Mentor-Editor Monitor

Overview

The OpEd Project manages a Mentor-Editor program in which experienced journalists connect with and give feedback to new and promising voices. This program is administered manually by The OpEd Project Staff and this project aims to increase the effectiveness and scalability of the current program.

Current Workflow: Read The OpEd Project Mentor-Editor Program: How It Works for more details.

1. Request: Author (OEP seminar participant) writes a piece and requests a mentor-editor from the OEP Staff by email
2. Match: OEP Staff matches a fellow with a mentor-editor and introduces them via email
3. Feedback: Mentor-Editor gives timely, high-quality feedback to the Author via email, usually in ~2-3 back-and-forth emails
4. Follow up: OEP Staff manually checks in with Authors & Mentor-Editors (timing is extremely important due to news cycles, so this can be a burden on the Staff and limits scalability of the program)

Milestone 1: Analysis Dashboard for Mentor-Editor Interactions

Goal: Monitor follow-up conversations among Mentor-Editor pairs and empower The OpEd Project team with analytics on the conversations.

Monitored Workflow:

1. Request: Author (OEP seminar participant) writes a piece and requests a mentor-editor from the OEP Staff by email
2. Match: OEP Staff matches a fellow with a mentor-editor and introduces them via email, cc'ing helper/monitor email address
3. Feedback: Mentor-Editor gives timely, high-quality feedback to the Author via email, cc'ing helper/monitor email address
4. Follow up: OEP Staff views dashboard to see if any mentorship pairs have not followed up.
5. Improvement: Over time, OEP Staff uses persisted data to understand and improve the program.