During my shift volunteering for the COVID Tracking Project, I entered data for Oregon, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Texas. I was glad the focus was on quality, not speed, as it took me a while to enter each value super carefully and make sure I was pulling from the right place. Once I got started, however, I noticed that I was able to get “in the zone” and the I was surprised how quickly the time passed.
As I was completing each box, I was very impressed with the quality of the instructions. The CTP team really went all nine yards to make sure new volunteers have a clear path to finding data that is sometimes nearly impossible to find on complicated and sometimes hidden web pages. I can only imagine how much work it must have taken to get this project off the ground and find where each data point (for all 50 states and additional territories!) was located among hundreds of web pages, PDF’s, spreadsheets, and even social media accounts.
I was also glad to be part of a team that worked together really well. When I couldn’t find the value for a particular data point for Oregon, the team was very helpful in answering my questions in Slack. Overall, I was impressed by the work put in to make sure this colossal project runs so smoothly!