Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiSalud-UCV/Report

Report accepted
This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2017-18 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiSalud-UCV.
  • 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.

WikiSalud UCV 2017 was an edit-a-thon which took place within the Adopta Un Civil initiative, in collaboration between Wikimedia Venezuela and the Central University of Venezuela, through the Council of Scientific and Humanistic Development and the UCV School of Medicine. This event was focused on building and/or improving content related to health sciences research in Venezuela (biographies and infrastructure, both physical and administrative) as well as attracting new users to contribute to Wikipedia. For this purpose, a special day was held where representatives of Wikimedia Venezuela, taught the guests how to create, modify and upload contents of different people and places related to the health sciences within the Central University of Venezuela.

Event Flyer, shared on Social Networks

Goals edit

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

Goals edit

  1. Recruit new editors.
  2. Generate or improve content about Venezuelan physicians/medics with great impact in different areas of national life, not only because of the extensive experience in their field, but also because of their relevance in the country's social heritage.
  3. Instructing students and professors of medicine in techniques of hypertext and technical writing

Goals Analysis edit

In general, the Goals of this edit-a-thon, for which Wikimedia Foundation provided funds, were satisfactorily fulfilled.

  1. New recruitment of editors:
    • By experience, the edit-a-thon model is not usually the best method to recruit and firmly retain new editors, but this edit-a-thon seemed to have a strong commitment and a lot of enthusiasm. Most of the attendees were new editors. Almost all attendees registered a Wikipedia account within the first hour of the edition part of the event, which is not always easy to do.
  2. Improved content / addition to the encyclopedia:
    • The focus on templates addition was a successful strategy to provide a low impact edition for the participants and high impact for the encyclopedia. Each article created took both {{enobras}} and {{Ficha de Persona}} templates. New editors were encouraged to add new articles compared to improving existing articles, which was reflected in the metrics.
  3. False Paradigms and inclusion (Wikipedia as a scientific teaching instrument):
    • The presentation of Dr Mariano Fenández (Research Coordinator, UCV School of Medicine) was focused on the accuracy of the content published on Wikipedia and impact of the editions made by people with technical-scientific knowledge and proper references in different aspects and fields to Wikipedia.
    • Then, Dennis Pierri (WMVE Associate) after doing a small introduction to Wikimedia projects and a round of Q&A, gave the attendees a general summary of how to edit with several examples
    • In the afternoon, the second part of the edit-a-thon, group edition, took place.

General Opinion of the Event edit

In general, the edit-a-thon WikiSalud UCV 2017 was a modest and good edit-a-thon.

I think the time and the potential for dissemination was silenced for many reasons, as there was a lot of focus on the political and social turmoil of the country that shadowed the edit-a-thon, but I think those that participated had their minds in the event. Twitter, Instagram and various social media were very focused on the nation's political events, so the edit-a-thon was probably not as visible or prominent as it could have been.

The commitment for those who attended seemed to be enthusiastic - and the goal of having each person do an edition I think was fulfilled. I know that almost none of the attendees made edits to their user page and a large number of templates were added to the pages. I think the concept of Hypertext editing (Wikitext) was successfully addressed.

Outcome edit

Please report on your original project targets.

Further information: Page of the edit-a-thon in the Spanish WIkipedia

Target Goals Reached Goals Explanation
Events: 1 edit-a-thon 1 edit-a-thon Result reached according to the original goal. See Learning for analysis
Participants: 20 participants 22 participants The result was more than the original goal. See Learning for analysis
New editors: 20 new editors 17 new editors The result was less than the original goal. See Learning for analysis
Created or improved articles: 20 articles created / improved 4 articles created / 10 articles improved The result was less than the original goal. See Learning for analysis
Repeating participants: 5% -10%? N / A N / A (The event was a unique event, so the possible participation can not be repeated)

Learning edit

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future

Post-Event Questionnaire edit

Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

  • What worked well?
    • I think the attendees were very happy with the event spaces (which were wonderful beyond the physical venues) and the food, the presentations seemed to be well received. It was certainly a great learning experience for me, where I approached the WikiFacilitacion from the perspective of treating people as adults capable of using available resources in their own time. I think there was a value in the practical approach to the event, which was unique and fresh. The idea of ​​using Templates - which was something new - seemed to be well received and made sense to people, especially how Wikipedia templates are translatable into Google in their "infobox" at the time of a search.
  • What did not work so well?
    • The association with the Central University of Venezuela was good, but it was somewhat difficult to make clear on Social Networks that the event as a WMVE activity. The push in social media was less than expected, although it was a great learning experience for me.
    • Hashtag:
      • Although two Twitter hashtag were established, only one was consistently used (and it was the one that was NOT associated with the Chapter). I am somewhat disappointed in myself that I did not do a better job on this. It was an oversight, an error on my part, and it hurt us before and during the event, as there was confusion about what the hashtag really was.
  • What would you do differently next time?
    • Social Media Calendar
      • Next time it would establish a social media agenda clearly established for all involved. If the collaborators have a schedule I think it would be more effective. And it would set expectations from the beginning. I was afraid to push this, and I had been asking the University staff about their social media push, but I felt very uncomfortable doing so (even knowing it was my first time as CM).
    • The CentralAuth Banner was not used. In my opinion, it would have had a greater impact at the Wiki level

Goals of the project edit

The event did not reach the project goals at some levels, although it was very close to the initial goals. While it was somewhat disappointing that there was no further commitment on part of WMVE members- and the expected goals were not fully met - I believe that, due to the problems and the sociopolitical situation of my country, it was something that was beyond my control.

From my previous experience with other events - such as Women in Science or WikiArte - where the collaborators told us that there could be 50 assistants in the headquarters, but we ended up having less than half of the assistants because the largest group never reached the space of events due to over-scheduling - I believe that for this edit-a-thon we were as prepared and deployed as possible for the number of attendees. In the same way, the participants felt very comfortable with the event, the facilities, the refreshments and in general with how everything was done.

Finances edit

Grant funds spent edit

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

Category Item description Number of units Actual cost per unit Actual total (local currency) Actual total (USD)*
Refreshments Coffee Break for participants and event staff 2 VEF 927000,00 VEF 927000,00 USD 552.13
Refreshments Lunch for participants and event staff 24 VEF 52500,00 VEF 1260000,00 USD 628.43
Bank Expenses Incoming Wire fee 1 USD 15.00
TOTAL USD 1195.56
FUNDED AMOUNT USD 1186.05
DIFFERENCE USD 9.51

* At an official exchange rate of VEF 2004.975/USD (see Here). The funds were converted on May 5, due to Currency Exchange Control.

Remaining funds edit

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No. In fact, WMVE members provided the difference between the grant and the final amount (USD 9.51) from their own funds.

Anything else edit

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Photos of the event edit

Learning Patterns edit