Become a volunteer.
As a volunteer, you may think you need to be an expert as well. Some of our coordinators (that’s what we call volunteers in the system) are also experts who can help with subjects directly. But your most powerful tool, as someone who coordinates, is just knowing where to point a person.
So say you get an idea: “Oh hey, this is a great fit for this person. They’re not on the Ommatidium Project, but I think they’d be a fantastic contact for them.” Our system lets you do that, as long as you certify the person would be okay to receive that email. And that is the power of it.
You’re just helping people find where they need to go, then checking back to make sure it followed through. You claim requests when you have the time. If you don’t, you can just step away, and that’s it. It’s meant to be open. And it’s really meant to leverage your skill set, your enthusiasm, and your knowledge, maybe of the people in the field, to help others.
What you’d agree to.
The volunteer agreement and code of conduct. How we handle everyone’s personal data is in our privacy notice.
What you actually agree to: The short version is that you only claim what you think you can follow through on. You’re handling people’s requests, so you protect their privacy, and you don’t store or copy their details. You’ll always treat people with respect.
We don’t work with minors, that’s not within our scope. If a request looks like it’s from someone under 18, you stop and flag it to the admin team. And you declare any conflict of interest and hand the request to someone else.
We don’t over-promise. We don’t guarantee anything. We just refer people, and that’s a big draw to this. When a request has been closed, you check on it to make sure something happened, even if the introduction went nowhere. And you can step back or leave at any time.
Read the full agreement and code of conduct
Volunteer agreement & code of conduct
What we’re doing, and why
The Ommatidium Project exists to widen access to entomology and invertebrate science for people who don’t arrive with an established network. As a volunteer you help by making introductions and pointing people towards the right person, place or opportunity.
What we ask of you
- Claim a request only when you can act on it, ideally within 5 days. If you can’t take it forward, release it so someone else can.
- Make warm, considered introductions, with the requester’s knowledge and consent.
- Check back once, a few weeks on, and update the request’s status.
- When you close a request, record its outcome: who you connected them to and what it led to.
- If you have your own network, use it. It is the greatest strength of our volunteers. Please check that the person truly wants an introduction before you send them one.
Handling people’s information
- Only open the details you need for a request you’re handling.
- Don’t copy, download, screenshot or store requesters’ details outside our shared system.
- Don’t share anyone’s details beyond what an introduction requires, and never outside the network.
- A request can be worked by more than one of us: the person responsible for it may invite a collaborator, who then sees the requester’s details too. Adding or removing someone is recorded on the request. The display name you set in Account signs the replies you send to requesters.
- Tell admin at entofacet dot org straight away if information is lost, exposed or sent to the wrong person.
- So a compromised account can be traced, staff sign-ins and portal use are recorded with the IP address, approximate location and browser type. Only admins can read these records and they are kept for 12 months; the privacy notice has the detail.
How we treat people
- It’s not our job to test whether a requester knows enough to deserve help. If something’s off, it usually shows when we follow up. The big thing is to treat people with respect, courtesy, and professionalism, always. The project lives or dies on how our coordinators behave. If a coordinator is disrespectful, it comes back to us, and it hurts the whole community. That’s the last thing we want.
- No discrimination of any kind. Just because a question is badly written doesn’t mean it’s a bad question. Clarify with the person before closing it. Ask the admin team to step in if you need help.
- This service is for adults (18+). If a request appears to come from a minor, don’t proceed. Flag it to the project.
- Keep good boundaries: no soliciting requesters for paid work, personal relationships or unrelated agendas.
- Declare any conflict of interest and hand the request to someone else.
What we don’t promise
We facilitate introductions and guidance. We don’t guarantee placements, jobs, references or any particular outcome, and you should never imply otherwise to a requester.
Be realistic, don’t overpromise
Only offer what you can genuinely deliver. For some requests there may be no obvious contact in that field, or only a handful of people in the country who could help, which can come as a surprise to a student or someone just starting out. Be honest about that rather than raising hopes. Popular groups get swamped: a topic like ants can draw hundreds of requests, and we cannot match every one to a person. Do your best, set expectations early, and never promise a connection, placement or reply you cannot guarantee.
Report back so we can keep going
When a request closes, tell us what happened: who you connected the person to, what you arranged, and where it led. If you worked through your home institution, note that too. We use these outcomes, anonymised, to report to funders and keep the project running, so a short note on every closed request genuinely matters.
Stepping back
You can pause or leave at any time. Just let the project know so requests can be reassigned. We’ll remove your access promptly.
The queue, the way volunteers would see it.
This is a working demo of the website. You can work through most of the actual workflow and get a feel for the interface, so you know what you’re signing up for. Nothing on here is real or saved.
New 1
Claimed 1
In progress 1
Matched 1
Closed 1
Behind the queue: the volunteer side.
Everything below would sit behind a volunteer login and never be visible to the public.
The volunteer directory (demo)
So you can see who else is in the network and where to hand a request on: who covers which groups, and who is happy to help with careers, collections, fieldwork or mentoring.
Email only experts (demo)
A separate bank of specialists who help by email only. They are often too far away to give local advice, but they are genuine experts in their group and have given us permission for people to contact them out of the blue. Treat this as a way to reach real expertise when no one local fits.
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