Grants:Project/Rapid/Nnamdi Azikiwe Library (NAL) Edit-a-thon 2019/Report

Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2018-19 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Goals

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Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

No, we did not meet our goals and we are not happy with how the project went. We hosted series of trainings and two edit-a-thons from May 8-9, 2019 as planned. We improved on more articles than we expected (169 against 50). Repeat participants were also more than expected (22 against 20). All the people that participated in the first day turned up the second day and among them are 15 people that participated in the 2018 program and six people that participated in the 2017 program. The experience Wikipedian in the person of Mr Olushola Olaniyan also came. However, participants were fewer than we expected (42 against 50) on the first and second day of the event. We were able to create and move only one new article.

Delay in the review of our grant request disorganised us and caused us many valuable participants. Our grant request was approved six days to our event. By that time, confusion has set in amongst us on whether we will be able to host the event or not. Some of our participants that came calling to see how we were preparing for the event were disappointed that we cannot give any concrete answer. Many felt disappointed and did not turn up for the program.

The three months university teachers strike that lasted from November 2018 to February 2019 did not help us at all. Many programmes that would have been held within the three months of the strike were staggered within the remaining month of the first semester (March to May). Faculties and departments were battling to cover up the time wasted during the strike. As such, there were many activities in the university within the time our edit-a-thon was on.

To make the matter worse, User: Graham blocked one of our participants user: Ifyobim, on the eve of our program claiming that she did disruptive editing. The following morning, May 8, he blocked all participants that created new articles, making it difficult for them to move their articles into the Wiki main space. This caused so much disenchantment among our editors and caused many to lose interest in article creating. It took the intervention of myself, User: Ngozi Osadebe and our guest, Mr Olushola Olaniyan to convince Graham to unblock us.


Step 2. Outcome

Please report on your original project targets, use the below table to:

·        List each of your original targets from your project plan.

·        List the actual outcome that was achieved.

·        Explain how your outcome compares with the original target. Did you reach your targets? Why or why not?

Target Outcome Achieved Outcome Explanation
2 Events 2 Events Satisfied
Number of participants on the first day 50 42 Below expectation
Number of participants on the second day 50 42 Below expectation
Number of new editors 30 20 Below expectation. It was a very busy period at the university. Staff were busy preparing for examination. There were also many conferences and workshops going on at the same time within the period because of the three months University lecturers national strike.
Number of articles improved 50 165 Many would be article creators were forced into editing existing articles because of the challenges of moving new articles into the Wiki main space orchestrated by our being blocked by Graham.
Number of new articles created 1 The number 1, here refers to the article that has been created and moved before we were blocked by Graham.
Number of repeat participants 22 The respect we accord our past participants compelled many of them to participate no matter the tight schedule at the university.


Learning

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Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well?
  • What did not work so well
  • What would you do differently next time?
  • Many things worked well. There was constant electric power supply and internet connectivity. Thanks to the Wikimedia Foundation for providing the financial resources that made it possible. Participants from Enugu arrived on time on the two days. School runs were promptly covered which made young mothers in the program very happy. The more experienced Wikimedian sponsored to our program (Mr Olushola Olaniyan) arrived safely at Nsukka and was very happy to be in our midst. The university library and its guest, Mr Olushola Olaniyan paid a courtesy visit to the University administration. The customised writing pad helped to publicly the program more. Copies were extended to the University administration. Having younger Librarians as facilitators to the program made preparation for the program very easy. The younger Librarians were full of energy and can manage lengthy training sessions without stress. They were able to manage our whatsapp group more effectively. This made information sharing very easy. The presence of a more experienced Wikipedian (User: Olaniyan Olushola) during the program was very advantageous. Mr Olaniyan helped to appeal to user: Graham to unblock us when he blocked us because one of our members did what he considered as disruptive editing. Olaniyan’s presence also helped to bring the program to the attention of the University Administration through a courtesy call.
  • b. What did not work well. Activities such as edit-a-thons should not be planned at the peak period of University calendar to avoid low turnout of participants. Many of the participants were unable to move or save the new entries they created because the group were block by user: Graham and prevented from doing so. We wasted so much time pleading and waiting to be unblocked. This forced many would be new article creators to switch over to editing existing articles. The cost attached to lunch (N125, 000 for 50 participants for two days) was not realistic. The calculation was poorly done and centred on the editors alone. It failed to include school children waiting for their parents and others such as ICT technologist, drivers and cleaners that helped to facilitate the program.
  • c. Next time, we would start on time to remind the grant administrators to appraise our grant. We should not use live articles for trainings as this was what caused us to be block by Graham. We will work on our budget carefully to ensure that the budget we submit will be realistic.

Finances

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Grant funds spent

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Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.


We used N679,280.00 grant funds on approves expenses and N16,900.00 grant funds on unapproved expenses.

The grants funds were spent as follows:

Approved expenses. All purchases are in Nigerian Naira (NGN)

1.     Epson Projector Machine                               155,000.00

2.     Internet Data                                          25,000.00

3.      A3 seize poster          (100 Pieces)                 32,000.00

4.     Flex Banner 2                                          15,000.00

5.     Writing Pads   (80 pieces)                             28,000.00

6.     Drinks

Coco Cola ( I create)                           1,100,00

Sachet water   (2pkts)                             180.00

Can Malt (4pkt)                                  12,400.00

7.     Lunch                                               150,000.00

8.     Bottled Water             (14 pkts)                       7,000.00

9.     Sweets, Chewing gums, biscuits,

groundnuts and garden eggs                          20,300.00

10.  Childcare                                                 15,000.00

11.  Diesel as back up for generator                      19,800.00

12.  Bus to convey participants from

Enugu to Nsukka and to cover

for school run                                                 35,000.00

13.   Transportation Logistics to procure items

and cost of way bill for Projector                  14,000.00

14.  Travelling allowance for

Mr Olushola Olaniya                                    149,000.00

Total approved expenses                                    678,780.00

                                  

Unapproved but necessary expenses          

Photographs                                                      7,400.00

Certificates                                                     11, 500.00

Total unapproved expenses                                       18,900.00

Grand total for expenses                                  697,680.00    


Remaining funds

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Do you have any remaining grant funds?


  • We have a total of fifty one thousand, eight hundred and twenty naira (N51,820.00)only grants fund remaining. Thirty thousand of this was the allowance made by WMF for bank charges while twenty one thousand eight hundred and twenty naira was the remains of our spending from the 2019 Rapid grants award of Seven hundred and nineteen thousand, five hundred naira (N719, 500.00) only. We will like to keep the remaining funds for future use.
The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of 51,820 NGN were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:Project/Rapid/Nnamdi Azikiwe Library 2021 Art and Feminism English Wikipedia edit-a-thon.
Yes, the remaining funds may be allocated to an open grant submission

Anything else

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Anything else you want to share about your project?

The list of created or improved article could be tracked through our 2019 dashboard which can be located at https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/University_of_Nigeria,_Nsukka/Nnamdi_Azikiwe_Library_(May_8-9,_2019)