Grants:PEG/User:Pjthepiano - Wiki Education Foundation/US and Canada Wikipedia Education Program

Funded

This submission to the Project and Event Grants Program was funded in the fiscal year 2013-14. This is a grant to a group.

IMPORTANT: Please do not make changes to this page without the explicit approval of Project and Event Grants Program staff. They will be reverted.

This project has already been funded, but you may still add or review comments on the discussion page.
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Report: Please visit Grants:PEG/User:Pjthepiano - Wiki Education Foundation/US and Canada Wikipedia Education Program/Report to read this report, comment on this report, or review its status.

Basic information

Project details

Official project name: The United States and Canada Wikipedia Education Program
Project start date (include month, day, and year): ~~1 June 2013~~ 1 August 2013
Project completion date (include month, day, and year): ~~31 December 2013~~ ~~28 February 2014~~ 31 August 2014
Please describe the project in 1–2 sentences: The United States and Canada Wikipedia Education Program is a project currently supported by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and volunteers across the two countries. In June 2013 the WMF will transfer responsibility for the education program to the Wiki Education Foundation (WEF).

Financial details

Currency requested: U.S. Dollars
Amount requested in currency requested: $147,570
Equivalent amount in US$ on the date of this submission: $147,570
List the exchange rate used to calculate the amount listed in US$: 1:1

Grantee details

See the eligibility requirements for more information.

Are you an organization, an individual, or an individual submitting on behalf of a group?: Answer: GROUP; Remember that individuals submitting on behalf of a group must provide 2 project leads who will be cosignatories on the Grant Agreement and cobeneficiaries on the project's bank account.

Group information

Name of group:

Wiki Education Foundation (WEF)

Purpose of group:

WEF supports innovative uses of and content creation for Wikipedia and related projects in communities of teaching, learning and inquiry by encouraging collaboration among Wikipedia editors, educators, researchers and students. WEF will enhance information fluency, improve the breadth, scope, and quality of Wikimedia content and increase the number and diversity of contributors to the free knowledge movement.

Link to information about your group:

Education Board

Contact information

1st Project Lead

Project lead name:

PJ Tabit

Project lead username or email:

User:Pjthepiano

Project lead title (position within group), if any:

Treasurer, Board of Directors

2nd Project Lead

Project lead name:

Diana Strassmann

Project lead username or email:

User:DStrassmann

Project lead title (position within group), if any:

Chair, Board of Directors

Goals and measures of success

Project goal

Please briefly describe what will be accomplished if the project is successful.

Project goal

Legal Incorporation

WEF will legally incorporate as a non-profit organization in both the U.S. and Canada.
The Board will work with outside counsel to obtain 501(c)(3) status and complete other required legal steps.

Assume Operations of U.S. and Canada Education Programs

WEF will assume full responsibility for operating the U.S. and Canada Education Programs. In the grant period WEF will prepare for the fall 2013 semester by registering participating classes, recruiting ambassadors, developing supporting materials and conducting other essential activities.

Collaborate with Stakeholders to Support U.S. and Canada Education Programs

WEF will provide professors and ambassadors with Wikipedia teaching materials and direct support prior to and during the fall 2013 semester.
WEF will seek input from stakeholders (e.g. Wikipedians, professors, ambassadors, and students) about program structure and administration.
WEF will begin plans for an academic Wikipedia conference to be held in mid-2014.

Secure Additional Funding

WEF will secure funding for the duration of 2013 and beyond. Additional funding will support continuing expenditures obligated during the grant period (e.g. staff) as well as additional needs (e.g. program staff, academic development, materials).

Secure Operational Infrastructure

WEF will establish an administrative structure including payroll, insurance, accounting and financial processes.
WEF will hire qualified staff to support the organization's goals.
WEF will acquire the materials, software, and equipment needed to carry out its functions.

Measures of success

Please provide a list of measurable criteria that will be used determine how successful the project is. You will need to report on the success of the project according to these measures after the project is completed.

Measures of success

By the conclusion of the grant period (December 31, 2013), WEF will:
Be supporting the U.S. and Canada Education Programs during the Fall 2013 semester;
Have recruited and trained a sufficient number of campus and online ambassadors to support the Education Programs;
Employ two full-time staff members supported with necessary equipment and resources;
Have secured funding necessary to sustain the organization beyond December 31, 2013;
Have conducted meetings and outreach to further improve the Education Program to meet the needs of both academia and the Wikipedia community;
Have identified and communicated any program changes to all stakeholders;
Be prepared to support the U.S. and Canada Education Programs during the Spring 2014 semester.

Project scope and activities

This section describes what will happen if this project is funded. Who will do what, and when?

List of activities

Hire Staff

Interim Executive Director

Helps develop and execute the organization’s strategic plan
Leads efforts to engage stakeholders
Leads fundraising efforts
Directs the transition of ongoing education support operations from WMF to WEF

Interim Program Manager

Registers participating universities and professors
Recruits ambassadors
Addresses concerns raised by stakeholders
Handles public outreach and press inquiries

Purchase Equipment/Software

Two laptops
Printer/Copier
Telecommunications (e.g. mobile phones)
Software (payroll, accounting, donor management)

Communicate and Collaborate with Stakeholders

Keep Wikipedians, ambassadors, academics, and students informed of the changes to the programs and solicit input
Establish a process for open collaboration among all members of the program
Plan an academic conference to be held in mid-2014

Assume Education Program Responsibilities

Determine the methods by which the Education Program could support the free knowledge movement
Execute the transition plan and engagement processes established by the Board and WEF staff
Register professors, recruit ambassadors, and develop academic materials

Secure Additional Funding

Secure funding to sustain WEF-USCA through the end of 2013 and beyond

Complete Legal and Financial Requirements

Register as a non-profit entity in Delaware
Seek federal tax-exempt status
Open a bank account
Purchase insurance
Hold necessary Board of Directors Meeting(s)

Timeline

June 2013

Legal Incorporation
Secure operational infrastructure (e.g. computers, payroll and accounting software, etc.)
Hire staff
- Interim Executive Director will focus on organization sustainability (e.g. identifying funding sources, securing other resources) and transitioning responsibility for the education programs from the WMF to WEF.
- Interim Program Manager will recruit and mentor ambassadors and professors, handle public and Wikipedia outreach, lead development and dissemination of Wikipedia education instructional materials.

July - August 2013

Mentor educators with assignment design
Train educators and ambassadors on program tools (like our education extension, which allows us to track program activity and metrics)
Distribute student orientation to ambassadors and update training as we receive feedback
Develop information and data collection plans to help analyze the efficacy of student contributions
Continue ambassador and educator recruitment efforts
Continue fundraising efforts

September - October 2013

Provide support for ongoing classes including communicating with ambassadors and professors and reaching out to professors who are using Wikipedia in their classrooms, but not utilizing WEF resources
Collect information and data from classes
Secure additional funding
Conduct outreach to various stakeholders (e.g. Wikipedians, educators, ambassadors, etc.) to consider how best to foster a grassroots program and best leverage central office support
Conduct continuous evaluation of the education program and work with stakeholders to make improvements where possible

November - December 2013

Finalize fall semester data and information collection
Ensure sustainability of WEF through December 2014
Prepare for spring 2014 semester
Begin planning for mid-2014 academic conference
Continue building relationships with university centers of learning, libraries, and academic and professional associations

Budget and resources

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

Grantees are subject to line-item scrutiny of expenses. Changes to the approved budget beyond 10% in any category must be approved in advance.

Project budget table

Number	Category	Item description	Unit	Number of units	Cost per unit	Total cost	Currency	Notes
1	Equipment	Laptops, printer/copiers, software, etc.	n/a	2 laptops, 2 printer/copiers, software (e.g. E-Tapestry)	Estimated cost of $1000 per laptop, $500 per printer/copier, various software costs	4000	USD	n/a
2	Materials	Copier paper, printer ink, envelopes, folders, letterhead, business cards, etc.	n/a	n/a	n/a	1000	USD	n/a
3	Staff	Interim Executive Director, Interim Program Manager	1 person	2	Program Manager ($32,116); Executive Director ($68,250)	$100,370	USD	Request includes estimated benefits and taxes. Estimated annual salaries are $40,000 (Program Manager) and $85,000 (Executive Director).
4	Travel	Supports travel for program support, staff recruitment/interviews, and fundraising	1 trip	Program support (10), Interviews (8), Fundraising (7)	$600	$15,000	USD	n/a
5	Fundraising	Supports a consultant to assist with fundraising	1 person	1	$10,000	$10,000	USD	n/a
6	Professional Services	Fees associated with legal and accounting services that cannot be obtained pro bono	n/a	n/a	n/a	$2,000	USD	n/a
7	Insurance	Liability, Directors & Officers Insurance	n/a	n/a	n/a	$2,000	USD	Provides 1 year of coverage
8	Mail/Shipping	Includes, for example, mailing materials to students/professors	1 month of mail	7	$100	$700	USD	n/a
9	Board Meeting	Third quarter board meeting	1 attendee	10	$1000	$10000	USD	Estimate includes travel, lodging, meeting space, materials, etc.
10	Legal	Includes filing fees for articles of incorporation, application for tax exempt status, etc.	n/a	n/a	n/a	$2000	USD	Based on an estimate provided by WEF's attorney
11	Technology	Established a public website for WEF	n/a	n/a	n/a	$500	USD	Supports purchasing a domain, server space, and design of the site
Total								$147,570

--

Total cost of project: $147,570

Total amount requested from the WMF Grants Program: $147,570

Additional sources of revenue that may fund part of this project, and amounts funded: WEF is preparing grant requests to support the program beyond the 7 month period of this request.

Non-financial requirements

See a description of nonfinancial assistance available. Please inform Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) of any requirements for non-financial assistance now.

Requests for non-financial assistance: None

Resources

This section is optional. It may be used to highlight the potential grantee's potential for successfully executing this project.

Consider including the following information:

List of team members (names or usernames)

Members of the Initial Board

Robert Cummings, professor in the Education Program
Diana Strassmann, professor in the Education Program
Mike Christie, Wikipedia editor and Online Ambassador
PJ Tabit, Campus Ambassador
Chanitra Bishop, Campus Ambassador, Regional Ambassador, and representative of university librarians
Richard Knipel, Wikipedia editor, Regional Ambassador, and representative of Wikimedia Chapters
Annie Lin

Onwiki evidence of community support (such as a discussion about this project)

In November 2012, the working group that has lead to WEF conducted an RfC (found here). Though the discussion was closed with no clear consensus, it did reveal strong support among many members of the community, including many who are not currently involved in the education program.

Endorsements from community members or movement groups:

(List copied over from our original sign-up).

JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 23:27, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
DStrassmann (talk) 23:43, 25 January 2013 (UTC)
Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 00:15, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:25, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
benongyx (talk) 18:18, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
Pjthepiano (talk) 03:11, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Bob Cummings (talk) 11:12, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Mankad (talk) 20:35, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
Rburdette (talk) 01:50, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Brianwc (talk) 13:15, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
JoyceChou (talk) 16:22, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
Virginiawhite09 (talk) 01:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Achresto (talk) 01:20, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Daniellam91 (talk) 03:12, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Zpanos (talk) 03:14, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Colleenfugate (talk) 03:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
BerikG BerikG (talk) 03:45, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Vertdegrece (talk) 04:51, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Mwtwgt (talk) 04:59, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Leejohnson898 (talk) 05:05, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Hmccann (talk) 05:27, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Agelaia (talk) 05:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Nadhika99 (talk) 06:36, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Slin2264 (talk) 07:21, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
DArquero (talk) 07:57, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Kayhoang (talk) 10:03, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
Crr4 (talk) 00:39, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Weatherby551 (talk) 16:26, 1 February 2013 (UTC)
Pharos (talk) 04:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)
Heidimkahle (talk)
NehemiahAnkoor (talk) 00:17, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 19:28, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
CoxChristine (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
Vignespassy (talk) 16:46, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
The Interior (Talk) 22:33, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
Biosthmors (talk) 19:11, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:06, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Sadads (talk) 02:57, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
--Another Believer (talk) 20:33, 18 March 2013 (UTC)
Ambassador Neelix (talk) 17:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Evidence of past success in executing similar projects

The Wikipedia Education Program has run for five semesters in the United States and three semesters in Canada. Educators assign their students to edit Wikipedia as a classroom assignment, and volunteer editors support those new student editors and educators, in person and online, to help them create good content. The program achieves many of the goals outlined by the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic plan for the movement, including increasing the number of women adding content, improving the quality of articles, and introducing new editors to the community. Below are some of the quantitative impacts the Education Program has had on English Wikipedia.

Metric	Measurement
Number of students who created user accounts	4,579 new user accounts
Number of Online Ambassadors	103 OAs
Number of Campus Ambassadors	170 CAs
Number of faculty	168 educators
Number of bytes contributed	35,987,560 bytes
Estimated number of pages contributed (1500 bytes = 1 page)	23,991 pages

After the Spring 2012 semester, which has had the highest quantity of contributions in the program so far, a group of Wikipedians repeated the article assessment study from the Public Policy Initiative. The results showed that of the 124 assessed articles (expanded or started by student editors), 109 showed improvement. In other words, 87.9% of the student articles showed a positive impact from the Wikipedia Education Program.

WEF plans to continue focusing on methods to support students in creating quality content on Wikipedia. With a decentralized structure (please see organizational structure below), the Wikipedia Education Program can expand its volunteer support to even more educators and students, as the enthusiasm for using Wikipedia in the classroom continues to grow.

Resources: With a vast network of experienced and dedicated volunteers, WEF is prepared to assume responsibility for the U.S. and Canada education programs.

Impact

In the sections below, please describe how the project is related to the Wikimedia mission and Wikimedia's strategic priorities.

Fit to strategy

Increase Reach
The U.S. and Canada Wikipedia Education Programs currently serve nearly 1,500 students attending 50 colleges and universities across the two countries. WEF and its members will strive to encourage greater use and understanding of Wikipedia at educational institutions and will provide all volunteers, instructors, and editors with helpful resources.

Improve Content Quality
WEF will continue to enlist Wikipedians to serve as ambassadors to educational institutions and wants programmatic work to be mutually beneficial to both students and Wikipedia. To this end, WEF will:

Encourage all U.S. and Canadian courses writing articles for Wikipedia to work through our program and extensive support resources;
Encourage faculty to teach their students the basic norms of participating in Wikipedia as part of their teaching and learning goals, and assist faculty in developing assignments with greater potential for producing articles or edits acceptable to Wikipedia. In particular, WEF will communicate Wikipedia’s citation policies, and encourage Ambassadors to check postings for possible copyright violations or plagiarism. The community can expect that people trained by WEF will be made aware of the fundamental standards that new editors and submissions are expected to meet.
Develop procedures that inform all program participants of the responsibility for editing and supervision. Thus, class work on articles or discussions will be attributable to the appropriate class in order to comply with Wikipedia policy. In other words, WEF will maintain a clear database and record of contributions coming from its programmatic work and will foster an atmosphere where members want to participate in discussions and improve work.

Increase Participation
WEF will continue to recruit editors to Wikipedia and has included the retention of students, professors, Ambassadors, and other volunteers as Wikipedia editors and WEF members as one of its metrics measuring program activity. The organization is eager to work with Wikipedians and others to develop strategies for retaining more students as active editors.

Encourage Innovation
WEF will, when financially and operationally possible, focus on endorsing and improving “Wikipedia Studies.” The details of this commitment will be developed over time with the help of Wikipedians, academics, ambassadors, and others; however, it is clear that both Wikipedia and academia have much to gain from collaboration. Despite its near ubiquity outside of the classroom, Wikipedia is still viewed with scepticism, or often hostility, by many educators. Similarly, many Wikipedians view classroom Wikipedia editing with equal suspicion. However, WEF believes these groups share common goals and that, together, they could revolutionize higher education and move Wikipedia closer to its mission of making the sum of human knowledge freely accessible. In support of this belief, WEF will:

Support and promote teaching and learning with Wikipedia;
Build community around teaching and learning with Wikipedia;
Support the research of Wikipedia, its role within the larger information culture, and;
Promote Wikipedia Studies, an academic field which supports the overlapping roles of Higher Education in creating and disseminating original knowledge and Wikipedia in providing free access to it.

Benefits

Please provide a brief statement about how the project is related to other work in the Wikimedia movement. For example, does the project fit into a work area such as GLAM, education, organizational development, editor retention, or outreach?: The U.S. and Canada programs are the largest educational efforts currently supported by the WMF. In addition to continuing these programs, WEF will leverage the combined resources of other outreach and education efforts, including GLAM and education programs based in other countries.

If successful, will the project have the potential to be replicated successfully by other individuals, groups, or organizations? Please explain how in 1–2 sentences.: All materials (e.g. training videos, course rubrics, promising practices, etc.) produced by WEF will be available to any individual, group, or organization. In addition, WEF will support the creation of WikiEd Groups, which are local or topical grassroots volunteer groups that support Wikipedia classroom activity and conduct outreach and education.

Please list other benefits to the movement here.: The U.S. and Canada education programs are well-established efforts that have proven track records of successfully improving the quality of material on Wikipedia and educating both students and professors about the benefits of using Wikipedia in the classroom.

For grantees

If you are the grantee or representative that wrote this grant submission, you may request changes by using these links:

Create a request for an extension of the approved project completion date.
Create a request for changes to the approved project budget.