Grants talk:PEG/WM NL/GLAMcamp Amsterdam travel scholarships

I would ask that you give some thought to the "Measures of Success" rubric in the grant request, and offer some such measures. When we spend such sums, we need to be able to answer the question: "What did that money buy the movement?" The obvious, literal answer, i.e. "some plane tickets for some Wikimedians", is insufficient to warrant the expenditure. Please articulate some measures we can apply in six months or a year's time to gauge the value gained by this grant. Thanks. Ijon 19:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

1. The number of new GLAM partnerships, projects and activities, which are organised or supported by people who attended the conference.
2. The number of new GLAM partnerships, projects and activities, which are organised or supported by chapters that had people in attendance.
3. External funding through tenders and grants between GLAM organisations and local chapters that can trace their roots back to people who attended the event.
4. Demographic changes in participation related to existing GLAM projects where the changes addressed groups that WMF is targeting, such as an increase in the number of female contributors.
5. Increased participation from new or low volume WMF project related contributors to GLAM related projects.
6. The number of images donated to Commons or shared on wikiSource that can be attributed to people who attended the event being involved with these new donations.
7. The number of press mentions related to GLAM projects connected to attendees and GLAMs they are affiliated compared to the number of press mentions before.
8. The number of blog posts and tweets made by GLAM partners in off WMF space locations.
9. Comparative growth rates for GLAM related partnerships and activities between countries that had GLAMcamp participants vs those chapters not having representatives in attendance.

Those are the measures that I can see as being most easily trackable and beneficial. --LauraHale 20:18, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for these proposed measurements. Note that to actually distinguish and quantify success, we need not just an index (e.g. "number of blog posts") but also a threshold ("at least 20"). Also, whichever of these measures are to serve as this grant's actual measures of success should appear in the Grant page itself, not [just] on this talk page. Ijon 22:17, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

As I'm not actually involved with organizing the conference, I'd be hesitant to edit the page to do that. :/ These were just suggestions I've thought of as an interested and invested party. (Invested in the sense that I've applied for a scholarship to attend.) And yeah, there probably needs to be some way to measure quantity + quality. --LauraHale 22:48, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm working on adding some measures now. However, since this grant is only for funding a specific element of the conference there will necessarily be a gap between the specific purpose of the grant (travel scholarships) and the measures as they relate to the event as a whole, if you see what I mean. Wittylama 06:07, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Certainly, I do. That should be our guide in setting measures here, though -- what additional value do N travel scholarships buy us? Ijon 19:10, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

To clarify, are the "measures" that I have written appropriate in your view, or are you looking for something different? Each of the measures is applicable to the event as a whole (irrespective of this grant) but I think the extra attendees adds to their applicablity (rather than meeting a different set of measures). I hope I'm making sense :-) Wittylama 03:15, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Can I just sign here saying I support this grant without futher questions? Well, even If I can't, I doing it anyway. ;) ;) Béria Lima ^msg 15:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure you can! Ijon 15:59, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Support. Abbasjnr 10:02, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

(Just for clarity/transparency, Abbas is attending GLAMcamp and has received a scholarship from the money in the initial funds from WMNL+WMUK. Wittylama 04:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Liam, I am supporting it on my capacity as a GAC member. Plus, whether this grant is accepted or denied does not affect my personal attendance to GLAMcamp, so I hope that my comments would not be perceived as self-interest. Abbasjnr 20:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Criteria for scholarships

I am a little concerned about the travel scholarship criteria. Have they been applied to everyone in the "definitely" section above it? Is the amount requested in this grant based on only those meeting the criteria among those still seeking funding?

In general, I think spending ~$1000 on average to fly someone to Amsterdam cannot be justified merely by a strong interest in GLAM. GLAMcamp, it seems to me, should be about doers and practitioners, much more than would-be practitioners. Also, I think a regional focus is natural for this kind of multiple-times-a-year event, and so e.g. I question the value of flying people from the US to attend the NL event when a US event is just around the corner.

WMNL/Liam -- please clarify. Ijon 20:37, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

To take the two questions separately:

1) The "Definitely" section (whilst not the final/complete list of attendees - that's in our googledoc) includes people who are funding themselves, whose Chapter is funding them and some people who have received scholarship approval from our initial scholarship budget. 12 people received scholarships from the initial funding (including Abbas, mentioned above) and each of those people did get the published criteria applied to their application. I'm not sure if I should write here the list of who did/didn't receive a scholarship already and how much they got for privacy reasons, but that information IS available on the googledoc which relevant people at the WMF already have access to.

2) Yes, I agree that merely being personally interested in GLAM stuff is not, in itself, sufficient to receive a scholarship. The criteria "have a demonstrated interest in or experience for doing GLAM outreach before GLAMcamp was announced" could probably have been better worded but its intention is to exclude people who have never been involved in the GLAM-Wiki community until they noticed there was a possible free flight in it! That said, I didn't want to exclude people who had not been able to run GLAM events in their country yet, in fact having several relatively new faces in the group is very important so it doesn't just become "the same old people" and we can grow to different countries.

Also, since it was raised, I do think it is important that at least some people from the US get to come (in the same way as it was important for Europeans to come to the NYC event) otherwise we'll end up with two independent groups that don't talk to each other. The fact that everyone, irrespective of continent, is working quite well together in GLAM is one if it's major successes and this is made possible by having cross-polination of ideas at meetings such as these.

Does this answer your questions? Wittylama 04:29, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Does this answer the concerns raised? Wittylama 04:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

This application has been withdrawn at request of WMF in order that the individual applicants can apply for the new Participation Grants system Wittylama 06:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

So does this mean that WMF will not be funding travel scholarships unless the recipients speak at an event? Abbasjnr 13:01, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Almost: It means the Participation Grants program (which is not just the WMF) is a way of achieving impact for our mission, not just a way to give away free travel. Since there can be endless requests with a marginal value to just attend some event, we focus from the outset on participation rather than attendance as the key. The participation criterion can, and often will, be met by speaking/presenting at an event, but there are other conceivable kinds of participation that would be considered, e.g. coding at a hackathon, training with a pro, etc.

I hope you agree this makes sense for our movement. Ijon 19:57, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree that it's better to give a scholarship to a speaker rather than an attendant, but if you say that everyone must speak at an event to get a scholarship, then how many speakers will we have? and if attendants no longer get scholarships, then we might as well end up with an array of speakers at an empty hall, because attendants couldn't afford to come. Does this make sense? FYI -- I am not arguing against your point. Rather, I'm thinking of the attendants as well, since they also form an integral part for an event to be successful and high impact. Abbasjnr 05:59, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Depending on the nature of the conference, I think being a participant could be interpreted as being a speaker. Example: Open Space organised unconference. There are no formal speakers in a situation like that. I'd assume an application in such a situation would say something like "Will be an active participant in sessions I attend." --LauraHale 06:10, 2 November 2011 (UTC)