Grants talk:Project/AfLIA/Wikipedia in African Libraries/Final

remaining funds

Please retain the unspent amount of US$13.38 to use for toward mission-aligned activities. Thank you! -- JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 04:13, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Noted. AfricanLibrarian (talk) 08:24, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Final Report Comments

Thank you AfLIA and team for such a detailed report. It is indeed a celebration of the incredible work and impact you have achieved in creating awareness of the movement, increasing contribution and readership and nurturing the future movement organizers.

We would hope to have a conversation and learn more about your experience and will organize for the same in the coming year. While we accept your report, we did have a few learning questions;

• We would like to learn how you hope to continue supporting the participants of the program? Are there any retention plans? Will you be connecting them with local communities where possible to continue getting support? Beyond the meet and greet session you had?
• The OCLC Wikipedia + Libraries, Better Together curriculum was adapted and we are curious to know what were the main elements/aspects of the existing curriculum were adapted for this project participants?
• Thank you for your efforts in reaching out to Wikimedia volunteers through African Wikipedia communities to serve as mentors to the course participant. About how many did you engage and what was their experience as mentors?
• How many participants completed the course in full [ all sessions of the training]?

I also wanted to acknowledge the effort you put into the pre-training research, its a detailed piece of work and we hope you can find opportunities to share it and the resulting influence on the project and its impact.

We find this project an excellent model of working with libraries and as a means of building new communities and strengthening the work of existing ones. We look forward to seeing the long term impact of the project unfolding in the region. --VThamaini (WMF) (talk) 15:35, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Final report comments - responses

Thanks for this!

• This is a question that we have been asked by the participants. They all want to know - 'What next?'

First, we are continuing to converse with them as a network in WhatsApp and Telegram groups. In these groups, questions are still being asked and answered and where possible (like in Nigeria), the WhatsApp link of the Wikimedia Community in the country was shared so that they could join. They were also invited to Naija Office hours. Many of them participated in WikiIndaba and linked up with more Wikimedians. All these are beyond the Next Steps outlined in the Report.

Second, a number of participants have run some programs by themselves and AfLIA linked them up with the Wikimedia community in their countries for support (Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda). The linking up will continue.

Third, AfLIA tries as much as possible to collate Wikimedia activities in Africa and share in the WhatsApp and Telegram groups so that the course participants can join the training for such activities as well as vie for prizes where applicable.

Fourth, they have also been assisted to join the mailing list of African Wikimedians to enable them be up to date with events and activities within the movement.

• Findings from the pre-training research highlighted the fact that many of the would-be participants may not have had the experience of going through an online course. This made AfLIA to develop different lessons on how to navigate the learning platform.

- Also, the live sessions in the OCLC curriculum had to be redesigned with the content coming up as notes and reading materials. This was done bearing in mind the high cost of data and unstable Internet in many African communities. - Furthermore, perceptions about Wikipedia among African librarians as thrown up by the pre-training research pointed to the fact that examples of articles in the OCLC curriculum needed to be changed to African ones. This gave a sense of identification so that the participants from different African countries can see articles about notable personalities from their communities. - Additionally, understanding the low awareness among African librarians about the possibilities of offering information services with Wikipedia, the curriculum was infused with more ideas of how libraries can use Wikipedia to serve their user communities better.

• One hundred and nine (109) participants have completed the course presently. However, there are a number of participants who are still working towards completing the course as the resources and all the materials are still open to them on the Moodle platform. The number will continue to be updated when necessary.

AfricanLibrarian (talk) 19:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Final report comments - responses 2

Thank you for your feedback, this was a defining experience for everyone involved - it is something we will look back at fondly.

To answer your learning questions :

• Continuing support

Participants in countries with affiliates have already been linked to them and we are encouraging them to spearhead GLAM-related initiatives that have not been explored by their affiliates. While not completely letting go, as AfLIA, we believe that decentralising the support system will help the participants be relevant to the communities by contributing their expertise and applying what they have learnt, which was one of the goals of the project.

We have also shared links with and encouraged participants to join community mailing lists, social media channels and in particular, the African Wikimedians Telegram group. We hope that by engaging on such platforms, they will demystify what being a Wikimedian is, become more confident and inspired to become active community members, identify and take advantage of genuine opportunities outside the course and also get exposed to other Wikimedians who may not necessarily be in their communities but will definitely be of help on their Wikimedia journey.

It is also part of our plans to hold AfLIA-customised "continuing support" sessions in line with general and thematic engagements. We acknowledge that some participants may not be confident or willing to engage their immediate networks but feel much more comfortable approaching their community of practice. If for example one wishes to participate in #1Lib1Ref, we arrange community sessions in which we show them how to go about the process.

• Mentors & Guest presenters

Guest presenters were approached and were chosen from a pool of experienced Wikimedians in Africa with these combined factors in mind : experience with Wikimedia & GLAM programs in Africa; practicing information workers; work with the Wikimedia & Libraries User Group in addition to Foundation Staff (for relevant topics). We are really grateful to the 17 Wikimedians (from English and French-speaking Africa) and 1 Foundation Staff. We also engaged 1 Portuguese-speaking Wikimedian who translated the project page and was on stand-by should we have Portuguese-speaking students.

• Course adaptation

The original course had 5 sections which we retained but expanded in terms of content and time. We expanded it to include Also

   The OCLC Wikipedia + Libraries, Better Together curriculum was adapted and we are curious to know what were the main elements/aspects of the existing curriculum were adapted for this project participants?
   How many participants completed the course in full [ all sessions of the training]?

AKibombo (talk) 13:14, 3 January 2022 (UTC)