Once you have completed volunteer work as part of a course with a service-learning component, you'll need to submit your service hours. Your hours become part of the nonprofit agency's records, and they are also made available to the person managing your course on the site (typically your course instructor).
This article explains how to submit your volunteer hours for a course, how to edit or delete them, and how to export them into a spreadsheet.
A Note on Terminology
The default term for a course on a Connect site is SLM User Group. Your site may use different terms for both SLM and user group. If this is the case, your screen may not match what is shown in this article. The same is true for the default terms need and agency, which may appear as opportunity and organization (or something similar) on your site.
Submitting Your Volunteer Hours
To submit your volunteer hours:
- Log in and go to your Track Hours page. You can access this page in several ways, but the easiest is to click the Add Hours button at the top of your Connect screen.
- Under the Hours Type heading, check Yes to indicate that the hours are in reference to a need you responded to on the site.
Note: If you check No, you can log "individual hours" for volunteer work not related to a specific need response. Those hours can also be associated with a course.
- Select a need from the Need dropdown.
- Complete the Date and Hours fields, which are required.
- Select a User Group from the dropdown. Your site manager can make a user group selection required. If you do not want to associate these hours with a user group, you can select "n/a" for "not applicable." A user group might not be available for you to select if that user group is limited to certain needs.
- If your course has reflection questions, they will appear on the left side of your screen. Answer as applicable; reflection questions may or may not be required for your course.
- Click Submit Hour Entry.
About Pending Hours and Approval
Depending on your site's settings, your hours may be approved automatically, or they may have a pending status. Also depending on your site's settings, your hours may require approval by an agency manager or instructor before they will count toward your course requirement. If your hours are pending, you'll see a "clock" icon in the status column of your hours listing at the top of your Track Hours page. You also have the option of editing hours that are still pending.
Editing Your Volunteer Hours
You can edit your volunteer hours as long as those hours are still pending and have not been approved or denied by an agency manager or course instructor.
To edit your volunteer hours:
- Log in and select Track Hours from your profile dropdown.
- In the Track Hours table, click the Edit (pencil) icon for the hours to edit. (Click image for a larger view.)
Note: Approved hours show a checkmark in the Status column. Approved hours cannot be edited. - Make changes as needed to the selected need, date, hours, and other fields as applicable.
- Click Update Hour Entry.
Note: If you need to edit approved hours, you must contact your instructor or the agency manager.
Deleting Your Volunteer Hours
If you need to delete your volunteer hours, you can do so by going to your Track Hours page, selecting the hours to delete (mark the checkbox to the left of the date), and clicking the trash-can icon in the Actions row above the hours table.
Exporting Your Volunteer Hours
To export your volunteer hours to a spreadsheet, go to your Track Hours page and select the hours to export by marking the checkbox(es) to the left of the date. Click Export Hours to generate a spreadsheet listing the details of your volunteer hours.
For information for how you can get at-a-glance reporting of your hours, including on your volunteer résumé, see Monitoring Your Service-Learning Progress.
Related Articles
Your SLM Student Guide contains additional articles on responding to needs, logging volunteer hours, and monitoring your progress toward your course's service-learning goals.