As I wrote in my previous email, I get the impression that this program was relatively expensive compared to the number of content contributors (who in this case are academics). I am keeping in mind that this was a pilot, and that initial planning and the first iteration for many programs like this require some one-time expenses and some debugging. My guess is that for future rounds WikiEd can make the program be more efficient, and that this will be a work in progress. This program is not without financial costs, both for the pilot and for future rounds. I return to the questions that I asked LiAnna in my previous email: who funded WikiEd's expenses for this project, and what thoughts does WikiEd have regarding how the project can be scaled up in a way that is more efficient in terms of cost per participant? I am hoping that WikiEd has a reliable funding source for the next round, and that WikiEd is currently planning how to increase the cost-effectiveness. Stepping back to consider the larger problem of too few knowledgable volunteers supporting too many novices throughout the wikiverse, I get the impression that WMF is spending increasing amounts of money on training and one-on-one help for technical and content contributors, both by directly funding WMF employees and by providing funds to grantees. I anticipate that the trend will continue, and I am anxious to see it be effective in increasing content contributor longevity, content quality, content quantity, diversity of contributors, and measues of community health. I am glad to see WikiEd working in this domain with academics, and I would like for this program to be successful, financially sustainable, and cost-effective in the medium to long term.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) -------- Original message --------From: James Salsman <[email protected]> Date: 5/23/18 7:07 PM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Education <[email protected]>, Pine W <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Education] Evaluation report on Wikipedia Fellows pilot Pine, why would you be concerned about the cost-effectiveness or sustainability. This program looks great to me, except for the mismatch between needs and recruiting. On that point, there is an alternative to http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/files/2015/09/figure-1-wikipedia-open-access1.jpg (Beyond expanding it from the sciences to the humanities and ranking it by the damage quality issues do to society for each topic.) Which is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7cHxlGgEt4&t=46m Math is the most valuable topic for donations. I'm interested in suggesting improvements to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frobenius_manifold On Wed, May 23, 2018 at 6:59 PM, Pine W <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi LiAnna, > > Thank you for this report. Increasing the number of good-faith contributors > to Wikipedia is always nice to see. I believe that at least a few people in > WMF, the affiliates, and the long-term volunteer population have been > interested for many years in increasing the number of academics who > contribute to Wikipedia. > > The program sounds like it was relatively labor intensive on the part of > WikiEd, and the number of academic participants was small. Who funded > WikiEd's expenses for this project, and what thoughts does WikiEd have > regarding how the project can be scaled up in a way that is more efficient in > terms of cost per participant? > > I would like to see this project scale up, but I am concerned about its > cost-effectiveness and financial sustainability. > > As you probably know, I am continuing my development of training materials, > primarily videos, for new Wikimedians, although the audience that I have in > mind is more typical of ENWP's volunteer population instead of being focused > on the specific interests and mindsets of academic contributors. > > Regards, > Pine > ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) > -------- Original message --------From: LiAnna Davis <[email protected]> > Date: 5/22/18 9:51 AM (GMT-08:00) To: Wikimedia Education > <[email protected]> Subject: [Wikimedia Education] Evaluation > report on Wikipedia Fellows pilot > Greetings, all! > > At the beginning of 2018, the Wiki Education Foundation ran a 3-month pilot > to engage academic experts (mostly professors at universities in the U.S.) > to improve English Wikipedia articles related to their areas of expertise. > We're pretty happy with how the pilot turned out -- we had some great > improvements to articles, and, more importantly for a pilot, we learned a > *lot* about how to run a program like this successfully. > > The team that worked on it put together this extensive evaluation report on > what we did, what we learned, and what the outcomes were from the pilot: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation/Wikipedia_Fellows_pilot_evaluation > > I also put together a short blog post about it: > https://wikiedu.org/blog/2018/05/22/wiki-education-publishes-evaluation-of-fellows-pilot/ > > We already have calls for applications out for additional cohorts to begin > in June, and we're eager to learn even more from future iterations of the > Wikipedia Fellows program. I hope sharing our learnings like this can be > helpful for other education programs in the Wikimedia movement who might > also be interested in engaging subject matter experts to edit. > > We're happy to answer questions on this list or on the talk page of the > evaluation report on Meta. > > LiAnna > > > -- > LiAnna Davis > Director of Programs; Deputy Director > Wiki Education > www.wikiedu.org > _______________________________________________ > Education mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education > _______________________________________________ > Education mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education _______________________________________________ Education mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
