Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/Pour une plus grande représentativité des arts littéraires québécois et canadiens francophones sur Wikipédia, sur Wikimedia Commons et sur Wikidata

Timeline update for funding decision announcements edit

@FrederiqueDube: Hello Frederique. Due to an unexpected medical issue I experienced earlier in April, I unfortunately was not able to interact with the Regional Committee or generally work during much of April last month. Due to this absence, we were unfortunately not able to provide committee feedback in a manner consistent with our original schedule. Consequently, we will be adjusting the date for announcing a funding decision for your proposal by one week from May 18th to May 25th. This change will help support the time needed for you to review and respond to committee feedback which I expect to provide in the next day, as well as for the Regional Committee to finalize a funding decision. Please let me know if you have any questions or need clarification over this change in the schedule. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 23:32, 3 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

@I JethroBT (WMF) Hello Chris, thank you for this valuable information. I hope you are well and in good health. There is no problem with the deadlines, I am ready to respond to the comments of the committee. Thank you again for the clarifications and great pleasure! FrederiqueDube (talk) 19:20, 4 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Regional Committee feedback and questions edit

Hello FrederiqueDube, and thanks for your proposal on behalf of Rhizome supporting better representation of writers and literary works from French-speaking Quebecois and broader Canadian writers. The US/Canada Regional Committee has initially reviewed the proposal, and wanted to offer some initial feedback and questions for your review:

  • The committee appreciated Rhizome's thoughtfulness in the proposal in terms of recognizing the needs of newcomers and more intermediate participants in the movement and planning events around their needs.
  • The proposal's work and outcomes map clearly onto several Movement Strategy initiatives, particularly Funding for Underrepresented Communities, Increased awareness about the Wikimedia Movement, and Content Initiatives in Underrepresented Communities.
  • The proposal is also strengthened by Rhizome's proactive outreach work with Wikimedia Canada, multiple relevant community discussion spaces, and other collaborations.
  • Are you familiar with a previous grant we funded to Fondation Lionel-Groulx (FLG) focused on improving historical content related to Quebec and French-speaking communuties in North America. They employed a Wikimedian-in-Residence model to support many of their activities and goals, similar to some parts of this proposal, and you can review their final reporting and outcomes here. If you are not familiar with their project, would it be helpful to connect you with FLG?
  • As the Wikimedian-in-Residence is a central component of this project and its goals, we would like a clear statement describing the primary roles for this position. Based on the current proposal, we are aware the role will be responsible for some project tasks:
    • ...will work closely with UNEQ, BAnQ, AAOF, AAMF, REFC and LQM to raise awareness of discoverability and the importance Wikimedia platforms.
    • ...[will] work with people from the literary arts community in Quebec and French-speaking Canada to raise their awareness of the discoverability and importance of Wikimedia platforms
    • General coordination of all project activities to meet deadlines
    • ...producing knowledge transfer and evaluation of the proposal
    • Conducting community engagement/outreach work supporting content improvements
An exhaustive job description is not expected here, but we are looking to understand if these tasks represent the most important aspects of the Wikimedian-in-Residence's role, or if there are other important responsibilities that may be associated with the role.
  • It's great to see some important reflections and understanding of community needs from your activities in 2021-2022, and it's clear how these conclusions have motivated and helped develop the framework for the current proposal. Regarding your evaluation plan and related learning questions, certain qualitative metrics have been suggested, such as the level of satisfaction of attendees & partners, and the assessment of members' involvement in Wikimedia communities, among other questions. A few questions the committee has around this evaluation are:
    • Our understanding is that you will evaluate and gather some of this information through the focus groups and semi-structured interviews proposed. What will the structure and goals of these sessions be, and how will participants' experiences be documented and assessed to support your analysis and reporting on this qualitative information?
    • A named objective of this proposal is to build a community. We are wanting to understand how Rhizome plans to support and evaluate continued engagement from participants as a community beyond the workshop and activities. One concern is that some of the qualitative evaluation metrics focus on more immediate participant impressions and experiences about the workshop and activities itself, but less on participants' capacity or motivation to continue movement engagement after the workshop has concluded. If the goal is to develop an organized community of trained volunteers that has sustained engagement with this thematic area (Quebec or French-speaking Canadian writers), do you have some initial ideas for how Rhizome could support and evaluate this continued engagement?
  • In terms of the materials you intend to use for trainings and workshops, are you there are any existing movement materials you plan to use that you may be willing to adapt? If not, is there a plan to create these training materials from scratch, and who will be doing that?

We would like your feedback on these questions/comments by Thursday, 12 May 2022 to support a final decision from the Regional Committee, and please use the talk page here to share your response. Thanks you again for the hard work on this proposal, and we look forward to your responses. On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 19:00, 5 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

Answers for the Regional Committee edit

Hello @I JethroBT (WMF), it is we who thank you for reading our application diligently. Below we answer all your questions to the best of our knowledge.

  • The committee appreciated Rhizome's thoughtfulness in the proposal in terms of recognizing the needs of newcomers and more intermediate participants in the movement and planning events around their needs.

We thank you for appreciating this aspect of the project. We observed in our environment that there were people with good bases on Wikipedia and we sensed a need to push further, to offer activities for these intermediate-advanced level participants who often contribute actively to Wikimedia platforms. Especially since in Quebec, it must be said, these activities are rare.

Yes, it is important for us to demonstrate that French-speaking Quebecers and Canadians are under-represented on Wikimedia platforms, in general, and that more specifically, Quebec and Canadian literature is largely under-represented, which gives us the opportunity to initiate large-scale projects to advance this situation in a constructive and positive way. In the past, we have attended conferences by Josée Plamondon and Clément Laberge, we have exchanged views with resource persons actively involved in Wikimedia platforms from the fields of Quebec cinema, visual arts and performing arts, and we understand more than ever the key role of the Wikimedia movement in both knowledge sharing and content discoverability.

  • The proposal is also strengthened by Rhizome's proactive outreach work with Wikimedia Canada, multiple relevant community discussion spaces, and other collaborations.

We try to be as proactive as possible and we take great inspiration from what is happening around us to adopt best practices.

Yes, we are very familiar with the Lionel-Groulx Foundation program. We have been in close contact with @JBouchez since day 1 of our project and we were lucky enough to benefit from his advice and his experience as a wikimedian in residence. We also took training given by the FLG at UNEQ and as part of the project, we invited @JBouchez to give a 4-hour workshop to graduate students in literature at UQAM. The Wikimedian-in-Residence model that the FLG has developed inspired us a lot for this request.

  • As the Wikimedian-in-Residence is a central component of this project and its goals, we would like a clear statement describing the roles and goals of hiring a WiR. Based on the current proposal, we are aware the role will be responsible for some project tasks:
    • ...will work closely with UNEQ, BAnQ, AAOF, AAMF, REFC and LQM to raise awareness of discoverability and the importance Wikimedia platforms.
    • ...[will] work with people from the literary arts community in Quebec and French-speaking Canada to raise their awareness of the discoverability and importance of Wikimedia platforms
    • General coordination of all project activities to meet deadlines
    • ...producing knowledge transfer and evaluation of the proposal
    • Conducting community engagement/outreach work supporting content improvements

Yes, you are right, the Wikimedian-in-Residence plays a central role in this project. Its mandate is to promote Wikimedia platforms and information and digital skills among actors in the Quebec and French-speaking Canadian literary arts community (writers, publishers, students, researchers, professors and cultural workers). It acts as an orchestra conductor to cultivate a strong partnership with the organizations involved and the contributors of the wiki community. It forges links between the Wikimedia community and the literary arts community in order to foster a better understanding of Wikimedia platforms and their implications for the discoverability of authors and their works. He coordinates and leads all project activities, including editorial events that bring together members of the Wikimedian and literary arts communities in a concerted effort to create and improve content. He oversees the progress, production and compliance of the required deliverables, he evaluates each stage of the project and he guarantees that deadlines and objectives are met.
The goal of the project is to develop a culture of open data in the literary arts community in Quebec and French-speaking Canada, to promote content concerning writers and their works and to build knowledge commons that can be reused by everyone. The Wikimedian-in-Residence is the guardian of this mission. It will highlight existing educational material that has been created by other organizations attached to Wikimedia and, when necessary, it will produce material adapted to the literary arts community (video clips, webinars or others, according to the needs expressed by the partners). He also manages the project's communication and knowledge transfer tools in order to promote ownership of the initiative by all the actors involved. He may also be called upon to carry out research to identify reliable sources and he must keep a watch on what is happening in Wikimedia. He must master the founding principles, rules and recommendations of Wikipedia, licenses and operation of Wikimedia Commons (copyright), as well as the glossary and operation of Wikidata.

  • It's great to see some important reflections and understanding of community needs from your activities in 2021-2022, and it's clear how these conclusions have motivated and helped develop the framework for the current proposal. Regarding your evaluation plan and related learning questions, certain qualitative metrics have been suggested, such as the level of satisfaction of attendees & partners, and the assessment of members' involvement in Wikimedia communities, among other questions. A few questions the committee has around this evaluation are :
    • Our understanding is that you will evaluate and gather some of this information through the focus groups and semi-structured interviews proposed. What will the structure and goals of these sessions be, and how will participants' experiences be documented and assessed to support your analysis and reporting on this qualitative information?

The structure of the focus groups will be quite simple, it is likely to happen remotely, in synchronous mode (by Zoom – duration = 1 hour). We will make sure to build three focus groups of 4-6 people: 1 group related to the initiation workshops; 1 for people who took the intermediate-advanced workshops; 1 for people who took part in the edith-a-thon / wikidathon. We will select people from among those who have completed the post activity evaluation survey and we will ensure that there is a representative number of people who are members of the wiki community that we are setting up.
The aim will be to see whether the activities met the objectives, expectations and needs of the participants. Questions will also relate to the level of commitment and the contribution intentions of participants in order to have a portrait of the retention rate. The moderator chosen will be neutral and will not be directly involved in the project. The sessions will be recorded (video and sound), a verbatim will be created, an analysis will be carried out, a synthesis and recommendations will be published on the Wiki page of the project. The textual analysis can be carried out with the support of our partner Littérature québécoise mobile (university researchers) and we can use free content analysis software (examples: Iramuteq or TXM) if necessary.
The semi-structured interviews will be with our partners, a one-hour interview with each resource person of our partners. They will be done through Zoom, will be recorded and analyzed. They will be carried out by a neutral investigator. A synthesis and recommendations will also be published on the project page. These focus groups and these interviews will take place at the end of the course and what will emerge from these qualitative survey techniques will be used to assess the project, to draw lessons (good and less good moves) from the project and to come out of the recommendations for a second phase of the project (sustainability). The results will of course be able to provide food for thought for other organizations carrying out activities similar to ours.

  • A named objective of this proposal is to build a community. We are wanting to understand how Rhizome plans to support and evaluate continued engagement from participants as a community beyond the workshop and activities. One concern is that some of the qualitative evaluation metrics focus on more immediate participant impressions and experiences about the workshop and activities itself, but less on participants' capacity or motivation to continue movement engagement after the workshop has concluded. If the goal is to develop an organized community of trained volunteers that has sustained engagement with this thematic area (Quebec or French-speaking Canadian writers), do you have some initial ideas for how Rhizome could support and evaluate this continued engagement?

A few initial ideas were identified. First, we have planned that at the end of each activity, there will be a moment to talk about the art-litt wiki community. We want to make this community attractive, with a dynamic communication channel – an actively animated Facebook group, where members' contributions, finds and thoughts are constantly put forward. This channel must also be a favorite place for exchanges between members (questions, problem solving). Two or three members will act as mentors and as ambassadors. It will of course be possible and encouraged to exchange views on the project page, in the Discussion section. Social activities may be organized at regular intervals to increase the sense of belonging. Members-exclusive activities could also be planned (conferences with experts or meetings with writers). The power of word-of-mouth following these activities dedicated to members can also help to increase the ranks.
Secondly, we intend to solicit our partners so that there is at least one person from their team who is involved in the art-litt wiki community. Third, we will regularly promote and raise awareness in the Rhizome distribution channels (newsletter, website, social media) about the importance of a wiki community in our environment. Our partners will be able to relay what we broadcast in their channels. The community would thus be supported by the wikimedian in residence, by the member partners involved and by the mentors. The evaluation of this ongoing commitment may go through a few questions provided for this purpose in focus groups and semi-structured interviews and through the statistics of these members recorded by OutReach Dashboard (each member of our wiki community must be added to the table board).

  • In terms of the materials you intend to use for trainings and workshops, are you there are any existing movement materials you plan to use that you may be willing to adapt? If not, is there a plan to create these training materials from scratch, and who will be doing that?

We have already created a lot of material for the introductory workshops that we gave as part of the phase 1 of the Create the link project, this material is available in the Toolbox section of our project page. This material was strongly inspired by the Help:Wikipedia step-by-step videos, tutorials developed by the Lionel-Groulx Foundation, the PowerPoint presentation by Michael David Miller, vice-president of Wikimedia Canada, tools designed by Simon Villeneuve, as well as those created by the Réseau des ADN and by Artexte.
We intend to continue to improve our tools by taking inspiration from best practices and new tools that are being developed around us. We also monitor the material created by the WikiClub Croissant Boréal and Culture 3L very carefully. The material is adapted (and designed when necessary) by the Wikimedian-in-Residence. The evaluation surveys after each activity contain questions about the educational material to find out if it meets the expectations and needs of the participants. For this project, we will continue to be inspired by what is being done around us, both for intermediate/advanced workshops and for possible video tutorials aimed at the literary arts community.

We would like your feedback on these questions/comments by Thursday, 12 May 2022 to support a final decision from the Regional Committee, and please use the talk page here to share your response. Thanks you again for the hard work on this proposal, and we look forward to your responses. On behalf of the Regional Committee
Thank you for reading our application carefully, we remain at your disposal if you have any further questions.
Note: answers to questions were first written in French, the translation was done in Google Translate. We hope this is all understandable. FrederiqueDube (talk) 01:50, 11 May 2022 (UTC)Reply
@FrederiqueDube: Thanks for your responses above! There was one additional question I neglected to post in the initial set of feedback above:
Finally, we want to acknowledge that funding available for the Wikimedia Alliances Fund is limited in this current round. Given our budget, it will not be possible to fully fund all proposals we have received this round. While no decision has been made at this time around your proposal, the committee would like to understand whether this project could proceed with partial funding, and if so, what would need to change about the project with a partial funding decision.
Would it be possible to provide a response to this question by Monday, 16 May? With thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 12 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 65,612 CAD edit

@FrederiqueDube: Congratulations! Your grant is approved in the amount of 65,612 CAD (~51,929 USD) with a grant term starting 22 August 2022 and ending 18 August 2023.

The Regional Committee supports Rhizome’s planned community engagement work to support better representation of Quebec and French-speaking Canadian writers and their works. Rhizome has a strong network of partners to support this work. They include writer’s organizations, major university literature departments, publishers, as well as the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec, among others. We appreciate Rhizome’s extensive outreach to support the planning and sustainability of this work. The committee also appreciates the clear connection that Rhizome’s proposal has to broader Movement Strategy principles related to underrepresented knowledge and communities in Wikimedia projects.

The Regional Committee also appreciates the comprehensive responses provided to their feedback and requests for clarity, in particular around the Wikimedian-in-Residence role, efforts to reach out to organizations that have conducted prior work in Quebec or French-speaking Canadian communities, and around your evaluation plan.

The committee looks forward to working together with you in your future work in the Wikimedia movement. On behalf of the committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:19, 27 May 2022 (UTC)Reply

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