The Capacity Exchange/Draft Implementation Plan cXc

Diagram of the Capacity Exchange's logic model.

What movement strategy initiative or goal are you addressing?

We are addressing the prioritized initiative Global Approach to Local Skills Development.

It addresses all four points in the recommendation (in cursive):

Create a systematic, global approach to skill development for local communities, their people, and their organizations. This requires us to:

• Establish a methodology that maps assets and needs and generates aggregated data for deploying skills development initiatives based on real needs.

By creating a platform which people can use to enter their assets, shareable skills as well as their needs, we develop a real-time map of capacities in the movement. Analyzing the data from that map will allow capacity building providers in the movement to address unmet needs, as well as those needs that are voiced by larger groups of Wikimedians and could be met by group learning formats rather than one on one, peer to peer support.

• Establish a service that facilitates connecting/matching peers across the Movement for teaching and learning skills (e.g. peer-learning, networking, and pooling of information from partners and allies).

Capacity Exchange's main purpose is to connect people with each other. The existing platforms (Meta, Facebook, LinkedIn) all have limitations in terms of their ability to facilitate a safe space, respectful exchange and mutual aid among people, many of them volunteers,  working on growing their communities and their content on the Wikimedia projects.  On the Capacity Exchange, people and affiliates can enter their skills, their services, and their shareable resources. Those looking for similar resources can then search and find and connect.

• Encourage a diversity of methods, including training, mentoring, consulting, online learning, peer-to-peer support, and events.

The MS recommendation recognizes that to date in the Movement we have equated capacity building with training, and have not utilized the full set of proven practices available in this field.  The Capacity Exchange responds to the largest missing item in the movement’s toolbox - peer support.  Assuming that the knowledge around organizing and growing communities lies with the very people engaging in that work every day, CxC  tries to unleash the power of those people in supporting their peers in other regions and other contexts. We assume that learning is always a multi-directional process, and that peers will learn from each other as they compare experiences, tools and ideas.  The forms that peer support can take are as diverse as our communities - one-on-one quick assistance, communities of practice, longer term mentoring relationships, hands-on clinics, and other events, online and in-person.

• Create incentives for skill development (online and offline) through the recognition of skills (e.g. through open badges).

Incentives and recognition  will be built during the mid-term development of the program, and could parallel or be integrated with existing recognition methods on meta. Another incentive could be in the form of data on the frequency of results and number of profile visits  based on user queries.

We operate under the assumption that there are other initiatives and projects recommended by or emerging from Movement Strategy. cXc is one element, which will benefit from integration with others, such as thematic and regional hubs, online learning programs, and a searchable database of learning resources.

The platform will refrain from the use of algorithms (and opportunistic stimulation) in order for users to have ultimate say about their profile and their visibility in metadata searches. In terms of ethics and technology use it could be seen as a prototype for an antipode of LinkedIn, Instagram and a like - a social network built on the spirit of mutual aid, rather than bragging.

What activities will you be doing to address that initiative?

We will build an interactive, data driven online platform that allows Wikimedians across the globe to publish info, search and (directly) connect to each other.

This will occur in several steps:

Phase I (initial budget of rapid grant and in-kind contributions)

1. Outreach to emerging and small communities for input on features and functionalities.
2. Translation in 3 additional languages (with communities of different scale/development)
3. Establish a pilot/MVP based on the OER World Map that includes the following categories : People, Affiliates, Resources, Services
4. Have this MVP tested by a small but diverse group of users to gain feedback on the following questions:
   1. Does this categorization help you to add and find what you need in your context? (iow not too jargony but also not too broad)
   2. How is the quality of translation into your language?
   3. How is the user experience?
   4. How does it display on different devices, incl. mobile?
   5. Where would you reference your profile?
5. Based on the feedback, create a blueprint with features of the final desired product.
6. Research options to develop it. These could include further development of OER World Map, using a different existing Open Source Software, or building the software from scratch.
7. Make a decision.

Phase II (developmental budget of MSIG and in-kind contributions)

1. Hire staff, e.g. 2x  .5 FTE program manager
2. Establish Advisory Committee
3. Clarify data privacy and safety requirements
4. Establish collaborative connections with partners in the movement working on complementary initiatives (Leadership development, online courses, peer programs headed by WMF, resource database, hubs)
5. Modify or build the platform (through contracted developer)
6. Translate the platform UI and documentation, as well as offer further translation paths (so users have choices and not depend on a single language).
7. Outreach to potential users all across the movement through
   1. Wikimedia Conferences and regional meetings
   2. Meta and email lists
   3. social media
   4. sign-up/data entry events
   5. special outreach to emerging communities
   6. special outreach to affiliates
   7. consult with Growth team of WMF for integration in their apps for new users
8. Assure Continuous Quality Improvement
9. Curate content and interactions to comply with the WM Safe Space policy
10. Determine if there are needs for additional services, for example:
    1. navigators/help-desk/language-proxies
    2. capacity assessments
    3. event and project categories
    4. incentives and badges

What do you expect will happen as a result of your activities? How do those outcomes address the movement strategy initiative?

We expect that we will see the following short-term outcomes:

• Wikimedians, individuals and affiliates sign up and enter their data onto the platform
• first connections are made between people
• first increases in participants capacity (knowledge, skills, resources, connections)

We expect that we will see the following mid-term outcomes:

• A beginning picture of the assets and needs in the movement
• human connections are being forged in peer-to-peer modalities
• communities of practice form
• participants improve their didactic skills
• continuous increases in capacity with participants
• items (how-to’s materials, curricula, templates, etc)  are being added to the database of learning resources

We expect that we will see the following long-term outcomes:

• cohort needs are addressed by other players in the movement, in accordance with actual needs
• an increase in capacity and self-help potential of smaller and emerging communities and affiliates
• capacity building is decentralized and (small) scale bottlenecks are reduced/avoided
• a culture of solidarity and mutual aid is developing and a sense of being part of a global movement
• increase of individual engagement over longer periods of time and wider topic ranges (more and more diverse participants in strategic development and implementations)

How will you measure or evaluate your activities? What tools or methods will you use to evaluate your activities?

• Content:
  • number of entries
  • number of items added to the database of learning resources
  • number of participants and diversity of their:
    • geographic distribution
    • home wikis
    • language communities
    • thematic groups
    • experience/level of contributions/participation
• Interaction:
  • amount of time users spend interacting
  • number of individual visits
  • number of successful queries
  • number of forwarded (and activated) invitations?
• Post use:
  • documenting satisfaction
  • documenting connections
  • documenting learnings or capacity building steps
  • reporting on aggregated data and resulting CB interventions/activities

Tools and methods will be built into the software, in accordance with EU data privacy law.

Helpful Links

• cXc 2021 Rapid funding project proposal