Learning and Evaluation/Newsletter/2015/2/6/da
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Learning together: Milestones
Important findings, looking back on the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2015-2016
For the first time since the Learning Pattern Library was created, more LPs are created by community members than Wikimedia Foundation staff. What other numbers tell the story?
September marked the end of another quarter and all the teams completed their quarterly reviews piloting new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The L&E team introduced indicators related to resource use and engagement. As you can review in the published report, we are now reporting performance in terms of our portal resource pageviews, editors, and pages created (including the Learning Patterns Library), as well as the number of community leaders engaging with our team. Seen in this quarter’s review,we reached a tipping point in Learning Patterns. The number of patterns created directly by community members has grown beyond the number of patterns facilitated by our team. Thanks to all who have been sharing their learning!
As we enter the next quarter, we want to better understand how we are learning together and better sharing these resources across the movement. If you have questions or comments, or ideas on how to improve this curation, reach out to us!
Mere info:
Review the slides share during Quarter 1 review presentations.
and help expand learning patterns!
New releases on Photo Events and Editathons
Toolkit, evaluation report, learning circle and more!
Editathons
After the release of the editathons evaluation report, we created a short video that shares the key findings in under 4 minutes. This new format aims to facilitate the communication of such dense information. On September 29, after having an open call for panelists, we also held a learning circle with Iván Martínez (Spanish Wikipedia), Greta Doçi (Albanian Wikipedia) and Nikola Kalchev (Bulgarian Wikipedia), who shared their experience hosting diverse types of editathons.
More info:
editathons evaluation report and short video on Youtube (3' 15").
Learning Circle on editathons (1 hr) and slides shared
We have launched a new guide on how to implement a Wikimedia program: Photo Contests and Events toolkit is now live! This is a work in progress, and we look forward to community members actively contributing to what is outlined in the toolkit. Some of the gaps are in the Plan subpage, on How to choose the best program for your community, and planning award ceremonies and follow up events. On the Run tab, there is a gap on how to help photographers improve their skills. Beyond these, all sections can be expanded and edited, and we look forward to community members contributing what they know!
Explore (and contribute to) this step-by-step guide to run your first event, find ideas to remix popular photo competitions, and locate useful bots and templates to make the most out of your photo event. The new toolkit has an improved design, optimized for mobile, that also shares learning patterns with less clicks involved. Find experienced program leaders on the Connect tab, and create a profile to offer your expertise to others. We want to thank all the community members who offered their knowledge to create this new toolkit, and we look forward to have this tool expanded by wikimedians all over the world.
More info:
Stay tuned
blogs, events & more!
Read our blogposts
Every month, we share knowledge with a focus on programs, process or tools on Wikimedia Foundation's blog.
Find all our entries on the Wikimedia blog
Featured blog posts:
In the new blog series What I Learned, we will share a story a month that stems from the implementation and practice of Wikimedia programs in communities all over the world. In this first delivery, we review one lesson shared by Wikimedia Argentina in their latest report, that serves to describe the work done through their education program.
Participation from over 200 community members in the Reimagining WMF grants consultation led to planned changes to WMF’s grants programs illustrated by the above graphic. Image by Chris Schilling, freely licensed under CC-by-SA 4.0 Last month, the Wikimedia Community Resources team offered an idea for restructuring the WMF’s grant programs.
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October 9 - 11: WikiConference USA 2015. Revisit L&E Workshops on Creative Program Design and Community Health
October 28: Financial statements due for APGs
October 30: APG 2015 - 2016 Round 1 - Community review ends.
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November 2 - 13: Survey on harassment.
November 2: Committee review of Individual Engagement Grants ends.
November 16: Harassment consultation begins.
November 20 - 22: WikiSource Conference
November 21: FDC Deliberations.
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December 1:
- FDC Recommendations
- Individual Engagement Grants announced
Grow the awesome
A program in the spotlight.
Will university students edit in their free time?
The Wiki Education Foundation worked with six student groups, training students on how to contribute illustrations and text to Wikipedia articles. Two groups engaged in a group field trip and editing project. We found that some students can and will make high-quality contributions when working as part of a student group outside of class hours, but that while some students seemed to embrace Wikipedia, the majority of students showed enthusiasm only when staff was around. After the workshops, the majority of student editors stopped editing. In general, a few students contributed really great content. The rest of the students only edited at the workshop and under staff’s direct supervision.
It seems that the best student edits come when students have incentives – with either a grade or a field trip. We think that involving honor societies and academic associations who have sanctioned Wikipedia editing for students and instructors as part of their community service requirements has the potential to lead to quality student contributions in the future. Our major learning from this term is that with an incentive (a grade, a field trip, a push from their national honor society, or a visit from a Wiki Ed staff member), students will contribute content in their spare time. But without these incentives, students are unlikely to contribute content in their extracurricular time.
Further reading:
Student groups and WIkipedia (blog post summary of final report)
Details from University of Arizona's GeoClubs field trip
IdeaLab is a space where wikimedians all over the world share their inspiration with others.
Share your documentation of projects and best practices for Wikimedia programs and partnerships from any location on the web. Simply add the resource and share category labels to help people find it! Thanks to John Cummings and Hay Kranen for bringing this idea into production!
Implementation of existing site policies on non-harassment and incivility toward women and gender minorities requires a way to systematically monitor and compile the community's gender-related concerns. This idea seeks to create a tool which makes it easy to report gender-related concerns and compile data, while maintaining necessary confidentiality.
Join the IdeaLab community. You can help develop ideas in many ways: with technical skills, translating, networking and more.
Learn from your programs
The Program Evaluation & Design portal has tools to learn about your activities and measure their success.
The Learning Pattern Library is a hub to share learning around certain challenges that are common across Wikimedia programs and projects. Featured Learning Patterns in this issue:
Collaborations between GLAM volunteers, GLAM institutions and Wikimedia Deutschland are diverse and very flexible – which is exactly what makes them so exciting for all involved. This Learning Pattern provides a “checklist” with tips on what to watch out for and what to avoid when beginning to form a partnership with a GLAM institution.
Many wiki communities do not have formal organizations, and do not have designated spokespersons, who are professional, or at least experienced, in communicating with media. Until the volunteers get some personal experience in interacting with media, they may benefit from knowing what are the *evergreen* questions, journalists love to ask.
The PE&D team also hosts virtual meet-ups to launch new tools or share experience in using them.
Share what you know with the PE&D Community.