Public outreach/Academy/IRC meeting notes

May 21, 2009

"Science" Academy IRC Meeting Notes 11:00am - 12:30pm PST

Agenda

Operational Questions

How much "hands on" training do we want to give scientists?
Can the workshop be longer than a single day? For example, could we cover some material Wednesday night or Friday morning?
What is the concept behind the three afternoon sessions? Will they cover the same material, or different? If the latter, how will the materials differ?
Is a separate WikiProject for the scientists the best approach?
What do we need to prepare before the event to ensure the relationship is sustainable?
Discussion of the online survey to be conducted among the scientists

Academy Project Team IRC Meeting Notes 11:00am - 12:27pm PST

Results

New page on meta to be created: collecting and priorizing questions for next week's IRC meeting (when the representant of our partner will join us)
The team will prepare support materials aimed at enabling the scientists to create a user account in the run-up of the event
Indicators for goals success:

Increase understanding: Number of speakers who will mark that they have an increased level of understanding based on our Academy (survey after the event): 75%+; the scientists feel inspired to pass on what we've taught them
Encourage participation: Percentage of participants who will be involved after 3 mo, 6mo year: 10% or less (will be an exponential decay, maybe 50 for a few edits, 20 for a lot and 5 for long-term editors)

The scientists shall be encouraged to join an existing WikiProject (e.g. WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology)
To prevent a drop-off some months after the event, the team will

Commitments

Group: Improve the survey / continue the discussion on the mailinglist
Group: Improve the schedule for the morning sessions according to the needs of the speakers
Group: Add to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Proteins/Scientist_questions
Bill/John/Tim: Post outlines for individual presentations on meta wiki
Lennart: Write a script for the welcome/how to get a user account-screencast/video and make it accessible on meta
Frank: Assist Lennart in creating the video script
Frank: Ask the Foundation's tech team to find a solution for the "6 account creation limit per day per IP" problem
~~Frank: Start a page on meta for collecting and priorizing questions to be asked next week~~ Done. --Frank Schulenburg 00:11, 29 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Jennifer: Follow-up w/ Jay on bookmarks / coffee mugs

Academy Project Team IRC Meeting Notes 11:03am - 12:04pm PST

Results

In order to achieve sustainability a number of activities was considered: Public outreach/Academy/Sustainability
A "welcome page" on the English Wikipedia will be created. The page shall
- invite the scientists to contribute to Wikipedia
- provide answers to the most common questions scientists have when beginning to edit:
  - What are the areas where help is needed?
  - What can I do quickly and without much effort?
  - What is my benefit if I start editing? (see Bill's talk, section "Why you might want to contribute")
- help the scientists to get in contact with existing users in their field of expertise (experienced Wikipedians shall act as intermediates)
- provide quantitative data showing that the scientist's participation is fulfilling their mission
A mentoring system for new users in the field of health and medicine shall be started
In order to involve more volunteers
- an announcement shall be made in the Wikipedia Signpost
- existing editors shall be asked for help on the existing WikiProject's talk pages
- editors who have volunteered to do mentoring shall be contacted
Discussion to be continued next week ("same Bat time same Bat station next week")

Commitments