Grants talk:IEG/WOW! Editing Group/Midpoint

feedback and comments from Thepwnco

@Jsm0925 and Ajc831: Hello and thanks for this midpoint report, as well as regular monthly updates :)

It sounds like you put a lot of time and care into survey design and it was well worth the effort given the results you got back. I for one would be interested in hearing more about the surveys and in particular how the information you gained from the surveys informed/will inform other project activities.

Thanks for creating a new learning pattern. It's great (but not surprising!) that you've had success with schools when focusing on how students will benefit from participating in Wikipedia projects. Is there an e-mail or letter template you might be willing to share related to contacting high school administration offices/staff? It might also be useful to add to the learning pattern your reflections (outlined in the midpoint report) about the importance of the time of year when doing outreach and the idea of giving public schools (vs private schools) more time to respond.

It's not clear to me what you consider "community groups" (mentioned under Project Plan - Activities on the main page of your grant proposal). Does it refer to the student groups and organizations you have already started reaching out to? Thanks for clarifying.

Regarding next steps, do you have any ideas next as to how you will provide resources (and what sort of resources you will provide) to ensure participants feel supported? Maybe these efforts could be tied to survey responses (if they provided any insight into some of the challenges potential participants have experienced or perceive related to editing Wikipedia). Perhaps there's also a way of tapping into the collective wisdom of the Berkeley Art+Feminism node?

All the best with the fast-approaching first info session - you must be very excited about that. Is this session intended more as an orientation to the WOW! program or to Wikipedia editing itself? I'm curious whether the college students you've been in talks with so far have any editing experience. If not, do you anticipate this being a challenge for editing/mentorship pairings?

thanks again. -Thepwnco (talk) 14:07, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Report Accepted

Hi @Jsm0925 and Ajc831:,

Thank you for submitting your midpoint report! I am accepting this report, with feedback below:

• Congratulations on getting a solid start on recruiting participants in spite of the challenges you faced over summer break. I'm glad to see that you are pivoting in your strategies as unanticipated obstacles come up. It makes sense that you focused on private schools while other access was closed and made plans to circle back to public schools later when your efforts would be more productive.
• You are now wrapping up your preliminary research phase. I'm curious what you learned! Any highlights you can offer about your survey design process or the feedback you got back through the 68 responses? Any surprising responses or interesting quotes to share? In your Final Report, please include a recap of your survey results and how they've shaped your thinking about pilot design.
• It was a good choice to start a learning pattern about outreach to high school students. I noticed that the solution you offer for outreach (contacting high school administration) is also listed as one of your biggest challenges. Why not add the challenge to the "Things to consider" section of your learning pattern? Going forward, if you consider other outreach strategies for reaching high school students besides liaising with high school administration, please do add them to your learning pattern.
• It makes sense that you are concerned about how to ensure participation of your college-age mentors. You mentioned that you are devoted to making sure this is a worthwhile volunteer experience for them. This seems like a really crucial aspect of your project, both for your mentors and your mentees. I'm curious how you are thinking and planning around this. Sharing your successes and challenges on this front will be an important topic to cover in your final report.

Congratulations again on all that you've accomplished in this first phase. I am looking forward to getting more details about your project in your Final Report!

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 03:51, 3 September 2015 (UTC)