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About the Koforidua Library

About the Koforidua Library The Koforidua Library is the largest Library complex in the Eastern Region and the most recent to be added to a network of Libraries in the Region. The Library is currently headed by Mr. Konwuruk Jawuruk; the Regional Librarian.

The library is divided into two sections -- the children and adult section -- which forms the core of its user body. The Library register members on a regular basis, and currently has more than a thousand children registered in the Children's department, a number which surpasses its Adults membership which presently stands at just above 100 members.

Koforidua Regional Library

Although the children's membership dwarfs that of the Adults, more than 5,000 Casual Members (unregistered members, but who make regular use of the library) make use of the library every year with the children section possessing an even greater number of Casual Members per year in attendance according to the library records.

The Library records peak usage times during seasons of approaching University examinations and the November/December Exams of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination.

The Library has a Reading Club, which comprises some 200 members. The usage of its computer laboratory by the public is however not encouraging, considering the slow internet speed coupled with the regular interruption of electricity supply. The Computer Laboratory currently has 8 desktop computers, with only 5 of them functioning properly. All the computers run a proprietary Operating System.

There are 26 Staff Members of the Koforidua Library. The above information about the Koforidua Library were provided by the Regional Librarian on June 11, 2015.

Goal

The Wikimedian in Residence at the Koforidua Library Project seeks to form and maintain a long-term partnership between the Wikimedian community in Ghana and the Koforidua Library which will yield the following:

Over a period of several months, work with the Koforidua Library to help introduce Wikimedia's mission of a free and open knowledge base into their current activities and or future initiatives.
Involve and encourage people who visit the library to contribute to Wikimedia projects, and introduce them to the Wikimedia movement and to create opportunities for having meeting spaces for edit-a-thons and trainings for Wikimedians within and around Koforidua in future activities.

The above Goals will lead to:

Increase in the online and offline activities and participation of by the staff at the Library and the general public on Wikipedia and its sister projects.
Improve or create new articles about the invited schools

Plan

Activities

Training the Koforidua Library Staff

The Koforidua Library Staff will be introduced to Wikimedia Commons, WikiData and Wikipedia through training that will be conducted at the initial stages of the project. The training is intended to accomplish the following:

Introduce the staff members of the Koforidua Library to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and WikiData (“WMF Sites”) and get them started on how to use each of these WMF Sites for education, research and teaching
Train the Library staff on how to contribute to The WMF Sites - Editing Wikipedia, uploading multimedia to Wikimedia Commons and adding entries to WikiData.
Train the Library staff on how to, in turn, train the public who make use of the Library to benefit from these WMF Sites and in turn how to contribute to them.

Why this Activity is crucial

How to use WMF Sites: Not all staff members of the library know how to use the WMF Sites and make the best of it. This should get them up and running quickly.

Train to contribute to WMF Sites and help others too: This will ensure a long-term, sustainable results of active editors. The staff members need to know the how of contributing to the WMF Sites, and with this understanding, knowledge and gained experience from use, they in turn can encourage, train and recruit new editors from the public who make use of the library re

gularly

Inviting Schools

Nearby schools in Koforidua, both Senior High Schools and Junior High Schools, will be invited to make use of the newly provided computers at the library to make research. In the process, the students will be introduced to Wikimedia and the WMF Sites.

At least Five Senior High Schools and Five Junior High Schools within Koforidua will be invited.

The Senior High Schools are:

Koforidua Senior High Technical School (Boys-only school) - Public School
Ghana Senior High School (Girls-only school) - Public School
New Juaben Senior High School (Mixed-gender school) - Public School
Pope Johns Senior High (Boys-only school) - Public School
Universal Girls Senior High School ( Girls-only School ) - Private School
Peace Hill Senior High School ( Mixed-gender School ) - Private School

The Junior High Schools (all mixed-gender schools):

Riis Presby Model JHS
The Presby Schools Complex (comprises of a cluster Junior High Schools and Grade Schools)
Madonna School
Universal Girls (the Junior High School)
Nana Kwaku Boateng JHS

Training Program & Edit-a-thons

Weekdays Training Program Each week day, there will be Introduction to Wikimedia Training Programs at the ICT facility of the Library for interested users to attend.

Schools that accept to attend the Library during the Project time period will be automatically scheduled to take part in each of this training sessions. Depending on the size of persons who sign up for the training, it may be held in batches.

Weekends (Saturdays) Edit-a-thons

On every saturday, for 4 months, a new article will be started and or improved relating to Koforidua on Wikipedia, or new or improved data relating to Koforidua on Wikidata will be added. These edit-a-thons, although open to the public to attend, twill be focussed on the Staff Members on duty on the weekend.

Education programs

Many of the schools that will be invited have a course in at least a Ghanaian local language (which has a namespace on Wikipedia). Any of the invited schools that attend the Training Program will be introduced to the an educational program in which Teachers will include translating a popular medical article on Wikipedia (e.g Cholera) into one of the popular local languages of Ghana.

Impact

Target readership

This project targets primarily, Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia and WikiData in English, and ak.wikipedia.org during the Education Program activity

Fit with strategy

What crucial thing will the project try to change or benefit in the Wikimedia movement? Please select the Wikimedia strategic priority(ies) that your project most directly aims to impact and explain how your project fits. Most projects fit all strategic priorities. However, we would like project managers to focus their efforts on impacting 1–2 strategic priorities. Examples of strategic priorities can be found here.

In general, the Project accomplishes the points below:

driving awareness in and around Koforidua to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation Project website as an educational and research resource,
create a galvanizing event around which active Wikipedians can work together in each country
lowering barriers for contribution by ordinary people across Africa through simple and effective training programs and edit-a-thons
encouraging participation, contributions and use of Wikimedia project websites from ordinary individuals
training library professionals to use Wikipedia and help others embrace Wikimedia educational tools
creating long-term and sustainable partnership from the beginning to ensure longevity of this project
Increasing contributions
Increasing skills for editing/contributing
Recruitment of new editors/contributors
Increasing positive perceptions of Wikimedia and its benefits.

Increasing Reach:

Long-term partnership with Koforidua Library results in an automatic recruiting of current and new staff members of the Library as editors More computers at Library facility means more have access to Wikipedia for education and Research Exposing many who use the Library to the Wikimedia Movement.

Increasing Participation:

This project should recruit at new editors At least, 25% of recruited editors should be active editors for at least a period of 1 year At least, 25 new articles will be created relating to Eastern Region and Ghana in general At least, over 50 articles on Wikipedia will be improved. More than 100 new WikiData entries about Ghana in general More than 25 English Wikipedia article translations to one or more local language

Increasing Quality:

Increasing ....

Measures of success

Please provide a list of both quantitative and qualitative criteria that will be used to determine how successful the project is. You will need to report on the success of the project according to these measures after the project is completed. See the PEG program resources for suggested measures of success.

Grant is approved and report submitted on time upon completion
Minimum of 250 newly registered users
Minimum of 1000 individuals involved
Minimum of 25 new members who become active editors
Minimum of 25 new articles created
Minimum of 50 participants editing 5 months after the event
Minimum of 10 teachers participating from either senior or junior high school
Return rate of teachers within one academic year
Minimum of 100 students participating
Minimum of 50 female participants (excluding library staff members )
Minimum of 10 campus ambassadors to promote Wikimedia in their various schools.

Note: In addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some global metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.

Sustainability

To ensure sustainability, the Library staff will be trained within a 4 months period about the Wikimedia Movement, from editing Wikipedia to uploading to Wikimedia Commons to adding entries on WikiData. This training will mean the Library will carry on trainings and keep introducing the public to Wikipedia and other sister projects websites even after the end of the 4-month period.

An added layer of support to ensure sustainability is that, the Wikimedian in Residence will, for 8 months, hold a training/edit-a-thon session in union with the Library on one saturday of the month. This is meant to keep the pace going for at least 8 months. With such a long pattern of trainings, knowledge and understanding about using Wikimedia websites, sustaining such activities will likely become a part of the processes of the Library.

Resources and risks

Resources

Team

Nkansah Rexford - Wikimedian in Residence

The Wikimedian in Residence will be Rexford Nkansah Nyarko. Rexford Nkansah has been a Wikimedian since 2012, helped start the local Wikimedia Ghana User Group and served as a Wikimedian in Residence at the Africa Centre in Capetown on the WikiAfrica project for the year 2014. An update of his work as a Wikimedian in Residence can be found here.

Aside his work in the Wikimedia world, he's a web developer and a 3D artist. (khophi.co)

The responsibilities the WiR will handle include:

Procuring the Chromebooks, and setting them up.
Training staff members of the library about the Wikimedia Movement.
Organizing edit-a-thons
Inviting the senior and junior high schools
Rolling out the educational program
Be a Wikimedian in Residence by spending 6 hours daily at the institution helping answer questions and run daily introduction to Wikipedia training programs.

Sandister Tei

Sandister Tei is the first and most active female editor of the Wikimedia Ghana user Group. Sandister was a grantee of the Wikimedia Outreach in Ghana, and She attended two Wikimania Conferences (Hong Kong 2013 and London 2014). She is one of the a agents for the Wikimedia Ghana User Group and is also piloting an editor retention programme for the community. (http://erpgh.wmgh.org/)

Sandister, aside her work in the Wikimedia world, works as a journalist for AJ+/Al Jazeera, where she pitches sub Saharan Africa stories.

Past Project

In 2013, Nkansah Rexford and Sandister Tei rolled out the first WMF funded project in Ghana, namely, Wikimedia Outreach in Ghana. Learn more about the funded Grant and report.

Possible Questions Answered

Why 20 Chromebook Laptops?

20 computers are requested as per budget above.

16 Computers

16 Laptops will be placed in the Computer laboratory of the Library for use in edit-a-thons, training sessions, and research by the public. 8 laptops per each long table. The Library computer laboratory currently has 8 Laptops with only 5 functioning ones. An extra 16 will ensure, per training session, there are enough computers to use for effectiveness, whilst the number is small enough for an effective trainer-to-learner ratio.

4 Computers

The Library has a Children's Department, and an Adult Department. Both departments have 2 staff members. The staffs members handling these devices will be able to make extensive contributions to Wikimedia websites considering the time they have on their hands during the day. The measures of success for staff members behind these computers will be measured separately from the others.

Can we do project without the PC's?

No. The chromebooks are integral part to the overall success of the project. The library has 8 desktop computers. We will not count on these computers are they depend on electricity and won't be reliable as a result of the power rationing happening in the region.

Why Chromebooks, and not any other brand?

Chromebooks are the choice of this project for reasons below:
Fast to set up, use, update and teach others to use.
Runs on battery for long hours, which are great, considering electricity power cuts at the Library
A platform unlikely for improper use or abuse by users (e.g installing games, other unwanted softwares)
Requires little or no software maintenance as all programs almost runs in the browser and security are baked in (no or little viruses, malware etc.)
Portable, unlike desktops that are stuck to a room, the chromebooks can be moved to other places within the family easily when the need be for other training events etc.
Less investment and time to maintain.

Access to Wikipedia, paid for?

Access to Wikipedia will be via Wikipedia Zero via MTN Ghana, thus internet charge for using Wikipedia is hundred percent covered throughout the project. However, for use of other websites, the cost of usage will be handled by Library.

Who covers internet cost?

The Library is/will be responsible for funding all internet costs relating to the Project. To enjoy Wikipedia Zero, MTN will be recommended to the Library for use.

Risks

Misuse of Chromebooks by Staff

Solution: Each staff member will agree to terms relating to the use of the Chromebooks, which will include refund or repair of any Chromebook that is damaged under their watch.

Plus, the Wikimedian in Residence will monitor the use, conditions and the handling of the devices by the staff.

Misuse of Chromebooks by the Public

This is a likely risk. However, from accessing the desktop computers at the facility, we learned the computers are in good conditions physically, an indication that, possibly the public making use of those devices are responsible in their use. Solution: The public will be encouraged to use the devices responsibly. Staff members of the Library Computer Laboratory will monitor these devices to ensure proper use and care.

Budget

Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.

Grantees are subject to line-item scrutiny of expenses. Changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

Project budget table: PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Total cost of project: PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Total amount requested from the Project and Event Grants program: PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this project, and amounts funded: PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Non-financial requirements

See a description of non-financial assistance available. Please inform the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) of any requests for non-financial assistance now.

Requests for non-financial assistance, if any

The use of Wikimedia Foundation project website logos in banner designs and publicity.

Discussion

Community notification

You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a village pump, talk page, mailing list. Please paste a link below to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

PLACEHOLDER TEXT

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project and Event Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.