THE NEED

The Shenandoah Film Collaborative is a fully volunteer-operated non-profit and they needed to get new volunteers and interns oriented as quickly as possible. The Training Director wanted brief orientation modules for new interns to view prior to a live virtual orientation. 

​

​

THE SOLUTION

The final products for this project were a Human Resources document and a brief interactive e-learning module, both outlining the primary functions and tasks for the e-commerce intern.

 

The HR document was designed for staff members who would be responsible for hiring, training, or supervising new interns. It contains detailed information about tasks and procedures with links to resources, tutorials, and access credentials. This document was stored on the organization’s SharePoint site.

 

The e-learning module is hosted on Moodle, where interns can complete it in 10-15 minutes to get an overview of how they fit into the organization’s mission and operations. 

​

​

THE PROCESS

ANALYSIS & RESEARCH

The e-commerce internship was a relatively new and less defined role. To identify organizational goals and major functions for the role, I interviewed the Executive Director, the Marketing Director, and the previous e-commerce intern. I sifted through SharePoint documentation to flesh out details like procedures for monitoring ad engagement online. 

​

Comprehensively defining the e-commerce internship also required some external research. Many tasks required tools that had been updated or required completely new tools. I utilized online tutorials to gather basic how-to content for the HR documentation.

​

DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT

The goal was to make onboarding new interns as quick and easy as possible, for the interns and current staff. It was also important to the organization to have a consistent experience for new volunteers, so I followed the branding and accessibility guidelines created by the Training Director. 

​

Human Resources Document

I wanted the human resources document to be useful for staff in need of a high-level overview of the role and for interns searching for guidance in their everyday tasks. I built on an existing SharePoint with a patchwork of information about the e-commerce internship.

 

Information about the role is organized in a matrix. Those who need a high-level view of the role can focus on the section headers (primary functions) and the first column (major tasks). Those who need more detail can find the function or task they want in the first column, then look in columns to the right for step-by-step instructions, performance guidelines, and resources.

​

Onboarding Module

New interns would complete onboarding modules individually before they attended a live large-group orientation. During orientation, interns discussed their roles with others on their team in breakout groups. To be able to discuss their role with others, interns needed to receive consistent information about their role.

 

To get the e-commerce interns on the same page, I reviewed existing modules for other internships. Each was unique in the number and nature of functions presented and the amount of detail, but there were common elements. All existing modules included information about established communication channels and etiquette, how the internship benefitted the organization, and knowledge check questions to highlight important points. 

 

I incorporated additional elements to increase psychological engagement. To help interns visualize the marketing materials they would create, they view examples of previous ads.

 

At key pause points, interns are prompted to make predictions, remember something, or compare ideas. These prompts interrupt the passive “read-click next” cycle and support active psychological engagement.

 

At the end, interns can download a PDF with descriptions of and links to relevant tools and resources, organized by function and task.

 

I used a flowchart to plan the structure of the module and branching. There was a robust style guide and e-learning template available, so I built the storyboard right in Storyline and added content for review. All of the staff are volunteers with full-time jobs, so I leveraged the synchronous and asynchronous capabilities of Microsoft Teams to collaborate, even across time zones.