Service Opportunities :
Entering Service Opportunities
STEP 1: SELECT ADD BUTTON
You begin the process by selecting the Add button on the left sidebar.
When adding a service opportunity, you must first select the sponsoring agency or the sponsoring project (indented underneath the agency if it exists) as in the example below:
If you need to add the agency or service project (because they are not already in the system), then use the blue text button (see above) that will take you to the Add Agency form. Or, you can use the sub-tab for Agency or Service Projects to go directly to the respective forms (as described above).
Note: If you use the here text button above to add an agency, you must manually click on the main tabs to return to the Profiles > Service Opportunities > Add page where the agency you just added will now show up on the agency pull-down menu.
STEP 2: ENTER INFORMATION
Next you should enter the specifics of the service opportunity, beginning with the next section of the form that contains the following fields:
You may select more than one issue area from the list below:
Next, you are asked to indicate the Commitment Period for the service opportunity.
When you enter a service opportunity for the first time, you indicate the Semester/Year that it should be active. To make it available (active) in other semesters you use the Summary sidebar option.
The default settings for duration is "semester", but you can change this to reflect the length of the service opportunity:
STEP 3: Finally, there are a series of settings that campus administrators may need to modify from the default settings (shown below).
The "Available to" option allows you to specify who can see this service opportunity in BWBRS. The default when administrators are entering service opportunities is "All Students" (as shown below). The other options are "Nobody (inactive)" or specific students. When students enter service opportunities, they will be listed as the "Available to" person which means that only they (and you as the campus administrator) will see their service opportunities in BWBRS.
Your students can enter specific service opportunities that they are involved in, either on a regular basis or one-time projects. If they do, only they will be able to view those service opportunities. As an administrator, you go into that entry and modify the administrative settings at the bottom of the page (see above) to allow all students to view a specific service opportunity and, therefore, have the option to select it for their CLAs or hour log entries.
As you begin to have students use the system, you’ll want to keep an eye on any service opportunities entered by students to make sure they have sufficient information to allow you to verify the hours (look at the description field) and to categorize the service (look at the issue area fields).
The "OK for AmeriCorps" selection allows you to indicate whether the service opportunity qualifies as an AmeriCorps service opportunity. This should be set to “no” if the opportunity is one that would be prohibited under the AmeriCorps rules. BWBRS will not include on AmeriCorps-specific report any service hours for service opportunity that are not OK for AmeriCorps.
Two notes:
- Once a student has selected a service opportunity in the system for a Community Learning Agreement or to log service hours, you will not be able to unselect that service opportunity for that semester.
- Changes made in the service opportunity descriptions in any given semester will not affect prior semesters but will be reflected in future semesters.