Grants talk:PEG/WM US-DC/Wikipedia for Health and Safety Research and Data

A decision has been made on this grant. Comments are still welcome on this page.

GAC members who support this request with adjustments

1. please provide a monetary evaluation of the NIOSH in kind contribution, i other words if you have to organsie this in a commercial venu what would this conference cost. --DerekvG (talk) 19:08, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

   DerekvG, I have added information on in-kind support. Note that are three people working on this conference (myself, Emily, and my colleague Max). Our venue is the National Archives Building and I have asked them about the venue's rack rate. James Hare (NIOSH) (talk) 16:15, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

GAC members who oppose this request

It's time that WM US-DC starts to find external funds to organize their events, in general are big, expensive and wide events totally in charge of the grant; I appreciate a lot to see a more consistent "sharing of costs" or "in-kind" donations. The costs is very huge for 15 participants (with the expectation of 30). I don't see the impact, I don't see the need to have an event like this reading at the measures. The measures are low, the ambition is to pay a travel and a room to these agencies, and to speak with them. Nothing is assured in terms of further projects. Sorry for me the cost is huge in comparison to the "real" benefits. I personally have organized an event like this to meet GLAMs, the budget was 500$, we have had 20 GLAMs and everyone has paid their own travel, small travel because the distance was short, but it has been done to check if an event like this may work. Anyway I suggest to approach them differently probably looking for a US convention where people managing health already meet and where there is the certainty to have the real key-decision makers. As soon a real interest can be demonstrated, there is a sense to organize an event like this (sharing costs with other entities, naturally). --Ilario (talk) 14:53, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

GAC comments

1. Regarding goals in long term perspective - what do you expect to achive? I mean, OK - you will meet and discuss with US Gov people and then what? Most data and publications of NIOSH (and other state agencies) are already freely accessible and can be used as sources for Wikipedia without any formal agreement, so the question is what do you actually expect from them? Polimerek (talk) 13:48, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

   I have the same question as Polimerek: you will meet and discuss with US Gov people and then what? -Violetova (talk) 10:57, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

   Our goal is to have some sort of Wikimedia-related program with each agency. The pie-in-the-sky would be a Wikipedian in Residence at each agency, but that could take a while. (Agencies would need to find the money, get the buy-in of their superiors, etc.) We can also explore lighter-weight options such as an outreach effort with a series of events, an in-house Wikipedia training for staff, or a mass-contribution of data or media. James Hare (NIOSH) (talk) 13:26, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Community comments

Your budget seems to allow for US-based participants only. Is this correct, and if so how would you justify that? Johnbod (talk) 22:45, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Johnbod, participation is not exclusively for U.S. participants. James Hare (NIOSH) (talk) 13:03, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Tony1

James, it looks promising.

• At the top, "reach out to at least five federal agencies that conduct scientific research"; but then it all seems focused on health.
• "We intend to hold preliminary session to brainstorm"—hope it's more than an intention; and could you go further than predicting "brainstorming", which in my experience never achieves very much. Will there be / are there specific issues you'll focus on, with potential outcomes actionable?
• What level of employees do you expect to be interacting with?

Tony (talk) 09:00, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello Tony1:

• The scope of the conference includes agencies that do research on health and safety matters. This should be clearer in my recent revision, but let me know if it's not.
• The session is now confirmed as part of the WikiConference USA schedule, so it is certainly happening at this point. This session will be something of a community consultation; while we have goals set up for this conference, I am interested in ideas from the community. This will give an opportunity to participate for those who would not be able to make the November meeting. The goal is determining what needs to be communicated (especially things like the needs of the Wikimedia community) and what outcomes would be most desired.
• We are engaging senior managers at federal agencies who serve as communication leads and can help move government policy to benefit free access to knowledge, including open collaboration with the Wikimedia community.

James Hare (NIOSH) (talk) 17:30, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

WMF comments

We are pleased to fund this proposal to bring together editors from Wikiproject Medicine community with representatives of national health research organizations. We hope that this opportunity will lead to future partnerships and projects between the two groups. We would like to propose a change to the reporting schedule for this project in order to track progress toward the measures of success, which include the development of 5 projects involving conference participants within 12 months following the conference. Thank you to the GAC and community members who commented on the request, and to James Hare (NIOSH) for scaling back the project budget to align with the experimental nature of the conference. We discussed Ilario's concern about the high cost of events in the US, and have encouraged WMUS - DC to continue to seek in-kind support for events, but not to focus on external fundraising at this time. We understand that the high cost of travel in a country as large as the US can drive up event budgets, but we will continue to fund such travel when it is justified. --KHarold (WMF) (talk) 20:33, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Update

Following discussion with the Wikimedia Foundation, we have agreed to focus travel expenditures on only a few specific people that would provide the most benefit to the conference, rather than try to invite a larger segment of the community. I don't want to announce names before they have committed to attend, but they have significant experience with Wikipedia and health communication. This change cuts around $10,000 from the budget, making the program more cost-effective. James Hare (NIOSH) (talk) 17:36, 25 September 2015 (UTC)