Do the Right Task! Supporting Volunteers Timetabling with Preferences Through the Sponsor Platform

Abstract

Sponsor is an AAL project that aims at developing, testing and implementing an ICT platform to facilitate the posting, browsing and exchange of key information between competence-offering seniors and search-based requests from competence-demanding organizations within the public, private and voluntary sectors. This paper describes a specific aspect addressed in developing a pilot for the project dedicated to volunteering associations support. Very important when dealing with volunteers is their assignment to the right activities not only suitable for their capabilities but also for their current wishes. The paper describes a complete prototype called Sponsor T developed to support a volunteering organisation called Televita. Sponsor T helps managers to better allocate different activities to the volunteers with the overall aims to find the more suitable match in terms of aptitude and personal inclinations. Attention is given to the description of the end-to-end aspects of the prototyped application from the problem definition to its day by day use.