Grants:PEG/User:Kipala/Swahili wikipedia longtime editors' meeting and workshop/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2014-15 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

• To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:PEG/User:Kipala/Swahili wikipedia longtime editors' meeting and workshop.

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Preface / Summary

Ingo (Kipala):

I am finalizing this report now, about 2 months after the event. The questionaire below I answered soon after the workshop.

1. The workshop was a fascinating and overwhelming experience for me in a) meeting those people with whom I had cooperated for years online without knowing some of them personally, b) in being back to a rural secondary school in Tanzania (like places I worked up to 1993!), seeing, tasting, hearing, smelling and c) in meeting an incredibly enthusiastic response by students and teachers (on their day off! voluntarily..)
2. the outcome of course has to be measured in facts and figures. We surpassed most of our targets for the event itself. I can say with a good conscience that we mostly met our targets for the future (because we had not put these targets too high). It is less than what I felt it could be during the event. This is mainly due to the fact that the wikipedia club at the school only starts now due to a health problem of Riccardo (our team member at the school). Soon after the workshop was termbreak, and when school opened again Riccardo had to undergo 2 eye surgeries. That is why they just today are going to have their second weekly meeting (May 23).
3. as for "sustainibility figures": yes even without the club meeting we have kept 3 people occasionally editing, with some problems still, but returning.
4. what did not work was the wikimetrics, as we had not been made aware of the necessity to have the school IP adress opened or more registrations before the event. We will try to get the club into it later.
5. what did not really work satisfactorally was the swahili-wikipedia-content evaluation by teachers, because we were overwhelmed by the large number of participants for which we had not planned (so our method did not work), and the problem of setting up a second computer room could not be solved; we got some answers but it we should have done it differently.
6. an unexpected insight was the information that the Tanzanian government had announced few moths ago to switch the language of instruction at secondary schools to Swahili during the coming years. It remains to be seen if and how this will work out. But it is a very relevant information for an African language wikipedia like Swahili. All African language wikipedias suffer from the fact that most formal education in Africa is by way of English, French etc. This means that part of good content in an African language is only with difficulties readable for an educated speaker of, say Swahili, who learned all of his formal information in Secondary school by way of English. I assume that a reason for the strong participation by teachers was the curiosity: If this switch to Swahili is coming for our work - is there something in that modern medium of internet for it?
7. not anticipated by me was the large number of students and teachers who do not really know how to use a computer, enter text and find their way in the internet - even if they use email and have internet access on their mobile phone.
8. Personally I feel strongly motivated to go for a repeat of workshops. The efforts spent were definitely worthwhile. I can imagine to take more time and have a sequence of workshops at several locations. If wikimedia can decide to support that - I am in it. And methodologically it would be better. As for my co-teamers - I invite their comments.
9. I see the problem that coming from outside involves relatively high travel cost to East Africa/Tanzania. Cost in the country is not so large as I would count on cooperation of schools (no point working with not cooperative schools anyway), travel can be done cheaply and personally I still can rely on my old networks for accomodation. That is why for a repeat I would go for several workshops in a row.
10. the other challenge is to find suitable schools and colleges. I think i can personally use my old networks for that and tap into others. I had used the days after the workshop for networking with people at the Open University of Tanzania.The 2 editors resident in Tanzania can open up more locations, even if both of them may be restricted from moving around yb their work schedules.

Project status

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

yes

Is your project completed?

yes (how to complete wikipedia?)

Activities and lessons learned

Activities

On Friday.      

• We met in Morogoro on Friday late afternoon, in spite of heavy rainy-season-traffic (4.5 hrs for 200 km): Riccardo, Kipala, Oliver and ChriKo.
• Our Tanzanian editor Muddy unfortunately could not be with us because his boss cancelled his days off
• Had time for mutual introduction, clarification of motives for editing
• Agreed on need to fill in topical gaps related to our fields of work in the interest of usability of swwiki
• Prepared workshop, divided tasks. We agreed to add an additional workshop on Sunday morning  in order to split the expected high number of participants and thus to use Saturday night for our feedback because the team members from Nairobi had to leave somewhat earlier on Sunday because of changes in flight schedules due to the Kenyan-Tanzanian transport conflict.

''On Saturday

• 
  Wikipedia ya Kiswahili arrived at Alfagems SS (way to the computer lab)
• 
  Students' workshop - Riccardo helping out
• 
  Students' workshop
• 
  Students' workshop - Kipala explains
• 
  Teacher's workshop
• 
  The team of the workshop

• During the opening meeting for the workshop, there were an estimated 70-80 students of Alfagems SS and ca. 30 teachers, plus 2 teachers from a neighbouring university and one university student. Students of Form V and II were sent out and invited to come back on Sunday morning at 9 am. 
• We divided the group into teachers plus some university students on the one hand and the secondary students on the other.
• Student group took place in school PC room with some 20+ working laptops, about 50-60 students participating, 2-5 sharing one laptop.
• Start was slower than expected, because part of students were for the first time using a computer for internet access. Majority had used smartphone for internet, but never used Wikipedia.
• Registration of users did not work as we hit the 6-per-day-per-IP-adress-limit and were only told AFTER the event that there is a way around it. (WIFI came thru school IP)
• Until noon we did basic introductions plus first edits on prepared set of articles stubs for localities in Tanzania – Morogoro and Dar es Salaam regions to be updated by replacing 2002 census numbers with those of 2012 census, correcting year of census and replacing reference link. They were encouraged to add local knowledge about population tribes, languages or institutions of the places.
• Students did 66 edits on 49 entries. Editing had to be interrupted because of lunch time.
• Motivation was high, so that when call to lunch came, nobody left his place; they had to be ordered out.
• More than 20 students registered for the Wikipedia club to be started under supervision of our team member Riccardo.
• Alfagems SS provided lunch for all participants at own cost.
• Teachers’ group was supposed to work on private laptops as the set-up of a second computer room in the store had not worked out. There were, however, problems with the WIFI in that part of the school. So the morning session of the teachers concentrated on the introductions, with few managing to register accounts, most ending at the 6-account-limit.
• During lunch we decided to switch teams and rooms. The teaches went for the editing exercises into the computer room, the students had an extended introduction into basic rules and philosophy of Wikipedia without further editing exercises and ended one hour earlier than originally planned.
• The teachers’ session continued until 17.00 hours and included an evaluation of existing entries for school purposes and a general feedback.
• The team evaluation took place on Saturday night because of the early departure of the Kenyan members caused by the Kenya-Tanzania transport conflict.

 

On Sunday

• On Sunday, students who had been turned back on Saturday had their workshop from 9-12.30.
• Participants did 57 edits on 43 articles.
• Ca. 12 registered for the Wikipedia club.
• The school again provided lunch for all 32 participants.

 

Lessons learned

What worked well?

• The enthusiasm of the students was overwhelming. The participation of teachers on their free day was very impressive. Feedback showed the light bulb moment / eye-opening experience of participants being able to change internet content.
• The registration for the club was high – a good chance for a start after Easter break.
• In view of the limited time because of the technical difficulties and inexperienced participants the number of more than 120 edits on nearly 100 articles is a good result.
• The battery backup for the power cuts worked fine.
• We learnt about a new development playing in our favour: a few months ago, the president of Tanzania announced that during the next 10 years the country is going to shift secondary and tertiary education towards Kiswahili as language of instruction. Whatever may come out of that, it may explain part of the heightened interest amongst teachers.

What didn't work?

• Timetable could not be finished because of technical problems and too large a number of participants and because we had not considered the additional time needed by participants without computer or internet practice. Probably we had planned too much anyway.
• The technical problem to run a second group in a separate room was not solved as planned.
• The feedback session was not detailed enough – we remembered then that oral feedback in East African context easily leads to an “orgy of praise” – we should have prepared a questionnaire.
• We had prepared to use visual editor – could not do it as internet explorer was the only common browser installed on all school  school computers – because of the number of internet novices and in the interest of saving time we used it for all - (had not thought about it and not checked this before) – thus had to change instructions and prepare new handouts in the night before the workshop.

What would you do differently if you planned a similar project?

• If possible arrive on site a day before the workshop to look at the technicalities, have direct communication with person in charge of installations
• Prepare more detailed questionnaires for feedback
• Try to separate participants according to computer experience, plan parallel for very basic instructions
• Stricter limits on participation numbers according to available computer places (it was a pity we had to cut short the planned programme for enthusiastic students, because the teachers needed a “success experience” editing in the computer room)

Learning patterns

(no idea what this is good for)

Outcomes and impact

Outcomes

Provide the original project goal here.

a) Coordination in ongoing content creation between longtime editors

b) Feedback from teachers what topics are important for own preparation and/or classwork,

c) Feedback about quality and usability of some existing content

d) Get new editors from workshop participants

From application discussion: "The workshop can be considered as a success"

1. with 15-20 teachers participating (on their day off!)
2. with 20 and more students participating
3. all of them learning basic editing skills, registering as users, editing or starting 1 entry
4. having initiated a students sw-wikipedia club
5. having 3 additional users who continue as active editors 2 months after the workshop.
6. after receiving a list of 50 topics useful for schools as recommended by teachers

Did you achieve your project goal? How do you know your goal was achieved? Please answer in 1 - 2 short paragraphs.

(to be answered after wikipedia club starts operation - before finally saving in mid-May)

Most of our poject goals worked out. We had our longtime editors meeting and worked together running the workshop.

We encountered huge interest and left with the impression that at this place, work will continue.

Results will be visible and measurable in the coming weeks.

Progress towards targets and goals

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanations
a) Coordination in ongoing content creation between longtime editors	done
b) feedback from teachers what topics are important for own preparation and /or classwork,	b and c: partly accomplished -	the feedback was hampered by the cultural norm to extensively express thanks and praise after a successful event, critical aspects were too short. We ran out of time to dig deeper.
c) feedback about quality and usability of some existing content	same as above
d) get new editors from workshop participants	we have 3 students editing from time to time up till now	the start of the wikipedia club at the school was delayed because of health problems of our resident editor - it started only now in second half of May
(From application Discussion: "The workshop can be considered as a success ")
1. with 15-20 teachers participating (on their day off!)	200% fulfilled	32 teachers participating on their day off
2. with 20 and more students participating	400% fulfilled	ca. 80 students participating on their day off (too much success!)
3. all of them learning basic editing skills, registering as users, editing or starting 1 entry	about half of students edited successfully -	not everybody could do it because of shared computers
4. having initiated a students sw-wikipedia club	32 registered for club	-It could only start now in 2nd half of May
5. having 3 additional users who continue as active editors 2 months after the workshop.	We do! even if only few edits but still on; expect more with club becoming operational
6. after receiving a list of 50 topics useful for schools as recommended by teachers	not achieved	(cf  notes about b+c above)

Global Metrics

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. # of active editors involved	4	5 were planned, 1 out on short notice
2. # of new editors	Ca 40	Due to several users per computer
3. # of individuals involved	Ca 120	Including participants plus school staff
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages	12	Was not planned for workshop, added images for workshop report and using the occasion of passing thru Daressalaam
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects	100
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects	Deleted 7566	Mostly longer outdated reference links replaced by shorter up-to-date-links

Learning question

Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?: Definitely yes. It is visible in the 747 edits from 21 March to April 3 done by our 5 steady editors and the fact that the students at the workshop remained at their laptops when they were called for lunch, they had to be pushed out.

Impact

What impact did this project have on WMF's mission and the strategic priorities?

Option A: How did you increase participation in one or more Wikimedia projects?

It looks like. We will see it ater Easter break when the club starts

Option B: How did you improve quality on one or more Wikimedia projects?

We edited 100 articles on sw wikipedia which were updated with 2012 census data.

Option C: How did you increase the reach (readership) of one or more Wikimedia projects?

Most participants opened wikipedia for the first time in their life.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grants at wikimedia dot org, according to the guidelines here? Answer "Yes" or "No".

YES

Expenses

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.

A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I
Line	Budget item			Euro	QAR	KES	TZS	USD
			Rate 1 USD	0.94	0.275	91.62	1845	1
1	1	Ticket Christiaan Kooyman	USD					443.00
2	1	Ticket Oliver Stegen	KES			41,419		450.00
3	1	Ticket Ingo Koll	Euro	700				744.68
4	2	Taxi cost IK Dar	1x 20,000, 1x 50000 TZS				70,000	37.94
5	2	Taxicost Nairobi shared OS-CK	2x 2200 KES			4,400		48.02
6	2	Taxicost Dar shared OS-CK	2x 50,000 TZS				100,000	54.20
7	3	Bus Dar-Morogoro 3 pax					21,000	11.38
8	3	Bus Morogoro-Dar 3 pax					21,000	11.38
9	4	Visa fee Ingo Koll			100			27.50
10	4	Visa fee Christiaan						50.00
11	5	BZ Hotel, Morogoro	accomodation (rest) 3 pax				38,500	20.87
12	5	BZ Hotel, Morogoro	advance accomodation				150,000	81.30
13	6	BZ Hotel, Morogoro	food team 4 pax				55,000	29.81
14	8	Photocopies	150 copies					12.00
15	10	Vodashop Oyster Bay IK	sim card				12,300	6.67
16	10	Tanzania Posts Corporation	postal fee				2,360	1.28
17	10	Tanzania revenue Authority	customs fee				128,400	69.59
18	10	Mimel investment	2x flash disk				50,000	27.10
19	11	Tshirts Wikipedia	50 T-Shirts				375,000	203.25
22							1,023,560	2,329.98

Total project budget (from your approved grant submission): 2800 USD

Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission, this total will be the same as the total project budget if PEG is your only funding source)

? I do not understand this

Total amount spent on this project 2,329,98 USD plus donated cost for food and use of rooms, equipment (donated by school)

Total amount of Project and Event grant funds spent on this project 2,329,98 USD

:Are there additional sources that funded any part of this project? List them here.

Alfagems Secondary School contributed by providing space, its computers, worktime of some staff and 2x lunch for all participants.

Remaining funds

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of 470 USD.

Are there any grant funds remaining?

Answer YES .

Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)

470 USD

If funds are remaining they must be returned to WMF, reallocated to mission-aligned activities, or applied to another approved grant.

Please state here if you intend to return unused funds to WMF, submit a request for reallocation, or submit a new grant request, and then follow the instructions on your approved grant submission.

Return it