Grants:Project/AfLIA/Wikipedia in African Libraries/Midpoint

This project is funded by a Project Grant

Report accepted

This midpoint report for a Project Grant approved in FY 2019-20 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/AfLIA/Wikipedia in African Libraries.
You may still review or add to the discussion about this report on its talk page.
You are welcome to email projectgrantswikimedia.org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Welcome to this project's midpoint report! This report shares progress and learning from the grantee's first 3 months.

Summary

The OCLC curriculum was adapted by the Wikipedian in Residence and Curriculum Development Consultant to fit the African context and be accessible to African librarians with due consideration to their identified digital skills level and connectivity challenges in the continent. A pre-training research had been carried out in African library communities. Major findings include that librarians have intermediate level of digital skills, a large number were exposed to how Wikipedia works during the first African Librarians Week and many of them had no knowledge about Wikimedia communities in their different countries. The adapted curriculum was tested by twenty seven(27) librarians. Five hundred and fourteen(514) librarians registered for Cohort 1 of the Wikipedia in African Libraries course. Wide publicity was given to the project to enable a buy-in by librarians.

Methods and activities

Planning Committee

To achieve the objectives of the project, a steering/planning committee was set up as the first step. The Committee worked out the timelines for the project, communication plan, job specification for the Wikipedian in Residence(WiR), tasks of the translators and the role volunteers can play. In doing this, the need for a curriculum development consultant became obvious. This was promptly addressed and configured into the project. The Committee has been meeting fortnightly with the Wikimedia advisors to review steps taken and advise on possible pathways for positive outcomes.

Pre-training research

A pre-training research was carried out to ascertain the digital skills level of African librarians, their understanding of how Wikipedia works, if there were prejudices about Wikipedia that needed to be addressed within the training, knowledge of Wikimedia communities in their different countries and their capacity/experience/preferences for taking online courses as well as the likelihood of their participation in the online course for Wikipedia in African libraries. This was necessary as the assignments in the OCLC Curriculum indicated that American librarians were quite adept at the use of technology for certain library services. There was need to establish if African librarians operate with the same dexterity in online spaces. Furthermore, it was important to find out if African librarians habour biases about the use of Wikipedia in their libraries. The findings were analyzed and were useful for adapting the curriculum in terms of resources, and design of assignments and live-sessions.

https://web.aflia.net/invitation-to-complete-pre-research-survey-wikiaflibs-survey/

Distribution of respondents (Country, language, gender and age range)
S/N	Total number of responses	Country of respondents	Language of respondents	Gender	Age Range
1	538	Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cote D'Ivoire, Egypt, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe	English (80.86%), French (12.27%), Portuguese (6.87%)	Female (54.66%), Male (45.34%)	20-30yrs (13.77%), 31-40yrs (37.25%), 41-50yrs (30.36yrs), Above 50yrs (18.65%)

The complete report, alongside with other the training materials of the project will be published at the end of the project.

Pilot testing of adapted OCLC curriculum

The advert for participants for the pilot Cohort opened on 3rd November, 2020. The pilot test was conducted over a period of five (5) weeks (16th November – 20th December, 2020) and was delivered online with live sessions via Zoom and the Moodle platform. Zoom catered for the live sessions while offline work and submission of assignments were through the Moodle platform. The live sessions consisted of 2 hour presentations conducted by the WiR and at least 3 experienced Wikimedians who are also active librarians on the African continent. They were also supplemented with Mentimeter as a tool to foster interactive feedback.

Learning resources such as guides and slides were uploaded on the Moodle platform to be downloaded and referred to by participants in the intervals between live sessions. Communication with the participants was through a dedicated WhatsApp group, email and announcements via the Moodle platform. Activities and reports during this time are listed on the project’s meta page as well as the GLAM monthly newsletter. Sixty(60) participants were registered but only twenty-seven (27)completed the course.

Publicity

Creating awareness about the project was deemed important in order to get a buy-in from librarians. The posts of the WiR and CDC were advertised and publicized through the mailing list developed for the project, on social media and the website of AfLIA. A Twitter Chat was held with the Wikipedian in Residence immediately she was appointed to create awareness. A hashtag '#WikiAfLibs' was coined to drive publicity and librarians were encouraged to use it in posts about the project on social media. Updates on the project were given through the Glam WIki newsletter. A Meta page was also created for the project.

Translation

The adapted curriculum and resources for the course were translated into French and Portuguese after amendments were made to the curriculum following lessons learned from the pilot testing.

Cohort 1

The call for participants for Cohort 1 of the course opened on 4th January, 2021. Five hundred and fourteen(514) librarians registered for Cohort 1. The opening session was held on 4th February, 2021. A dashboard was set up to track the contributions of the participants to Wikipedia and WikiCommons.

Midpoint outcomes

The following are the main midpoint outcomes;

Pre-training research

A research on the digital skills of African librarians, their perceptions about Wikipedia as an information resource, and their preferences about online training was carried out. The report on the findings can be found here- https://web.aflia.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/WIKIAfLIBS-PROJECT-PRE-RESEARCH-SURVEY-REPORT.pdf

Adaptation of the OCLC curriculum

A Wikipedian in Residence and a Curriculum Development consultant were hired and they successfully adapted the OCLC curriculum Wikipedia + Libraries: Better Together for African librarians by integrating the context, content and examples that Africans can identify with into the already existing framework while taking cognizance of connectivity challenges and level of digital skills of participants.

Pilot test of the adapted curriculum

The curriculum was tested by twenty seven (27) librarians from nine(9) African countries namely;


Username	Country represented
Lillianaletshabo	en:Botswana
Olgatime	en:Botswana
Nso-Infoprof	en:Cameroon
Aji Ramou	en:The Gambia
AbrewaAccraLady	en:Ghana
Ankudey Selorm	en:Ghana
SAgbley	en:Ghana
Mzili	en:Kenya
PMussy	en:Kenya
Clementine Nando	en:Namibia
Martin Hipangwa	en:Namibia
Nwarev	en:Nigeria
Olasoji2009	en:Nigeria
Olugold	en:Nigeria
Previct	en:Nigeria
Blosesd	en:South Africa
Susi Noll	en:South Africa
Afriklibrariescohot	en:Uganda
Jjunjujoel	en:Uganda
DeLilGwashoper	en:Zimbabwe
Machuve	en:Zimbabwe
Nettamsimanga	en:Zimbabwe
Rosenyama	en:Zimbabwe

Details can be accessed at Wikipedia_in_African_Libraries/Participants

Tracking of the pilot test

The training given to the 27 participants who tested the curriculum enabled them to make 1.23k edits in 151 articles, create 2 new articles, add 17,000 words, add 296 references and make 61 WikiCommons uploads. These figures indicate that the adapted curriculum is useful for teaching African librarians about use of Wikipedia. https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/AfLIA/Wikipedia_in_African_Libraries_-_Pilot_Cohort_(November_-_December_2020)

Translation of the adapted curriculum and training materials

The adapted curriculum and training materials for Wikipedia in African libraries was translated into French and Portuguese.

Call for Cohort 1

A call was made for admission into Cohort 1 of Wikipedia in African Libraries course.

Registrants for Cohort 1
S/N	Country	Number of Registrants
1	Algeria	4
2	Benin Republic	18
3	Botswana	26
4	Burkina Faso	1
5	Burundi	3
6	Cameroon	5
7	Central African Republic	1
8	Democratic Republic of Congo	3
9	Cote DÍvoire	19
10	Eswatini	1
11	Egypt	20
12	Ethiopia	1
13	Gabon	3
14	Gambia	2
15	Ghana	65
16	Kenya	71
17	Lesotho	2
18	Morocco	2
19	Namibia	27
20	Nigeria	100
21	Rwanda	1
22	Somali	2
23	South Africa	15
24	Sudan	5
25	Tanzania	26
26	Togo	1
27	Tunisia	5
28	Uganda	56
29	Zambia	8
30	Zimbabwe	16

Finances

The funds have been spent according to plan so far. No budget changes or major expenditures are anticipated for the second half of the project. Funds for activities up to the end of the project are already budgeted for.

Learning

It's been a learning experience as the adapted curriculum is used to train librarians on how Wikipedia works, how they can contribute to the resource, how they can use it in providing information services and building connections with their local Wikimedia communities.

What are the challenges

There were clear challenges noticed during pilot test of the adapted curriculum;

Language barrier (at least 3 librarians from East Africa privately complained that they were not able to progress further because the pilot was in English and they were used to Swahili though they only mentioned this at the end).
The manner of submissions indicate a lack of familiarity with both the Moodle platform and Wikipedia interface. For example, some participants typed out their assignments on their user pages and the next part on their talk pages.
At least 60+ individuals signed up for the course but we had at most 27 active students.The completion rate was below 50%
Low attendance of online sessions (average 12-15 attendees).
Familiarity caused by having participated in the first African librarians Week may have resulted in some neglecting the fundamentals of editing such as creating and populating the user page as well as adding citations.
At least 5 participants had their user accounts banned from the time of the African Librarians Week with the common misdemeanor of copyright violation/infringement/submitting original research. The work around was to have them create new accounts but activity on talk pages of the current accounts indicates that the problem persists.
Participants signing up on the dashboard twice and editing under multiple accounts hence distorting the results/statistics.

Going forward

The following are the lessons we learned from the pilot test;

It is important to admit more participants than planned for online courses as many are likely to drop off along the way. This led to registering more than 500 librarians for Cohort 1 though only 150-200 were needed.
More participants will do their assignments if they clearly understand what is expected of them. Also, assignments need to be crafted in such a way that they can be automatically assessed with scores provided soonest instead of manual marking. This observation led to reworking of the assignments in the adapted curriculum.
Inadequate or assumed digital skills can make participants drop off from an online training course. Teaching how to navigate the Moodle platform and Wikipedia is important.
People are more likely to abandon an online course than to complete it especially if the demands on their time is excessive. This led to re-configuring of the curriculum to ensure that only the necessities were taught without bells and whistles.
Participants find it hard to cope with long online sessions as unstable Internet connectivity is always a given. Live sessions were pruned down to a once-a-week 45minutes teaching and 15minutes participants' engagement with the resource persons. Office hours (once a week)were instituted for those who had questions or difficulties in understanding the assignments, training resources or live sessions.
Getting participants to 'own' a program by identifying with it in community circles and/or social media platforms increases the completion rate. Participants were encouraged to share what they are learning in the course on social media platforms. WhatsApp groups were also created for the participants to network among themselves and discuss the course outside of the learning platform

What is working well

There were situations that favored the pilot test

Usage of AfLIA’s network and country champions to locate some of the participants that had delayed in starting the course.
The use of experienced Wikipedians who are also practicing librarians as presenters made the content relevant and easily relatable to.
The digital skills level of participants who could follow and were responsive to instructions and messages on the Moodle platform.
Use of WhatsApp to expand communication channels and engagement with participants

Details of what worked well are in the Learning pattern below.

Completing online training courses [[1]]

Next steps and opportunities

The next steps and opportunities within the project include;

More thorough orientation for the Moodle platform for easy navigation by participants in the course
Resolution of basics such as making creation of a user account and signing up on the course dashboard a requirement at the time of signing-up for the course.
A further modification in the content for example - more illustrations, more practical and engaging assignments as well as supplementary resources such as instructional videos that the participants can view when it is possible for them.
Clearly specifying course completion requirements
Incorporate more time for feedback and engagement during live sessions

Grantee reflection

Mobilizing professionals to believe in a cause can go smoothly when there is adequate publicity and understanding of what is at stake. Librarians had formerly seen themselves as mere gatekeepers to information that provide access to information resources for different purposes. However, times are changing and this project is providing a great opportunity for African librarians to learn how to create and evaluate information about their communities for global consumption. The enthusiasm and willingness of librarians to learn about Wikipedia is one thing that has thrilled me, immensely.