Grants:Project/Rapid/WMGUG/Africa Open Data Conference/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/WMGUG/Africa Open Data Conference.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals?

Four out of the four proposed goals were met but not all the targets set out to achieve those goals were attained. Specifically, the goal to (1) Provide training on Wikipedia and Wikidata (2) Add content to Wikipedia and Wikidata (3) Recruit new editors and retrain returnees and (4) Form new collaborations, and create awareness to Wikimedia in the open data community were met but the target to (1) Host 30 participants each for two training sessions and (2) Have each participant make at least one edit was not fully accomplished.

At the end of the conference, 3 workshops was organised (1 Wikipedia and 2 Wikidata) instead of the two that was originally proposed (1 each for Wikipedia and Wikidata). First workshop was on Wikidata, and that took place on July 15. The second was run immediately after close of the Wikipedia event on July 17. The July 15 Wikidata workshop fell behind our 30-participant expectation by 7 people. For the combined Wikipedia and Wikidata sessions on July 17 however, 35 people participated - meaning we exceeding our target by 5 people. During all three events, content was added to both Wikidata and Wikipedia, and participants were added to the Wikimedia Ghana mailing list.

An Open Street map-a-thon and Wikidata hack-a-thon was held concurrently on July 17th. Ideas were exchanged about how the two open data projects are presently integrated, including a short demonstration by Enock Seth Nyamador about linking openstreetmap relations from Wikidata entities. This joint session increased awareness about Wikidata and OpenStreetMap within both communities and how we can work together to increase knowledge.

Are you happy with how the project went?

Although arrangements was based on a short notice, we are happy that the workshops happened and also for the opportunity of representing the Wikimedia movement at the conference. It could have been done better in some ways and these been listed below under the question "What would you do differently next time?".

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
2 events to provide training on Wikipedia and Wikidata	3 events; two training sessions on Wikidata and 1 on Wikipedia.	Two Wikidata workshops held on July 15 and 17 at iSpace and Kofi Annan Centre respectively. Wikipedia workshop was held on July 17 also at the Kofi Annan Centre. These activities were part of the participation of Wikimedia Ghana User Group at the second Africa Open data conference. Two reasons necessitated holding the second Wikidata workshop: The pre-conference Wikidata session on July 15th was mostly patronized by members the local Wikimedia community in Ghana. The second workshop was run to give chance to other conference attendees who could not be present on the 15th. An opportunity to have a combined Wikidata workshop and Open Street map-a-thon events at the same venue on July 17.
Add content to Wikidata	48 items improved; 43 edits made to Accra (Q3761)	The 2 Wikidata sessions saw 43 edits made to the proposed item theme for the conference - Accra (Q3761). In general, 48 items were edited during the Wikidata sessions, adding a total number of 5.47k words.
Add content to Wikipedia	1 article created, 1 commons upload	There was not much time available to engage participants on a hands-on Wikipedia practice because the Wikidata session had to begin immediately.
Recruit new editors and retrain returnees	25 new email addresses added, 16 new usernames collected	New email addressed were collected and have been added to the Wikimedia Ghana mailing list. 16 new usernames that are not yet in the usergroup's database have also been noted. Some participants either did not provide usernames or their email addresses, or left out both in the forms we sent round for them to fill.
Form new collaborations, and create awareness to Wikimedia in the open data community	Joint Wikidata hack-a-thon and Open Street map-a-thon sessions	This outcome was achieved. We negotiated to get the schedule for the Wikidata and OpenStreet workshops at the conference on July 17 designed to have their practical sessions begin on the same time in one hall to encourage interaction between the teams as well provide a space to enhance collaboration for the two projects.
30 participants attend each session	23 people attended on July 15; 35 people on July 17	This outcome was only partially met because we did not achieve full participation on the first day (i.e July 15). 23 people participated in the Wikidata workshop on the 15th, meaning we fell behind the 30 participant expectation by 7 people. For the combined Wikipedia and Wikidata sessions on the 17th however, 35 people participated - exceeding our target by 5 people. The July 15 workshop was dominated by Ghana based participants in terms of numbers as many others coming from outside of the host country had not yet arrived to partake in the pre-conference events. The opposite was the case for the events on the 17th. Some of the local participants (who made it to the pre-conference events) declared they will not be available on July 17 because it is a workday.
Each participant makes at least 1 edit	Some participants made zero edits	This outcome was not met. Some participants came to the workshop without a laptop and were unable to participate during the practical sessions. However, more edits than participants was recorded, which means that some participants made more than 1 edit.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

The workshops drew participants from different sectors of the economy to learn about Wikidata, Wikipedia and sister projects. At least 25 people had no prior experience with any WIkimedia project.
The conference venues did not provide reliable internet connection. This was already covered by our budget and so we quickly set up our routers to avoid delays.
After the Wikidata workshop, two participants; a representative from the Millennium Challenge Corporation and a data analyst from UNESCO came forward to propose donating data to Wikidata.
All participants received stickers, top contributors and most engaging participants received t-shirts prizes.

What did not work so well?

Wikidata workshop on the 17th was short because it was preceded by the Wikipedia workshop, both of which was expected to fit within the same time frame that was earlier allocated to a Wikipedia workshop only. As a result, less time was made available to improve the Wikidata item Accra (Q3761).
Scope of the Wikidata session was limited to providing training to participants on how to contribute data to Wikidata; one of the reasons being to equip participants to enable them to improve the item Accra (Q3761). This went well with the July 15th pre-conference event; mostly attended by Wikimedians from Ghana, some of whom were trying out Wikidata for the first time. For the July 17th event however, few but significant number of the conference attendees expressed a stronger interest in learning how to utilize the data on Wikidata rather than contributing to it. This was not anticipated, and because it was out of scope of the workshop to go deeper than mentioning the WDQ system and running a few sample queries, this expectation could not be met. Links to resources related the WDQS was shared instead and about an hour was later spent after the workshop to help a participant who came with specific queries related to socio-economic indicators of African countries.
Although it was recommended of participants to bring their own laptop, some came to the workshop without one and were unable to participate during the practical sessions.
Participants did not respond well to the RSVP forms; some RSVP'ed but didn't show up, others showed up but didn't RSVP. As such it was difficult to gauge their expectations before the conference.

What would you do differently next time?

We would aim to host the workshops on the main conference days since the events of the pre-conference days were poorly attended by conference participants coming from locations out of Ghana, the host country. However it wasn't our choice to make, and that's a difficulty with partnerships. AODC handed us the dates.
Enough time should be allotted to both the presentation and practical sessions. Much of the time on the July 17 events was spent on lectures, emphasizing less on demonstrations. This was particularly so during the Wikipedia workshop.
Although the workshop was well promoted on social media, the promotion did not begin early because the user group had to make sure trainers were on the same page since one was out of the country. The user group got mixed communication from the AODC team and so could not put up the grant on time. It made a lot of things tentative. There was also a mix-up with venue at the last minute, causing confusion with some prospective participants (the AODC organizers changed venues and the user group had to oblige). We would aim to reach out earlier next time.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Item	What was budgeted	What was spent	Explanation
Venue iSpace	1200	0.00	We got the space for free in the end
MTN 4G WIFI Router	598	598
Data for MTN 4G WIFI Router	398	518	We run out of data on the first day and had to buy more to do the second day
Food	2400	1252.65
Disposables cups, spoons and tissue	0.00	68
Water	100	112.86
T-shirts	440	440
Stickers	136	136
Extension sockets	225	0.00
Volunteer transportation	650	800	Sessions were expanded from 2 to 3 and 1 more training assistant was added to assist in the 3rd workshop Workshop venue was also changed by organisers after the first workshop. We needed to go carry food items and other items we were storing at the initially agreed venue, that came at an extra transport cost. We also run out of food on the second day, we had to go buy extra food, that came to extra food and transport cost.
Trainer transport	380	380
Cost of phone calls	60	80	We spent more on calls that anticipated. Partners moved a lot of things around and emails were becoming slow so more calls had to be made.
Bank charges	0.00	277.296	There were bank charges we didn't plan for
	6587	4662.809

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

Yes, the remaining balance is ¢6587 - ¢4662.809 = ¢1924.191 ($453.8)

Rate used: $1 = ¢4.24

We would like to use the remaining funds for Grants:Project/Rapid/Wiki Loves Monuments Ghana 2017.

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of US$453.80 were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:Project/Rapid/Wiki Loves Monuments Ghana 2017.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project?

Gallery
Wikidata presentation slides
Dashboard metrics for July 15 and July 17 events