If your Club is planning to have activities that are based online, Arc is still able to provide funding and support as per the activity grant stream. Due to the anonymous nature of online interaction, there are some additional guidelines that we recommend your Club follows to create a positive, inclusive, and welcoming place for your Club members to be involved.
- All content must follow the UNSW Code of Conduct.
- There should be guidelines specifying what constitutes appropriate/inappropriate behaviour. These guidelines should be easily accessible to users, and include information on grievance resolution for users to raise complaints about content (posted by your Club or other users). Your Club should keep records of any correspondence about the complaints, warnings given and content that is removed. For anything that involves an account and/or membership that does not use real identities (e.g. Discord, multiplayer games, forums) all users should be verified by the executive team. This could involve linking the online accounts to the person’s name, email address and student ID. This information should be kept secure and up to date - as it is personal information, ONLY the current executive team should have access to it. Old information should be deleted and any ex-members may request to have their details removed from club records.
- If your community/activity involves people that are not UNSW students, then you should still verify them with the following:
- Full name
- Personal contact information (E-mail AND phone number)
- Anyone who has not been verified or is unwilling to link their online account to their zID (or in the case of non-UNSW students, not willing to provide personal contact information) should not be permitted to interact in your Club’s online community (but could be able to read anything members have posted).
If your Club is going to conduct a substantial number of interactions with members online or facilitates a substantial number of members interacting with each other online, we strongly recommend that you implement changes that meet or exceed the above guidelines.
If you are unsure what steps are best to take for your Club, contact us at: clubs@arc.unsw.edu.au
What counts as Online Activities
An activity that occurs online has very similar requirements to a standard event that a Club would run. It will need to be published on SpArc, engage the student community with an activity or activities and adhere to UNSW student conduct policies. Simply talking on a group chat won’t count but having a gaming night or an online workshop run by your Club would be included. An event or activity can span over multiple days, but if it’s a continuation of the same activity it will still only count as one activity in terms of grants and publishing the event on SpArc.
Make sure that while you’re promoting the activity, you’re also making it very clear that it’s online and instruct people on how they can join! Depending on what activity you’re doing, there may be a specific program they need, or they’ll need to reserve a spot in advance. Whatever it is you have planned, communicate it clearly and well in advance to the attendees, providing links where necessary.
If your activity has a combination of both in-person and online presences, then the in-person component will be what is considered for activity grant processing and requirements.
Applying for Grants for Online Activities
After your activity or event has finished, you’ll be able to apply for an activity grant through SpArc. However, there are some differences in what’s required compared to a standard activity.
Instead of a physical sign-in sheet, members can record their attendance on a digital document. This can be either done by each member as they join, or executives may record attendance as people join. The required information is:
- Full Name (as per student ID)
- zID
- Account Name – This is the name that is visible to everyone online. It can be an account name, an In-Game Name, a voice-chat handle, etc. This account name will be used to verify that participants shown in screenshots are Arc members
Normally, an activity photo must be included showing your Club banner (or Arc Clubs logo if a banner is unavailable), the members attending and the activity that is occurring. For online activities, screenshots of the activity will be accepted instead of activity photos. For screenshots, they must:
- Be taken while the event is occurring
- Show the Arc Clubs logo where reasonable (for example as part of an online presentation)
- If having an image is not possible, then a message mentioning Arc Clubs supporting the event should be sent to participants. The screenshot must also have this message clearly visible. For example: “Welcome to Demo Society’s 1 v 1 Tournament! This tournament is supported by Arc Clubs, AE Games and Snowstorm Entertainment.”
- Show the participants with their account names clearly visible. This can be done in one “group” screenshot or done over multiple screenshots if necessary.
In some situations, what you have planned might be particularly unique or not fit into the above. Arc is still happy to provide support, but make sure you check with us first! Contact us before the event takes place to make sure we understand what’s happening and so we can provide adjusted requirements for your specific event.
