Grants:Project/Rapid/UNI Edits 2018-19/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2018-19 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/Rapid/UNI Edits 2018-19.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

We met most of our goals and are very happy with the outcomes of the project. While we did not meet our target for number of participants, we met or exceeded all of our other goals. Some of the participants from the first editathon became regular contributors and ended up volunteering as experienced Wikipedians who were available to help participants at the other editathons we hosted. In post-editathon surveys, the vast majority of participants said they enjoyed the event and would participate in future editathons. We've had multiple people ask us to continue holding diversity-focused editathons on our campus.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
4 editathons	4 public editathons & 1 employee editathon	We held four editathons open to the public, each focusing on a different topic: Human Rights, People of Color, Women & LGBT+, and Diversity. In addition to these, and building on interest because of the public editathons, we held one multi-week editathon with two get togethers for library employees as part of the 1lib1ref campaign.
120 participants	80 participants, at least	We had at least 80 people participate in the editathons, 61 of them as editors. Enrollment in some of the classes that have Wikipedia assignments was lower this year, resulting in fewer participants overall. One class that had committed to participating had to withdraw because we had so many snow days they needed more time to cover core material for standardized exams. Partnering with student organizations was not as fruitful as we expected, even though we coordinated with student leaders ahead of time.
25 new editors	45 new editors	Even though we did not have as many participants as we expected, we recruited many more new editors than we anticipated. Part of this is due to advertising the Women & LGBT+ editathon to the Women & Gender Studies program. We had lots of enthusiastic new editors from this program.
120 articles created or improved	198 articles created or improved	Even without the added 1lib1ref editathon, we met out goal of at least 120 articles created/improved. Most of the edits were adding citations because it is a useful way to teach people who to edit. (And many folks find using Citation Hunt addictive.)
30 repeat participants	30 repeat participants	People really like editing Wikipedia once they know how! Participants from the Rod Library ArtandFeminism 2018 editathon came back to participate, as did many folks throughout the five-editathon series.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well? For two of the editathons we partnered with faculty who included a Wikipedia assignment in one or more of their courses. This partnership led to increased participation. Even though many participants were required to attend, many reported they enjoyed the event and would participate again. For one of the editathons we teamed up with a festival celebrating Frederick Douglass. This partnership was not as successful as partnering with faculty/classes, but it would be worth experimenting with again in the future. Holding editathons on a week day rather than the weekend also improved participation. We switched up our food orders and found participants liked having sandwich fixings more than pizza.
What did not work so well? For one of the editathons, we tried partnering with student organizations. This partnership did not work very well. There are a number of potential reasons why this event did not have the same level of participation as the others (poor weather, weekend event, busy time of semester), so it is difficult to know whether partnering with student groups could work in the future.
What would you do differently next time? We learned some really important things! We definitely want to continue hosting editathons on campus. Students have told us that it would be easier for them to participant in the evening, so we will experiment with some evening editathons during the next academic year. We also need to be very careful about when we schedule editathons during the semester. One of our events was too close to finals week (and it rained, but we can't control the weather). There is still potential for partnering with student organizations, but it might work best if these are held during their regular meeting time.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Food = $1013.59
Childcare = $600
Supplies and incidentals = $16.08

Remaining funds

Remaining funds from this grant have been returned to WMF in the amount of US$370.33.

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

We have $370.33 remaining ($2000 awarded - $1629.67 spent from this grant). We plan to return the remaining funds and apply for a new grant for the next academic year.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project? Like last year, we partnered with a student group to provide childcare for a stipend, To Write Love on Her Arms. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement where we receive skilled childcare and the student group makes money they can use in their suicide prevention and depression support efforts on campus. As a result of this program and partnership, we have developed a model for how to provide childcare during events on campus. We are now using this model to provide childcare for other campus events to make them more inclusive.