Grants:Conference/BWUG/Wikipedia+Education Conference 2019 Donostia

statusfunded
BWUG/Wikimedia+Education Conference 2019
Wikimedia and Education are two sides of the same idea. Currently there are wikimedians working to provide education resources all over the world, and educators using Wikimedia on their daily work. We want to discuss this kind of projects, learn from each other and create strong ties between Wikimedia and Education with this first thematic conference.
targetEveryone working on Wiki+Edu
strategic priorityIncreasing reach and participation
event dates5-7 April 2019
amount-local55.000€
amount67.980$
typeUser Group
nonprofitYes
creatorEdagit
contact• hezkuntza(_AT_)wikimedia.eus / edurne_agirre@hotmail.com
organization• Basque Wikimedians User Group

Event overview

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Purpose and vision

Please give a brief description of the event you are planning. What do you hope to accomplish during the event? Why is this event important for your community?

As part of our three-year program with the Basque Government, we want to host a Conference on Education and Wikimedia, Wikimedia and Education, wikimedians and educators.

Hosting a Conference is about goals. There are different kinds of conferences, with this rough objectives:

  1. Movement creation and cohesion conferences: talking about the know-hows, sharing experiences, learning from others.
  2. Research sharing conferences: formal academia conferences, with communications, papers and researches sharing what they found.

We have another internal goal: we want to give our partners in the Basque Education Program the possibility to know other experiences and learn new paths for their commitment with EWKE and Wikimedia projects in general. International experiences are always giving richer perspectives and we think this will boost their future collaboration with us.

Important details

Please add key information to the table below. The dates, location and number of participants can be estimates and do not need to be finalized at this time.

Proposed date(s) April 5-7, 2019
Proposed location Donostia - Basque Country
Number of participants 90-100
Event page On Meta
Primary contact person Edurne Agirre and Galder Gonzalez

Background

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Community input

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Use the results from the community engagement survey to fill in the table below. Since you cannot cover all topics or meet all needs at one event, prioritisation is important. Please rank the priority of each topic, skill, project or problem as high, medium or low. Finally, please answer the questions below the table.

Description Priority
Strategic discussions:

What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?

1.Share knowledge and best practices (how to build "trust relationship" with new partners/teachers and how to improve trust in Wikipedia)

2.Know why few participants continue editing and find out how to get them to keep editing

3.How to evaluate the contributions and measure the quality

4.Secondary education (how to get to them and adapt the projects).

1.High

2.High

3.Medium

4.Medium

Capacity development:

Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?

1.Knowledge of the Wiki+Edu movement, team building and improving communication channels for the community (create a helpdesk).

2. Project management

3. Knowledge of the tools (dashboard)

4. Knowledge of existing indicators and creation of new standard quality indicators.

1.High

2.High

3.Medium

4.Medium

Working groups:

Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?

1.Program and event Dashboard

2.Better share of documentation and best practices - Communication channels

3.Quality evaluation

4.Txikipedia

5.OER (Open Educational Resources)

1.High

2.High

3.Medium

4.Low

5.Low

Community building:

Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?

1. Strategic conversations: discussing issues affecting your community that need to be resolved

2.Community building: meeting people, learning about new projects, sharing your talents, and having fun

3.Capacity building: learning skills that will help your community achieve its goals

4.Working groups: working on projects that are difficult to plan online

1.High

2.High

3.High

4.Medium

Survey analysis:

  1. How many people did you send the survey to? How many people responded to the survey?
    • The survey was sended to the BWUG members, WMF and WikiEducation team and users involved in education projects.
    • We've received 28 full responses
  2. Did you see consensus around shared goals that this community wants to focus on in the next 12 months? What were the top 2 goals?
    • There was broad agreement between the reactions of community members on the importance of focusing on community building and know-how. The main goal is the Wikipedia+Education community engagement, sharing experiences. The answers also highlight the importance of sharing and improving the know-how (how to convince and have strong connection with universities, how to get students to keep editing, quality of the projects, how to mantain relations with educators, etc.).
  3. Based on survey responses, what are the most important things your community should do at the conference to achieve those goals?
    • In accordance with the survey results there will be a strong emphasis at the conference on project presentations and panel discussions, as well as on thematic meetups. There was also a smaller support for Edit-a-thons and social style events.

Context

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It is helpful to get an understanding of why this event is important to your community, and what experiences you have had in the past. Please answer the applicable questions below.

1. What inspired your community to begin planning this event?
The Basque Wikimedians User Group (EWKE, in Basque language) is developing a three-year program with the Basque Government to make better contents for schoolchildren in our language with the help of the education community: University students are working on the enrichment of Wikipedia with their knowledge, University professors and lecturers are giving them assignments to work on and High School teachers and school institutions are working to detect what information gaps we have, what we can improve. It is not the first time this kind of programs are made in the Wikimedia Movement, but it’s a good example of collaboration between knowledge institutions, Governments and Wikimedians. We have a mature educational program in a small linguistic community with support from the local government, this allows making efforts to document and create models and templates and documents that can be reused by the rest of the global community.
Our education program inspired us to plan this event, seeing the need to enforce the WikiEducation community, sharing experiences and learning from others.
2. How does this event relate to other activities that your community is working on?
This event relates diretly to the educational program explained in the previous answer.
3. Please list the priorities identified in the report from the last conference organized by this community. What progress have you made in those areas?
The BWUG has never hosted a similar conference in the past.
4. If your community has hosted a similar conference in the past, what key lessons were learned, and what would you like to improve on?
The BWUG has never hosted a similar conference in the past.

Plan

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Venue and Logistics

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1. If the venue is more than 1 hour away from a major airport or transportation hub, how will participants travel to the event venue?
Donostia airport (EAS) is located only 20 kilometers from the city center and is mainly conected to Madrid and Barcelona. Donostia is also connected by two international airports within a one hour ride, Bilbao (BIO) and Biarritz (BIQ), both with good bus shuttle service. PESA is the bus company that conects Bilbao Airport with Donostia every hour, Lurraldebus conects the cty with Donostia airport and Biarritz Airport can be reached with different companies with less frequency.
See information about the city and transport in the Meta page of the event, here.
2. Is the event venue within walking distance from the hotel? If not, how will people travel between the two locations?
Donostia is a really small city, totally walkable. Besides, DBus company connects all points of the city with great frequency.
3. Is the event venue and hotel accessible for people with physical disabilities?
YES
4. Do you anticipate any challenges with using the space for the event you are planning?
NO

Friendly space policy

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Please link to the friendly space policy that your community will be using for this event.

Basque Wikimedians User Group - Friendly space policy

Participation

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It is crucial that most participants have a minimum level of Wikimedia experience so that they can engage actively in workshops and discussions. Please answer all applicable questions below.

1. Please describe the target audience for this conference or event.
  • International Wikimedians who are working on education and want to learn and share what they are doing and what they have learned on the process
  • Researchers who want a more formal approach with their colleagues and what wikis can boost on the learning process.
  • Local people involved in the Basque Education Program, teachers, researchers
2. If your conference has an outreach component, how will you ensure engagement with these participants after the conference, and what impact do you see them having on the projects?
Once the event is over, a new survey will be sent out with the intention of finding out the opinion and maintaining relations. In addition, the aim is to improve communication between Wikipedia and Education users, so that participants will have the opportunity to answer this question and actions proposed by this community will be carried out.
3. Are you thinking about inviting WMF staff to attend or participate in the event? If yes, please list individuals or teams who you may want to invite, or describe how you would like WMF staff to be involved in the event.
YES.
Katherine Maher for a keynote, Wiki Education Team from WMF (Nichole Saad and Vahid Masrour specially), Ben Vershbow, people from research team, etc. Depending on the needs of the program.

Scholarships

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1. How many scholarships would you like to offer?
Around 70 (50 international and 20 local).
2. What expenses will the scholarship cover?
There will be different types of scholarships, ranging from those covering travel, accommodation and entrance fees to those providing only a small grant to help reduce costs.
3. How will scholarship recipients be selected?
A team will be set up to deal with the issue of scholarships. This team will determine the number and type of scholarships that can be awarded once the grant is received. It will also be in charge of opening the process of applying for scholarships, establishing the criteria for obtaining them and granting them. In addition, this team will manage the scholarships awarded.

Resources and risks

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Describe the resource potential for successfully executing this project and the key risks/threats.

Resources

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Organizing team

In the absence of role setting within the user group, the organization team is made up as follows. More roles will be set soon and this team will be updated.

Team User Names
WMF Liaison Edagit and Theklan
Logistics Edagit and Aioramu
Conference Program Theklan
Scholarships Edagit
Communications Aioramu
Volunteer Coordinators Edagit
Other team members

Risks

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  • Skill gaps in project leadership and event management
  • Difficulty in managing the use of each language at the event - translation

How to minimize these risks:

  • Hire a person with expertise in event management
  • Working close with the WMF Team to control the project and the organization of the event
  • Recruiting volunteers with desired skills to project leadership team
  • Evaluation of the translation options and hold decision-making meetings within the team
  • Cooperation with the foundation

Budget

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Please provide a detailed breakdown of project expenses according to the instructions here. See Budget Guidelines.

Event budget table
CATEGORY DESCRIPTION UNIT COST WMF

Contribution

Location Venue 3 days +

Friday night event

1.500€

1.853$

Equipment 3 days 3.000€

3.708$

Human resources 3 days 2.000€

2.472$

Food Friday lunch 70 participants 1.000€

1.236$

Friday dinner 100 participants 2.000€

2.472$

Saturday lunch 100 participants 1.500€

1.853$

Saturday dinner 100 participants 4.000€

4.944$

Sunday lunch 100 participants 1.500€

1.853$

Coffe breaks 100 participants 4.000€

4.944$

Speakers Travel Flights 8.000€

9.888$

8.000€

9.888$

Accommodation 2 nights 2.500€

3.086$

2.500€

3.086$

Merchandise T-shirts, badges, notebooks, pens 100 participants 2.000€

2.472$

Personnel Organizer 6 months 25.000€

30.900$

Administration 6 months 20.000€

24.720$

Communication Promotion 2 months 4.000€

4.944$

Documentation 3 days 3.000€

3.708$

Scholarships

(international)

Flights Flights 36.000€

44.496$

36.000€

44.496$

Transport Airport 1.000€

1.236$

1.000€

1.236$

Accommodation 2 nights 7.500€

9.259$

7.500€

9.259$

Scholarships

(local)

Trasport+accomm.

(if any)

40 local people 1.000€

1.236$

TOTAL 130.500€

161.298$

55.000€

67.980$

Total cost of event
130.500€ / 161,298$
Total amount requested from the Conference and Event Grants program
55.000€ / 67.980$
Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this event, and amounts funded
Ticket sales. Rough estimate: 3.000€
Please confirm that you are aware that changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

YES

Discussion

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Endorsements

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  •   Strong support -- It can be one of the Great step to speed up Wikipedia Education Program in Wikimedia Movement. As it can be a great gathering for those Wikipedian who are Contributing in WEP. This kind of conference enrich the awareness and increase the community build up mentality among the participants.So certainly, best of luck to the organizing Team! Mohammed Galib Hasan (talk) 14:28, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Endorse - Very relevant and will benefit the Wikimedia and Education community. --Filipinayzd (talk) 14:24, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Strong support This will be a major event for the Education part of the Wikimedia movement. It will enable discussions around how it aligns with the strategic direction, and discuss the specific learning and needs that this sector of the Movement has to offer to the Movement's growth. There is also a lot to be learned from the large-scale and the public-funded project that is being carried out in the Basque Country. VMasrour (WMF) (talk) 14:29, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • There are so many large international opportunities related to education that these kinds of international meetings really benefit. John Cummings (talk) 15:39, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Strong support - I believe that anything we can do to support the work of Wikimedia and Education is worth doing. If we really believe Wikipedia (or Wikimedia in general) belongs in education, we need to support and provide opportunities for related practitioners to spend time sharing and building resources together. --- FULBERT (talk) 16:23, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Strong support. This conference proposal comes at the right moment. We had developed now in our communities years of programs and activities. We have worked with the Dashboard for aggregating data and easing activity report. We have now an increasing research literature on how our projects belong in education. An education-focused UG has been created. The experience of the community in the Basque Country is inspiring. There are much learning processes to be shared; there is a coordination strategy to be set up. This is a great opportunity for our movement. Edagit and Theklan, thanks for your hard work to put this up. This is awesome. --Joalpe (talk) 20:14, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Strong support. The Basque Wikipedia is engaged in a major education program with the University of the Basque Country, but extending its roots over its boundaries to other academic institutions, secondary education, and libraries. The program is now in full swing halfway to its completion, so other international programs will benefit from its learning and experiences, and reciprocally the Basque program will benefit from developments in other Wikipedia projects related to Education Outreach. Projects in like minority sociolinguistic environments as the Basque will be able to get and provide inspiration and operative capabilities from the conference. Iñaki LL (talk) 20:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Support. Good initiative. --Fabior1984 (talk) 10:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Support. We appreciate the initiative and hope it will be funded. --Papischou (talk) 10:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Strong support As an educator I strongly support this initiative. We always talk about the educational features of Wikipedia and now is time to focus our discussions and create tools and projects to enhance our work on education. --Sahaquiel9102 (talk) 16:54, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Support. Aitzolete (talk) 16:45, 5 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Support --Ibrahim Husain Meraj (talk) 10:03, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
  •   Strong support. It's really a good step for the Wikipedia Education Program. A conference really helps a lot to meet with lots of Wikipedian who actively work on several projects. All the best for organizing Team! NC Hasivetalk • 14:44, 16 September 2018 (UTC)
  • To develop this process Musawenkosi size (talk) 13:42, 15 August 2020 (UTC)