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Virtual Volunteering
Virtual volunteering refers to volunteer activities completed, in whole or in part, using the Internet and a home, school buildings, telecenter, or work computer or other Internet-connected device, such as a smartphone or a tablet. Virtual volunteering is also known as online volunteering, remote volunteering or e-volunteering. Contributing to free and open source software projects or editing Wikipedia are examples of virtual volunteering. In practice In one study, over 70 percent of online volunteers chose assignments requiring one to five hours a week and nearly half chose assignments lasting 12 weeks or less. Some organizations offer online volunteering opportunities which last from ten minutes to an hour. A unique feature of online volunteering is that it can be done from a distance. People with restricted mobility or other special needs participate in ways that might not be possible in traditional face-to-face volunteering. Likewise, online volunteering may allow people to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volunteering
Volunteering is an elective and freely chosen act of an individual or group giving their time and labor, often for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve on an as-needed basis, such as in response to a natural disaster. Etymology and history The verb was first recorded in 1755. It was derived from the noun ''volunteer'', in 1600, "one who offers himself for military service," from the Middle French ''voluntaire''. In the non-military sense, the word was first recorded during the 1630s. The word ''volunteering'' has more recent usage—still predominantly military—coinciding with the phrase ''community service''. In a military context, a volunteer army is a military body whose soldiers have chosen to enlist, as opposed to having been conscripted. Such volunteers do not work "for free" and are given regular pay. 19th century During this time, America experienced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
E-mentoring
E-mentoring is a means of providing a guided mentoring relationship using online software or email. It allows participants to communicate at their own convenience and beyond time zones since it eliminates the need for them to be in the same physical location. Its programs are often developed to enhance morale, increase productivity, and promote career development. Background The body of literature describes the main component of e-mentoring as the mentor and mentee. The first serves as the counselor, adviser, tutor, trainer and facilitator while the mentee, which is referred to as the learner, trainee, student, and tyro, among others, is the learner with less experience. He can be a student or a teacher or anyone who wants to be more sophisticated in terms of personal or professional growth. This type of mentoring relationship is said to be most successful when conducted during a transitional period on the life of the mentee (e.g. during an application to a university for admissi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VolunteerMatch
Impact Online, also known as VolunteerMatch, is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization which provides a national digital infrastructure to serve volunteers and nonprofit organization in America. VolunteerMatch was founded in 1998. The organization also partners with businesses to provide tools and services to help companies, brands, campuses and government manage volunteer programs and support corporate social responsibility initiatives. VolunteerMatch works with clients in different industries, and since its launch in 1998 it has won several awards. Services VolunteerMatch is free to use by individuals. Nonprofit organizations may elect a free basic account or opt for more robust recruiting tools by becoming VolunteerMatch Members. Regional and national organizations with multiple chapters can elect for Group Membership which includes a bundle of enterprise tools for regional and national nonprofit organizations with multiple chapters. Products and services for companies, schools, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonprofit Organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or social benefit, as opposed to an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a Profit (accounting), profit for its owners. A nonprofit organization is subject to the non-distribution constraint: any revenues that exceed expenses must be committed to the organization's purpose, not taken by private parties. Depending on the local laws, charities are regularly organized as non-profits. A host of organizations may be non-profit, including some political organizations, schools, hospitals, business associations, churches, foundations, social clubs, and consumer cooperatives. Nonprofit entities may seek approval from governments to be Tax exemption, tax-exempt, and some may also qualify to receive tax-deductible contributions, but an enti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the third-largest city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area has a population of 4.9 million as of 2023, making it the largest metropolitan area in New England and the Metropolitan statistical area, eleventh-largest in the United States. Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritans, Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. During the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, incl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of books or individual stories in the public domain. All files can be accessed for free under an open format layout, available on almost any computer. , Project Gutenberg had reached over 75,999 items in its collection of free eBooks. The releases are available in plain text as well as other formats, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, and Plucker wherever possible. Most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are also available. There are multiple affiliated projects that provide additional content, including region- and language-specific works. Project Gutenberg is closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digital platforms to attract and divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result. Crowdsourcing is not limited to online activity, however, and there are various historical examples of crowdsourcing. The word crowdsourcing is a portmanteau of "crowd" and "outsourcing". In contrast to outsourcing, crowdsourcing usually involves less specific and more public groups of participants. Advantages of using crowdsourcing include lowered costs, improved speed, improved quality, increased flexibility, and/or increased scalability of the work, as well as promoting diversity. Crowdsourcing methods include competitions, virtual labor markets, open online collaboration and data donation. Some forms of crowdsourcing, such as in "idea competiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Micro-volunteering
Micro-volunteering describes a volunteer, or team of volunteers, completing small tasks that make up a larger project. These tasks often benefit a research, charitable, or non-governmental organization. It differs from normal volunteerism as the tasks take only minutes to a few hours, and the volunteer does not make a long-term commitment. As a form of virtual volunteering, the tasks are usually distributed and completed online via an internet-connected device, including smartphones. It typically does not require an application process, screening or training period, takes only minutes or a few hours to complete, and does not require an ongoing commitment by the volunteer. History At the global level, in 2000 the United Nations Volunteers programme launched the Online Volunteering service to provide a venue where individuals from across the globe can take action for sustainable human development by supporting the activities of development organizations over the Internet. Grassr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mobile Communication
Mobile telephony is the provision of wireless telephone services to mobile phones, distinguishing it from fixed-location telephony provided via landline phones. Traditionally, telephony specifically refers to voice communication, though the distinction has become less clear with the integration of additional features such as text messaging and data services. Modern mobile phones connect to a terrestrial cellular network of base stations (commonly referred to as cell sites), using radio waves to facilitate communication. Satellite phones use wireless links to orbiting satellites, providing an alternative in areas lacking local terrestrial communication infrastructure, such as landline and cellular networks. Cellular networks, satellite networks, and landline systems are all linked to the public switched telephone network (PSTN), enabling calls to be made to and from nearly any telephone worldwide. As of 2010, global estimates indicated approximately five billion mobile c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distributed Computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different networked computers. The components of a distributed system communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another in order to achieve a common goal. Three significant challenges of distributed systems are: maintaining concurrency of components, overcoming the lack of a global clock, and managing the independent failure of components. When a component of one system fails, the entire system does not fail. Examples of distributed systems vary from SOA-based systems to microservices to massively multiplayer online games to peer-to-peer applications. Distributed systems cost significantly more than monolithic architectures, primarily due to increased needs for additional hardware, servers, gateways, firewalls, new subnets, proxies, and so on. Also, distributed systems are prone to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tag (metadata)
In information systems, a tag is a keyword or term assigned to a piece of information (such as an Internet bookmark, multimedia, database record, or computer file). This kind of metadata helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching. Tags are generally chosen informally and personally by the item's creator or by its viewer, depending on the system, although they may also be chosen from a controlled vocabulary. Tagging was popularized by websites associated with Web 2.0 and is an important feature of many Web 2.0 services. It is now also part of other database systems, desktop applications, and operating systems. Overview People use tags to aid classification, mark ownership, note boundaries, and indicate online identity. Tags may take the form of words, images, or other identifying marks. An analogous example of tags in the physical world is museum object tagging. People were using textual keywords to classify information and objec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
