Grants:Project/Rapid/Mt. SAC’s ART + FEMINISM Wikipedia Spring Event Series
mtsac.edu• Ellen Caldwell, Professor of Art History, ecaldwell1mtsac.edu• Adrienne Price, Grants Office Director, apricemtsac.eduProject Goals
editRecruit new editors
editThis project will increase editors on our college campus and contextualize the importance of Wikipedia. We will outreach to potential new editors through partnerships with campus student-centered programs such as the PRIDE Center, Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA), and the “Womxn’s Empowermeant” Initiative (a recent initiative started to support and empower womxn-identified students). Campus partners plan to attend our lecture panels, training events, and edit-a-thons. Additionally, we are working with faculty who have not participated in the Edit-a-thon before. Project leaders (Ellen Caldwell and Eva Rios-Alvarado) see this as an opportunity to bring in new faculty and their students from the disciplines of Art History and Library Research classes into the events, guaranteeing a cohort of new student editors. Classes will contextualize assignments, engaging students to be part of the edit-a-thons and pre-events, in addition to implementing curriculum that has built-in lessons about editing Wikipedia, learning about citations, and exploring the importance of the Art+Feminism campaign.
Add or improve content under the Art + Feminism global campaign
editStudents will be guided by faculty through the Mt. San Antonio College Art+Feminism Wikipedia Spring Event Series.
- Guest speaker panels will contextualize why we edit Wikipedia under the campaign of Art+Feminism.
- Courses will assign college-level curriculum about Wikipedia and information literacy. Lessons will include learning activities about how to edit, why to edit, and how to do library research to support edits with accurate evidence.
- Lastly, the series will have two edit-a-thons, offering flexibility to classes teaching at different times of the spring 2021 semester. Culminating edit-a-thons will summarize and frame all coursework and series activities.
Our assignments aim to embolden students to use their scholarly research to create or edit biographical articles on or about significant womxn, nonbinary, trans, and LGBTQIA+ artists, or the role of gender in art. In this act of solidarity and generosity, students contribute to a more inclusive, and arguably richer, discourse—whether in class, online, or in their everyday lives, by recognizing womxn, nonbinary, and trans artists not as minor players, but rather as essential agents in the history of art.
We hope to teach students research skills that they can use and share with the world in real time through this global endeavor. We aim to recruit students to the community of regular Wikipedia editors. As the study of a 2011 Wikipedia Editors Survey revealed, less than 13% of Wikipedia editors are women. And as of 2018, only 17.49% of biographies are of women. Wikipedia needs editors to add their voice, experience, intellect, and integrity to this important source of shared knowledge. Through research skills that are taught and reinforced by our team of librarians and art history faculty, students learn to bolster the works and biographies of people who are often overlooked and undervalued on Wikipedia (one of the most widely used sources in the world).
Increase skills for existing editors
editOur pool of editors continues to expand, allowing for mentorship, support, and growth. Existing editors are currently faculty who are applying for this grant as well as a handful of previous student editors who will join. Additionally, we have four previous students from Art History classes who will be part of a panel that will elevate the importance and the empowerment students felt from participating in previous edit-a-thons and from contributing to Wikipedia. These existing editors, many of whom have now transferred to University of California campuses and California State Universities, will also be asked to join our growing community of editors at our community college.
Start the formation of a local community of editors
editWe plan to make a greater editing impact from our localized community in reaching a global audience. Using the global campaign of Art+Feminism for the past two years, we have taught and worked with over 120 students with lessons structured through the lens of social justice, LGBTQIA+ history, library research, and community building. Collectively in our past edit-a-thons, we have added over 47,000 words to Wikipedia. This year, at Mt. SAC’s Third Annual Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, we will hold a virtual edit-a-thon in partnership with Art+Feminism. Our outreach efforts include two overarching cohorts: 1) students who are part of campus student programs, clubs, and groups, and 2) a second cohort made up of students and faculty from Art History and Library Research college courses.
Project Plan
editActivities
edit1. What kind of event(s) or activities are you planning to hold for your Wikipedia 20 event? Please let us know if these events include a meetup, edit-a-thons, workshops, photowalks, contests, or any kind of campaign.
We are planning four virtual, live events in addition to creating a series of online, self-paced learning materials and supporting curriculum. Our live events include: two virtual Edit-a-thons (one during each half of the spring semester), an artist talk with a student interview, and a student panel of past Wiki editors.
The two latter events will offer students opportunities to contextualize their learning (and the Wikipedia editing process). First, we will offer an interview and artist talk with Ria Brodell, a nonbinary and trans artist who paints the Butch Heroes series and who wrote the MIT Book by the same title. This will include an introduction to Brodell by a past student, an artist talk about their painting and research process (it’s all about the archival research and citations for Brodell!), and a chance for students to engage and interview Brodell.
Additionally, we will host a student panel about past students’ empowering experiences in writing for and editing Wikipedia. Additionally, librarians will also offer instructional activities such as instructional sessions about how to find sources for Wikipedia entries.
2. If participants will be contributing to Wikimedia projects (such as in an edit-a-thon), do you have experienced Wikimedia editors to lead the event?
Yes, this will be the third time Mt. San Antonio College has hosted a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. The past two events have been a partnership between the Library and Art History Department. This year, we will be expanding it to include our Pride Center, SAGA student club, our “Womxn’s Empowermeant” Initiative, and additional faculty and classes. In the past, we were lucky to be joined and led by experienced Wikimedian Aisha Conner-Gaiten (formerly with Loyola Marymount University and now with Glendale Community College). We have invited Conner-Gaiten to join our edit-a-thons again this year as well.
3. If participants will be contributing to Wikimedia projects (such as in an edit-a-thon), do participants have the equipment or skills needed to participate and contribute high quality content? If not, how will you support them?
We see technology as a support, rather than hindrance, in reaching and engaging more participants with reliable and quality content. At Mt. SAC, we have a California Community College business subscription to Zoom and will be able to host large virtual events using this platform. We also subscribe to Otter ai for live captioning during our events and can request ASL interpreters for our live events as well. Additionally, we will record our live events on Zoom and have more precise Zoom closed captioning provided for us after the events, so that we can share these videos with students who might have missed the live event due to conflicting schedules.
Artist Ria Brodell has been graciously participating in virtual interviews with Professor Caldwell’s art history courses for the past three years, so we have experience in presenting their artist talk and interview with high quality equipment. Additionally, this will be our third year hosting our Wikipedia Edit-a-thons and we have experience in leading student panels via Zoom as well.
4. How will you promote and let participants know about your Wikipedia 20 event? Please describe or link to the spaces you will be using to inform your community about your activities. Please note there are resources available to support your communications for Wikipedia 20 events.
There are three optimal locations for sharing about our project: 1) Our Library research guide (or “LibGuide”), 2) our Canvas modules embedded within students’ courses, and 3) our Canvas modules for student programs, centers, and clubs.
Our team will share with our community and work with the appropriate liaisons, student leaders, and faculty to increase student participation and involvement. We also have a few venues to share more about the event in our Wikipedia Research Guide, hosted by Mt. SAC Library. This is accessible to anyone who has access to the internet and can help transform people from Wikipedia users to Wikipedia editors.
Additional locations for sharing include our learning management system Canvas. The Pride Center has an open hub in Canvas and so will all faculty teaching in this effort. Lastly, we always share our edit-a-thons with Art+Feminism on their website for those outside of our community to learn more about how we contribute to the global community. In addition to these three main locations for sharing about our project, we will also utilize our student clubs, groups, and initiatives to advertise our events and invite wider college and community participation. For example, our Sexuality and Gender Awareness (SAGA) student club has an Instagram page, Discord site, #GroupMe chat, etc.
(Unfortunately, we are unable to share our Canvas module links and outreach pages since these are in an internal, password-protected student learning environment.)
5. How will you keep participants engaged after the event is over? How will you be sharing photos, videos, or other content from your activities after they are completed?
We will engage participants after each event by advertising the subsequent events to continue driving interest in the events that take place throughout the spring semester. We will also always ask participants to complete pre- and post-surveys to not only track and assess student learning, but also to catch and answer lingering questions that students might have between each event.
At the end of all four events, we will host a final assessment with both quantitative and qualitative feedback options in order to assess the student learning experience over the course of the semester.
6. Are you running any in-person events or activities?
No, all events and activities will happen virtually this year.
Impact
edit1. How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets and feel free to add more specific to your project:
- Number of total participants:300
- Number of new participants: 280
- Number of people who will help organize the event: 2-4
- Number of articles created or improved (if applicable): 300+
- Number of photos uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (if applicable):
- Number of photos used on Wikimedia projects (if applicable):
2. If you are organizing a meetup or event without any contributions to celebrate Wikipedia 20, we request that you ask participants to complete a brief survey to understand their experience and impact of your event. This survey will not request any personally identifying information. Will you be able to collect this information either during or after your event? (If you are not doing this kind of event, please write N/A or leave the section below blank)
Yes, we plan to have anonymous pre- and post-surveys built into our virtual events and into our Canvas course shells for faculty bringing their classes to our Wikipedia Spring Event Series.
Resources
edit1. What resources do you have? Include information on who is organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).
We have four experienced Wikipedians/Wiki editors who will attend all the events (E.Libertad, Eccaldwell,EAguilar100, and Woodenteacup), one event planner, and two online mentors. Librarians will help us with library resources (such as access to information sources via databases) and the college provides our virtual venues (including Zoom, Canvas, and our LibGuide) for free. Additionally, the Library and Pride Center have generously agreed to cover Ria Brodell’s speaking honorarium.
2. What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense and include a total amount.
For our resources, we are most eager to gain more funding in order to help cultivate the feeling that our live and in-person Edit-a-thon had. Then, we were able to provide snacks, stickers, and custom buttons to student editors. It was truly a festive and celebratory atmosphere and we would like to try to create that by including raffles at all of our events in addition to providing both incentives and compensation to student panelists and organizers who help to contribute to these events and make them possible.
Students in the California Community College system have showed a higher need for safe/brave spaces. Students who attend will also have the opportunity to enter into a raffle with food prizes and more. The ability to provide food incentives is important for our campus community. Students in our educational system face issues such as home abuse, hunger, lack of access to housing, healthcare, and more home security. As faculty we hope students will feel supported and nourished by our series from an educational standpoint and community-care framework.
As such, our proposed budget includes items to raffle at each event (including copies of Ria Brodell’s book Butch Heroes; swag for our different student cohorts such as our Pride Center, SAGA, and the “Womxn’s Empowermeant” Initiative; e-gift food cards for student speakers and organizers; and the postage fees to mail these incentives to students since we cannot distribute them in-person and on campus). Please see our proposed budget request below.
Proposed Budget
edit| Item | Quantity | Vendor | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raffle Item A: Ria Brodell’s "Butch Heroes" book | 20 | Amazon or local bookstore (includes individual postage with Amazon) | $400 |
| Raffle Item B: Customizes swag for participants | 24 (6 winners per event) | T-shirts, hats, buttons from local Pride Center of Etsy | $480 |
| Gift cards for event participants | 44 | Local restaurants and coffee shops or Costco for discounted gift cards | $960 |
| Postage A: To mail swag to raffle winners | 24 | $5.50 per item (via USPS or via vendor-to-student directly) | $132 |
| Postage B: To mail gift cards | 44 | USPS: $.055 per gift card | $24.20 |
| Total | $1996.40 |
Proposed Budget Bullet List
Raffle items
- Ria Brodell’s "Butch Heroes" book, quantity: 20 from Amazon or local bookstore (includes individual postage with Amazon)= $400
- Customized swag for participants, quantity: 24 (6 winners per event) T-shirts, hats, buttons from local Pride Center vendor or Etsy= $480
- Gift Cards for event participants, quantity: 4 sets of each (totaling 44 cards; 11 per event). Local Eateries and stores= $960
Postage
- Postage to mail swag, quantity: 24 x $5.50 postage per item (via USPS or via vendor-to-student directly)= $132
- Postage to mail gift cards, quantity: 44 USPS: $0.55 stamps per gift card= 24.20
TOTAL= $1996.40
Endorsements
editEndorsements are not needed for events related to Wikipedia 20. Community members are welcome to provide feedback or questions on the talk page.
Support. sounds like a great event with a lot of exciting components Mtheletter (talk) 22:55, 11 February 2021 (UTC)- Support Fernmother endorses this project. Fernmother (talk) 00:11, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
- Support Art+Feminism endorses this project. 13ab37 (talk) 00:22, 12 February 2021 (UTC) on behalf of Art+Feminism User Group
- Support Kunokuno (talk) 14:01, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
