Checklist of prompts for planning an activity or project

Planning

Management support/ links to library and university strategy

• Define the rationale behind activity/initiative
  • Prepare single side A4 summary justifying the project?
• Does it link to wider university strategy?
• Have you got management support?

Specific goals

• Thinking in advance about what you want to achieve from your activity will help shape the initiative and assist with selecting a good evaluation method. Are you looking to:
  • Provide information about mental health and well-being?
  • Raise awareness of different mental health difficulties?
  • Improve mental health and wellbeing?
  • Encourage students or staff to make changes to their everyday practices that will support better mental health and well-being?
  • Encourage a sense of community?
• Should activities be targeted at particularly vulnerable groups, if so which are they?

Budget/ resources

• Who will be responsible for the activity? Who will assist?
• Estimate how many hours of time will be required
• Is there likely to be a financial cost? If so, estimate all costs and create a budget.
• Who holds the budget?
• Pick a suitable date/time for the event (eg avoid exam periods, choose midday or afternoon slot?)
• Will the event be face to face or online? Or hybrid?
• Is there a room available for face to face, or which platform to use (MS Teams, Zoom, Google Meet etc.)?
  • Should the event be recorded? This might be efficient for an information giving event, but if sensitive topics are being discussed you might not want to record anything
• Do you need a room booking?
• Do you need any equipment (projector, laptop, other)?

Marketing

• Advertise event – who are key target audiences?
  • Physical posters or flyers
  • Web site
  • Social media
  • Word of mouth
  • Personal invites
• Do participants need to register or just drop in?

Collaboration

• Can someone share the organisation with you?
• Has anyone done something similar?
• Are there pre planned events that you could tap into?

Student involvement

• For services/ activities aimed at students, consider involving students in the governance and running of the project
  • Existing student library reps/ or student shelvers could be recruited
  • Contact the student union
  • Try and ensure that diverse groups are represented
• How could students be involved in delivering activities?
• How could students be involved in publicising events/ services?
• Collect student feedback on activities as a source for future publicity

On the day

Evaluating

• What types of evaluation will gain the most recognition from management (eg quantitative data or direct evidence of impact)?
  • Are you only able to get anecdotal feedback from participants?
• What questions do you need to ask? Think back to how you defined the purpose of the exercise.
  • One key question might be ‘did you learn something new?’
• What tools will you use (padlet, mentimeter, kahoot, polls, survey, postcards, voting for things – or simply paper forms)?