Wikimedia Conference 2017/Program/41

41: Community leadership development: Where we are now, where we could go.

How to move forward

• 
  Group work

What was this session about?

The session was about the ongoing “Leadership Development Dialogue” to discuss how learning should be working within the Wikimedia movement. Jaime presented history and current status. In break-out groups, it was discussed how to improve “learning” in the Wikimedia movement. Additionally, Joe Sutherland presented the developed of “Support & Safety” modules.

What are the next steps to be taken?

N/A

Photos

see the Commons category

Slides

Slides

Audience

Community leaders, program leaders, board members

Session Format

Workshop

Length

60 min

Description

In the past few years, there have been several initiatives that aim to train community members in different skills and topic areas. From program evaluation and design, to communications, board training, conflict management and online harassment, many efforts have emerged in the movement to develop capacities for stronger communities.

In the first part of this session, we will share what we have learned from the Leadership Development dialogue sessions held in 2016, as well as introduce new training modules designed to help community members deal with harassment online and at events.

Following this overview, we will discuss how we might work together to develop a shared online space, to support peer-to-peer training and mentoring. In this part of the workshop, there will be small group discussion of ideas as well as a larger discussion to set next steps based on emergent ideas and needs.

Desired Outcome

1. Participants will have a clear understanding of the ongoing initiatives for peer training in the movement.
2. Participants will contribute to the larger conversation of how to better coordinate and collaborate in leadership development within the movement.

Next Steps and Milestones

- A coordinated approach to leadership development. - An outline/prototype of what the peer-to-peer learning space might look like.

Speakers

Jaime Anstee, Joe Sutherland, Amanda Bittaker (all WMF)

Documentation

Jaime started the session and introduced the concept of “Leadership” in the Wikimedia movement. She explains the history, the context and current development of learning in the Wikimedia movement. Currently, her team runs the “Leadership Development Dialogue” to see how to develop learning in the Wikimedia movement in coming years.

She highlighted following questions and topics, relevant for the dialogue:

• Language to describe their roles? Leaders? Coordinators? Organizers?
• Concepts and attributes of these community leaders.
• How to inspire, lead and enthuse.
• Project management and coordination skills.
• People and relational skills

As a break-out topic, Joe Sutherland presents the developed Support & Safety modules. These are training modules that cover harassment, organising events, how to deal with cases online/offline. The Support & Safety team has developed a five step process. Based on a stakeholder research, surveys of community members, industry professionals in similar communities, and invited editors, the team developed a draft / pilot for the modules. Target is to roll out finished programme in 10 languages.

After Joe’s input, the audience breaks into three groups to address 3 below questions (summarized answers are below as well).

1. What works online, what doesn’t?

• Not one size fits all. No one solution.
• Visual materials? Video tutorials can be useful and re-versionable (requires skills to produce, also outdated quite quickly)
• Searchability

2. How to support teaching?

• Online courses and videos.
• Livestreaming
• User-friendly course training materials
• Easier to find resources
• WikiHow for Wiki
• “How to do a project”
• List of projects

 3. What learning modules are needed?

• Gaps in information about editathons, why isn’t there a central resource?

• Commons users need specific resources as to how to use Wikipedia.
• From a copyright POV, large discussion at the moment on how to deal with copyright issues. Where are the resources on copyright? And also for re-use of copyrighted content.
• Accessible resources for non-Wikimedians, or new Wikimedians.
• Need for models to follow that are achievable, that work for user groups with lower capacities, possibly a buddy system or mentoring group.
• Keywords to search.
• Activity models for projects.