Grants talk:TPS/Brinacor/Communicating Astronomy with the Public Conference 2018

Questions about your request

Dear Brinacor,

Thank you for submitting this very clear and thorough request. We are interested in funding this proposal, but we do have some concerns. In general, we avoid funding international travel without a very robust participation plan. In this case, you have a very thoughtful plan that with strategic considerations in regard to the international nature of the event. However, your talk appears to be only 15 minutes long. In general, we would prefer not to fund a participation plan at such a high cost with such a limited opportunity to address conference participants.

You mentioned in your request that you will be organizing a group of astronomy communicators interested in Wikipedia to continue discourse beyond the conference, as well as conducting a survey to gather information about how Wikipedia is used in this discipline. Can you give a more thorough description of how you plan to do both of these things? With only 15 minutes to speak, and in a conference that is so jam-packed with other speakers, how will you be able to get robust participation in your efforts?

Also, please describe further how you envision the continued discourse beyond the conference. What medium will you use? What will your goals be?

Finally, since your online presence is very limited (with less than 100 edits), and since we typically try to fund experienced volunteers to conduct outreach, can you say more about your work as an offline volunteer?

Thank you in advance for your reply. Again, we appreciate how thoughtfully you've put together this application. We look forward to hearing your responses to these questions.

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 18:36, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Brinacor, I am just following up to make sure you have seen these questions. We hope to hear back from you! --Marti (WMF) (talk) 00:05, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Dear Marti,

Thank you very much for the feedback. I’ve got a few updates regarding participation now that details on the conference schedule have been released.

Following the parallel session in which I will give my talk, there will be a one hour “unconference session,” in which participants break into groups to discuss self-proposed topics. Last summer I led a successful unconference session on this topic (Wikipedia + Astronomy) at a workshop on Open Education and Community Engagement for science educators in Europe. Unconference sessions are by nature discussion-based, and I plan to use this session following my talk as an opportunity to answer questions and discuss topics about Wikipedia beyond what I will address in my talk. In fact, the idea for the Working Group began during the last unconference session I led, where I was able to learn from the participants about how they view Wikipedia and use it as an educational tool.

I will also submit a paper covering the content of my talk (and the unconference session as well) for the conference’s proceedings, which will be published in print and digitally.

In terms of participation and opportunity to address conference participants, I will give a 15 minute talk, hold an unconference session for anywhere from 15-30 minutes and publish a paper in the conference proceedings.

As for offline outreach, my primary focus (outside the astronomy community) has been on educating women and minorities who use Wikipedia as a resource but have never edited or explored Wikimedia beyond encyclopedia articles. I’ve done this mostly through small talks and discussion groups at universities and museums. I started from an academic perspective - viewing Wikipedia as a cultural artifact and object through which to illustrate topics such as colonization and epistemology - then discussing how individuals interact with Wikipedia, and finally training interested participants to edit. I’ve interacted with approximately 120 people so far, the majority, over 90%, of whom were women or non-male identifying.

I’m currently communicating with colleagues at the International Astronomical Union to coordinate the Astronomy + Wikipedia Working Group and ensure discourse beyond the conference. I hope this answers your questions and I’m happy to provide more! Thank you!

-- Brinacor (talk) 00:39, 7 February 2018 (CET)

Request funded

Brinacor,

Thank you for this response. In light of your clear plan for engagement at the conference, we are happy to fund your proposal. Please note that we do not consider publications in conference proceedings in our assessment, simply because this is a standard output of many of the conferences we fund people to attend. More important to our decision is your strategic plan to use the conference to leverage partnerships with individuals and with the International Astronomical Union to create a sustainable platform for ongoing engagement with Wikimedia projects. It's especially exciting that you are envisioning a Working Group, and we appreciate your initiative in serving as an ambassador for its creation!

Please note that you can request merchandise here, should you want to include it in your outreach efforts.

It's terrific to hear about your offline work in support of gender diversity in Wikipedia. Thank you for outlining the nature of your outreach, and your focus on inclusion of women and non-male identifying individuals.

Before you decide to accept funding support, please make sure to read all of the steps required of TPS participants and confirm that you are prepared to meet our requirements, as described in the "How the program works" page.

Note that you will need to submit a post-event report, due 14 days after the event. The report requires you to link to an outcome. An outcome must be something that is created during or after the event because of your participation. The purpose is to extend the value of your participation beyond the conference. Fulfilling the outcome requirement tends to be the most challenging task for TPS recipients, because some applicants mistakenly assume they can submit the materials they submit as part of the conference proceedings (such as a slide deck, a paper or a poster) to meet the outcome requirement. We do like you to link to such materials, but they do not meet the outcome requirement. Instead, your outcome should be one of the following (or something similar):

• something new that was co-created by you and your fellow participants at the event, like one or more articles on Wikipedia improving content about a topic that conference participants know about (this should be created by participants you instruct, rather than by yourself, and ideally, it should not be subject to deletion)
• a blog post you write after the event to share your conference learnings with others who did not attend the conference
• a learning pattern to teach others something you've learned at the event.

If you are not sure how to meet the outcome requirement, we recommend that you reach out to us with questions. Please consider in advance how you will meet the requirement.

Our Grants Administrator will be in touch with you about your grant. Thank you for work on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Warm regards,

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:29, 8 February 2018 (UTC)