General information about Mentoring Module

Owned by Monika Fiedorowicz
Last updated: Feb 25, 2024 by Henryk Rybinski
3 min read

The goals

The goal of the University's Project Mentoring Program is to increase the quality of applications for external funding for scientific projects and, as a result, to increase the number of grants awarded, as well as to improve the quality of scientific project implementation at the University by creating a channel of communication between University employees experienced in project implementation and employees applying for or implementing grants.

A prerequisite for ensuring permeability in communication between employees of the indicated categories is the creation of an easy-to-use and comprehensive database of mentors constituting a basic source of information for potential mentees about experienced employees declaring readiness to support them and their area of expertise. The database should allow mentors to be filtered by a variety of criteria - described in detail later in this document.

The implemented IT system is to enable the collection of information on established collaborations between mentors and mentees, which will make it possible to manage the Program and to account for and gratify mentors (in a manner determined by the University authorities).

Assumptions

The following assumptions were made in implementing the system:

Assumption 1

  1. It is assumed that there is a person "managing" the team of mentors and controlling their activities;

  2. Any logged-in user can search the mentor database and possibly request assistance in preparing a project proposal;

  3. A mentor receiving an invitation to cooperate can review the details of the proposal and can accept the offer or reject it. If the offer is rejected, he or she should give reasons. Person

  4. The request for mentoring assistance should be registered in the UKB as a record (mentoring record); In the approved cooperation (mentoring) record, the requesting person is called "mentored", while the mentor is called  "mentor". The mentoring record should contain all information about the mentor's cooperation with the mentee, as well as an evaluation of the cooperation (after the cooperation has ended).

Assumption 2

Since universal access to the mentoring system is expected, it was assumed that communication of all system users with the system, especially mentors and mentored, should be very simple and intuitive.   Therefore, the mentoring module should be implemented in such a way that the interface of all new functionality for mentors and mentees does not deviate from the interface standards of the Knowledge Base.  

Assumption 3

The functionality of the mentoring module should be linked to other existing modules. In particular, it has been assumed that the result of mentoring is a new project application, followed by an obtained grant. Since applications and obtained projects are handled by the Project Service Center (COP), information about the completion of the application, as well as information about obtaining a project, should reach the mentored person immediately after the COP enters certain records into the database. Therefore, links (links) to the application and project records are provided in the mentoring record. These links are entered into the mentoring record by the mentored person after the knowledge is obtained (via e-mail and an alert generated by the COP after the relevant records appear in the COP). These links, especially the link to the grant obtained, can determine the success of the mentoring collaboration.      

 

Accordingly, the system provides for the following user groups:

Editor-in-Chief - a content user who manages the mentoring module. He/she has the following functions at his/her disposal

  1. Giving selected individuals the role of "mentor"

  2. completing mentor information

  3. insight into mentoring records and the ability to edit all mentoring records stored in the database.

  4. Suspending (temporarily) and withdrawing the "mentor" role.

  5. Control functions related to mentoring, the ability to update and change collaboration records;

  6. Generate reports related to mentors' activities, their effectiveness, etc.

Mentor - an employee of Warsaw University of Technology, having a profile in the Knowledge Base, submitted to the University's Project Mentoring Program, declaring his/her willingness to mentor other employees of the University. In the Mentoring module, the Mentor can handle mentoring cooperation proposals submitted to him/her by the person needing support (acceptance of cooperation, rejection, evaluation of cooperation with the "mentored").

Mentored - a Warsaw University of Technology employee or doctoral student with a profile in the Knowledge Base seeking a mentor for support in implementing a project or in efforts to obtain external funding for a project. At UKB, a mentored person has the following functions.

  1. Browse and search for mentors

  2. Creation of a "cooperation" record and supplementation with information on the application and possibly the project

  3. opinion of the mentoring service