Grants talk:Project/Orgio89/Offline Wikipedia outreach in Mongolia

October 11 Proposal Deadline: Reminder to change status to 'proposed'

The deadline for Project Grant submissions this round is October 11th, 2016. To submit your proposal, you must (1) complete the proposal entirely, filling in all empty fields, and (2) change the status from "draft" to "proposed." As soon as you’re ready, you should begin to invite any communities affected by your project to provide feedback on your proposal talkpage. If you have any questions about finishing up or would like to brainstorm with us about your proposal, there are still two proposal help sessions before the deadlne in Google Hangouts:

• October 11th, 0200 - 0300 UTC
• October 11th 1600 -1700 UTC

Warm regards,
Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 03:16, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the updates. I will revise my proposal as best as possible and will invite the related subjects. Orgio89 (talk) 12:36, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Not yet eligible for Project Grants review in round 2 2016

Hello Orgio89. Thank you for your grant proposal and efforts to design a project that engages students in learning through Wikipedia. We understand the need for increasing awareness of and access to online information in Mongolia and do want to support your efforts. We appreciate all of the data you provided in the proposal as it gives us a better understanding of the local context. However, the project as it is currently designed is not eligible for funding. We apologize if our guidelines were not clear enough, but we do not have the resources to be able to fund large-scale equipment requests or school computer programs. We have updated the funding guidelines.

We would however be happy to consider a small offline Wikipedia pilot. This may include partnering with a few local schools where you have connections to administrators and teachers that are enthusiastic about integrating Wikipedia in their curriculums. These would also be schools where you and other experienced Wikimedians could easily visit to provide training and follow-up. The learning from this pilot could inform a larger project and/or proposal to the Ministry of Education and Sports. Please let us know if you are interested in revising your proposal to focus on a pilot and we can set up a time to discuss. Best, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Ok I will try to change the project design for smaller pilot project. Orgio89 (talk) 22:33, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Orgio89. Please note that our deadline for assessing eligibility is Monday, October 31st. For your project to be eligible, we would need you to make the following changes:

1. Remove plans and associated costs for provide computers to schools.
2. Focus a pilot project on 1-3 local area schools that already have the infrastructure to support offline Wikipedia.
3. We believe there is an interesting opportunity to better understand how offline Wikipedia can be integrated into the national curriculum. Considering your professional network and work at an education NGO, you are well placed to be able to explore this. The proposal talks about offering an educational improvement recommendation to the Mongolian Ministry of Education and Sports based on using Wikipedia. We would like to know more about how you would design a pilot project that could result in a recommendation, how that recommendation would be given to the Ministry of Education and Sports, and what the process and potential is for discussing those recommendations with the Ministry.

Thanks, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 19:17, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

I restructured the proposal as your recommending. However reaching too few schools will not make research and development impact to both local community and with the Ministry so we will plan the operation with 10 local schools covering different communities (low (5), middle (4), high (1) income) to realistically identify and engage the children's educational development involved with Wikipedia. And the Ministry is in charge of all 750 secondary educational schools in Mongolia so covering different communities is more ideal considering the Ministry policy tendencies. Thank you . Orgio89 (talk) 23:44, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2016

This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2016 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review for round 2 2016 begins on 2 November 2016, and grants will be announced in December. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 17:07, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Comments of Ruslik0

Thank you for your efforts but I have some comments/questions:

• In the first paragraph you say that "which is 4 views per local internet user and is close to global average rate". However in the next sentence you contradict this. Please, clarify.
• What is "encyclopedia knowledge source", which you are going to update? And what is "alternative knowledge source"?
• How will those 10 schools be selected?
• What kind of "local database are you going to develop?
• The project seems to lack any specific measures of success.

Ruslik (talk) 13:08, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, Thank you for the question:

1. According to provided Wikipedia stats page the global average is 5 but in case of Mongolia only 0.5 million user has internet access and only tiny portion of them make the average views of 4, but compare to Asian average rate it is much lower while in the EU this number is 6-12. So considering lower internet access rate and language barrier and domestic badly affected media environment Mongolia's Wikipedia usage tendency in very poor shape hence it resulted embarrassing 16000 articles of local Wikipedia size. The tiny local version of Wikipedia is very obvious indicator of poor usage level. That 4 means it is close to global average and showing some few percentage of users really using the Wikipedia but it is generally very poor usage that those 5 mentioned key negative trends making the local Wikipedia in very poor state. Even one former politician and businessman in Mongolia tried to create a local version of encyclopedia called Wikimon to use Wikipedia trend for his some political reputation raising attempts. So we have plenty of negative factors to fight against. Thus our solution of local necessity based Wikipedia development approach is more grassroots based rational approach.
2. I called "alternative knowledge source" as wikipedia information environment since worldwide most medical doctors are using wikipedia as one of their active knowledge source and treating millions. So as their tendency we will try to develop local tiny Wikipedia as alternative serious knowledge source. And it refers same way to "encyclopedia knowledge source" term too.
3. We intend to cover all possible educational development affecting factors in our process development so 5 lower income local schools, 4 middle income, 1 high income school will be selected.
4. The current offline installation size is too large for most local users hard drive capability so we will cut the size and also will cut some not well used information type such as foreign too locally known peoples autobiographies etc.
5. The measures of success will be that: A. As 1st of this kind of project for local wikipedia environment we will cover 14 000 potential users which 2000 of them will turn into university students by next September. Thus we are making potential new few thousands of wikipedia users and editors in the process. B. Since the local innovation scale is in very passive shape our project way will create certain innovative solution to actively use online and offline wikipedia and likewise knowledge source for every one's educational uses. Plus there will be 1240 offline wikipedia installation dvd's will be passed to the users to be installed and copied which will make some good spreading of Wikipedia which will include very attractive andoid apps such as dictionaries, scientific applications etc. Currently 10-40% of local high school students use smartphone. C. The project will initially to be designed to be assimilated local educational ways and local education program boosting trend which will create attention of policy makers and after 1 year let them to expand our intiated trend for the masses good use which certainly be success measurement indicator. D. There are still non motivated few thousands of local users that not well contributing to wikipedia hence resulting too tiny local version and this our project will wake them up since thousands of their children involved with our project. Orgio89 (talk) 23:31, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Comments by Joalpe

Hello. Thank you for your proposal; it is an enthusiastic project and as most strongly committed educational activities could have a great impact. I have a few comments.

1. As Ruslik said, you should incorporate specific metrics of success onto the project. What you have stated is vague. This document might help.
2. I would include as a strategic achievement a set of reports about this initiative. Without outreach and strategic communication, the capacity to establish ongoing activities inspired or triggered by your initiative is jeopardized.
3. This project starts too big, IMHO. Is there a specific reason you would not start with only one school? This could make you go for a rapid grant and have an opportunity to request a larger grant as what you are requesting with a more concrete understanding of potentials and risks.
4. You should provide in your grant request a stronger account of risks. At this point, given the fact that this is an absolutely new initiative, risks appear very high.
5. Items in the budget are not sufficiently explained and justified.
6. What do you think will motivate students to get involved? And teachers/principals? Do you have a formal agreement with schools?
7. I was unable to understand the reason for the questionnaire. Are you looking for a specific piece of information we do not already have?
8. Could you please precise the use of the DVDs?

Thank you! --Joalpe (talk) 01:13, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the questions:

1. Done.
2. Our volunteers are 3-4th year teachers university students who are professionally associated into every details of this type of project activities and we are well experienced of organizing these kinds of project activities from strategic point of view.
3. We have in dire need of more local wikipedia editors which 14000 informed students certainly provide 10-20% good editors since each September 2000 of them will turn into university students. The 10 schools means covering different poor (5), middle (4), high (1) income communities schools thus in realistic way we will present clear study trends to our process development thus our process can be recommended to the local Ministry of Education. And the Ministry is in charge of all 750 secondary educational schools in Mongolia so covering different communities is more ideal considering the Ministry policy tendencies. Since Wikipedia is educational tool and environment spreading more of Wikipedia associated education and engagement to as many as students wont do harm for Wikimedia mission.
4. Since the local educational environment is kind of sleepy and thirsty of this kind innovative solution we have plenty of good local supports and even some our idea stealing potential local NGOs to be aware with. With starting with 10 schools from different communities will improve our coverage of realistic development of educational process.
5. Budget items are explained in Technical 1 and 2 of previous Activities section. rest will be explained.
6. Because the local educational development lacks this kind of educational development initiatives both schools and ministry authorities are highly eager to join with our project coverage. Plus the students are getting exciting applications and offline wikipedia on dvds so it will certainly empowers them for their study efforts.
7. To develop more of realistic educational development process we need to distribute questionnaires to 20 teachers and to 350 students at each school thus to clearly identify local trends and needs specifically from different communities.
8. To each class 3 sets of 2 DVDs will distributed that students will pass it to one another and possible ones will make copy for themselves and others will install it to their home pcs and their smartphones. In each class there are 3 rows of students sit so there is 3 set of DVDs or another way teacher can hold into 1 set dvd as spare if one get lost or damaged and will distribute other 2 sets for passing around. And the school will use the DVDs as educational tools in their library afterwards.

• The offline students will use installed offline wikipedia and other educational materials to enrich their study and the teacher guides them for collaborative team works based study projects involving offline wikipedia and will expand their study.
• The offline wikipedia DVDs also passed around so likely half of students will make copies for themselves and let it spread through his or her surrounding friends so actually offline dvds give some big chance that offline wikipedia spreads throughout communities hence the Offline Outreach fulfills.

Thank you. Orgio89 (talk) 02:29, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Offline Wikipedia outreach in Mongolia

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	6.3
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	4.9
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	4.3
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	5.5
Additional comments from the Committee: Project fits with the strategic priority to increase reach. While the project could enhance the education program for students in Mongolia, the online impact of the work is unclear. If digital access remains a challenge in this context, how will exposing students to offline Wikipedia lead to them becoming active editors? At this time, the greatest potential for impact seems to be in influencing the Ministry of Education and Sports of Mongolia and having Wikipedia incorporated into wider educational programming. However it's unclear to me how reasonable a goal this is. Additionally, in order to accomplish this, the applicant will need to carefully monitor and report on the pilot program. The potential impact of the project is unclear due to lack of specifics of what they will actually do in schools and what students will actually learn. I wonder how local educators will be recruited and what retention rate is expected. I see a few risks related to the agreements with the local schools and how much the applicant wants to grow the number of Wikipedia articles and editors. I see the project as interesting and with potential, but too ambitious as currently written. I would like to know how the project takes into account some of the key findings from past experiences with Kiwix - namely that the integration of offline Wikipedia into curriculum requires a lot of coordination and the substantial training needs of participating teachers. Risks appear to be high, since proponent does not provide enough background to assess connections with schools. A pilot program in one school might be a better way to make sense of potentials and risks. The budget seems fine and sounds very realistic to do in the estimated time (if they already have the schools). However, in order to be successful the project will need more experienced Wikimedians to help. 10 schools seems like too much for a pilot. I would like to see evidence of commitment from the schools and learn more about the grantee’s experience relevant to the project. More details on their background and the work of their employer would be appreciated. I also note that the applicant has been banned on both English and German Wikipedia which is concerning. It seems unlikely that the project will be executed according to its plan because the plan appears to be too ambitious. It includes some software development work but who will do the development is unclear. I am confused by 2 indefinite blocks of grantee in en.wiki and de.wiki: it makes me feel that grantee needs to work on the communication skills that are crucial in the execution of offline outreach. Furthermore, we definitely should limit the scope to 1-2 school at the beginning. I found no evidence of the grantee having been associated to any educational use of the projects in education. Budget is unclear, since there is no detailed account of specific reasons for what is being requested. Need more details on the schools and their interest in participating. There are only a handful of endorsements (which is perhaps to be expected, given the relative size of the Mongolian wiki community) Community engagement appears to be limited. I think the Mongolian community is quite interested but the grantee has not not provided any links to community notifications and/or endorsements. While I agree there is an interesting opportunity to explore how offline Wikipedia could be integrated into the national curriculum, the proposed work seems more complicated and ambitious than accounted for in the proposal. In order to fund, I would want to see more focus on the training needs of the teachers and a smaller number of schools participating (10 seems too many). I also want to know much more about the applicant's expertise and approach, as well as their banned status. Wikipedia belongs in education --and I am glad this is being considered in a small community of ours. This is great! But a pilot program, in one school, would be a better start. I recommend this project to be reworked and presented for a rapid grant, as an initiative in only one school. This will provide a concrete basis for applying for larger grants.

This proposal has been recommended for due diligence review.

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal and recommended it for due diligence review. This means that a majority of the committee reviewers favorably assessed this proposal and have requested further investigation by Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Next steps:

1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. We recommend that you review the feedback and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page.
2. Following due diligence review, a final funding decision will be announced on December 16.

Questions? Contact us.

Reply from grantee

• I think the Mongolian community is quite interested but the grantee has not not provided any links to community notifications and/or endorsements.

The proper community notification and endorsements are already in the grant page please check those. I am wondering why obviously visible clear things are ignored by the reviewer. Orgio89 (talk) 02:43, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

• Risks appear to be high, since proponent does not provide enough background to assess connections with schools. A pilot program in one school might be a better way to make sense of potentials and risks.

Our local situation highly lacks this kind of educational initiative which local educational development trend clearly reflecting local Wikipedia size. So both schools and students will highly eagerly accept our initiative. We will provide official authorities conscent papers soon to proper WMF staffs. 1-2 schools is too experimental and cannot realistically cover local educational development trend we have to cover different communities at same time to propogate Wikipedia engagement guidance to as many prospective editors as possible. Orgio89 (talk) 02:51, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

• It seems unlikely that the project will be executed according to its plan because the plan appears to be too ambitious. It includes some software development work but who will do the development is unclear.

The project size and activity is well suited for our local situation it is based on local knowledge and experties. Software developer will be evaluated according to proper qualifications evaluation after final grant decision. I checked other proposals Reviews here and they were not asking these software coder or school teachers each extra personal backgrounds. From Mongolia's case the reviewers are asking extra details and extra information compare to other grant proposals. So why this strange extra details approach for us compare to other proposals?! Orgio89 (talk) 02:59, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

• Community engagement appears to be limited.

In our situation instead of online community engagement more of newspaper and tv based engagement is more effective traditional way. Since the internet access rate is low. Orgio89 (talk) 03:03, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

• 10 schools seems like too much for a pilot. I would like to see evidence of commitment from the schools and learn more about the grantee’s experience relevant to the project. More details on their background and the work of their employer would be appreciated. I also note that the applicant has been banned on both English and German Wikipedia which is concerning.

Starting the project with 10 schools is more optimal size and for our main goal of making impact to improve local Wikipedia. Which is well suited for Wikimedia mission of wikipedia development and propagation. Doing our kind of project with just 1 or 2 schools will be too ineffective narrow and experimental which is resource wasting. The project has well experienced staffs and except me most others are not well active inside Wikipedia. Those two other blockage cases were described during the interview process. Orgio89 (talk) 13:04, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

• I would like to know how the project takes into account some of the key findings from past experiences with Kiwix - namely that the integration of offline Wikipedia into curriculum requires a lot of coordination and the substantial training needs of participating teachers.

In this case the Wikipedia will serve as local curriculum supporting and enriching role which the local wikipedia already has certain resource articles of major sciences and subjects which combining those ready resources and encouraging students contributions on other related articles writing the process will associate local study program with wikipedia knowledge environment thus both educators and students study environment get expanded and enriched together the local wikipedia will get expanded. We are already developing our process with proper academic level and with our researcher. Orgio89 (talk) 13:15, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Round 2 2016 decision

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for a Project Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, $7,680 USD

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is pleased to support your efforts in developing secondary educational programming in Mongolia through Wikipedia and offline resources. We look forward to learning from your experience in engaging local schools to use offline Wikipedia as a supplemental tool integrated with existing curriculum systems. We see this as an strategic, scalable opportunity to engage users in Mongolia with limited internet access, and we are glad to support your efforts to promote free knowledge in this region.

Next steps:

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4. Start work on your project!

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Apps

Interesting project. Can you specify which "dictionary app" you have in mind and whether it's free software? Nemo 05:34, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

We are planning to use some of these apps: [|app1], [|app2], [|app3], [|app4], [|more choices], depending on limited disc space and app size. Orgio89 (talk) 10:03, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Of those apps possibly 2 or 3 of them will be included in the dvd depending on quality and disc space occupancy factors. Orgio89 (talk) 02:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

It's quite hard to find license information on Google Play, can you please just tell me if they're free software? Finding good free software apps is often easier on http://f-droid.org/ . --Nemo 21:17, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the link we'll check that app. Orgio89 (talk) 01:22, 15 January 2017 (UTC)