When people sign up to study on our website, they are invited to begin our Intro To Digital (ITD) Course. This course opens for one month, then closes for one month, then reopens. It runs six times a year.
Learners complete the course on our Guided Learning platform by completing a sequence of steps. Each step is explained clearly in B1 English. The text is reproduced on this site in the Steps section.
These submissions are passed to our internal dashboard, where volunteers can track the progress of each person and help them move forward.
Volunteers review the submissions and guide learners via:
the comment threads on the dashboard
our Slack workspace for ITD
drop-in sessions organised in-person or online by respective regional CYF teams
calling and SMS messaging directly from the dashboard
The role of volunteers is to review submissions by applicants and respond with feedback. The submissions will be found on the Dashboard. See the side menu for the instructions on how to access the dashboard.
Reviewing
Reviewing work submitted by the applicants is a core task for volunteers.
Important
Reviewing work submitted by the applicants is a core task for volunteers. You should prioritise reviewing submitted work when you have free time available. We will also have online sessions on Saturdays for ITD so please check in slack to find the details of those. The links should be posted into the channel and on the global channel.
The Slack channel #cyf-intro-to-digital-course is for volunteers to discuss and ask questions, for example if you have questions about reviewing applicants work. This channel has a canvas containing important information https://codeyourfuture.slack.com/canvas/C01332PNRTN. You should read the canvas first. This document contains additional information to help you find your way around as a volunteer.
What you know, what you will learn
As a volunteer you should:
be able to spend some time on the tasks that need volunteers to complete so that CYF can function. Volunteers enable CYF to achieve its goals.
be digitally literate
Your feedback to applicants will be guided by one or both of the following
technical expertise in some of the full stack development technologies including HTML, CSS, Javascript, React, SQL (Postgres)
expertise in personal skills to guide applicants in their personal development, for example in communication, presentation, time management, work-life balance, etc.
What you’ll learn
How to register (if you are a new volunteer)
How to access the dashboard
Where to find the syllabus
How to give helpful feedback.
What you’ll need
You will need a computer or tablet with this software installed:
Slack
A web browser
CYF generally uses (Ubuntu) Linux rather than Windows or Macs. If you are trying to complete tasks that the applicants will do, instructions generally assume a Linux environment, so some experience of Linux would be helpful.
What you’ll do
On the following pages we will take you through all the necessary information on volunteering with ITD guide your feedback to applicants.
Access the Syllabus
Access the dashboard
Find applicant submissions and give feedback
Using the ITD Curriculum
Where to find the ITD Syllabus
Before you can review the work submitted by applicants, you should familiarise yourself with the syllabus.
This is the ITD syllabus.
Applicants will work through the steps week by week. Each step contains instructions for the applicants to do complete a task which they should then submit. Volunteers can find these submissions on the dashboard and give feedback.
Tip: You can read all the steps right here in the menu “Steps”.
The Workshops will be organised by each region, and are designed to be face-to-face opportunities for applicants to ask questions and clarify their learning. Workshops will be advertised on Eventbrite and advertised in Slack.
You will find that each step has a number of sub-components reachable via a menu which looks like this: .
The Instructions tell the applicant what to do. Volunteers should read this too so that you fully understand what is being asked of the volunteers in each step.
The acceptance criteria list everything the the applicant must do to successfully complete the step.
The Submission item tells the applicants what to submit. Volunteers can find these submissions in the dashboard.
The Help item tells the applicants how to get help.
The Extensions item gives a suggestion of other things a applicant can do in this step, but which don’t have to be submitted.
Accessing the Dashboard
How to access the Dashboard
These instructions come from Step 4 in the #cyf-intro-to-digital-course canvas (https://codeyourfuture.slack.com/canvas/C01332PNRTN so please refer to that first as it contains links to the instructions your should follow to access the dashboard. The information below is just designed to summarise those instructions..
If you are just registering as a new volunteer you should complete the application form.
If you have already registered, click the link at the top which says
Important: If you already completed this form in some point please click here.
This takes you to a page where you enter your email address and you will then get sent an email to confirm your login and thereafter you will be able to access the dashboard directly. If you have problems, post a question into the slack channel #cyf-intro-to-digital-course
Once you are in, the home screen of the dashboard looks like this: The menu at the top has links to the home page and the ITD programme. There will be other programs linked here as and when they start and have applicants on them.
Using the CYF Dashboard
Using the dashboard: Seeing Applicants
If you click on See Applicants in the New Applicants box, you will see a list of all the new applicants.
The blue Email button allows you to email applicants.
In my screen I can download a CSV file containing the details of the applicants, but you may not have this option.
You can use the FILTERS button to filter the view and see applicants in different areas, or limit the steps displayed. This screenshot shows some of the filter options:
Using the dashboard: Reviewing work submitted by applicants
If you click on Review Steps in the Steps box you will see a list of those applicants who have submitted work for one or more of the steps in the ITD syllabus. The view is a subset of all the applicants and looks similar: _ You can see that Applicant 1 has submitted work for Step 0 but it hasn’t yet been approved. That is indicated by the 0 in the Steps column. _ Applicant 2 has also submitted work for Step 0 and it has been approved because there is a tick AND a 0 in the Steps column.
How to view submissions
Click on the name of one of the applicants. You will see a menu appear like this one: .
If you click on Steps you will see what the applicant has submitted for the ITD steps. The example below shows the applicant has submitted work for three steps and you are looking at their submission link for STEP 1:Clicking the Submitted link will allow you to see their submitted work.
How to review a submission
When reviewing a submission there are three things you can do:
Communicating with the applicant: If you click the Comments button you can see comments left by other volunteers and add your own comments. You should post a comment back to the applicant if you have questions and you are not yet able to approve or reject the work. It is also good practice to post a comment when you reject a submission so the applicant can see why their work was rejected. You can comment after approving work to highlight what the applicant did well.
Approving work: When you are ready to approve the submitted work as meeting the acceptance criteria, click the Approve button. If you want to highlight work that you thought was good practice (or bad practice), leave a comment. Do not approve the work unless it meets the acceptance criteria.
Rejecting work: If you are rejecting the work as not meeting the acceptance criteria, click the Reject button You should leave comments to say why the work was rejected.
Undoing a decision: If you want to change your mind about approving or rejecting a piece of work, can click the Undo button as shown in this screenshot: You should post a comment to the applicant to let them know why the decision was changed.
Using the dashboard: Workshops
If you click the Workshops option under a applicant’s name, you are able to record whether or not they attended a workshop and leave some text as context. Here is what the option looks like:
Useful links
Here is a quick list of useful links (some are for applicants only, but it is helpful to know them if an applicant has a problem):
