Cohort call facilitator guide

Chris Montgomery (CC-BY)

We are very excited to create these roles in OLS for returning members from the previous cohorts of OLS.

We want to invite support from our community members to help make the cohorts successful.

At the same time, our hope is to share our practices for training and planning so you can take them into your projects and community.

Facilitators share some of the cohort call-related management roles with the OLS team.

Please identify which week you have signed up for and who the cohort call lead is.

Our cohort calls vary in time from week to week. Please, see the schedules from our website.

For any questions or concerns, please contact the cohort coordinators via Slack or email:

You can also reach out to other OLS team members via Slack or email at any time.

Cohort Facilitator Roles

We have two facilitator roles per call. In some cases, it’s possible that the same person has signed up for both roles.

  1. Call Facilitator reviews the cohort call notes and attends the cohort call to help the Call Lead ensure the call runs in a smooth, kind, and timely manner.
  2. Video Facilitator reviews the recording from the cohort call by checking the otter.ai transcription for accuracy and sharing the video via Youtube.

Please ask for the signup sheet where you can indicate your availability for 1 or multiple of these roles

As of August 2024, both facilitator roles are compensated with $ 50 USD per hour, with a maximum of 1.5 hours per cohort call or 3 hours for video transcription.

We invite you to take the lead on the following responsibilities for one or two cohort calls, depending on your availability and interests. Please note that we set a maximum of two calls per person in order to distribute opportunities as much as possible. For the same reason, also note that if you currently have a confirmed mentor role in the cohort, we would prefer you sign up to only one cohort call facilitation slot.

Responsibilities of OLS facilitators

Call Facilitator

Call facilitators hold responsibilities before and during the cohort calls

  • What you need: Link to the cohort call notes.

Before the call: Please do this 1 week in advance.

Time commitment: 10-20 minutes per call

  1. Coordinate with the cohort coordinator and Call Lead / Host via Slack or email to confirm who is invited as a speaker.
  2. Agree on who will be responsible for chairing each speaker presentation or breakout discussion during the call.
  3. Review the cohort call notes (on Framapad). We usually copy the notes from the previous cohort, so it is always good to check and correct:
    1. Do all links correspond to the current cohort? Ask the cohort coordinator if something is not clear.
    2. Correct any typos or formatting errors like headers, dates, timing, host and speakers’ names, etc.
    3. If slide links are missing or incorrect, please let the Call Lead know about these in the facilitator’s channel or via direct message if you prefer.

During the call: Please join 10 minutes before time

Time commitment: 90 minutes per call, please arrive 10 minutes early so we can assign you as a co-host.

  1. Ask the call lead for co-host rights and check if the call will be recorded on the cloud (if applicable, because some calls are not recorded, or parts of them are not recorded).
  2. Test if you can create breakout rooms (for discussion parts).
  3. Help manage participants by letting them in, if the waiting room is enabled. Mute participants if their mic is on when they are not speaking to avoid background noise.
  4. Keep an eye on the chat and respond to questions. You can also privately coordinate with the participants or cohort call lead as needed, for example, if someone needs help in addressing any confusion or interruptions for attendees.
  5. Remind newcomers via the chat to add an_ S or a _W in front of their Zoom name (S for spoken; W for written), for the breakout rooms. Privately coordinate with them if they have not indicated ‘W’ for written and ‘S’ for speaking to allow the creation of breakout rooms.
  6. Share the pad link in the chat for the participants who arrive late and remind them to add their names in the roll call section of the pad.
  7. Please also help with taking some notes about the talks when you are not chairing.
  8. During the call, share the pad’s line number where participants should respond to a written reflection, questions or comments for speakers, prompts for the breakout discussion or notes section from breakout sessions.
  9. Create the breakout rooms if needed, considering people’s choice for spoken or written rooms.
  10. Chair the session that you have agreed to (you would have coordinated this in advance with the call leads or cohort coordinator).

Chairing notes:

  • If you are chairing a speaker session, make sure to pay attention to the time, and ask the speaker to wrap up if they look like they’re going to over-run their talk time.
  • Always think of questions for the speakers. Often no-one wants to be the first person to ask, so a call host can “break the ice” by asking one themselves.

Video Facilitator

Video facilitators are responsible for the post-call tasks. It is not required to attend the calls synchronously

What you need before starting:

  • Please ask the organising team for access to:
    • Otter.ai.
    • OLS YouTube channel. Create a YouTube account with your personal email, and ask the cohort coordinator to give you editor access to the OLS YouTube account.
  • Link to Zoom recordings.
  • Slide template for the video thumbnail.
  • Link to the cohort planning sheet.

Time commitment: 120-150 minutes per call

Below we provide a summary checklist. For a detailed tutorial, please refer to the detailed tutorial.

  • 1. Download the video from Zoom cloud recordings.
  • 2. Upload the video to Otter.ai (will need a few minutes to process).
  • 3. Upload the video to the OLS YouTube account.
  • 4. Create a thumbnail for the video with the cohort call details using the template.
  • 5. Make sure the YouTube video is added to the current cohort playlist.
  • 6. Correct the Otter.ai transcripts (make sure to use the uploaded video, not the original transcript, as the timings won’t match the video)
  • 7. Download the corrected transcript as a .srt file from Otter.
  • 8. Upload it to the YouTube video.
  • 9. Post a link to the recording in the OLS Slack!

After publishing the video, fill in the following information in the cohort planning sheet:

  • Add the link to the YouTube video (column “Recording”).
  • In the same column, add the corresponding YouTube link at the exact time each individual talk starts: on YouTube, click “Share”, tick “Start at” so that the starting time of each talk shows up, then click “Copy” and paste the link in the spreadsheet.

After you’ve completed these tasks, please fill out the honorarium form.

❓ How to get help

  • Do you have any technical questions about the tasks? Post them in the Slack channel ols-cohort-call-facilitators.
  • You are also welcome to contact any of the cohort coordinators via Slack or email.

Resources

A few references that can help us expand on these roles are: