Grants talk:Programs/Organizer Lab/Deforestation in Nigeria

Committee Feedback

Hello @Ngozi osadebe, thank you for your grant application, your project proposal identifies a clear topical area and has a good scope of the problems it seeks to address.

General observations:

We have noticed that even though the project proposal has Identified a clear topical area or scope of work, it lacks clear, measurable, and achievable goals.

The proposal is not quite clear what the roles of the prospective partners are, especially in activating contributors and other target audiences of the project.

Reservations:

The grantee is focused on numbers but with no clear strategies on how to deepen the engagement of those who participate.

The budget seems inconsistent with the scope of work to be done and the suggested impact compared to the requested resources does not align.

There are indicated honorarium costs of about 2000 USD but no clear outcomes are attached or explained.

• Even though the budget seems reasonable to the project scope, the honorariums to partners seem high relative to the rest of the budget, considering the unclear articulation of how these partners will bring in new participants.
• We liked the intention to do focus group discussions with participants as a matter of learning and evaluation. It can definitely contribute to capturing lessons and enriching your storytelling, so it would be better to clearly capture it as part of the follow-up activities. Also, we do not see a budget item tied to doing this, will you need resources to be able to do that?

We don't get a sense of the capacity to manage the partnerships indicated by the team. Can you elaborate on the following:

• At what stage of negotiation are you with these partners?
• Do these partners clearly understand what roles they are being invited to play?
• What is the readiness of these partners to execute considering the short nature of the trainings (4)?
• How many students will the four partners be expected to bring in?
• How will the institutions continue to maintain the contributions of these participants after the project?

What we would like the grantee to improve:

• We would like you to review your strategies and approach to align them with a revised goal that is measurable.
• We would like you to communicate your strategy on how you intend to retain editors after the 4-day event and what other activities you are considering beyond editathons.
• We would like you to tightly scope the roles and outcomes expected from the partners involved in the project.
  • How will you leverage the partner's knowledge to fill these knowledge gaps?

• It would be great if you could tell us more about how you will consider partnership opportunities with other Organiser Lab grantees or existing user groups in your country to amplify the reach of your project.
• Tell us more about your continuity plan for the program after its first iteration:
  • How does an investment in the university center for communicating this continue to do work on science communication?
  • How do we use the relationship with the partner organization to continue more sustainable training for scholars and students working with the center?
• If you get the grant, we would like to schedule a meeting with you and the partner to learn more about their approach and efforts around list building -- mapping the high-quality research that they have to the opportunities around the existing gaps.
• There may be an opportunity to connect your project to the ongoing work to strengthen the quality of contributions on Commons, we’ll be in touch to facilitate those connections. Connect grantee to Culture & Heritage on Commons support

NB: Please make indicated changes to your application on the Wikimedia Foundation Grantee Portal (Fluxx). Log in to the Grantee Portal and you will see your application in the 'Proposals need attention' section. Edit and re-submit your proposal by March 02, 2023. FNartey (WMF) (talk) 22:48, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

@FNartey (WMF). Thank you so much for your comments. Below are our responses arrange in the order in which they appeared in the comments.

General Observation

We have reviewed the scope of the work to make it clearer, measurable, and achievable. For instant, we have provided an action plan for the program, reduce the number of participants and quantity of output, reworked the budget to tally with the reviewed scope of work, and pushed the commencement period of the project up to give room for the approval of the project.

We have streamlined the roles of the prospective partners to make them clearer. the roles of the partners (Institute of Climate Change and Department of Geography) are as follows:

a. Recruitment of participants

b. Training and leading the participants through the Wikimedia reporting format

c. Commissioning of the participants and creation of templates for output and input data.

d. Review participants' input

e. Lead participants on a field trip to deforestation sites in Enugu state, Nigeria.

The roles of Experienced Wikimedians from South East Nigeria.

a.    Train and mentor new participants from the institute of Climate Change Studies, Energy and Environment, and Department of Geography.

b.    Contribute content on Deforestation in Nigeria

c.    Sell the Wikimedia project on Climate Change and Sustainability to the institute of Climate Change Studies, Energy and Environment, and Department of Geography.

Reservation

The Scope of the work has been aligned with the budget and suggested impact. For instance, the number of participants and articles to be edited or improved have been re-calculated and reflected in the budget.

The 2000 USD honorarium to the Institute of Climate Change Studies and Environment and the Department of Geography is to enable the Institute and Department to take participants from their domain on field trips to deforestation sites in Enugu state.

Within the framework of the project, 3-day fieldwork will be conducted by project participants (students) from the partner institutions in some communities in Enugu state where deforestation is actively taking place.  This will enable the participants to see first-hand the impacts of deforestation on climate, environment, and development, as well as on lives and livelihoods.

The participants will also take original photographs for contribution to the Wikimedia project and to support the articles they have created or improved.

Organizing and implementing the fieldwork has some cost implications such as the hiring of vehicles, refreshment for participants, payment of field allowance to participants, fees for community entry, allowance for community guide, cost of production of field manual, and report writing after fieldwork.  

The amount of USD 2,000 allocated to the Institute of Climate Change, Energy and Environment, and the Department of Geography will take care of these costs to enable the successful implementation of the fieldwork.

Focus Group Discussion (FGD) has been added as part of the activities that will be engaged in, to make the project a success.

Stages of Negotiation I have reached with your partners

My partners and I have concluded the following stages of responsibilities:

1.      Sent an invitation for partnership

2.      Obtain consent to partner

3.      Shared responsibilities

4.      Wrote the grant proposal

5.      Signed a memorandum of understanding

My partners' understanding of their expected roles.

Yes, my partners clearly understand the roles they are expected to play. We have shared responsibilities. Each partner's role is clearly spelled out and a memorandum of understanding has been signed.

Readiness to execute

The partners are ready for the execution of the project as soon as the grant agreement is completed. The training is not restricted to four days. There are four days of physical training and online training every Monday in the month of May (2023).

The number of participants each of the partners is expected to bring in:

a. Institute of Climate Change, Energy and the Environment, UNN  15

b. Department of Geography, UNN 15

c. Wikimedians in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (UNN) Enugu State 15

d. Wikimedians in the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Anambra state 15

The ways institutions (Department of Geography and Institute of Climate Change) will continue to maintain the contributions of the participants after the project. The institutions will:

a. Form a community of participants using the WhatsApp platform.

b. Organize a monthly webinar on emerging issues around climate change and Deforestation

c. Delegate a participant to track the readership and visits to the published Wikipedia articles to enable review of comments and addition of new content.

e. Mainstream Wikipedia editing into the institutions (Institute of Climate Change and Department of Geography) teaching and learning process.

WHAT WE WOULD LIKE THE GRANTEE TO IMPROVE

1. I have reviewed my strategies and aligned them with my goals. The number of quantitative outputs from the project has been scaled down to give room to other activities that will help to retain the loyalty of the partnering institution to the project beyond the edit-a-thons. The starting date for my project has been reviewed upward to give time for the approval of the project.  My goals are now clearer, measurable, and achievable.

2. After the 4-days physical events, to retain our participants, my partners and I plan to:

a. Engage in online training every Monday in the month of May 2023.

b. Organize a monthly webinar on emerging issues around climate change and Deforestation

b. Delegate a participant to track the readership and visits to the published Wikipedia articles to enable review of comments and addition of new content.

c.  Mainstream Wikipedia editing into the institutions (Institute of Climate Change and Department of Geography) teaching and learning process.

Roles and outcomes expected from my partners

a. Recruitment of partners. This is expected to take two weeks from March 27 - April 8, 2023.

b. Three days of physical training. This has been fixed for April 17 - 19, 2023.

c. Follow up online training. This has been fixed for every Monday in May 2023

d. Commission and create a template for input and output reporting format, May 2023.

e. Lead participants on field trips to deforestation sites in Enugu State in August 2023.

f. Review participants' output in September 2023.

How I will leverage my partners' knowledge to fill knowledge gaps in deforestation in Nigeria.

I will sell the Wikimedia project to my partners in a way they will see it as beneficial to them as a professional group for communicating research, useful for making information in their field available online for public consumption, and for students, to gain skills in documentation, online collaborative writing, and information literacy.

Partnership opportunities with other Organizer lab participants to amplify the reach of my project.

I consider a partnership with other members of the Organizer Lab or existing User groups in my country as a venture that is good to pursue because it will widen the scope of the projects I engage in and create more visibility for my projects and me.

Already, I have initiated a WhatsApp group of all the Organizer Lab participants in Nigeria. The aim of the WhatsApp platform is to serve as a forum where participants can share experiences and plan collaborative projects. It is also my intention to unite all participants in the Organizer Lab as one formidable group that will take up the challenge of the information gap on Climate Change and Sustainability in Nigeria on Wikipedia.

How does an investment in the University Centre for communicating this ...

Investing in the University Communication Centre is good and may help in securing approval for the Communication Centre to channel internet connectivity to the venue of our program which may reduce the cost of a standby internet bundle. It will also help to buy the University Administration into the project. However, we will like to maintain this project as purely a professional exercise meant for those in the Institute of Climate Change Studies, Energy and Environment, and Department of Geography.

If we get the grant, we will be happy to meet with the WMF team. There will be so much to learn from them, especially in list building and placing articles under a watchlist.

We will be happy for our project to be connected to other ongoing works to strengthen the quality of our contributions to the commons. Initially, we planned for field trips to two other states in Nigeria, apart from Enugu state, but discontinued because we felt that it will make our project too bogus, and the cost may be too much for the grant fund to contain. Ngozi osadebe (talk) 04:02, 2 March 2023 (UTC)