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Admin tasks

From ISOGG Wiki

Admin tasks will vary depending on the size and scope of the project and the amount of volunteer time available. The following is a list of tasks that project administrators might typically be expected to perform. The work can be done by a single project admin but with a larger project it helps if co-administrators can be appointed to share the workload.

  • Admin team: Appoint, remove, replace co-admins
    • Recommendation: Allow only one full-status administrator. While co-admins can be removed by an administrator; another administrator can only be removed by himself or herself.
    • Communicate and encourage participation in decision-making
    • Develop team competence
    • Review and assess co-admin work
  • Establishing mission, goals and objectives
  • Developing definitions, standards, policies and procedures
  • Recruiting project participants/members
    • Genealogy mailing lists
    • Message boards (Ancestry, Rootschat, etc)
    • Family history societies/genealogical societies
    • Family societies
    • Presentations to groups
    • Other project admins
    • Members' match lists
    • Project website
  • Matching and grouping
  • Determining matches
  • Sorting into groups (genetic families)
  • Communicating with members and prospective members:
  • FTDNA Guidelines say Communication is a critical element of a DNA Project, and Family Tree DNA expects good communication from Group Administrators. One objective of these guidelines is to avoid or minimize common misunderstandings ensuring that a DNA Project is a source of enjoyment for all involved.
    • Pre-join communications - invitations, requirements, approval
    • Welcome messages upon members joining
    • Helping members understand results
    • Match messages and interpretations
    • Advice on joining additional projects
    • Responding to queries
    • Broadcast (bulk) e-mails
    • Progress reports and status updates
    • Website (s) and blogs
    • Privacy: Some information may be discussed privately with an individual member, but should not be disclosed publicly.
    • FTDNA Guidelines: Privacy and confidentiality are a key responsibility for a Group Administrator. Group Administrators have access to data and contact information of the members in the project. This access is necessary to assist participants in understanding and interpreting their results. Family Tree DNA expects Group Administrators to protect members privacy and confidentiality.
  • Recording actions, decisions & status
    • Admin notes per member
    • Statistics
    • Downloading
  • Genealogy
    • Research &/or assistance
    • Coordinating with genetic data
    • Publishing
  • Fundraising
  • Education
    • One's self
    • Admin team
    • Members
    • Public
  • Performance monitoring and evaluation: Is the project meeting its goals & objectives? Are course corrections needed?
    • Identify key metrics for project size and quality.
    • Collecting, analysing and publishing project statistics. For a good example see the Project Status page on the Taylor Family Genes DNA Project website.

Acknowledgements

ISOGG would like to thanks Ralph Taylor, the administrator of the Taylor Family Genes DNA Project, for providing the text to start this page.

See also