Grants:Conference/WikiSym Initiative/2017 OpenSym Conference

statusNot funded

WikiSym Initiative/2017 OpenSym Conference

Grant request for OpenSym 2017, an (academic) research (and practitioner) conference on all things considered "open collaboration", including wikis and Wikipedia research, FLOSS, open data, open policy, open education, etc.

targetAll Wikimedia Projects

strategic priorityImprove Quality

amount-local€10000

amount$10,965

typeindividual

nonprofitYes

creator• Lorraine Morgan

contact• lorraine.morgan

nuigalway.ie

give feedback

endorse

Friendly space expectations

index

Goals and outcomes

Goals

Please list three to four priorities that the community has identified that they want to focus on at this conference. These should be specific and actionable. To hold a successful 2017 instance of the (by-now) long-running (13 years!) conference series OpenSym (formerly WikiSym), an annual conference for researchers and practitioners of "open collaboration", that is wikis and Wikipedia, FLOSS, open data, open source, open policy, open education, etc. A conference like OpenSym allows

researchers to publish research work on open collaboration topics,
practitioners to present experience reports, hold workshops, etc.
connect researchers with practitioners to learn from each other
reconnect for, plan, and move forward multi-year collaborations

Context

It is helpful to get an understanding of why this event is important to your community, and what experiences you have had in the past. Please answer the applicable questions below.

1. What inspired your community to begin planning this event?

A number of Irish participants have been attending OpenSym for many years and find it a highly enjoyable, collegial and interactive conference. In addition we collaborate with many delegates who attend OpenSym as much of our research focuses on open innovation, crowdsourcing and open source software. This is the first year it is being held in Ireland and we are really excited to be hosting it at the National University of Ireland Galway.

2. How does this event tie into other activities that your group has done?

There are a number of activities within our group that tie into the conference. First of all, we are part of the Irish Software Innovation Centre (LERO), where we have a number of national funded research projects around open source/inner source software, open innovation and crowdsourcing. As part of these projects, we work with major corporations including Ericsson and Dell. We also have research project that focuses on crowdsourcing in science research funding agencies and as a result, we engage with government, funding agencies etc. in the areas of open government/open policy. I am also President-Elect of the Association of Information Systems Special Interest Group on Openness and Transparency (SIPOPEN). This SIG has 40 founding members - the largest AIS special interest group formed today. Our group are highly active in chairing tracks on open innovation/open source/crowdsourcing at various conferences including the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS) and International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). We have also guest edited a number of journal special issues on openness (e.g. Journal of Information Technology) and ran a number of workshops at various events.

3. If your community has hosted a similar conference in the past, what outcomes and benefits have you seen from past conferences?

We have hosted many conferences/workshops at NUI Galway, although not primarily in the area of open collaboration. For example, we hosted the European Conference on Information Systems and the Lean Enterprise Software and Systems Conference. As a result of these conferences, we have built up a strong network with national and international researchers. Project ideas that came up at these conference included setting up a special interest group around openness and transparency, guest editing some special issues, track chairing roles etc.

4. Please list the focus priorities identified in the report from the last conference organized by this community. What progress have you made in those areas?

Similar to previous OpenSym conferences, as a research conference, we aim to be the premier place where Wikipedia and related research is being presented.

As a practitioner conference, we aim to be an important place where research meets practices and everyone learns from each other.

We believe we ultimately impact all strategic objectives, but if we have to pick one, it is improving quality. For example, this year a conscious effort has been made to improve the quality of the Doctoral Symposium. We have three well-renowned Doctoral Chairs that are actively marketing the symposium. In addition a panel of well-known experts in the field of open collaboration will be put in place for this event. Furthermore OpenSym is being run this year as a one track conference in order to emphasize the interdisciplinary character of this conference and to encourage discussion. We have already attracted two very impressive keynote speakers, with two more to confirm. Given our links with industry, we also hope to increase practitioner participation in the conference.

While this is our first time hosting OpenSym, we are taking a number of measures to improve the conference such as improving industry and student participation, marketing the conference far and wide to attract more submissions, attracting impressive keynote speakers and improving the Doctoral Symposium.

Measures of success

Please provide a list of both quantitative and qualitative criteria that will be used to determine how successful the project is. You are welcome to modify, delete or add to the metrics listed below so they reflect the goals of your event.

Total # of participants (More participants does not equal better. More important are the experience level, level of engagement, and diversity of the participants)
# of female participants
% of participants who present at or moderate sessions
% of respondents to the post-event survey and survey results
# of new projects/partnerships initiated as a result of connections made, skills learned, or ideas shared at the conference (2 months, 6 months, and 1 year after the event)
# of new tools or communication channels created to better coordinate work amongst participants and the greater community

Basic success is "another instance that isn't worse than what came before". We will have had it if we achieve

1. A conference that worked without major flaw (measure: nobody died) 2. Had about 100 participants (measure: number of participants) 3. Had a good overall conference program (measure: diversity of keynotes (at least 2), paper presentations, posters)) 4. Had a continued strong Wikipedia research program (measure: research paper submission number = 20+) 5. Had a published freely accessible conference proceedings (measure: downloadable by anonymous) 6. Are set up for the year 2018 (measure: announcement for 2018 ready and performed at end of conference)

Better success is continued growth into open collaboration topics beyond wikis and Wikipedia. We will have had it if we achieve

1. A conference that worked without major flaw (measure: nobody died) 2. Had about 150 participants or more (measure: number of participants) 3. Had a good overall conference program (measure: diversity of keynotes (at least 3), interactive open space, paper presentations etc.) 4. Had a continued strong Wikipedia research program (measure: research paper submission number = 20+) 5. Had a broad (not just Wikipedia) research program on open collaboration (measure: Wikipedia research papers are <= 30% of published papers) 6. Had a published freely accessible conference proceedings (measure: downloadable by anonymous) 7. Had non-trivial practitioner participation (at least 40% of participants self-declare as practitioner or industry) 8. Are set up for the year 2018 (measure: announcement for 2018 ready and performed at end of conference)

Plan

Venue and Logistics

Friendly space policy

Please link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event.
Do you need or want guidance on how to implement a friendly space policy?

OpenSym has a defined rhythm. We announce next year's event at the previous event. Over the course of the following year, we go through various stages of marketing, organizing, program building, etc. An overview timeline of OpenSym can be found in the following spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12LbnZHCw5T6IVkBiLnahCSOqfE-1sbhwRgEeH32BMYU/edit#gid=1896947253

Activities

Marketing The entire Organising Committee market through mailing lists, websites, blogs etc.

Proceedings The Proceedings Chair will collect submitted research and practitioner work as written papers and publish them on our website at http://opensym.org/archives/ as well as through our publisher

Conference We meet in person, have the written papers presented, keynotes listened to etc.

Event Program

Please give a brief outline of the conference schedule or program and any events or activities you are planning for participants. The timing, topics and format of each session should be finalized and published on Meta six weeks before the event.

The submission deadline for papers/posters is April 21. We have invited a number of Associate Chairs to the program committee, who in turn have nominated 5 reviewers each to review papers when the time comes. This year we have 2 Program Chairs overseeing the program (unlike previous years). Once the program is established we will include on website. In terms of social events, we have a Welcome Reception and an Irish Themed Social Event planned.

Community Input

Grant reviewers will be interested to read how the planning discussion developed and who was engaged. Please link below to all of the places where discussion about this conference are happening, i.e. talk pages, Facebook groups, meetup pages, notes from meetings. The most central, up to date, and relevant page should be highlighted in BOLD letters. The conference has been marketed to numerous lists including SEWorld, IFIP 8.6, IFIP 8.2, IFIP 2.13, AISWorld, Wikidata/Wikiresearch lists, SOCNET, Berkman Klein Center "Friends" List, Association of Internet Researchers list etc. Other general channels include OpenSym (WikiSym) blog and previous participants list. Website and social media links are listed below:

http://www.opensym.org

https://twitter.com/opensym

https://www.facebook.com/opensym/

https://twitter.com/aisirl

https://twitter.com/sigopen

https://twitter.com/EoinCullina

https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoincullina/

Participation

It is crucial that most participants have a minimum level of Wikimedia experience so that they can engage actively in workshops and discussions. Please answer all applicable questions below.

1. Please describe the target audience for this conference or event.

Target audience is diverse in that we are targeting academics/practitioners in the software engineering, information systems, computer science, HCI, management, government domain.

2. If you are requesting funds for travel scholarships, what criteria will be used to select scholarship recipients?

PLACEHOLDER TEXT

3. If your conference has an outreach component, how will you ensure engagement with these participants after the conference, and what impact do you see them having on the projects?

Given that OpenSym is a recurring event, there will be continuous engagement with participants. Ultimately the research being presented and the practices being discussed impact all Wikimedia projects

4. Are you thinking about inviting WMF staff to attend or participate in the event? If yes, please list individuals or teams who you may want to invite, or describe how you would like WMF staff to be involved in the event.

It would be fantastic to have WMF staff participate in the event. The more interaction/feedback we have from WMF members during paper/poster presentations, the better. Also it would be great to have WMF participate in the open space event.

Follow-up

Please describe how you plan to follow up with event participants after the conference.

As OpenSym is a community conference, it entails the following:

it is a community of mailing lists enabling year-round exchange. Indeed we will be in contact with all participants for OpenSym 2018
it is a community with a full freely accessible 10+ year archive of published papers and related materials

Resources and risks

Describe the resource potential for successfully executing this project and the key risks/threats.

Resources

Organizing team

Team	User Names
General Chair	Lorraine Morgan, NUI Galway
Operations Chair	Eoin Cullina, NUI Galway
Program Chairs	Benjamin Mako Hill, University of Washington & Claudia Muller-Birn, Freie Universität Berlin
Doctoral Symposium Chairs	Kieran Conboy, NUI Galway, Matt Germonprez, University of Omaha-Nebraska
Social Media Chair	Mairead O'Connor, NUI Galway
Proceedings Chair	Denis Dennehy, NUI Galway
Other team members	Gwen Ryan, NUI Galway

We have a great team in place already, listed here: http://opensym.lero.ie/organisation/. In addition, we have received strong support NUI Galway in the form of a cost-free venue. This and TJEF are key pillars of the event that have made it stable over the years. In addition, we have great support and never-ending advice from Dirk Riehle, who has served as General Chair/Operations Chair of past OpenSym conferences.

Risks

Examples of risks, along with how you would minimize or overcome them, are:

Skill gaps in project leadership team (e.g. no financial management experience)
Components of the measurement process that are hard to quantify

Examples of how to minimize these risks include:

Recruiting volunteers with desired skills to project leadership team.
Working with the WMF Learning & Evaluation Team to develop an appropriate measurement and evaluation plan.

There are two risks for every annual conference, and OpenSym is no exception:

Nobody attends--we invest and organize and it is for nothing. We have built up a strong reputation in Wikipedia research. In the past, we have marketed successfully, with stable attendance at about 100 people. We have considerable mailing lists at hand of interested people and know our channels to reach new ones. We have strong program and associate chairs, who know how to get to their specific audiences. We make a financial mistake and go broke, ending the conference series. We have some staying power and backbone, so we won't go broke if one year turns bad. So we plan prudently and frugally and keep finances in check, hoping not to make mistakes. Wikimedia sponsorship is an important part of keeping us afloat (without it, we would have to raise event fees significantly).

Budget

Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.

Event budget table

Project budget table

Number	Category	Item description	Unit	Number of units	Cost per unit	Total cost	Currency	Notes
1	Venue	Room rent	Days	4		0	EUR	Venue will be sponsored
2	Equipment	Non-technical (chairs, tables, posters, pinboards, decoration, ...)	Days	3		1050	EUR
3	Equipment	Technical (A/V, wireless access)	Days	3		0	EUR	A/V will be sponsored
4	Welcome reception		People	80	20	2000	EUR
5	Social event	Event location, transportation, food	People	80	95	7600	EUR
6	Catering	Coffee and lunch breaks	Days*Persons	240	50	12000	EUR
7	Travel and accommodation	Conference committee	People	4	1200	4800	EUR
8	Travel and accommodation	Invited speakers	People	4	1200	4800	EUR
9	Open space facilitator		People	1		1000	EUR
10	Miscellaneous materials	Printer, badges, invoices, signs, plaques, etc.				1000	EUR
11	Event organizer	Responsible for local arrangements	Person	1			EUR	Will be sponsored by NUI Galway
11	Additional Staff (student assistants)	Reception / guides	Person	2		500	EUR
12	Conference material	Give-aways, bags, program	Person	80	15	1200	EUR

Notes on the budget:

The location is NUI Galway, Ireland. The rooms are provided free of charge.
We are using coffee and scones for the coffee breaks and sit-down lunches, as well as takeaway ones.
We are trying to utilize local people as much as possible; some numbers may ultimately come in lower than projected above.
There is some remaining variance in the data; I can provide an updated spreadsheet as needed.
We still cannot tell precise numbers for the social event (too early)-

Total cost of event

EUR 35,950

Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program

EUR 10,000

Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded

Participants have to pay a fee, which is about EUR 400 for researchers on a university or industry participants on a corporate budget and about EUR 200 for students or self-paying participants. The lower price category is a subsidy as it does not fully cover costs.

Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

YES

Discussion

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Conference Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.