Grants talk:Conference/Tremej/itWikiCon2018/Report

Hi User:Tremej and all the itWikiCon organizing team. Thank you so much for the time and effort put in this report and apologize for the long turnaround. We highly appreciate your effort in facilitating this very important platform for the Italian speaking community. I reviewed your report and have some comments and questions I'll be happy to clarify.

Goals:

• What indicate that your two goals were achieved? Do you have any post-conference survey data that specifically refer to the goals?

Within the final survey the following two questions refer to first goal:

• “itWikiCon 2018 ti ha permesso di incontrare persone nuove?" (Did itWikiCon allow you to meet new people?): 49, out of 54 answers, either agree or strongly agree on the point.
• “itWikiCon 2018 ti ha permesso di confrontarti con altre persone con i tuoi stessi interessi?" (Did itWikiCon allow you to compare with people sharing similar interests?): 47, out of 53 answers, either agree or strongly agree on the point.

Within the final survey the following question refers to second goal:

• “itWikiCon 2018 ti è servito per imparare cose nuove?" (Did itWikiCon help you to learn new things?): 50, out of 53 answers, either agree or strongly agree on the point.

• What kind of sessions did you had? All presentations, or did you had any active learning sessions, panels or workshops?

We had a combination of different types of sessions. In the official program, each session is marked with an icon: ones with the “gear” were either learning sessions or workshops. Session in Aula Magna were mostly panels and all the Open-Day session were active learning ones. Most of the others were presentations.

• Free meetup space is very important and I'm glad you could managed to have one.

Thanks!

• Could you please elaborate on the Ideathon? Which projects got the grants and was there any progress since the conference?

Please contact directly Ilario of Wikimedia CH for more details on the Ideathon, the financed projects and the current status of the projects.

Target Outcomes:

• Outreach events - what kind of different strategy do you think you should apply next time? In terms of media coverage, or in terms of sessions and content.

As said in section “What would you do differently next time?”, we will involve directly teachers and students from local schools rather than communicate the event through local media.

• I'm glad to here you managed to get a broad and supportive media coverage. This goes a long way in raising awareness and also in reaching out to new potential partnerships.

Thanks!

Collaborations and local partnerships:

• We see great value in this kind of partnerships, and believe they have a great role in enabling long term collaborations and sustainability. Visionary partnerships like the Silk Museum and the chamber of commerce, are very impactful and meaningful to our movement's work, but actually, even "small" partnerships and in-kind donations like ENAIP school are very valuable when you have limited sources. Thank you for doing that.

Thanks!

Next steps:

• Capacity development - do you have any indications on the impact those sessions had on the community? Were they productive? Do you know if, and how, did the participants used the skills they have learned?

Unfortunately we do not have any quantitative indication of the impact of these sessions. We know that during the conference Wikisource project nominated one new admin, which is a good example of inter-project collaboration. Always regarding Wikisource, users and admins had the possibility to meet and work with team members from the Italian institution BEIC and to strengthen their collaboration and develop new projects.

Learning:

• What was included on registration? Did it indicate all meals were included for paid participants? It is OK to have a self-covered social event, but was everyone aware in advance that they will be required to pay for dinner?

It was unambiguous what was included in the participation fee (access to the event, coffee break, lunches, welcome evening party on Friday). Overnight location, breakfast and Saturday dinner were always clearly excluded. We received no complaints about what was in or out.

• Sponsorship and In-kind donations are one of the most difficult tasks in organizing a conference. Even though, you still managed to get a significant amount of money as in-kind. This is highly appreciated.

Thanks!

• I am also pleased to hear about the local chapter's support. As a strategic direction, we really encourage, and we see great value, in this kind of regional coalitions. I'm glad to see you have found it to be a good model (in terms of finance, but also in terms of content).

Thanks!

• Did you had a newcomers component to the conference plan? Were there any special efforts to reach out or welcome newcomers?

Almost 50% of participants were newcomers for itWikiCon and 5 people were “total-new” (i.e. not having a registered user name for wiki projects). See feedback survery (only in Italian language).

Financial:

• Can you please elaborate on the scholarships allocation? (how many scholarships/ paying participants/ local team/ WMF staff etc?) The table says: '10 Participants + 11 speakers and volunteers' - Does 'volunteers' means organizing staff?

The scholarship rules excluded the core organization team as possible assignee of any funds. Volunteers were people supporting the organization on specific tasks (e.g. the trio of university students acting as receptionist at the welcome desk). Hence we can further detail the breakdown as follows:

• 10 participants (i.e. people attending the various sessions, not holding any, not making any organization task)
• 7 speakers (i.e. people who held one, or more, sessions [and attending others])
• 4 volunteers (i.e. people who accepted to take care of some organization tasks during the three days [and attending sessions when not engaged with the task])

Once again, thank you for this well organized event and for sharing your experience. Your commitment and devotion makes a real change in our movement. I'm looking forward to hearing your response. All the best CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 22:33, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

I hope we have answered in detail all your requests for clarifications. Thank you for the funding and for your support. Kind regards--Tremej (talk) 19:59, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

Grant report approved

Hi Tremej and the itWikiCon team,

Congratulations on completing your grant!

Your complete grant report has been reviewed and accepted, and documentation of expenses has been received. Thank you for your engagement with the reporting review process, and with your work throughout the grants process. We appreciate the outcomes from your project, and what you learned with WMF and the community.

We also warmly welcome any updates you would like to provide us about your completed project. We thank you for your work for the movement, and offer you our best wishes for your future work.

Thank you! All the best, CAlmog (WMF) (talk) 13:07, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.