Grants:PEG/WM ID/Free Your Knowledge Project 2010/Report
Project supported by
[edit]| File:Ford Foundation.png | 
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File:Pertamina.png | File:Kemkominfo.png |
Media Partners
| File:Vivanewslogo.png | File:Traxfmjkt.png |
Overview
[edit]The Indonesian language Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia site in Bahasa Indonesia. Originally established in 2003, the Indonesian Wikipedia now has 1.2 million visits per day and over 100 thousands articles as of 2009. However for a site that “anyone can edit”, not everyone knows how to edit it. The community realizes that they don’t want just any edit, or any writing – they want quality edits and quality articles. Any edit that falls short of this will be challenge or deleted, turning away any “sane” new possible editor. In short, it is much easier to read (consume) than it is to contribute. This atmosphere has hurt the growth of its content and the number of editors, leaving a small number of very active contributors stagnant for years.
The Free Your Knowledge 2010 project is the Indonesian chapter's approach for community participation where the community takes the initiative independently to change its values and systems, develop working relationships with other institutions for technical assistance (i.e. funding), and take control of the utilization of available resources. An ideal campaign requires a mix of anthropology, economics, sociology, and politics to accurately detail the preferences and targets it will achieve. More often than not, an ideal scenario is almost impossible due to time and financial restraints. Well, almost. ;-)
Using an environmental communication action tree, the project is planned and uses communication processes and media products to support effective policy-making, public participation, and project implementation - geared toward sustainability.
An environmental communication action tree was used because:
- The complexity of the issues: Wikipedia means science, economics, law, politics, and human behavior plus their many trade-offs and interactions, in a holistic way.
- Comprehension Gap: what the public knows and understand about Wikipedia and its technical dimensions differs widely from the know-how existing with very active contributors.
- Personal Impacts: contributing to anything has a personal impact in people's life, and contributing to Wikipedia is no different. In order to have an active participatory behavior, impact needs to be able to triggers reactions, emotions, motivations into daily practices. To turn a non-participant into an active participant, the project designed non-monetary incentives[1][2] that hopefully built a culture of contributing and made a long-term behavior change.
- Risk Element: a frequent factor in the effort especially as passive/uncontrollable or active/voluntary actions are concerned.
- Large-scale Intervention: requesting that 10 universities in Jakarta, Tangerang, and Bogor actively participate is a large scale operation, not to mention the support from government, foundations, and private companies for funding in a professional manner. It required coordinated action facilitated by small-group approaches.
Strategy
[edit]| “ | If I had one hour to solve a problem, I'd use 45 minutes to think about it, 10 minutes to investigate potential solutions and 5 minutes to implement the solution. - Einstein | ” |
The Free Your Knowledge 2010 project utilized its Project Director's four years experience as a community member to identify problems and then it took nine months of strategic design and fund raising before the program was finally implemented into practice (one month road show and 72 days competition).
The project identified three target audiences to address: media, government, and academic circles. Using an action tree approach, it systematically followed P-Process strategy in implementing design. The P-Process was designed to help an organization integrate media by making news media relations activities more systematic, focused, and responsive to feedback. In short, the design help Wikimedia Indonesia understand where it stands on the map.
Analysis
[edit]- Statistics show that one of the Indonesian Wikipedia's problems is a stagnant number of very active contributors for years. Indonesian is the official language of Indonesia, which has the fourth largest population on earth, and yet the project only has +/- 30 very active contributors.
- Participation designed for the project will have two possibilities, where either of the possibility has it advantages. Best-case scenario is that the participants continue to contribute and support both the offline or online effort; the worse case scenario is that these participants decided not contribute further after the competition ended, however, they are are already trained to contribute to Wikipedia, and become too accustomed to the competition standard. This project will automatically brought in more contributors who understand the mission of Wikipedia and how to edit, if another similar project occurs in the near future, there will be lots of people available to train others.
- Another problem that may hurt the sustainability of the movement is the existing generation gap in very active contributors. In its early days, the Indonesian Wikipedia's leading contributors ranged between 25 to 40 years old. These people were mostly professionals with an educational background from undergraduates to masters degree in various subject of interest. Recently, the average age of very active contributors became younger (too young) with age 15-20 dominating off article conversation. This generation gap impairs knowledge transfer because it is difficult for these two groups to communicate and understand what each other wants. The project's target audience addresses this problem by making its participants range from 18 to 25 years old.
- While funding received for this type of project through a grant from public resources (i.e. Foundations) is helpful, it's also problematic because a grant scheme doesn't allow the organization to independently fund future projects; the scheme will lead the organization to continually cling for support. To turn this into a sustainable model, this type of project needs a combined public-private partnership funding in order to move forward and become sustainable.
Objective
[edit]Project objective
[edit]The project objective was to have active participation in “free knowledge” effort. In order to successfully fulfill this objective, the project needed to appeal to the interest of the following target audiences:
- The Government is generally careful on what they support and vice versa, traditionally they are also difficult to approach. However reaching out to the government is important for the movement because an acknowledgment from the government represents trust and work as a stepping stone as a way to reaching out to other audiences such as academic circles, the media, and the public in general.
- Academic circles sentiment towards Wikipedia varies from one to another. Information about how Wikipedia operates in Indonesia is generally unclear. The project reached policy-making levels in academic circles using interpersonal communication by doing a face-to-face meeting to enable direct Q&A. After an initial face-to-face meeting took place, the communication flow was held steady over-time by regular updates to the universities' representatives on how the project was progressing. Once a university committed to participating, the project desigedn an interesting game[3] called "competition" to address most important target audience: potential very active contributors. The writing game came in three stages. In every stage the committee raised the difficulty level based on the quality and the quantity of the top five participants' achievement, and encouraged the other participants or players to do the same. The players needed to strategize in order to remain playing. In short, the game was not designed for everyone to stay, but for the best to contribute in order to meet the objective of the project.
- Media involvement is a crucial factor for the organization to raise public awareness and support.
- Organization sustainability requires continuous funding. In order to reach this objective project committee approached the private sector and introduced the organization's mission. The committee promoted the opportunity by showing that the private sector could benefit through a co-branding effort as long as our mission fit theirs.
Communication objective
[edit]SMART (Specific, Measurable, Appropriate, Realistic, Time-bound) communication objective are as follows:
- Specific. The project communication objective was very specific and aimed at increasing knowledge, influencing attitudes, and changing practices of its intended beneficiaries with regard to particular action. The goal was to address problems like low levels of participation in the Indonesian Wikipedia, a lack of sufficient knowledge on how to contribute, a lack of sufficient knowledge of the importance and benefit of having high-quality online encyclopedia in Indonesian language, and a lack of awareness of how Wikipedia operates.
- Measurable. The project aimed to double the number of existing very active contributors using participatory approach for 72 days.
- Appropriate. The project had to fit to the mission or free knowledge by raising awareness, increasing knowledge (training), changing people's attitude (having them be committed to participating), and improving skill (hands on practice to write online using a clear, neutral approach to subject matter in highly readable format). In doing all the above we integrated the wiki technology in the participant's daily life for 72 days. Participants were also encouraged to advocate the mission during and after the project took place.
- Realistic. The goal was that with one hundred percent participation from participating universities, one third of these participants would turn to very active contributors, doubling the current very active contributor numbers for two months. This would receive mass media coverage and create demands for a broader scope (national-level) competition.
- Time-bound. The project should be completed before Wikimania 2010 began.
Positioning
[edit]The project centralized itself on the participants' contributions and promoted a neutral non-branding effort. All efforts focused on promoting the participants' writing result and individual achievement through evaluation by the jury. The project treated the brand as a funding support and put Wikipedia not as a brand, but as a tool, a platform use best to collaborate, contribute, and distribute.
- Opportunity. The project use "opportunity frame"[4] to motivate behavior change. It encourage the nation's problem solving ability by active engagement of individual participation - using participant's area of interest: writing.
- Acknowledgment. The project promoted the participants' writing result and its evaluation by jury as an individual achievement. Note that the participants represented their university and were using their real name. The project used banner as a project exposure and this custom made banner also served to promote participation by displaying each university representative’s name inside their campuses. Having their name "advertised" in their own environment boosted confidence and the participants' motivation.
Channel
[edit]- The project's communication objective was an acceptance and a commitment to participate for the whole 72 days of the project. It followed communication sequences up to adoption by raising awareness (“said is not heard”), increased knowledge by training (“heard is not understood”), change people's attitude (“understood is not accepted”) from no participation to active participation (accepted is not yet DONE). Participation is a process of motivating and mobilizing people to use their human and material resources to shape their lives and hopes themselves. Communication strategy used an opportunity frame implemented by informing participants that contributing to Wikipedia will improve their skills in writing as participants experience hands-on training using an online platform to practice, get published, using a clear, neutral approach to subject matter in highly readable format.
- Multi-platform mix campaigns were launched by integrating mass media (press conference, wikipedia site notice), social networking (facebook [5], blog, posters, banner, sticker), and interpersonal communication (visit/ face-to-face communication) consistently projecting the same message. Mass media coverage not only increased public awareness, it was also utilized as a feed back to motivate participants to continue "writing" despite the increasing level of difficulties set forth by the committee as the competition advanced.
- In doing all the above, the project integrated application of wiki technology in the participants' daily lives for 72 days. Participants were also encouraged to advocate the mission during and after the project took place.
Program planning
[edit]- Please see program planning, timeline, budget, and implementation result through description of actual activities.
Development and testing
[edit]There are several communication materials develop for the project and a recycle use of an existing one. Considering the time constraint only one materials got tested thoroughly, while others was done by professional volunteers.
- Five minutes video trailer: the project uses an already available five minutes video trailer of “Truth in Number, The Wikipedia Story" [6] from Underdog Pictures. A professional cut custom-made trailer for Indonesian audience that summarizes the free knowledge movement in an easy-to-grasp style for public screening. The trailer made by Director of Underdog Pictures Nic Hill [7] was screened while during project's fund rising and during participant's training as an appeal for continuous contributions.
- Proposal[8] for fund rising and call for participation from universities. Proposal was written by Siska Doviana, it was modeled after Nic Hill's proposal for short documentary movie fund raising "Tokyo to Osaka" [9]. The proposal later was proof read and undergo professional re-touch and design by William Arya [10] to appeal for target audience (private, government, and academic circle). William Arya hold Bachelor of Multimedia and Digital Arts from Monash University Australia.
- Several power point slides[11] are developed to train participants and work as a guideline in informing to jury on how the competition works and what the committee will do to their scoring sheet.
- Banners are developed by professional volunteer specially recruited for the project. Irfan Toni Herlambang[12] is Creative and Design Specialist, he use 7 C concept to "talk" to target audience using printed media (banners, stickers). Poster design by William while fine tune and prepared for color printing by Irfan.
- Before the competition begin, a complex evaluation scoring was developed and test using project's intern as subject. The interns have never edited Wikipedia before, one of them didn't even know what it is, while others stated "vaguely heard about it". The calculation worked and during implementation competition result was made available to public. See table sample for Round 1, Round 2, and Final round. After final adjustment made, countdown begin from project ending date before finalizing replication, printing, and final distribution date.
Implementation and monitoring
[edit]During implementation the project assures maximum participation, flexibility, and training. The project also undergo tight monitoring - from budget monitoring to tracking outputs of all activities. All participant's activities whether they contributes or did not contribute are hold accountable to project's evaluation strategy and re-planning afterwards. The team are working hard to inform everyone involved about updates and result, making sure events are going according to plan - to - promptly address potential problem.
A lot of best practice and lesson learned gained in this phased.
During the planning stages, project director recruited three possible interns as project committee. The interns have never edited Wikipedia before; one of them didn't even know what it is, while others stated "vaguely heard about it".
Internship is one of the organization's strategic planning because of the following:
- a) The project's budget is not design to pay for professional help.
- b) The organization product is capacity building, focusing on building capacity to disseminate knowledge freely.
- c) Having interns working in the project boost the organization's potential outreach in the intern's university.
Because Wikimedia Indonesia did not have an office, interns were train in public places such as cafes, restaurant, or inside the University's library. They were taught to deliver by target and result. Meeting for project coordination take place twice or three times a week. Successful internship will have to manage their time carefully in able to deliver. If the interns are not discipline in managing their time, the project will suffer. All interns are made aware of these possibilities.
The absent of an office turns out to have two positive consequences:
- The project taught the interns to work independently with minimum supervising. The interns became creative; and judging from the amount of time spent from the interns in managing the project, the interns also become very productive with minimum supervision/ motivation.
- Awareness about the organization and the project. Interns coming to a meeting in public places wearing the project's shirt triggers public interest. Strangers came up and asks questions about: "What is free knowledge?" written across the shirt.
Project director also noted how treating interns as equal by being transparent about the project funding and distribution affected in the interns attitude. Transparency initiate sympathy and empathy, it is also create a sense of belonging to the project. The interns feel they own and operate the project.
Surprisingly project director find fund raising more difficult than expected. Although the proposal was designed by professional designer who volunteered to do the work and request are carefully crafted to meet different kind of stakeholder's need. Private company who could benefit from the effort, i.e. Hewlett Packard, Zyrex (laptop), IM2 (internet based ISP), Telkomsel (communication network provider) did not deliver. Instead, Pertamina as an energy company, find the project exciting and treat it as a business funding instead of a grant-giving model.
Produce and disseminate
[edit]- Dissemination plan include outreach to Indonesian government (Ministry of Communication and Informatics), visit to universities, sending out proposals to private companies for sponsorships or to a grant maker organization such as Ford Foundation, Wikimedia Foundation, and Open Society Institute.
University participation
[edit]One of best practices of the project is establishing contacts with Universities. Although at first some of the university bureaucracy is difficult to penetrate, the effort turns out to be valuable in the end.
Surprising findings during Universities road show is how the Universities did not link with each other; all universities-funded events are very local, limited inside the university. Capacity building for students was mostly seminars where students receive one way communication model, or entertainment-based events. When external event did happened, it rarely involves academic as active participants.
Project Director also find that the benefit of holding a writing competition for inter-university went beyond the organization's mission. It actually benefit the university's more. Mercu Buana University and Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Jakarta admit that banner installed in their Universities and statement letter confirming participation in Free Knowledge Effort help accreditation of their faculty. Hans Abdiel from Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Jakarta, a runner up in the competition, boosted the university's name and pride.
| “ | Sekolah Tinggi Teologi Jakarta is the oldest theology school in Jakarta, yet only very few know what we are or where we are. This competition not only introduce the public about our school, it is also enables our student to exercise their talent, we have very smart students, and we admit that we are short-handed in that (competition in academic level) department. That is why we welcome events such as this one." - Stephen Suleeman (STTJ) | ” |
Evaluation and re-planning
[edit]- During the competition, Indonesian very active contributors number doubles. Worldwide, this effort would be the first time a volunteer effort or a project actually impacted wikipedia activity that can be seen clearly through statistic.
- The participants contribute a total of 1,386 articles [13] within 72 days of the competition - all of the articles were a very high quality short and long articles.
- A participant from Pelita Harapan University even notice that the competition standard,if apply to all Indonesian Wikipedi articles, will make Indonesian language Wikipedia excel than any other language.
- Although trained to contribute using a high quality standard writing, when the competition is over, only three participants stayed to edit further as volunteer. The winner, Kartika Sari Henry, wrote and explain how she is not interested to involved socially in Wikipedia, since she thinks "there are many weird people". It is a challenge for the organization to change this image. Kartika also mentioned that in order to get more people (like her) involved, and I quote:
| “ | We need a purpose... | ” |
To this date, writing for wikipedia is limited to a hobby, although it provide great benefit for all.
- Another interesting findings from a project point of view is; more than one day project will need a full time personnel in central administration. Doing it part-time will jeopardize the project's potential success and goal.
- While funding received for this type of project through a grant from public resources (i.e. Foundations) is helpful, it's also problematic because a grant scheme doesn't allow the organization to independently fund future projects; the scheme will lead the organization to continually cling for support. To turn this into a sustainable model, this type of project needs a combined public-private partnership funding in oder to move forward and become sustainable.
Best practice
[edit]- Indonesian public outreach using multi media mix approach
- Mass media (mainstream)
First Press Conference: Project Launching
- Print:
- (English) The Jakarta Post: Indonesian Wikipedia Seek Local Talent
- (Indonesian) Jurnal Nasional: Indonesia Need More Encyclopedia Writer
- (Indonesian) Berita Kota: Wikimedia Holds Writing Competition republished through web from news website agency Bataviase.co.id
- (Indonesian) Bisnis Indonesia: Indonesian Language Wikipedia Progressing Slowly on New Articles
- Radio:
- (Indonesian) Media partner: Kompak Kampus (United Universities) Radio Talk Show in 101.4 Trax FM for Project Launching (22 March 2010)
- (Indonesian) BBC Indonesia radio morning news segment for education content from Press Conference 1 (30 March 2010)
- (Indonesian) KBR68H News Agency 20 minutes phone interview on 5 April 2010, morning talk segment, relay by 6,000 radio stations throughout Indonesia.
- Electronic (web-based publication)
- (English) The Jakarta Post: Wikipedia Supporters Hold Writing Competition
- (English) The Jakarta Post: Indonesian Wikipedia Seek Local Talent
- (Indonesian) MSN through Okezone.com: Wimedia Indonesia Hunts Volunteers from Campuses
- (Indonesian) Media partner Vivanews: Wikimedia Launch Free Your Knowledge Contest
- (Indonesian) Media partner Vivanews: Wikimedia Indonesia Launches Writing Competition
- (Indonesian) Kompas.com: Indonesian language Wikipedia rank 18 out of 270 projects
- (Indonesian) Kompas.com: Let's Join Indonesian Wikipedia Writing Competition
- (Indonesian) Kompas.com: It's Difficult to Merge Wikipedian and Blogger Community
- (Indonesian) Reference makes Wikipedia different than a blog
- (Indonesian) Detik.net: Indonesian Communication and Informatics Ministry Support Wiki To Enrich Indonesian Content Availability
- (Indonesian) Bisnis Indonesia: Ministry of Communication and Informatics Embrace Digital Content Wikipedia Indonesia
- Entertainment news by Free Knowledge Ambassador: Christian Sugiono
- (Indonesian) National TV stations (can not be monitored however pictures can be seen here)
- (Indonesian) Detiknet: Indonesian Wikipedia Ambassador Announce Writing Competition
- (Indonesian) Kompas.com: Christian Sugiono Proud Being an Active Contributors for Wikipedia
- (Indonesian) Sriwijaya Pos: Christian Sugiono Writes Article for Free
- (Indonesian) Koran Indonesia.com: Writing Competition in Indonesian Language Wikipedia
- (Indonesian) Kompas.com: Christian Sugiono Willing to Beg for Funding
- Wikimedia Indonesia official website:
- (Indonesian) Press release
- (English) Press release
Second Press Conference: National Awakening Day and Awarding Top Five Winner
[edit]- Radio:
- (Indonesian) Media partner: 101.4 Trax FM Kompak Kampus (United Universities) one hour radio talk show with 1st place, 2nd place, and 5th place winner.
- (Indonesian) RRI 105 FM Coverage Jakarta Greater Area Pro Resensi Segment one hour radio talk show with 3rd place winner (through phone interview) and 4th place winner.
- Electronic (web-based publication)
- Wikimedia Indonesia official website
- (Indonesian) Press release
- (English) Press release
Other coverage
[edit]- (Indonesian) Winner of Free Your Knowledge 2010 wikipedia writing competition Kartika Sari Henry: Vivanews.com: I'm lucky to represent Indonesian language Wikipedia
- (Indonesian) Winner of Free Your Knowledge 2010 wikipedia writing competition Kartika Sari Henry: Indonesian Wikipedia Article Should Be More Complete
Empowering Community
[edit]Community focused
[edit]
- Blog
- (Indonesian) Blog by participant Agung Wiseso Mercubuana University: Free Your Knowledge 2010 Indonesian Language Wikipedia
- (Indonesian) Blog by participant Isabella Apriana Faculty of Teknobiology Catholic University of Indonesia Atma Jaya
- (English) Blog by Gerard M: Bebaskan Pengetahuan
- (English) Blog by Gerard M: The "Bebaskan Pengetahuan" is a Go
- (English) Blog by Gerard M: Proof of pudding
- (English) Blog by Gerard M: The Future of Wikipedia? Women!
- (English) Mozilla in Indonesia (a section in Gov stance on OSS about Indonesian Language Wikipedia competition)
- An integrated social network scheme implemented between public, the competition participants and community through facebook.
- Increases fan based in facebook Wikimedia Indonesia page. Before the competition begins Wikimedia Indonesia facebook page has 1,100 fans in mid March, in mid June it jumped into 1,656 fans.
- Activity in chapter allowing an increase interaction in Wikimedia Indonesia facebook fan page and stabilized this interaction while the project last.
Competition results
[edit]Expenses accountability
[edit]Please refer to Wikimedia Indonesia website, the below link will let you browse through the project's expenditure.
References
[edit]- ↑ motivation RSA.org via Youtube:RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us
- ↑ Motivation Through Non monetary Incentives
- ↑ TED Talk:Jane McGonigal Gaming Can Make A Better World
- ↑ Opportunity Agenda.org
- ↑ Wikimedia Indonesia Facebook Page
- ↑ Truth in Numbers
- ↑ IMdb: Nic Hill bio
- ↑ (Indonesian) Project Proposal in Indonesian Language
- ↑ Tokyo2Osaka
- ↑ William Arya
- ↑ (Indonesian) Wikimedia Indonesia Slide Share
- ↑ Irfan Toni Herlambang via Linked
- ↑ Participants contribution