Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/General Support Fund/WikiJournal 2024

Questions from the Regional Committee

Hello!

Thank you for your interesting proposal. Members of the US/Canada Regional Committee have reviewed the proposal, and we have a few initial questions:

• I don't see a link to the budget or the timeline (or operational calendar). Maybe these are on Fluxx only -- could you please provide a direct link?
• I read with interest some of the information regarding WikiJournal's application to be a WMF sister project. However, I note that much of this discussion is rather dated (2019-2021, mostly). Can you explain briefly where this application currently stands?

Many thanks!

Redwidgeon (talk) 18:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

@Evolution and evolvability and OhanaUnited: giving a courtesy ping to you as the editors of the annual report, because I can't figure out which accounts belong to this proposal. In addition, I have the following questions. If you have a text somewhere where you already addressed some of these questions, please feel free to link to that instead of answering again (apologies for the oversight in that case):

• In your annual plan you state "The journals continue to have a healthy number of submissions". Could you elaborate how you define a healthy number, and what your slightly longer term goals are for submission and publication numbers?
• In your plan you describe your desire to be hosted outside of wikiversity. Could you summarize or point to a summary of why this is desirable? What kind of functionality would make your work easier?
• In your metrics you describe "we have a large (not documented) number of individuals that are participating via outreach and training as potential authors and peer reviewers" . Could you elaborate what kind of outreach and training activities you're referring to? To what level are these people engaged in your work? How could you better estimate these numbers going forward?
• How do you organize your community engagement?
• What does your organizational structure look like, and how did you arrive at this proposal? Was your wider community involved in that process?
• Have you formulated any learning objectives for yourselves?
• In your final report, you seem to have skipped the results, comments and methodology sections for the metrics. You also state that there were no metrics that you were unable to collect and did not have any difficulties measuring. Could you elaborate?
• Could you please reflect on how you incorporated the concerns from the committee to your proposal in the previous round? Specifically: "there were some concerns around the lack of clarity for CEO funding source and insurance costs, as well as some reservations about the use of Open Journal Systems platform instead of MediaWiki", how you grew your capacity with experience in "US charity expertise; tax filings; employee oversight; maintaining nonprofit status reporting" and what you did to develop an "additional evaluation metric for the OJS-MediaWiki integration"?

Much appreciated! Effeietsanders (talk) 02:41, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

org chart

@Evolution and evolvability and OhanaUnited:, can you please provide a current org chart which includes the open positions you are seeking funding for? Thank you! Emjackson42 (talk) 11:56, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal not approved for funding

@Mikael Häggström, Evolution and evolvability, and OhanaUnited: Thank you for your application for General Support Funding. After review, the Regional Fund Committee has declined to fund the proposal this round with the following feedback and explanation around the decision:

• The committee recognizes WikiJournals as an important movement initiative and opportunity in that 1) these publications and the editors and specialists that maintain them can support better public access to research along several domains, 2) that WikiJournals removes significant financial barriers to open access publication for researchers, 3) that WikiJournals provides a productive avenue by which individuals and teams can publish original research, which is typically excluded from encyclopedic content on Wikipedia projects, and 4) that WikiJournals provides publishing platform diversity in the realm of academic publishing.
• However, the current proposal’s evaluation plan lacks clear indication of impact given the general goals and priorities for your organization. For example, the proposal notes that In particular, [we look] to continue reaching new communities of subject matter experts as potential authors, but there is no aspect of the evaluation plan that involves reporting on efforts to reach new communities or subject areas.
• Recent reporting from your organization also does not make clear the general impact of your organization from the current year or last year. WikiJournal User Group’s midpoint report for its 2023 activities remains incomplete, and the final report from 2022 did not include results based on its general evaluation plan, including content contributions to Wikiversity, number of authors and peer reviewers, countries of editors / authors / reviewers, and article processing times, among other outcomes. This is a major concern because without this information, the Regional Committee has little concrete information with which to assess how WikiJournals contributes to Wikimedia and academic communities.
• The costs of insurance requested in the proposal cannot be covered by the General Support Fund for the following reasons: 1) The kind of insurance requested is not adequately detailed in the proposal, nor is a rationale for it provided, 2) The cost of this insurance significantly exceeds the general costs of D&O or other liability-type insurance that some (but not all) Wikimedia affiliates maintain. (For reference, 40,000 USD could potentially support general operating needs for a mid-sized organization or project in the region), 3) While we understand that the reason for the high cost is due to the term “Wiki” appearing in your organizational name and that insurance companies see this as a risk, the committee does not believe a liability insurance request of this magnitude is a good investment of movement funds, even if funding were available.
• WikiJournal UG has consistently maintained a significant underspend since receiving general operating support in the General Support Fund and previously in the Simple APG program. The User Group’s underspend for its current General Support Funding is about 60-70K USD, about 50-60% of the budget. In previous years, these underspends have been due to challenges or delays with hiring, such as with the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. While larger underspends are sometimes unavoidable, the committee is concerned by a pattern of large underspends year over year.

Based on these conclusions, the Regional Committee would like to support WikiJournal UG to apply next round with the following decisions and remarks:

• WikiJournal UG is invited to reapply for General Support Funding next round (with applications due on 8 March 2023, with the following expectations:
  • That the evaluation plan is improved to include more comprehensive outcomes of your work directly related to your organizational priorities and more generally, publishing and maintaining a set of academic journals.
  • That the committee will not support funding for organizational liability insurance that significantly exceeds typical rates for nonprofits within the Wikimedia movement.
  • Your program officer (that's me) will follow up with you to discuss these expectations and explore potential ways to address these needs.
• The committee supports extending WikiJournal UG’s current General Support Fund until your next General Support Fund begins, or the end of next fiscal year (June 30, 2023) – whichever comes first – and permitting your organization to maintain its current underspend through that period.
• The committee asks that – based on the information currently available to you – you publish more about your organizational impact from the current year (2023) and last year (2022). These should include information beyond Wikiversity articles, or raw numbers of authors/reviewers/technical editors/board members. You may wish to consider reporting metrics available through your articles’ DOIs, (e.g., data related to Crossref events), as one example metric. Because these reports have been submitted already, additional information can be provided or linked to on the report talk page in a supplementary fashion.

While the committee did not support funding the current proposal, we look forward to working with you in preparation for the next round, and hope you will consider reapplying next round. Please let us know if you have additional questions or needs for clarity around the decision.

On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 02:32, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Questions from the regional committee (round 2)

Hello, and thank you for your application. The regional committee has the following questions:

• We see that insurance is still set to $40k without any additional explanation. Can you provide some more context for the committee about why this cost remains so high?
• Please provide a more detailed description of the work of the role of Technical Editor. Why are 10 editors requested, and why do you require so much funding for these positions?
• What is your outlook towards growth in the longer term, and how do you see costs relating to this?
• Are all of your journals actively accepting submissions, and are all editorial board positions filled? If not, what are the reasons? Additionally, if all positions are not filled, for how long have positions remained unfilled?

Thank you for your time and for providing clarification.

Emjackson42 (talk) 02:34, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

As I was reading the application more carefully (thank you for the updated application!), I had a few more questions, which I hope may help you clarify better to us what the focus of this application is.

• As for the technical editors (building on the bullet above): In Wikimedia the standard practice is that the core of the contributions to a project are volunteer-driven. This is what makes the scale possible. I would really like to understand how you see the technical editors fit in relation to other players in your imagined wikijournal community. Also, is the 2021 Employment Agreement representative for the relationship you plan to have with them going forward?
• Do you see a role for a volunteer-driven editing community at Wikijournals? How?
• As for the outlook (building on the bullet above), I would really like to better understand what you would consider to be a 'success' for your organization in several years. It looks like you're trying to apply a traditional publishing workflow on a wiki - but is that also how you imagine to operate in the long run? Is your current workflow how you imagine to keep operating (broadly speaking, and at larger scale), or are you building towards something else?
• You mention the university partnerships. What would be a possible integration of Wikijournals in curricula? At what level do these conversations happen? (I imagine at the level of individual faculty?)

Thank you! Effeietsanders (talk) 04:34, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

@Emjackson42 and Effeietsanders: Thanks for your summary of feedback from the Regional Fund Committee. SHaggstrom and Ecsussman, I wanted to make some clarifying comments about our discussion about your insurance request, in that we do understand the general reasons why the costs are quite high. Previously, you have reported to us that that the name of your organization (that it contains the term "wiki") and that your work as a publisher of academic journals are considered substantially more risky factors by insurers, and as such, the insurance premiums are much higher. Some concerns from the committee are that we do not see 1) a clear statement of what specific types of insurance you are seeking, an 2) a rationale for why this insurance is important for your organizational goals or operations. This is especially important because the amount of funding needed to support this. I also want to reiterate a statement from the committee from your previous proposal:

The costs of insurance requested in the proposal cannot be covered by the General Support Fund for the following reasons: 1) The kind of insurance requested is not adequately detailed in the proposal, nor is a rationale for it provided, 2) The cost of this insurance significantly exceeds the general costs of D&O or other liability-type insurance that some (but not all) Wikimedia affiliates maintain. (For reference, 40,000 USD could potentially support general operating needs for a mid-sized organization or project in the region), and 3) while we understand that the reason for the high cost is due to the term “Wiki” appearing in your organizational name and that insurance companies see this as a risk, the committee does not believe a liability insurance request of this magnitude is a good investment of movement funds, even if funding were available.

Additionally, I want to clarify that even if justification is provided and funding were available, the Regional Committee may still not support funding this insurance request, as there are other regional needs and priorities that might outweigh a need for liability insurance. Finally, I want to acknowledge that liability insurance is not something our funding programs guarantee for movement affiliates. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 14:35, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

General Support Fund proposal approved in the amount of 32,000 USD

@SHaggstrom and Ecsussman: Your grant is approved for partial funding for a six-month period in the amount of 32,000 USD with a grant term starting 1 July 2024 and ending 31 December 2024, with the following feedback from the North America Regional Funds Committee:

• The committee recognizes some important strengths from your proposal and broader organizational work. First, the committee recognizes that WikiJournals are an opportunity to create greater diversity in the publishing field for academic work, as well as to present an alternative model in open publishing, which tends to be prohibitively expensive. The committee also appreciates your user group’s efforts to support and recruit technical editors from a global set of communities. Finally, in the current proposal, your reporting on outcomes using metrics related to your role as an academic publisher has improved substantially, as shown in this report provided with the proposal.
• However, the committee was not willing to support full funding for this proposal for several reasons:
  • WikiJournal User Group’s current strategy is underdeveloped. While top level priorities are named, it is not clear why the organization has chosen to focus on these needs. Additionally, the strategy focuses too heavily on internal operations without clear connection to community- or Wikimedia movement-facing impact. Finally, certain strategic areas seem disconnected from intended programmatic activities. For example, given the need to increase availability of open access publishing opportunities and to address language disparities, the Outreach portion of your organizational strategy is not clearly connected to these needs, which only focuses on conference presentations and media mentions.
  • The committee also expressed concerns with WikiJournal’s struggles related to its core operations around supporting article submission, review, and publication. This has meant that certain publications, like the Humanities Journal, have had very few submissions overall, and its current timeline for publication is unclear.
  • WikiJournal’s general approach to growth requires a substantial level of investment. As your submissions increase, more funding is needed for additional editors, project coordinators, without any benefit of scale. This makes it difficult for your work to become self-sustaining or to reduce costs over time.
  • The organization does not appear to have a concrete plan to support substantial volunteer-driven activities or contributions in its activities. While it is understood that certain leadership roles depend on technical or administrative skills that necessitate compensation, the role of volunteers in the WikiJournal User Group’s current operations and future growth were not clear after discussion with the Regional Funding Committee. The committee’s position is that, consistent with the spirit of Wikimedia projects and communities, affiliate programs should support volunteer engagement and contribution where possible.
  • Finally, the current proposal lacked clear justification for significant budget items, such as the addition of new technical editors and liability insurance, the latter of which has appeared in past proposals without clear explanation or context. The Regional Committee was only able to understand this context in greater detail after in-person discussion, but explanation should be provided more fully in future proposals, particularly for larger budget items. As with last year, the committee was not willing to support the need for additional liability insurance due to financial constraints on the regional budget overall, even with context around legal risks and higher rates that insurers charge for academic publishers.
• Over the next six-month period, the Regional Committee was willing to provide partial funding for continued operations. While this funding is unrestricted, the committee recommends prioritizing this funding for your organization’s essential operations such as staffing and publication memberships. The Regional Committee supports WikiJournal User Group to reapply next round (with applications due on September 2024, exact date to be determined) with the following expectations:
  • That WikiJournal User Group’s next proposal contains a concrete plan to determine a new and more robust organizational strategy. The committee recommends that this strategic planning process be supported by an external consultant or facilitator, which can be a part of your next budget. Your program officer can connect you to other affiliates who have successfully redeveloped their organizational strategy and priorities in this manner, who may be able to provide some guidance around this work based on their own experience.
  • Relatedly, the strategic planning process should include an effort to engage broadly with WikiJournal UG members and users, as well as any relevant partners or external professionals within scholarly publishing more broadly (e.g. journal editors, journal publishers, scholarly communications librarians).
• The committee also requests that WikiJournal User Group continue to explore opportunities for partnerships, and in particular, to seek out partnerships with other mission-aligned organizations focused on open access publication who may be willing to support 1) development of a new organizational strategy per committee recommendations, and 2) an agreement to formally sponsor the WikiJournal User Group such that it would be covered by an existing liability insurance plan, as it may not be financially possible for this to be supported through the General Support Fund.

On behalf of the Regional Committee, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 21:24, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Quick comment

Having developed a few community-publication workflows myself on- and off-wiki, I think there are easy ways to implement a low-overhead version of WJ that don't require insurance. It may be that having a separately-incorporated group overseeing the work makes it harder rather than easier to scale. I also see a number of healthy drafts in the pipeline that don't make their way to final review for whatever reason. Is there a simpler way to have an active namespace of article drafts, closer to an open preprints process, that encourages and streamlines participation?

OpenReview are managing a similar and rather scaled-up process with a couple stages of review. Happy to make an intro if you think a connection would be helpful. I'll crosspost on the main group page. –SJ talk  21:10, 25 November 2024 (UTC) 23:11, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

@Sj: Thanks for this suggestion, as well as cross-posting. I'll alert the Regional Committee to your suggestion as well. I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 22:16, 25 November 2024 (UTC)