Grants talk:PEG/WM DK/Wikipedian-in-Residence Scholarship

Hi. This sounds good. How much time in residence do these sums fund? Do you have more details about the planned activities of the residents? Have you been in touch with Wikimedians experienced in GLAM work? Ijon 11:42, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

The current plans are for two full-time positions, each lasting one month. The not-yet-public call for applicants includes

• strengthening cooperation between institution and Wikipedia
• one or two information meetings for institution employees
• two mini-courses for potential Wikipedians
• publishing institution collections on Wikimedia Commons/Wikisource
• planning and executing events for Wikipedians
• sharing the experience through institution blog, video interviews, etc

Yup - that is a lot! As to being in touch: Not yet. --Palnatoke 12:34, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Which (exactly) GLAM institutions you plan to cooperate? What exactly benefits for Wikimedia projects these cooperations are about to produce? IMHO there should be other than just effective attraction of applicant measurments of project success... Polimerek 12:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

The calls for applicants are not public yet, so we cannot tell you which institutions are involved - at least not on a public wiki. As to measurements - sure. Do you have any ideas? --Palnatoke 13:18, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

IMHO any kind of measurable effect for Wikimedia projects: I guess the final result of cooperation with GLAMS is usually the content they contribute to the Wikimedia projects. So, if we are about to spend money for resident's scholarships - the most obvious measure of the success is the amount and quality of the content which is provided thanks to their activity. Hiring them is IMHO only very first step - they might be completely uneffective. In other words: what exactly these resident are about to do, and how are you going to evaluate their effectivity? Polimerek 20:54, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Reviews

Have the GLAM institutions already agreed to host the Wikipedian-in-residence? Is there a group of Wikipedians wiling to cooperate with the GLAM institutions to improve Wikipedia contents? Who form this group? The activity will last for just one month. To be effective there should be a detailed plan of activities to be carried on during this period: Back stages, Wik-takes..., Why it is necessary to look for people applying for an ordinary job? Have you done any attempt to search for volunteers among the chapter members and the wikipedia community? --Josepnogue 18:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the GLAMs have agreed, and no, I do not agree that we should make a detailed plan yet. That is in part for the GLAM and the resident to decide. As mentioned above, the calls for applicants are not public yet, so our search is still semi-secret. --Palnatoke 13:18, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

A simple comment: it seems that the grant was finalized to have a wikipedian in residence, but in the first replies it seems more a project to find a partner for a wikipedian in residence. Is not it? --Ilario 19:20, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Let me point out I agree that the exact plan should be discussed and refined by the resident and the institution. However, it makes sense to have some plan in advance, first of all as a basis for discussion, and secondly because this will no doubt be the first time the institution has worked with Wikimedians, and if the resident comes into the planning talk saying only "so, what would you guys like to do?", it is likely the institution would not have the best answers. I urge you to reconsider and to come up with a general plan -- possibly only after selecting a resident, so the resident can participate in formulating it, but you can probably begin before that -- that would be subject to change, refinement, or just being thrown out and replaced by something better, if need be. Better to be prepared. Ijon 21:54, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Hi. The benefits of having Wikipedian-in-Residence is clear, but it also could produce some obstacles regarding your Wikipedia community. So do you have a clear strategy how to manage with the potential reactions by the active users? It is always risky to match Wikipedians with any funds, which could easily disparage the volunteering job done on the projects. And since you mention that the call for applicants is not entirely public yet, could you explain what do you mean by "semi-secret" call for applicants? In addition, have you already determined the responsibilities of the GLAM institution and the yours of the projects? And if not, what do you plan to afford them? Best regards.--Kiril Simeonovski 19:29, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

Two cultural institutions are planning to have wikipedians-in-residence, and one of the calls-for-applicants has been accepted by that institution's legal department. We need to form a supervisory committee before making the call public. At the moment, a small number of Wikipedians do know about the project, but they are not necessarily the ones who would apply for the position, I think. --Palnatoke 21:30, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

As the general ideas go, this is a good one - it corresponds to the Wikimedia goals and should result in the dissemination of free knowledge and attraction of new wikipedians. Funding is often the obstacle precluding minorities such as women and 30+ people taking part in Wikipedia movement: student can rely on parents and frugal lifestyle, 30+ have to feed a family while their expertise may be very valuable.

However, this is not a fundable proposal yet, rather a declaration of intent: "if we do A and B, would the committee approve the funding?".

The devil is in the details, especially choosing the persons to be a WIP (Wikipedian-in-Residence). The process should be as transparent as possible, but this depends on the Institution - there would be much more chance to find somebody in the capital, and a small Museum In The Middle of Nowhere may require head hunting, which may require a direct contact along with the open call.

I think you should:

1) Finalize agreement with the cultural institutions;

2) Write a more detailed proposal - if you don't want to openly name your GLAM partners, you can do it by sending a confidential e-mail to Ijon as he is the Chairman of our committee;

3) If/when the committee approves the funding, you can start looking for WIR.--Victoria 13:08, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedians in residence is now a regular feature of our work, so lessons have been learned. Have you discussed this with User:Witty lama, who was the first WIR in the world in Australia and then at the British Museum? He will offer a wealth of advice. He is now with the WMF coordinating just this kind of thing. I agree that you need to have a plan before you recruit anyone. Will the institutions be putting up any money? I think you should ask them to do so, however small or possibly "in kind", as it will increase their stake in the project. I support this grant. --Bduke 02:34, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

National Archives?

Presumably, the National Archives are one of the institutions? (mentioned here) Ijon 17:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

That is another project. --Palnatoke 18:20, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

The Institutions

I would like to let everyone know that Ole has contacted me privately and delivered more details about the two institutions. In this negotiation phase, it is those institutions' preference that it not be made public. Let's focus on the rest of the plan, then. Ijon 19:11, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

It is impossible to evaluate the grant proposal without knowing such the basic facts, like what institutions are about to be involved and what exactly is going to be the role of residents... It seems that you have to do this alone if that information is not possible to communicate to the members of grant committee... Polimerek 08:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I will not communicate it on an open wiki before the institutions are ready to go public, since that would violate the trust that we have built in the institutions. --Palnatoke 22:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Sure - I understand it. My suggestion for such a grant proposals is to make it partially open and partially non-public. Actually the grant comittee has only access to the open information, so it cannot make any serious evaluation of it. However, the grant committee has only supporting role - so in that case I guess - the decission must be taken by Ijon alone. Polimerek 00:14, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I have now relayed the information about the institutions to the GAC members by e-mail. They will not be passing that information on. Ijon 08:51, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I am happy with these institution i.e. I can say that they are top Danish GLAMs - for sure worth to cooperate with them. Polimerek 23:36, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Measurement of success

I think that measurement of success will depend on the details of the plan vs actually achieved things. Let's look at the proposed goals (which should be not on the talk page but in the grant itself:

• strengthening cooperation between institution and Wikipedia (intangible)

• one or two information meetings for institution employees (can be measured)

• two mini-courses for potential Wikipedians (can be measured)

• publishing institution collections on Wikimedia Commons/Wikisource (can be measured)

• planning and executing events for Wikipedians (can be measured)

• sharing the experience through institution blog, video interviews, etc (the more publicity generated, the better, hopefully, the national press that writes about culture would be interested as well). --Victoria 10:47, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, these things are measurable, but they are measurements of having a resident, not of a scholarship. We're looking for ways to measure the benefit and success of attracting people who cannot afford a month without income. --Palnatoke 22:05, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

So, maybe the best would be to have a mixed measurement: a) hiring new people will be success no 1, and what they will achive will be success no 2. Or - the other way - the success will be not just hiring them - but hiring + prove that they did usefull things. Both will be a success - hiring itself - not necesarily... Polimerek 23:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Detailed breakdown

Ole, could you give us more detailed breakdown (number of persons × number of months × monthly scholarships + other expenses)? Thanks. --Pavel Hrdlička 13:27, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Two persons. One month each. Scholarships of 10000 DKK each - or 5000 DKK if the applicant has partial funding from elsewhere. Other expenses: None expected. --Palnatoke 21:06, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that is OK. --Pavel Hrdlička 15:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Experience sharing

I would still like to hear that some discussion has taken place between WMDK and the experienced GLAM volunteers in our movement, and that some thorough reading of the materials available at GLAM-Wiki was done. It just seems a shame to undertake a GLAM project without an opportunity to learn from the successes (and mistakes!) of others. When does WMDK plan to do this? Ijon 22:47, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Has WMDK discussed its plans with the GLAM-Wiki group yet? If not, is there a timeline for this? We would like to move forward with this grant, from our end. Thanks. Ijon 05:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Have you been able to find time to share your plans with the GLAM-Wiki group yet? We're eager to approve this grant! :) Ijon 10:30, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes. We got a lot of good input from the cultural-partners list, and will soon be meeting with the two institutions after the summer break. --Palnatoke 11:38, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Have these meetings taken place? Just checking to see this is indeed going forward. You don't need to send us a detailed report or anything! (of course, if you have something to share, we're all ears...) Ijon 22:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)