Grants:IEG/Women Scientists Workshop Development

This project is funded by an Individual Engagement Grant

This Individual Engagement Grant is renewed

status: selected

project:

Women Scientists Workshop Development

project contact:

keilanawikigmail.com

participants:

grantees: Emily Temple-Wood

advisors: Siko Bouterse

summary:

Draw on learnings from the first semester of workshops at Loyola to create a scalable kit for other university groups.

engagement target:

Wikipedia

strategic priority:

Increasing Participation, Improving Quality

total amount requested:

9480 USD

2013 round 2

Project idea

This project is aiming to create a new model for bringing women into the Wikimedia movement and creating more content to fill the coverage gap with topics related to women, especially biographies of women. Building on the model of the workshops I am planning at Loyola, I plan to take the learnings from those workshops and create materials for an “out-of-the-box” kit that can be used by other university groups to have similar workshops.

Project goals

Pilot a model program aimed at college-aged women to encourage them to become regular contributors to Wikimedia projects and combat systemic bias with quality content. One-time edit-a-thons have a very low retention rate for creating new editors and may not be worth the time and effort it takes to put them on. A model of regular, incentivized editing workshops has not yet been tested. I believe that it has a lot of potential to bring women into the movement and retain them, and would like to test this theory.

Project plan

Scope:

Scope and activities

Running another series of workshops/events at Loyola University Chicago and compiling learnings from these sessions.
Training women at Loyola and in the area to edit and teach Wikipedia skills.
Developing a kit for holding similar events regularly at other institutions.
Conducting outreach to similar student groups at other local universities.
Training women at other universities and getting feedback on the kit as it is in development.
Publishing the kit on-wiki (on Meta, English Wikipedia, and on any pertinent wikis in translated languages)

Tools, technologies, and techniques

$9,480 USD

Budget breakdown

Graphic designer (student contractor) - $250
Printing materials - $500
Project management (grantee’s time spent on outreach, kit-creation, etc) - $7000
Food/supplies for Loyola (local pilot) events ( $140/event x 7 events) - $980
Merchandise for volunteer attendees (t-shirts, sticker, etc) - $500
Venue rental for trainings-$250

Intended impact:

Target audience

Women who wish to edit Wikipedia will be impacted by this project. It has been shown that women contribute more when they have a regular time and place to edit, and when they have a supportive community to collaborate with present in real life. These workshops when done as a series will provide both of these elements, which should help to create new editors and retain them. College-aged women are an excellent target population because they are actively engaged in improving their writing and research skills and have access to a wide range of resources. They also tend to be an altruistic population and

Fit with strategy

This project fits most clearly with Increasing Participation and Improving Quality because it seeks to create a model for involving college-aged women in Wikimedia projects and enable them to create quality content in focused subject areas with quality guidance.

Sustainability

I expect that the model will have been tested thoroughly and that at least one other university group in the Chicago commits to holding similar events in the fall 2014 semester using the kit that will have been developed. I anticipate receiving continued feedback after the grant ends to refine the kit and continuing to conduct outreach, both at Loyola and at other universities.

Measures of success

I will consider the project successful if:

At least one other university group in Chicago commits to holding workshops in the fall 2014 semester
At least 8 women are trained to teach Wikipedia skills to others throughout the whole pilot
At least 15 people attend each event at Loyola
At least 10 people attend more than one event at Loyola during second semester
At least 8 editors edit outside of an event throughout the pilot
At least 5 editors are still active by the end of the grant period
An “out of the box” kit will be fully developed for people at other institutions to use, including promotional and instructional materials
Between all of the events, 15 articles will be brought to DYK and at least one important article will be brought to GA on the English Wikipedia.

Participant(s)

Keilana - I am a sophomore molecular biology student at Loyola, and I’ve been an English Wikipedia editor and administrator for around 6 years. I have been involved in outreach to the scientific community by leading workshops at conferences, and I have also been involved as an Online Ambassador with the US Education Program for 2 semesters (in my 3rd semester now). On-wiki, I co-founded WikiProject Women Scientists and have done significant work on 9 FAs, 3 GAs, and 17 DYKs; 1 FA, 1 GA, and 10 DYKs were under the project’s purview. I am also a member of WikiProject Medicine.

Discussion

Community Notification:

Please paste a link to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions, here.

Endorsements:

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement 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.

Jane023 (talk) 07:58, 7 October 2013 (UTC) I totally endorse this idea, and if the program is successful, I would like to try to reuse it myself for local schools.
Girona7 (talk) 01:38, 8 October 2013 (UTC) I absolutely endorse this idea. I have been considering hosting something like it in the Boston area but have not had the time to put a strategic plan together. I would very much like to see how this pilot program fares.
--mikeu ^talk 18:31, 14 October 2013 (UTC) An excellent idea. A more organized long term project is likely to have more of a systemic impact than one day edit-a-thons.
Gobōnobō ⁺ ^c I strongly endorse this project. It aligns with strategic priorities by aiming to increase the number of women editors while producing quality content that will diminish the gender gap. Keilana has demonstrated the skills and experience needed to coordinate on and off Wiki through her efforts at WikiProject Women Scientists on the English Wikipedia. The event kit should ensure that this has impact beyond the duration of the grant.
Yug (talk) : Push up women's visibility on wikipedia is needed. The Women Scientists wikiproject created an approach. gathered a core team, and wrote down a vision which are 3 great assets for the community. Some heavy pushes, however, need more firepower. Support for this project will allow the team and project to make a massive push the experiment.
Community member: add your name and rationale here.