Small wiki toolkits/Workshop guide

This guide documents the role and responsibilities of organizers and mentors of Small wiki toolkits/Workshops.

Note: This guide is written for workshops following virtual format and can be adapted when in-person events resume.

Organizers

Before the workshop

1. Set up a landing page for your community if you don't already have one.
   1. Your landing page could be a subpage of the Small wiki toolkits initiative page and could use the templates from some of the existing pages (e.g., South Asia).
   2. You could include the following information on the landing page: an overview, workshops and events, registration process, organization details, etc.
2. Gather learning needs around technical skills from the community and turn them into workshop topics. Ideally, there are clear learning objectives and goals tied to a workshop. For example:
   1. Participants will be able to create a new large-scale project running on CloudVPS.
   2. Participants will be able to report a bug and interact with others in Phabricator.
   3. Participants will be able to translate software messages on translatewiki.
   4. Participants will be able to find recommendations for good first tasks across MediaWiki codebases.
   5. Participants will be able to write basic python scripts and create API calls in PAWS to gather and analyze data.
3. Recruit mentor(s) for a workshop topic, help them understand the requirements and define the workshop's scope. Ensure they know their roles and responsibilities listed below.
4. Set up a date and time for the workshop. Add details on the wiki (e.g., description, meeting link, prerequisites, language(s) for workshop delivery, trainer(s) information). See an example here.
5. Pick a communication medium to choose for remote participation in the workshop. As per recommendation of others organizers you could pick a tool from this list, one that is easily accessible by members in your community and using which you would be able to record the workshop for later viewing.
6. Set up a registration page on the wiki to keep the process simple and gather signatures from potential attendees. As per the recommendation of other organizers, cap the workshop participation at fifteen to allow mentors and facilitators to handle the sessions efficiently (see example).
7. Spread the word on the community mailing lists, village pumps, and social media groups or channels where the communities are majorly active (see example). You could also reach out to members with specific roles (e.g., interface administrators) who could benefit from a particular workshop (e.g., user scripts and gadgets).
8. Send at least two reminders to all the participants a day and an hour before the workshop.

During the workshop

1. Run a quick introduction round, encouraging participants to share their names, wikis they contribute to, and their motivation for attending the workshop. Make sure to document it in the workshop notes for future reference.
2. Share some housekeeping tips with the participants and remind them to:
   1. Keep their video turned off and audio muted when they are not talking so that the call can run smoothly for everyone, especially for low-bandwidth users.
   2. Remember not to say things on video, audio, or chat that they wish would not have been recorded.
   3. Adhere to Wikimedia's friendly space policy.
   4. Use the chat to ask questions.
   5. Seek interpretation/translation help from organizers when needed.
3. Help mentors stick to the time and pause for breaks during the session.
4. Record the meeting for other people to watch later using the available feature in the video-communication service.
5. Take a group photo and upload it to Wikimedia Commons later.

After the workshop

1. Add all participants to a group communication channel of their choice for follow-up conversations with mentors and each other.
2. Share a follow-up message and a feedback survey with all participants to evaluate the workshop.
   1. In the follow-up email, you could include:
      1. Small tasks for participants.
      2. Link to the recording and any workshop materials such as slides and notes taken during the workshop.
      3. Invite participants to join the Small Wiki Toolkits initiative by adding themselves as a member here.
   2. In the feedback survey, you could include the following questions:
      1. On a scale of 5, how would you rate the overall quality of the workshop format?
      2. On a scale of 5, how would you rate the overall usefulness of the workshop format?
      3. On a scale of 5, rate how comfortable you were before this workshop with this topic to help your local wiki?
      4. On a scale of 5, rate how comfortable you are now to help your local wiki with this topic?
      5. What skills have you gained by attending this workshop?
      6. How will you use what you've learned in today's workshop?
      7. Any other feedback that you would like to share.

Mentors

1. Understand the learning needs, define the workshop's scope, and engage in planning with community members and organizers:
   1. Existing knowledge gaps and familiarity with the topic in the community
   2. Topics to cover during the workshop
   3. Language wiki to keep as a focus
   4. Include concepts to cater to a wide variety of audiences: beginner-level, intermediate or advanced
   5. Tentative date and time
2. Develop slides for your workshop following these toolkit guidelines here and remember to upload them on Wikimedia Commons in the Category: Small wiki toolkits.
3. Plan your workshop so that it is 1-3 hrs long, less lecture-based, and more hands-on, discussion-based, and participatory. You could organize your workshop in multiple parts.
4. As per guidance from the organizers, engage with participants post-workshop in their community's group chat–help them work on follow-up tasks, resolve technical issues, etc.
5. If you are a mentor interested in leading a training around a technical area to help smaller language wikis, please sign up here.

See also

• Blogpost: Designing technical workshops for the Indic community