What would it take to provide honorarium for online classes and how can we help?

Education
#1

At our Meet the Candidate session, a number of candidates commented positively about offering more online DMS education, and a number of candidates (I forget who, apologies) mentioned offering honorarium for online classes.

I’ll tag @dougemes and @Team_education for input. If anyone else has information about how we can implement online honorarium for Google Meet or Zoom classes, please share your knowledge.

I imagine there are going to be issues to be resolved, such as intellectual property rights for recording classes, and possibly new procedures for auditors.

I am happy to participate remotely in finding solutions.

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#2

I hope we can figure this out, since it makes a lot of sense.

But…as a long time honorarium administrator, I would have concerns. We know that the system has been abused and gamed multiple time over the years. We also know that when unchecked and un-monitored, we can spend way more on honorariums than the value certain classes provide.

An honorarium budget – which is in the works is my understanding – per committee would go a long way to making sure a high level of class value and quality was maintained as well ensure we didn’t spend ourselves out of a makerspace.

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#3

@mblatz Agreed that there need to be checks on the financial piece.

That said, the current rules state instructors can receive honorarium for 4 classes with at least 3 students, There are logs (or a screenshot could work) in the software for who enters the meeting, which can be submitted to ensure students are actually there.

If there is enough concern, we could implement a requirement that people either leave their cameras on and/or speak during class to ensure the students are still there.

As for auditors, the rules should still be the same about the class running for a mandated amount of time and for submitting a class description ahead of time for the calendar.

With safeguards in place, I think it would be harder, not easier, to game the system.

As an educational nonprofit that currently can’t use classrooms, I think this would attract more teachers to fill the calendar.

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#4

Yep…I’ll definitely leave it up to education committee, chairs, and BoD to figure out how best to avoid shenanigans. I can from a historical perspective, almost any organizational “improvements” that require or depend on more administration/oversight layers, or more software/tech support or more committed volunteers to actually do what they said they would have mostly fallen by the wayside. The Aesop’s’ fable regarding belling the cat somewhat applies…

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#5

I think online classes would be a great addition. Anyone can draw up a proposal on how to make this work and submit it. I don’t know if it is something this board or the next would implement but definitely would love to see ideas.

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#6

I think @Josh_Melnick had an online class about ebay or 3D printing. Josh, what was that process like for you?

#8

Do you want it submitted to the BoD, the Education Chair, or both?

I was thinking along the lines of submitting classes to the calendar as we would for a regular class with a class description, date/time, and then send a confirmation email with the link to Google Meet to people who signed up. The instructors would send the follow up information via their DMS email address for audit trail purposes (like the committee chairs do).

Maybe a “classroom” can be added to the calendar, and we can call it “Online Classroom” or something like that so people don’t show up to the space for it. A copy of the Google Meet link would also need to go to the Education Chair and/or BoD so they can check in on the participants like they would if they wanted to go to the cameras to make sure the classes were really happening and at least 3 people were in actual attendance on the virtual class. They could be cc’d on the follow up email, or it could be a separate email.

In other words, (mostly) business as usual with some allowances for the technology.

Your thoughts?

#9

I didn’t ask for honorarium for ebay classes, just did it to help people in the crises. I have a few classes coming up software related that are online and they passed they audit group for honorarium.

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#10

Thank you! If you do that class again, I am interested.

Congratulations! Does that mean we don’t have to do anything differently for online classes? Which room did you select?

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#11

I want people to be able to make an extra $50-$100/week on ebay to help pay their groceries or electric bill or help just makes ends meet. Some people have taken my Ebay class, followed my advice and are making extra side income in that range now!

I made over $50 on Ebay this weekend myself.

I have created 2 Etsy stores a week ago, I want to understand this well enough to teach others so they can sell their hand made items and make a side income to get through this COVID madness.

My online classes that are for honorarium are “maker stuff” like Tinkercad, Machine Learning and will probably teach Fusion 360 soon. Many software classes could be taught online and without much cost to the DMS infrastructure.

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#12

That sounds great, Josh! Congrats on your sale. I signed up for your TinkerCad class.

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#13

You asked about location, on the calendar, they made a location “Online Class”
take a look on my upcoming ebay class:
https://calendar.dallasmakerspace.org/events/view/15784

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