DataONE Internship Mentor Call
Friday Apr 22 2011

Attending: Amber, Heather, Todd, Carly, Viv, Rebecca, Bertram, Bill

Agenda:
1) Feedback on Internship Recruitment
2) Next Steps; Letters, payment, timelines
3) First Meeting; timeline, logistics, outcomes, communication

1) Feedback:
Timeline for looking at applicants was too short - didn't allow for interactive dialogue with applicants.  Echoed by other mentors.  Particularly challenging for mentors as seconds on multiple projects.  Also, would be useful to be have a spreadsheet generated for guidance.  Couldn't answer whether someone was you first choice until after you had looked at all candidates.  A way to look at entries after submission would be good - felt too 'closed'.  Thanks for organising the folders for project specific applications.  Good communication with interns.  The project announcement was well written and generated a lot of enthusiasm.  Twitter and Blogging efforts (Heather and others) were also important in generating enthusiam.
Lessons learned:  Form for applicants to complete, ask where applicants heard about the project, highlight the eligibility criteria - write it more explicilty?, 

2) Next Steps:
Formal letters going out today, complete with form that needs to be completed (SS number etc).  Non US-citizens need to be paid through their current University (so need appropriate contact info for the Uni).  Once this is complete, an account can be set up and then the expenses can be awarded fort he face-to-face meeting.

3) First Meeting
F2F meeting should happen by end of the 2nd week of the program and should be a 2-3 day event and travel must be domestic.  Travel can be organised through DataONE and Rebecca will update Mentors when paperwork gets received for setting up travel logistics.  F2F meeting will set up details of the project plan, expectations, communication expectations - template for this will be sent out in advance of F2F by Amber.  Include information alternative contact information - e.g. ombudsperson.  This could be Amber, and Rebecca for logistics (Rebecca would also be ombudsperson for the project that Amber is listed as a mentor).
Interns will provide weekly emails to all interns and mentors as updates.  Offer a marratech call to all interns at nbeginning, middle and end.  There will be mentor calls in the same time frame to reflect the mid-term and final-term evaluations.

Other:
Lessons learned? Lessons learned have been included in the process this year. Establish desireable outcomes in terms of products?  Bertram's project last year generated a poster presentation.  Possibility for collaboration across DataONE however, need to be mindful of current commitments of those individuals that did not sign up as a mentor (e.g. CCIT).  Interns invited to All Hands Meeting for poster presentation.  Also, some funds can be made available to attend other meetings - travel award as opposed to full cost coverage.

- ask where they heard about the program
- in the program call highlight the eligibility criteria with more bold letters?


Other issues we will hopefully cover:
- what is the best contact info for interns if they have any sort of problems with payment or communication with mentors?
- learning from last year

Bertram: 
Q: Last year we had volunteers. Is this encouraged/discouraged?
I would like to add one or two ECS-199 students (if/when available)
Also: one idea for project #8 was to link up with CCIT...
Will have to leave ca. 12:40