Grants:Project/Rapid/VVIT WikiConnect/Annual Plan (2018–2019)/Report
- Report accepted
- To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/VVIT WikiConnect/Annual Plan (2018–2019).
- You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
- You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.
Context
editVVIT WikiConnect is a student organization from Vasireddy Venkatadri Institute of Technology, located in the vicinity of Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India. It is a college-based club that has been established to promote the concept of Wikimedia movement i.e. the concept of free access to knowledge, among the students and staff of the college. Though the formation of the club was initiated in early 2017 by KCVelaga, it only formed a base after two major training workshops on English and Telugu Wikipedias, a photo-walk as a part of Wiki Loves Monuments 2017, a Wikidata workshop, and several on-campus meetups, in late 2017 and early 2018. At the beginning of 2018, a group of students came together to formally establish the club as a student organisation in the college. By the end of the academic year 2017–2018, the club had its first batch of coordinators—MNavya, Nivas10798, Sumanth699, and SuswethaK—elected. The academic year 2018–2019 started with a full-fledged annual plan with a series of activities involving various Wikimedia projects, focused on improving the editor base and building a sustainable model. The annual plan was supported through a rapid grant by WMF, and partly by CIS-A2K. This report speaks about the club's activities, organisation, impact achieved, lessons learnt, and relationships with various entities, during its first official academic year.
Goals
editDid you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?
Yes, we met most of our goals, and have also exceeded in several of them. Though we were not able to do all of the activities as mentioned in our original plan, we did well at others, in addition to several activities that were not originally planned. Reasons and scenarios that led to these changes are explained in detail in the later sections of this report.
Calendar of activities
edit1.) 1Lib1Ref session 2.) Wiki Awareness Sessions |
3.) Wikidata Workshop 1 4.) Wikidata Workshop 2 5.) Wikidata Editing Campaign |
6.) Indian Independence Day 2018 Label-a-thon 7.) English Wikipedia Training Program |
8.) Meetup at Annamayya Library 9.) GLAM meetings in Amaravathi |
10.) WWWW 2018 Edit-a-thon | 11.) Hockey World Cup Edit-a-thon 12.) F1H20 Photo-walk |
13.) Wiki Advanced Training | 14.) 1Lib1Ref session 15.) Wikidata Workshop 3 |
16.) Mini-MediaWiki Training |
17.) Wikipedia Tales dubbing project 18.) Wikimedia Experience Survey 19.) STC19IN Onsite 20.) Annual Meeting |
Overview and learning (activities)
editWiki Awareness Sessions
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Wikidata training
editWorkshops
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Campaign
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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English Wikipedia training
editDescription |
The DYK hooks published on the main page are;
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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GLAM activities
editDescription |
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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F1H20 Grandprix 2018 Photowalk
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Advanced Wiki Training
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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MediaWiki training
editDescription |
In total, the participants worked on twenty-six phabricator tickets. They are;
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Meetups
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Thematic edit-a-thons
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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1lib1ref 2018/2019
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Independence Day 2018
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WWWW 2018
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Hockey World Cup 2018
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STC19IN
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Other activities
editWikipedia Tales dubbing
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Experience Survey
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Annual Meet
editDescription |
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Overview and learning (practicies)
editMangagement
editMembers
editBylaws
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Leadership
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Communications
editInternal
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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External
editDescription |
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Public Relations
editCollege authorities
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CIS-A2K
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Observations |
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What would you do differently next time? |
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Annamayya Library
editTeas and Trees
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Vega Accounting Solutions
editOther Wikimedia entities/users
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Editor retention
editGender diversity
editEquipment
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Learning (at-large)
editWhat worked well?
edit- We were able to successfully execute most of the activities planned in the annual plan. Through our activities, we were able to train many students in the college to contribute to various Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and MediaWiki. Also, we have been successful in achieving decent editor retention by the end of the year. Two of our active members—Sumanth699 and MNavya—have more than 10,000 global contributions, and another two of them—Mekala Harika and SuswethaK—have more than 5,000 global contributions. Also, several other members have more than 1,000 global contributions. In addition to the planned ones, we also conducted a lot of events on the go, as part of national campaigns. This helped to student editors from the club to get connected with several other Wikimedians from across the country, and vice versa.
- We are running this club as an extracurricular activity, students completely invest time voluntarily, and aren't receiving any scores for their work (unlike most of the other EduWiki activities). All of the student editors contribute because they believe and appreciate the vision of the Wikimedia movement. This approach is intentional and will greatly help us to bring out students who will contribute like any Wikimedian, out of their own interest and volunteer time.
- We managed to do well with the metrics. All the programs that can be recorded on the Program and Events Dashboard are recorded are listed under a campaign titled "VVIT WikiConnect (Annual Plan 2018-19)". It is available at https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/vvit_wikiconnect_annual_plan/overview. The final metrics are:
Total no. of students engaged | Articles/items created | Articles/items edited | Words/bytes added | Uploads to WCommons |
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155 | 30 | 6.27K | 1.16M | 184 |
What did not work so well?
edit- Our major disappointment for this annual plan was that we were not able to do any kind of activity around Wikisource. Given its ease of onboarding students and the value it brings in terms surfacing the underrepresented knowledge, it had been one of our top priorities. Though we had made plans for this twice, we eventually called them off—once due to unforeseen academic constraints and the second time to due to another event which we had to do on priority.
- Academic constraints have been a major setback for us while we are executing the plan, especially considering the fact that this whole thing being an extracurricular activity. It can be quite challenging at times. While in college, students need to take time to out of their regular classwork to participate in workshops. Though we get required permissions from the college authorities for exemption, a limit is strictly observed. This often hinders our chances to conduct more workshops and bring in more students into this. At the same time, some of the faculty members strongly support us, while being comfortable with the idea of Wikipedia, which is expected from a typical academician or researcher.
What would you do differently next time?
edit- What differently would we be doing for each activity has been explained in detail in the earlier sections, specifically for each activity. But at large we would like to chalk out a detailed plan i.e. including the timeline of the activities, at the beginning of the year itself. Also, make sure to include some contingency dates in between planned activities such that a particular event happens even if we missed the planned date. At the same time, we would like to develop practices in such a way that this whole system is enjoyable to everyone participating, and eventually, it benefits them in some manner or the other.
- To keep a track on our annual plan, and a regular check on our progress, we would like to use Phabricator project workboard to manage our annual plan. We previously used for organising Mini MediaWiki training. The project profile can be seen at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/3790/. We found it as a great tool to manage projects, and it can be of great help while we are working on our annual plan.
- To reduce the workload at the end of the year, we will improve our reporting processes by documenting things from time to time. As mentioned in one of the above sections, we were not able to complete this report by the time of our annual meet. During our next annual, we write our observations immediately after an event and also write down notable points from time to time. This would help to stay updated, and also make things smooth.
Gallery
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1lib1ref at Annamayya Library
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Wiki Awareness Session
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Wikidata Workshop 1
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Independence Day Label-a-thon
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WWWW 2018 Edit-a-thon
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Hockey World Cup Edit-a-thon
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Group photograph of Wiki Advanced Training
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Asaf Bartov being felicitated by college's Chairman and Principal
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Srishti Sethi's remote session during MWT
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Group photograph of MediaWiki Training
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Telugu-dubbed version of Wikipedia Tales
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Annual Meeting
Finances
edit- Grant funds spent
Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.
S.No | Month & Year | Type of expense | Amount (INR) |
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1 | July 2018 | Food and refreshments during events | ₹4,420.00 |
2 | July 2018 | Logistics for events (certificates, stationary, equipment rental etc.) | ₹2,510.1 |
3 | August 2018 | Food and refreshments during events | ₹1,620.00 |
4 | August 2018 | Logistics for events (certificates, stationary, equipment rental etc.) | ₹10,354.3 |
5 | August 2018 | Travel for resource persons and participants local travel | ₹10,614.00 |
6 | August 2018 | Accomodation for resource persons | ₹4,664.00 |
7 | August 2018 | Equipment (Camera) | ₹12,239.00 |
8 | September 2018 | Food and refreshments during events | ₹4,380.00 |
9 | September 2018 | Logistics for events (certificates, stationary, equipment rental etc.) | ₹630.00 |
10 | September 2018 | Travel for meetings and local travel | ₹4,826.00 |
11 | October 2018 | Food and refreshments during events | ₹8,847.00 |
12 | October 2018 | Logistics for events (certificates, stationary, equipment rental etc.) | ₹550.00 |
13 | October 2018 | Equipment (Hard Drive) | ₹6,499.00 |
14 | November 2018 | Food and refreshments during events | ₹10,356.00 |
15 | November 2018 | Travel for meetings and local travel | ₹12,716.31 |
16 | November 2018 | Accomodation during travel | ₹1,334.00 |
17 | December 2018 | Food and refreshments during events | ₹2,065.00 |
18 | December 2018 | Travel for resource persons (airport transfers) and participants local travel | ₹6,075.00 |
19 | December 2018 | Pending reimbursements for members (food, travel etc.) and external participation | ₹14,555.96 |
20 | February & March 2019 | Food and refreshments during events | ₹8,873.68 |
₹128,123.35 | |||
₹128,000.00 | |||
₹127,587.00 | |||
–₹536.35 (₹0 funds left) |
- Remaining funds
Do you have any remaining grant funds?
- No, we don't have any grants funds left.
Next steps
edit- With all the learning and reflections, we would like to do better next year with a much better plan. We have applied for a rapid grant to support our activities. The grant proposal has been moved to draft as the new funding guidelines are due for the next fiscal year. We will be taking the support from CIS-A2K to continue our activities and consider reapplying after the new guidelines have been published. Our priorities for the upcoming academic year would be expanding our community (especially the number of active members), create awareness about Wikimedia projects to more students, and formalise our plans and procedure to form a sustainable model. However, our basic approach would remain the same i.e. keeping the club out of regular academics, at least largely.
- One major challenge that we are anticipating is that the user who established the club and led its first annual plan, will be graduating and leaving the college. We will be trying to fill this gap by constantly being touch and be advised from time to time. As mentioned in earlier sections, we've elected our next batch of coordinators to execute the next year's plan with the guidance from Immediate Past Coordinators. Our immediate priority to make sure that the experience of an entire year and the learning is unreservedly transferred to the next batch of coordinators.
Notes
edit- ↑ For further information, see #vvitwc on Wikimedia hashtag search
- ↑ d:Wikidata:WikiProject_India/Events/Indian_Independence_Day_2018#Participants_from_Guntur_event_(16_August_2018_-_VVIT)
- ↑ d:Wikidata:WikiProject_India/Events/Indian_Independence_Day_2018#Indian_languages
- ↑ Activity tracked from 15 to 19 August 2018.
- ↑ STC19 Onsite (March 2019)