

  • Event Lead/Chair

    • Communicate connection details to participants via email and Slack

    • Act as Zoom Host for the main Zoom room

    • Create and manage breakout rooms

    • Synchronise participants via the collaborative notes documents

    • Reminding participants

      • To sign up for Discussion session topic
      • To vote for Collaborative Ideas
      • To register teams and projects for Hack Day
      • Of social programme activities they can take part in

    • Choreograph live streaming of keynotes and panel from Zoom to YouTube and Otter.ai via Restream

  • Code of Conduct Committee members

    • Handle and resolve any reports of misconduct

  • Slack monitors

    • Monitor the #help-desk and #general Slack channels and answer/relay any questions that come up

  • Social media monitors

    • Tweet, retweet and engage from the @SoftwareSaved account
    • Monitor #CollabW21 Tweets to ensure that no links are being shared
    • Answer/relay any questions that come up

  • Interviewer

    • Interview participants for video outputs from event and future promotion

  • Zoom participant managers

    • Admit people from the waiting room
    • Mute (or unmute) participants as needed
    • Keep an eye on raised hands
    • Help with breakout room creation as needed

  • Session Chairs

    • Introduce the speaker(s) or session and facilitate the session including Q&A

  • Mini-workshop and demo session Zoom Hosts

    • Enable the waiting room and admit participants
    • Assign Zoom Co-hosts
    • Ensure the session is recording
    • Ensure the live transcription and captioning is working
    • Assist the Mini-workshop and demo session Facilitator as needed

  • Mini-workshop and demo session Zoom Co-hosts

    • If the Zoom Host is not present (e.g. unable to connect or attend), the Zoom Co-host is the backup

    • Help with Zoom participant management:

      • Admit people from the waiting room
      • Mute participants as needed
      • Help with breakout room creation as needed
      • Assist the Zoom Host as needed

  • Mini-workshop and demo session Facilitators

    • Deliver session
    • Use the generated collaborative notes document for their session as needed to synchronise participants

  • Keynote speakers

    • Deliver Q&A

  • Panellists

    • Deliver panel

  • Lightning talks speakers

    • Deliver lightning talk

  • Hack Day Judges

    • Visit teams
    • Judge and score the projects
    • Award prizes

After the event

  • Event Lead/Chair

    • Close down the Event Project Stage
      • Send out feedback form to participants
      • Send prizes to Collaborative Ideas and Hack Day winners
      • Gather and prepare recordings for processing
      • Coordinate with Discussion session groups about their speed blogs
      • Follow up with Finance on sponsorship invoices
      • Draft the “After the event” Publicity
      • Write this In Practice on CW21

  • Organising Committee members

    • Process the session recordings (slice video recordings into individual sessions/speakers, edit captions, publish on YouTube)
    • Proofread, edit, publish and promote Discussion session speed blogs
    • Proofread, edit, publish and promote any “After the event” Publicity