Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group/2018/H2

Questions from SAPG members

Question from Shangkuanlc / Liang

Hi, after reading your annual plan, I have the following questions:

• Regarding your education program, why are you planning to set the number of 200? In my previous experience, if one class is dedicated for students to write about Wikipedia articles, the effect usually goes better in small class (say 20 students), and if you set your goal into 200, it might be hard to achieve to complete 10 courses in the first year.

Hi, Liang! We are planning to work with two high schools. One in Prishtina, another in Gjakova. Classes here are bigger, at least 30 students and the teacher teaching a particular class goes to the class/classroom instead of students deciding individual schedule. 200 is a conservative number as we will work in parallel. We will train the teachers, build (translate) instructional material and then offer support to them and their students.

• Regarding your devices such as used laptops, have you noticed the Hardware donation program from the WMF? It may help you to get more laptops you need.

Mailing bulky equipment to Kosovo is complicated and expensive. This is the most feasible solution we know for now.

• Have you been in touch with the Education Program team from the WMF? They are aggregating education news by publishing monthly newsletter, and I think you may share those global events to the teachers, or even write down your own in here. I have searched in the newsletter and see only a few words related to your community, it is a pity if you have done something relating education but the global community don't aware of them. If you can explain why there is no news and what would you plan to do with "this month in education" newsletter, I would be very appreciated.

We are aware of them :) and have been in touch through the mailing list and/or conferences. We have not published anything to the newsletter unfortunately. We did not have a structured education program so far, just editathons sometimes held in schools here and there and with little involvement by the instructors. We hope to change this to what is recognized in the Wikimedian community as an education program. Thank you for the thoughtful questions.

--Liang(WMTW) (talk) 17:03, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Questions from Siarus1074 / Kai

I think you are doing great GLAM and Wiki Loves Monuments work. Keep up the good work.

Hi, Kai! Thanks! ;)

Photo Contest University of Prishtina from 2016-17 Report

• This project seems very interesting. I was hoping you could help me understand a few things.
  • Are you planning on this event again in 2018? I think I see it in your budge but not sure. It wasn't in the Programs section.
  • Did the UPISU attract 800 students or the photo contest?
  • On this [page] you provide how many were expected to participate.

  - How many actually participated?

  - And how many photos were uploaded? I can't find metrics on this.

800 is the number of students attending UPISU. Only a small thing we tried with not great dedication and at the last moment. We are planning to redo it. We got only about 50 photos, but it was a good first contact with the University.

Education

• To follow up to Liang's question regarding education, I was wondering if you could provide a bit more detail about your Education program. This will help us understand the program a bit better.
  • Do you have 2 high schools secured already to work with you?

  - How many classes are committed?

  - How many students in each class?

  - Will the students work individually on article creation or stubs or will they work in groups?

  - If they work in groups, will that effect the 100 new articles goal?

We have two schools we have good relations with and will target. Upper classes have 8 parallels each of at least 30 students. Students will work in groups, at least two to an article, either stub or from 0. 100 new articles is a conservative estimate. If we see that resulting articles are not good enough, we will return for an improvement editing round.

Conference presentations

• I see you are presenting at 2 conference.
  • Can you provide the names of the conference and presentations?

  - Are they local or international conferences?

I look forward to hearing from you. Siarus1074 (talk) 21:12, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

They are local. Doku.tech in August in Kosovo and another TBD in Albania. Our presentations are general outreach to the uninitiated such as Contributing to Wikipedia or Wikidata for Beginners. Nothing groundbreaking.

Question from Philip

Hi dear Albanians! Thanks for writing this application, it's great to see more activity in Albania and Kosovo!

Hi Philip Kopetzky! Thanks! ;)

Speaking of which...

• is there any cooperation with Wikimedia Serbia when it comes to Kosovo? I know this might be tricky, but I think that we Wikimedians can serve as examples of how we show that more connects us than separates us :-)

Among neighbors, some of us have known Milosh from WMRS since 2009. We haven't worked on anything with Wikimedia Serbia recently but we are open. In Macedonia, we have good relations with Share Knowledge and especially Kiril who has been a great supporter.

• Concerning the photo contests, what is your goal? Documenting monuments that don't have pictures yet, recruiting new volunteers or something completely different?

Filling the gaps of monuments missing photos or getting betters versions when they are not good enough.

Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 21:21, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Question about equipment (laptops)

Pëshëndetje dhe mirësevini :)

Hi @Wolliff (WMF): Mirë se ju gjejmë. :)

We noticed you budgeted funding for the purchase of eight used laptops to help out at your edit-a-thons. A purchase of so many laptops is a bit unusual in our context, but we recognize that you have identified this need based on your challenges doing events. We also see that you have been frugal in your request because you know that you need many laptops, and we appreciate that.

Thanks!

Since you are an informal user group, we wanted to know more about your plans to be stewards of this equipment.

• How do you plan to acquire this equipment? Who will be responsible for acquiring the equipment?

They will be bought from one of the shops offering used laptops in Prishtina. Sponsoring organization is FLOSSK.

• How will this equipment be stored and secured when it is not in use? Who will be responsible for the equipment?

They will be stored at Prishtina Hackerspace, which will be used as a staging base for our activities. Person responsible will be the project manager we are working on hiring. If no person is hired, any of the trusted User Group members will be responsible when laptops are in use outside the hackerspace.

• How will you track where this equipment is at all times?

We will use a wiki to book laptops whenever they leave the hackerspace.

• How will you decide when it is used, and ensure it is available to the community?

Activities in the annual plan will have priority. Any requests outside of this will have to be approved by the UG.

• What policies will your group put in place around keeping and using your equipment?

Policy is as per the answer above. We will put this in writing.

Many thanks! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 16:59, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Faleminderit! This all sounds like a good plan. Can you link to the policy here once you put in writing, please? Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 20:35, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

We'll do. --Arianit (talk) 17:12, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi @Wolliff (WMF): we just got the laptops. Equipment use policy is in our UG meta page. --Arianit (talk) 15:05, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Clarifications about your budget and revenue plan

Pëshëndetje përsëri! We have added some comments to your budget document, where clarifications about specific items are needed.

In general, this budget is a bit confusing because it seems to mix line items (=the things you are asking money for) and projects (=the purpose of the things you are asking money for). In the future we can find a better way of organizing this. For now, we can just work on getting enough clarity to get the budget in shape for approval :)

Let me know if you have any questions about what we've requested in the comments.

Finally... are you expecting funding from another source for your staff person? This seems to be hinted at where you say that you are requesting office rent for an employee that may be supported from elsewhere? If so, including this information will only strengthen your application. Also, because this is a grant for operating support we do need details about your full plan and budget, and not only the parts that are funded by WMF.

Tung, Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 17:04, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Budget questions addressed in GSheets. Sorry about the confusion. I though I was working off some accepted examples. Potential employee to be supported by Ipko Foundation. I already mentioned this to Morgan. We have agreed in principle about this funding with Ipko Foundation. Cost of this person has been added to the budget including co-working at Prishtina Hackerspace. We don't expect other expenses or funding sources. Arianit (talk) 18:58, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for adding this information to the budget. I just had a chat with the Ipko Foundation today to learn more about the type of support they are offering (because she reached out to me). The fact that you have another funder who believes so strongly in your work is definitely something that you shouldn't hide as part of the application process, as it only strengthens your application overall :) Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 20:34, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

OK, good. It was a developing story at the time, I didn't want to promise anything yet. --Arianit (talk) 17:12, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Answers from WoALUG

Hi, @Shangkuanlc, Siarus1074, Philip Kopetzky, and Wolliff (WMF): thank you for your questions. We were not monitoring the discussion page, hence the delay in getting back.

We did our best to answer them, if not, please feel free to get back. Since some questions were similar, see please also our responses to your colleagues.

Cheers!--Arianit (talk) 15:10, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanations, Arianit, they are very helpful :-) Philip Kopetzky (talk) 20:49, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Likewise, thank you Arianit. The reply helps me to understand your context. Don't feel little by how unstructured or pilot your education programs currently are, I think a report of an editathon from Albanian speaking area is interesting for me to read and we all learn by more documentation and reflection. Bon courage! --Liang(WMTW) (talk) 00:18, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Simple APG committee recommendations

Committee recommendations

Funding recommendations: Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group is a new applicant to Simple APG and is requesting 5,460 EUR for 6 months. We recommend funding the Albanian Language User Group in the amount of 5,460 EUR + a 10% contingency to address unforeseen risks and opportunities, or a total of 6,000 EUR for 6 months. WALUG has presented a good plan with ambitious targets for participation and number of pages created and improved. They have experience in the area of “Open activities and outreach”, where they have achieved success in the past, especially in the area of photo competitions. It is less clear from reading this proposal and looking at their past reports, that they have the experience necessary to achieve their goals in the areas of education and GLAM. We especially think that doing cross-border GLAM work could be a major challenge. Despite these challenges, we look forward to learning how WALUG performs in these areas. We wish that WALUG had a stronger emphasis on diversity in their current plan. We know from reading reports about their past work, that they have had a number of successful gender gap activities in the past, including wikiwomendays and a diversity edit-a-thon in Tirana (which is featured in a picture in this proposal). While this is not emphasized in the written plan, we hope WALUG continues this work and also develops metrics to show their impact in this area. As a small group, WALUG can develop their capacity in many areas in the next year. Hiring staff will be a big challenge, and we are glad to know they have support from their other funder to do this well. WALUG can improve their ability to create budgets with line item detail in the future, and can deepen their approach to evaluation as their program work develops more. We greatly appreciate WALUG’s success in securing significant support from the Ipko Foundation in the past, which may include funds for a part-time staff person dedicated to Wikimedia work in the future, and also capacity-building support to help the organization set up this position and conduct a search. We appreciate the integration of WALUG with the broader free knowledge movement in Kosovo, and see there are important synergies here. We also appreciate how WALUG is mobilizing leadership across borders, in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia. This may bring many advantages to their work, but will no doubt be a challenging model is many ways. The idea of a language-themed user group that operates across borders is somewhat untested in our movement. We urge WALUG to share experiences, as well as document what worked and why, and what did not work as good as they expected, so other movement organizations may learn from the experience. We have questions about how WALUG will be able to navigate the complexities of running a cross-border organization. For example, WALUG is not able to redistribute APG grant funds across borders (although they may pay direct expenses in other countries). This may prove difficult as they are doing work outside of Kosovo, and doing work outside of Kosovo is explicitly included in their scope. We urge WALUG to develop and maintain good relationships with other groups of volunteers in the region who are working in areas with Albanian speakers, including other active groups in Albania and Macedonia. Given that scopes are sometimes overlapping, especially as thematic, language-focused, and geographic groups work together, building a network of organisations will be essential to achieving the most impact possible in this region. As WALUG takes responsibility for more funding as a movement entity, their responsibility as a leader in this region will also grow, especially if they choose to bring on staff. WALUG is fiscally sponsored by Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova (FLOSSK), and their work and parts of their communities are closely related. WALUG has the option to continue to develop as a separate entity, or to develop as a program of FLOSSK. In the long term, it is not clear that there will be more benefits to creating a separate organization since it seems like integration with and incubation within FLOSSK may provide good benefits to WALUG. We do understand that WALUG’s scope extends beyond work in Kosovo and that the group is seeking to empower leadership in other countries, which may make this more complicated to navigate.

Strengths identified by the committee: See recommendations above.

Concerns identified by the committee: See recommendations above.

On behalf of the committee. Philip Kopetzky (talk) 08:36, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Noted, thanks! --Arianit (talk) 11:34, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

WMF decision

Approved. 6,000 EUR for 6 months (5,460 EUR + a 10% contingency). Congratulations! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:41, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Looking forward to implementation. On behalf of WoALUG --Arianit (talk) 08:32, 28 May 2018 (UTC)