Grants:PEG/WM US-DC/Training 2015

statuswithdrawn

Project & Event Grants

WM US-DC/Training 2015

Our goal is to give Wikipedia editors from throughout the United States skills that are necessary to train future Wikipedia editors.

targetEnglish Wikipedia

strategic priorityIncreasing participation

start dateFebruary 1

start year2015

end dateMarch 15

end year2015

budget (local currency)$17,549

budget (USD)$17,549

grant typeorganization

non-profit statusYes

creator• Harej

contact(s)• james.harewikimediadc.org• peter.meyerwikimediadc.org

organization• Wikimedia District of Columbia

website• http://wikimediadc.org

friendly space expectations

view all PEG requests

Goal

Our goal is to plan a weekend-long training session for Wikipedia editors throughout the Washington, DC, area and throughout the United States. This training session, to be held in March, will focus on workshopping plans for Wikimedia outreach events, training editors to teach workshop attendees how to write Wikipedia articles, and supporting women attendees through the Ada Initiative's ally skills training. This is a follow-up to last August's workshop facilitator training, as we would like to make the opportunity to participate available to those who were not able to participate last time.

Plan

Activities

Our initial workshop facilitator training brought 12 Wikipedia editors from throughout the country together to plan Wikipedia workshops and to learn best practices in hosting these workshops. Our training taught Wikipedians to strategically focus events based on Wikimedia's strategic interests and the interests of potential editors (citing the example of the workshop series centered on women scientists), to promote the events using methods most effective to their audience, and to teach Wikipedia in a way that focused on creating new content. The participants networked together and developed workshop ideas together. Wikimedia DC will be using the lessons learned from this training for its own upcoming workshop series, and Wikipedians in the United States have planned (or are planning) their own events.

In the meantime, we would like to organize a second training. We received over 30 applications for only ten spots, and we would like the opportunity to build a greater nationwide network of volunteers. We would also like to have additional local participants who were not able to make August's training. Our second iteration of the workshop facilitator training will incorporate the Ada Initiative's ally skills training to teach participants how to create workshop spaces that are safe for all participants; this aspect of the training will be open to all DC community members.

Recruitment: As with last training, we are planning on recruiting through the Wikipedia watchlist notice, through the mailing lists, and through other pages with potentially interested participants (including WikiProjects). We would like to recruit ten Wikipedia editors on a nationwide basis, with additional editors recruited locally (at least three have already expressed interest). We will select applicants based on their ability to demonstrate a need for the training, including concrete plans for future outreach activities. Those who are selected will have their travel expenses paid for by Wikimedia DC. Our interest in national recruitment stems from the lack of consistent Wikimedia organizing outside of the northeast United States; we have found from events like GLAM Boot Camp that training events like these motivate Wikipedia editors to take that extra leap to carry on organizing work. As a shining example of this, the Wikipedia Library project was founded by a GLAM Boot Camp alumnus, with three other Boot Camp alumni volunteering for the Library. We seek to build a nationwide network of volunteers through our programs, including this training.

Scheduling: The training will take place from Friday, March 6 through Sunday, March 8 at the National Museum of Women of the Arts, which has generously volunteered its space for our training. Friday will focus on developing ideas for workshops, finding resources for those workshops, and seeking funding. Saturday will focus on the practice of hosting workshops, including effective pedagogical methods and creating a safe space for all participants. Emily Temple-Wood will serve as the main trainer, while Sumana Harihareswara will be conducting the ally skills training as our professional facilitator. Group dinners will be held following each day of training on Friday and Saturday. Sunday will be the Art+Feminism edit-a-thon at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, where the recently trained Wikipedia workshop facilitators will apply the skills they learned the preceding two days. The last edit-a-thon held at this museum attracted 30 participants due to publicity surrounding the event and will this year especially benefit from the added participation of experienced Wikipedia editors.

Follow-Up: The best benefit of training events like these is the networking opportunities it creates for Wikipedia editors, including many who have never been to a Wikipedia meetup before. We will encourage participants to keep in touch after the event through follow-up communications, including a Facebook group for the participants. We will provide continuing support for our training participants and survey them at six-month and one-year intervals to check in on their progress.

Impact

Target readership

This training focuses primarily on the English Wikipedia, though we are not ruling out that participants may have ideas for helping other language editions of Wikipedia.

Fit with strategy

What crucial thing will the project try to change or benefit in the Wikimedia movement? Please select the Wikimedia strategic priority(ies) that your project most directly aims to impact and explain how your project fits. Most projects fit all strategic priorites. However, we would like project managers to focus their efforts on impacting 1–2 strategic priorities. Examples of strategic priorities can be found here.

Our plan seeks to increase participation and increase quality. We increase participation by training organizers with the skills they need to carry on programming that encourages retention through recurring events and community building, as well as encourage content production through the curation of reliable sources and techniques that make it easier to write Wikipedia articles on a given subject. We are especially interested in those Wikipedians who are interested in countering systemic bias on the English Wikipedia, including the poor coverage of notable women.

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 will need to report on the success of the project according to these measures after the project is completed. See the PEG program resources for suggested measures of success.

Immediately following the event, we will be able to determine the number of participating active editors and total participating individuals, per the global metrics. We are looking to involve a total of approximately 17 people, trainers included. As training participants host their own events, we are looking to measure the impact of our training through the metrics of their events (including number of total participants, number of active editors, contributed bytes, number of articles created or improved, and number of media files). We are also interested in the geographic diversity of our training participants, and will be counting the number of states and regions represented.

Note: In addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some global metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.

Resources and risks

Resources

The trainers for this event include Emily Temple-Wood and Sumana Harihareswara. Our host at the National Museum of Women in the Arts is Heather Slania, and James Hare will assist with planning and reporting.

This event will be the third such training event held by Wikimedia DC, including GLAM Boot Camp in 2013 and the first workshop facilitator training in 2014. Both events were successful in recruiting and training Wikipedia editors. Wikimedia DC has strong connections with the cultural sector in DC, with growing connections in the scientific and government sectors, and we hope to recruit professionals from these sectors for our training.

Risks

Risk: Lack of interest. It is possible that not enough Wikipedians will be interested in this event.

We have found there to be significant interest from our last training, where total applications exceeded accepted applications by a 3:1 margin. However, if there is reduced interest, we will be able to reduce the budget accordingly.

Risk: Lack of commitment on the part of participants. It is possible that participants, once trained, will not be able to follow through and plan programs of their own.

We hope to mitigate this by recruiting only those applicants who have demonstrated a need for this training, including concrete plans to carry out programs. It is better to have fewer participants than uncommitted participants.

Budget

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

Grantees are subject to line-item scrutiny of expenses. Changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

Project budget table

Item	Unit	Unit cost	No. of units	Total cost	Notes
Travel and Accommodations
Travel	Roundtrip itinerary	$650	10	$6,500	Based on financial report from last training held. Trainer's flight is already paid for through a separate grant.
Accommodations	Hotel room-night	$251	18	$4,514	Three nights per person, two people to a room (10 participants + trainer). Includes breakfast. Participants arrive Thursday night and check out Sunday morning.
Ground Transportation	Taxi Fare, etc.	—	—	$200	Contingency line item in the event flight itineraries must be booked during times not conducive to public transportation use. Based on financial report from last training held.
Travel and Accommodations Total				$11,214
Ally Skills Training
Facilitator Fee	Facilitator	$5,000	1	$5,000	Standard fee from the Ada Initiative for nonprofit organizations.
Facilitator Transportation	Roundtrip train ticket	$250	1	$250	Estimated Amtrak cost going between New York and DC.
Facilitator Accommodations	Hotel room-night	$175	1	$175	Based on cost for a single occupancy hotel room in the area near the training.
Ally Skills Training Total				$5,425
Event Costs
Lunches	Group Lunch	$180	2	$360	Extrapolated from financial report for last training; breakfast is paid for separately through hotel line item.
Dinner Day 1	Pizza Dinner	$100	1	$100	Based on financial report for last training
Dinner Day 2	Group Dinner	$450	1	$450	Based on financial report for last training
Event Costs Total				$910
Total Expenses				$17,549

Total cost of project

$17,549

Total amount requested from the Project and Event Grants program

$17,549

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

Wikimedia DC collects donations and membership dues and can use those funds to support program costs if necessary.

Non-financial requirements

See a description of non-financial assistance available. Please inform the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) of any requests for non-financial assistance now.

Requests for non-financial assistance, if any

N/A

Discussion

Community notification

You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a village pump, talkpage, mailing list. Please paste a link below to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

We will solicit applications into the program through an English Wikipedia watchlist notice; this was very successful last time. We will also notify past applicants who we were unable to fund last time.

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project and Event 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.