Grants talk:Project/KellyDoyle/Engaging Academic Librarians and Sororities to Address the Gender Gap

Project Grant proposal submissions due today!

Thanks for drafting your proposal for a Project Grant. Proposals are due today! In order for this submission to be reviewed, it must be formally proposed. When you have completed filling out the infobox and have fully responded to the questions on your draft, please change status=DRAFT to status=PROPOSED to formally submit your grant proposal. This can be found in the Probox template found on your grant proposal page. If you have already done this, thanks for your submission, and you should be receiving feedback from the Project Grants committee in the coming weeks. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 1 2017

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 1 2017 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during the community comments period, through 4 April 2017.

The committee's formal review for round 1 2017 begins on 5 April 2017, and grants will be announced 19 May. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 23:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)

A question

Sorry, you mentioned that there will be three partner institutions involved. Who are these institutions? Or you have not selected them yet? Ruslik (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your question, we listed the three partner institutions in the participants section. They are: Ohio State University, American University, and University of Pittsburgh. Please let me know if you have any other questions! KellyDoyle (talk) 14:18, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

One more question, what is duration of the project? Ruslik (talk) 12:59, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

This is a one year project, as the maximum term of the grant is for one year. Then we will evaluate next steps at that point. You can see our proposed timeline for the full year in the Project Plan section. KellyDoyle (talk) 14:49, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Changes

I have updated and added some clarifying information throughout our proposal about the work we intend to do and what we hope to create. Please feel free to contact me with any questions. Thank you! KellyDoyle (talk) 14:39, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Round 1 2017 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, 52,420.00 USD

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is glad to continue to support this partnership with West Virginia University Libraries. We appreciate the service of an experienced Wikipedian in Residence this role, and we are looking forward to your work to establish a model that may ignite Wikipedia editing in sororities across the United States.

Prior to finalizing a contract, we ask that you provide a job description specifically outlining the activities of the WiR role (we are now making this request of all WiRs).

Please note that we consider funding for WiR activities to be short-term. Grant funding that the Wikimedia Foundation provides for WiRs is not intended to support ongoing workflows in an organization, but to leverage the partnership to build a sustainable platform that ensures outcomes long after the WiR has completed their service. Your work will be to ensure that every action is taken to secure long-term outcomes that do not depend on ongoing grant funding.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
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4. Start work on your project!

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Aggregated feedback from the committee for Engaging Academic Librarians and Sororities to Address the Gender Gap

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	6.8
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	6.3
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	6.5
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	6.5
Additional comments from the Committee: Continued support of WiR position fits with strategic priority of addressing the gender gap. The project intends to increase engagement for a new demographic of users (sorority students) in a way that has potential for online impact. There also is a good chance this work can be successful outside of WVU; I particularly like the focus on creating a rubric for assessing service credit for Wikipedia contributions and the planned outreach to three additional institutions. I am somewhat skeptical of the scalability of the WVU model to other academic libraries, however it does sound like within WVU, there is potential for lasting impact after the grant ends and if the WiR position no longer continues. No impact in my opinion and there is not a justification of this impact in the grant. The project fits with Wikimedia's strategic priorities. The results can be probably scaled and sustained. Excellent impact potential owing to strong cooperation, great fit into strategic priorities by dealing with gender gap and content gaps. I see little to no risk as the WiR has already made good progress with increasing awareness of Wikipedia at WVU and building partnerships. The focus on formalized volunteer programs and service credit is innovative, and it will be valuable to have insight into the particular factors that make Wikipedia contributions as volunteer service successful or not. This proposal also nicely complements another Project Grant funded initiative that focuses on engagement of public librarians. I would like to see more specific targets around engagement of academic librarians though. For example, is it realistic for all WVU librarians to receive training through the new department (OCID)? Can WVUL commit to this? The project is more iterative though the idea to give participant sorority credits for their Wikipedia work is rather innovative. The success can be reliably measured. The risks are low, in my opinion. High impact potential, rather good approach for measuring success. It is clear to me that WVU Libraries is dedicated to this project and the WiR position. I think the budget is fair (especially if WVU has covered the salary of the WiR from the end of the original IEG term to the projected start date of the future grant). The WiR has the necessary skills and experience, however the scope does seem ambitious. I think it may be difficult for the WiR to provide adequate support and outreach to both academic librarians and sorority students (especially as the project expands to new institutions). I have no problems with the grantee's ability to execute the project and her skills and experience. The budget appears to be realistic. Salary for WiR @ $50,000.00 is too much. Very likely to succeed: realistic scope, experienced team. Budget is rather high but looks reasonable. There is some community engagement and support. The project does support diversity. There is some community support. Strong commitment to diversity, good plan for working with their target community. Willing to support full funding. While it is clear to me that WVU Libraries is dedicated to this project and the WiR position, I think it's important that this year of activity focus on increasing capacity within the WVU librarian community so this work can continue after the WiR is gone (because my impression is that WVU cannot support the position without ongoing grant funding from WMF). I'd also like some clarity on which area of engagement (academic librarians at WVU or sororities) is the priority of the project. As it stands now, the scope seems ambitious and it may be best to focus energies on one area first and then expand as time/resources allow. The project doesn't justify any specific impact. There are outputs, there are activities, but the outcome is not evident. If the gender gap is the problem to solve, how will this problem be solved? At the end of the yearly plan, will we be able to say that the project has solved the problem? By referring to the gender gap, the grantees suggest that they are offering a solution to this problem, but this problem is too big to solve in this limited way. In this specific case the grant seems to me only a support for some activities that cannot solve the problem. I am willing to support the project as it is always reasonable to support projects and grantees with a good track record of success. Again, scholarship for Wikimania, has nothing to do with the proposal. Budget is almost double from the budget asked last time. What I don't understand here is why a WiR after one year of activities already has produced only 606 total edits on Wikipedia projects? Good project with high potential of impact.

Unclear scope

It's not quite clear what this project is concretely about. What I understood is that it's certainly not the typical GLAM-focused WIR, rather some kind OER work. The educational resources will be directed to trainers rather than students («lesson plans, assignments, activities, and advocacy materials that are articulated within the framework of information literacy for easier adoption by librarians»), and the WIR may or may not have some direct involvement with some actual teaching intended to bring some users to the Wikimedia projects. Correct?

If so, will the educational resources in question developed on Wikibooks, or some other Wikimedia project? I only see mention of their being finally released on Wikimedia Commons in some static form, which is rarely useful AFAICT. --Nemo 15:56, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

This project is focused on outreach within higher education in the U.S. to students in sororities as well as librarians. The plan is to engage the students to edit articles about women / women's issues in exchange for required service credit. Meanwhile, librarians at these institutions will be engaged as well about Wikipedia editing and serving as outreach liaisons within their campus and professional communities . The events / training conducted will serve as tests and fact finding for the growth and refinement of this model at other institutions and for the created training materials. The expectation is that at the end of the grant term, events and trainings can be hosted in a self sufficient way, at any U.S. college or university through the refined training materials. The training materials will be developed for both trainers hosting events and/or looking for areas of engagement on college campuses and newcomers alike. The materials will most likely reside on Commons in a complete and finished form as the grant term will give us the time to develop and release materials that have been found the most useful throughout the year. KellyDoyle (talk) 14:14, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for reiterating this information, but it seems my questions were not clear enough because you did not address them. I'll try rephrasing.

• When you say "events / training conducted", do you plan some of them to be conducted by you directly or by others, and in either cases how will they be documented (given I can't find almost any information about the events/trainings of the previous year)?
• When you say "tests and fact finding for the growth and refinement", "refined training materials" and "time to develop and release materials that have been found the most useful throughout the year", where do you plan this work of refining and developing to happen? It would be most logical for it to be on a wiki, which is why I suggested Wikibooks. Do you plan to use a wiki? Will the work be collaborative? Will there be a chance to further develop and refine the materials after the "complete and finished form" and if so how?

Thanks, Nemo 07:19, 20 August 2017 (UTC)