Talk:India Program/Education Program/Program Design

Feedback on draft (03DEC version)

1. I think WMF should put ANY En-Wiki India efforts on hold. We still don't really understand how to meaningfully drive ongoing participation or important content from US/UK/ANZAC...and there is a lot of opportunity for penetration of those easier, more appealing markets.

2. I realize that the initial PPI learning was that CAs who are "spokesmodels" (personable, able to give a presentation, yet Wiki-naive) do as well as Wiki-experienced...in the initial presentations. That is really not surprising. However, I seriously question the value of that. What is direly needed is the ongoing coaching and apprenticeship. What happens is a sort of turnover from CAs to OAs. And then the CAs are useless in terms of really the real meat of the work. I think having someone who is less glib or pretty for the initial presentations...but is a real big brother figure as the students work and learn...is way more valuable. Heck, once the profs have decided to do the Wiki thing, the class is already committed. I know there is a lot of buzz and enjoyment and feel good from the staff flying out and training CAs and the CAs being involved. I can just imagine the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed group! But I wonder at the end of the day, how important that is. I question the real impact of CAs at all. Would trade about 20 of them for one Malleus or Mike Christie.

TCO 17:01, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Recruiting Campus Ambassadors

Hi, here in Brazil I'm struggling with my mind how am I going to recruit Campus Ambassadors (CA). I believe this is the most difficult challenge here, even more than finding professors willing to participate, and they seem to be essential to the success of a class. I'm thinking about using similar techniques you are planning (in-class announcements, mailing lists, village pump, and, addtionally, inviting individually potential members - (a) how will I find them?). I was told about a lot of volunteers who have appeared in India when invited to a meeting with WMF staff, which was quit different than in Brazil, where we have, at most, around 15 people during the last meeting in São Paulo. It seems here we have the challenge to bring people out of the screen and also, according to this recommendation, we should have a mix of on and off CAs.

Our classes will start here at the end of February (after carnival), so I believe we have to have CAs recruited before 10th (at most 15th) of February, so that we can organize the training for all of them in 15 days. I want to ask:

1. How many campus ambassadors have applied there and what fraction of them were choosen as a CA?
2. How was the selection process? What would you change after your first experience?
3. How much time in advance have you had to publicize you were recruiting CAs before the selection process?
4. What fraction of the candidates were on and off CAs?
5. What fraction of them had already experience in editing Wikipedia? Were most of the classes with CAs already with a CAs with experience in editing Wikipedia?
6. May you give me an idea how difficult was to train CAs without prior Wikipedia experience?
7. Were there many cases where CAs have left the professor alone? What have you done in such cases?
8. What fraction of the classes do you consider it was a success? May you give me such links?

Sorry for so many questions, but those are some which come to my mind. I'm afraid here in Brazil it will be very difficult to find CAs with prior experience in editing Wikipedia which can go to the classes, so I'm very concerned about training students of the university campus. I hope to talk about some of this questions and others soon! --Tom 03:05, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I've just seen this rich talk page now! --Tom 17:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)