Grants talk:PEG/FF portal/Recommendations/Faculty of Economics Skopje

Thanks for the recommendation, Kiril.

Two quick questions:

1. Could you clarify your relationship to the Faculty of Economics Skopje? Are you still a student there? Are you employed by the faculty? Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:56, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

2. Has the guest speaker been selected yet? Has the speaker agreed to speak, on these terms? Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:56, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the questions Asaf. At the Faculty of Economics in Skopje I spent four years (2008-2012) to acquire a Bachelor's Degree and now I spend an additional year (2012-2013) as part of my post-graduate education. In the meantime, I was also commissioned two years in a row (2011 and 2012) with a part-time job as a Demonstrator in length of three months each year. So far as I know regarding the guest-speaker, there is a shortlist of potential candidates that will be used to select the person who will attend and speak at the planned event. I'll contact the project lead and tell you more about it. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 19:07, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The latest news is that there is a shortlist with the following names:

• Neil Shephard, Professor of Economics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom;
• Niels Haldrup, Director and Research Fellow, Center for Research in Econometric Analysis of Time Series, Aarhus, Denmark;
• Igor Masten, Professor of Time-Series and Panel Data Econometrics, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
• Peter Reinhard Hansen, Professor of Econometrics, European University Institute, Florence, Italy;
• Marco Lippi, Department of Statistics, Faculty of Statistics, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy;
• Dimitrios Asteriou, Associate Professor in Quantitative Methods, School of Social Sciences, Hellenic Open University, Patras, Greece.

Another important note is that the travelling expenses may vary from one place to other. The figures given in the budget are projected for the most expensive and may be significantly reduced if any cheaper option is selected. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 20:21, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for this information. To be perfectly clear -- are you currently being paid by the university? Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 23:34, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

No, there are currently no job-related issues between me and the university (it was case from October-December 2011 and October-December 2012 as mentioned above) and thereby I don't receive anything. My current status is being only a student at the Faculty of Economics as it's the case with several thousand others at the same time. Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 10:19, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Kiril. This can be funded, then. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 16:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Even this recommendation is confirmed, I want to ask the grantee few additional questions:

1. Why do you think that you provide free knowledge, given by the lecturer? You will spend 500 EUR for the guest-speaker compensation. Of course student will not pay for it, Faculty of Economics will not pay for it, but it's Wikimedia Movement's money. --Brest (talk) 23:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

2. Above listed speakers, I suppose are well known professors, but can you provide us some links from where we can see that they are eminent promoters of free knowledge and free educational resources. Why do you think that they can speak about the role of the Wikimedia Movement in promoting the free knowledge and the free educational resources if they are not directly involved in movement? --Brest (talk) 23:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

3. If those speakers will not speak about the role of the Wikimedia Movement in promoting the free knowledge and the free educational resources, then who will speak about this? If someone else speak about it, then why you don't have allocated compensation for him? --Brest (talk) 23:26, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

4. In any case, I don't think that this, speakers compensation, will be of help to Wikimedia Movement in Macedonia. I think that this will stop some positive trends already established with other faculties, schools and other institutions in Macedonia.--Brest (talk) 23:25, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank You for the questions, Brest.

1.The concept of free is that the people who will have access to the lecture (which is an open lecture) will not pay any money so the receiving end of the knowledge doesn't pay- which makes it free of charge for them. You can also see it on this page. Please keep in mind, free doesn't mean- costless. In this case the cost is the travel & accommodation expenses and the fee paid to a lecturer (as seen in the budget provided).

• So your free knowledge costs the Wikimedia Movement. Why Faculty of Economics didn't pay for it? How many lectures will give your speaker to the audience? Do you have some agenda, operational plan? --Brest (talk) 10:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

2.As You already know from reading the project recommendation made by Kiril, the guest speaker is never in the recommendation specified or mentioned as to promoting Wikimedia. The main aim of inviting a lecturer is making his professional knowledge free. Through inviting an eminent lecturer and not making the people who want and will attend the lecture free, the Wikimedia foundation as a promoter of free knowledge is recognized by the receiving end of the knowledge offered.

• My point was that for Wikimedia Foundation is better to pay someone who is eminent promotor of Wikimedia movement, but Wikimedia Foundation (Kiril and Asaf) decide to pay for professor in the field of Economics/Statistics. Which lead us to conclusion that may be next time WMF will compensate Madonna to have concert somewhere to promote free knowledge. :) --Brest (talk) 10:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Please note you are mistaken in thinking I "decided to pay" for it. The model in Flow Funding is that the Flow Funder (Kiril in this case) is empowered to make a funding decision on his own. I only intervened in this case to assess the possible COI, but I have not made a public judgment of the impact of this request. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 08:36, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks Asaf. You wrote "This can be funded", but you didn't "decided to pay" for it, which maybe means that Kiril Simeonovski is maybe only one who made decision for this request? Can you please elaborate this little bit more to avoid any confusion, because I can't see any other decision maker who comments something on this page? Please don't understand me wrong I just try to evaluate this project and see how transparent and effective is. --Brest (talk) 20:51, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

3.The person speaking about the technical implementation of Wikipedia in the lectures has already agreed to speak without compensation, the same as me agreeing to organize everything, without compensation and the professors implementing Wikipedia and possibly other Wiki- projects in their lectures, without asking for compensation.

• My question was, why you didn't allocate compensation for those people? Can you provide us with more info about the person who will speak about Wikipedia? --Brest (talk) 10:31, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

4.The last one, as far as I can tell is a statement of Your personal opinion towards the project and its impact. I don't see a question here, nor do I see an argument/fact presented aiding the conclusion. The impact and opportunities offered by this project are already stated in the recommendation.--Sazdo (talk) 23:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Request for changes to project budget

Summary of proposed changes

1. 100 euros for a welcoming lunch, over which we will go over details of the lecture and everything accompanying it (schedule,video materials, photos, documents etc.)

2. 100 euros to provide coffee, water etc. for the coffee break which will ensure a better environment for the lecture, and keep everyone attending it refreshed.

• the reason for asking for these changes is that 266 EUR have been saved from the airplane ticket and accommodation. Therefore, this is a request for a reappointment of the money saved.

The new budget

List of expenses to be covered through flow funding

#	Expense	Description	Cost per unit	Unit	Quantity	Currency	Total cost per expense
1	Transportation	transportation to the airport	25	one-way ticket	2	EUR	50
2	Travelling	air ticket to Skopje	244	two-way ticket	1	EUR	244
3	Accommodation	accommodation in hotel for the guest-speaker	75	night	2	EUR	150
4	Compensation	compensation for the guest-speaker	500	/	/	EUR	500
5	Food	meals for the guest-speaker during his stay	20	meal	3	EUR	60
6	Other expenses	adjustments made to the transportation, travelling and accommodation expenses	196	/	/	EUR	196
7	welcoming lunch	a lunch to discuss the details of the event	100	meal	1	EUR	100
8	coffee break	coffee,water etc for the coffee break	100	/	/	EUR	100
						EUR
						EUR
Total:						EUR	1,420

List of savings (expenses covered by other parties)

#	Expense	Description	Cost per unit	Unit	Quantity	Currency	Total cost per expense
1	Venue	room where the lectures will take place	200	day	2	EUR	400
2	Technical equipment	computer, video projector with projection screen, sound system, board, Wi-fi	75	day	2	EUR	150
3	Technical support	technicians installing and maintaining the equipment in the venue	60	person/2 days	2	EUR	120
4	Security	security members in the venue	50	person/2 days	2	EUR	100
5	Local transportation	transportation to the hotel, venue, restaurants, etc.	30	/	/	EUR	30
						EUR
						EUR
						EUR
						EUR
						EUR
Total:						EUR	800

How the requested changes will affect the execution of the project

• Both of the requested changes will affect the organization of the project.

1. The lunch will allow for coordination about the lecture with the professor and people working on this project.

2. The coffee break will help the participants at the lecture refresh.

Plan for funding this change in case the request is not approved

• Part of the costs will be covered by the planned expenses from the "other expenses" section. So far there are no unpredicted costs and because of that part of the changes stated in this request could be covered by the money planned for other expenses (adjustments).--Sazdo (talk) 19:05, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

The reappointment seems reasonable to me and I believe it will be beneficial for the project.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 21:35, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Kiril and Igor. This request for a change to the project budget is approved. Best, Winifred Olliff (Grants Administrator) talk 16:54, 4 June 2013 (UTC)