External Online Facilitation Guide
The Future Leaders Fellows Development Network External Online Facilitation Guide
Version 1 – Sep 2022
1. Objective
The purpose of this document is to outline the guidance and expectations of facilitators delivering events on behalf of the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network. Please note, in particular, specific requests for action highlighted in bold text.
2. Accessibility and EDI considerations
We are committed to ensuring our events are inclusive and accessible to all members of the Network. Please familiarise yourself with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Policy and our Principled Spaces Policy. If you notice a participant acting in contravention of these policies or another participant reports feeling uncomfortable or unsafe, please privately message (if online) or take the participant aside (if you are comfortable doing so) to give them a warning about their behaviour. If harassing behaviour persists, please a) eject the participant/ask them to leave (if you feel comfortable doing so) or b) report the incident immediately to one of our team so that they may remove the participant. All incidents should be reported to the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network team.
We ask Fellows during the registration process for any specific adjustments they may require in order to fully participate. Therefore, facilitators may be asked to make additional reasonable adjustments and provide slides in advance of the session if requested. We will inform facilitators as soon as possible if any such requests are made. In addition to recording upon request (see below), we will provide auto captions and transcripts for our online events or hire BSL/English interpreters and live human transcription (online and in-person).
Please make any text as gender neutral as possible. It is perfectly acceptable to use ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘their’ as if it were a singular pronoun, e.g. ‘The Fellow will receive the name of their mentor’. Always avoid the formulation ‘his/her’.
We expect facilitators to respect everyone’s pronouns, in accordance with our Principles Spaces Policy. Stickers will be made available for in-person events and, for online events, participants can add pronouns alongside their username in Zoom. Where possible, facilitators may encourage the sharing of pronouns as part of introductions. This could be done verbally e.g. ‘My name is Katie and my pronouns are she and her” or you could include them on a title slide alongside your name ‘’Katie Nicoll Baines (she/her)”[1].
Please be mindful of the accessibility of your content. Some general suggestions include:
- use a pale background and sans serif font
- avoid red/green contrasts in figures (especially where the colours are essential to understanding the image)
For further reading on this topic, please see this article on accessible images.
3. Stakeholders and audiences
Our full name is ‘Future Leaders Fellows Development Network’. Note that the Network is a separate entity from UKRI and, as such, ‘UKRI’ is not included in our name. Please note, too, that there is a double plural (i.e. ‘Leaders Fellows’).
Please ensure that you refer to ‘research and innovation’ or ‘researchers and innovators’. This double construction (‘research and innovation’) is particularly important to UKRI, and reflects the fact that some Fellows work in commercial innovation organisations. Similarly, do not refer to the Fellows as ‘academics’, ‘academic leaders’, ‘postdocs’, etc. We should describe the Fellows as being in ‘academic, commercial, and independent research organisations’.
Demographic analysis of 394 of our Fellows demonstrates a fairly even gender split (52% male, 46% female, 2% undisclosed), a tendency towards HEI hosts (though industry hosts are move prevalent in later rounds), and a prevalence of Russell Group hosts. 77% of the researchers and innovators operate in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, with 23% identifying with arts, humanities and social science (AHSS) disciplines.
4. Communications
To assist with event planning, we will communicate by email and supply facilitators with a proforma, which is used primarily for internal purposes and event listings on our website. For online events, we will send a diary invite from our hello@FLFdevnet.com account a month in advance and include the Zoom joining instructions. For in-person events, we will ensure that details of venue and associated support are made available as early as possible, in most cases one month in advance.
5. Zoom and online events
We prefer to host our events via the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network Zoom account, with the facilitator as co-host. We will be in touch three working days before the event to confirm the participants list, disseminate pre-event material, and pass on any pre-course questions from Fellows. We will launch Zoom ten minutes early to speak with facilitator/s and make them co-hosts so that they can share relevant materials. Attendance is monitored via our Zoom account.
Our events are not recorded as standard practice. If a Fellow has requested a recording for any reason (e.g. they are no longer able to attend the event), we will liaise with facilitators to discuss the feasibility of recording the session. If it is deemed that a recording is not practical or advisable, then we will explore alternative options with facilitators, e.g. producing a short voiceover of the main slide content.
Please ensure that you enable the live transcript in Zoom and point Fellows to where this can be found. Always download the transcript before leaving the call.
Instructions to enable Live Transcript/Captions are as follows:
- Click Closed Caption to start viewing closed captioning
- Click Live Transcript , to view the transcript in the side panel of the meeting
- The captions will run as you speak and the live transcript can be viewed in a separate window on the right hand side
- At the end of the meeting, please click on download the live transcript and email this to Lisa Guenther at guenther@ed.ac.uk.
- To alert participants to this functionality, simply write the following into the chat: “The captions and live transcript has been enabled for this call. To view and follow along with the captions and the live transcript simply click under in the zoom menu.”
6. Branding
We are happy for you to use your own branding but, for continuity, we will supply you with a Future Leaders Fellows Development Network branded PowerPoint template for the first and last slides in your presentation.
7. Feedback process
We collect all feedback via an automated feedback system. Please do not ask participants to complete other feedback/evaluation forms. This is to ensure continuity across all Future Leaders Fellows Development Network workshops. If you would like to receive anonymised feedback from your session, please email Lisa Guenther at lisa.guenther@ed.ac.uk.
8. Invoicing
Please submit your invoice as a PDF and send to Yasmin.Gibson-Hutton@ei.ed.ac.uk and add the following postal address to the invoice:
Monica Dearden
Consultancy Manager
Edinburgh Innovations
The University of Edinburgh
Murchison House, King’s Buildings
10 Max Born Crescent
Edinburgh EH9 3BF
9. Data protection
The Future Leaders Fellows Development Network is committed to protecting your privacy. We will only use the information you provide in the ways described below and will keep you informed of any updates to how your details are used. We will not use your information for any other purposes without your explicit consent. Any data recorded from member registration or interaction with elements of the website will be stored securely and protected from unauthorised use or disclosure. The Future Leaders Fellows Development Network complies with the UK General Data Protection Regulations, and any personal data shared with the Network with be processed and handled according to these regulations.
Please note that Fellows’ names and email addresses may not be shared with companies or individuals outside the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network unless it is with their explicit permission.
Our general Privacy Policy can be found on our website.
10. Terms and conditions
All facilitators must attend any relevant orientation sessions to ensure the intentions and scope of the Network, as well as the relevant programme’s objectives, are understood.
Our website sets out the Network’s aims and objectives, according to our contract from UKRI, and our coaching and mentoring programmes are delivered in support of those aims and objectives.
We will do our best to ensure that all events delivered through the Network are accessible, high quality, and do not harm the interests of Fellows, the Network, or our stakeholders. We reserve the right to decline to offer events or facilitation to Fellows where we consider that doing so would raise duty of care issues.
At times, facilitators may share their own opinions with the Fellows and are responsible for the opinions expressed. These opinions should not be taken as representative of the views of the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network or UKRI. No indemnity for misguidance or negligence is provided to facilitators by the Network.
11. Contacts
Bridget Mellifont, Deputy Director: b.mellifont@ed.ac.uk
Lisa Guenther, Events Officer: lisa.guenther@ed.ac.uk
[1] https://ebaseevidencebase.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/guidance-for-speakers_v2.pdf