Grants talk:IdeaLab/College Campaign to Promote Wikipedia as a Digital Literacy Skill

Question

@Leahmacvie:I have a bit of a question: what would you say qualifies as "top contributor". I'm a little leery about offering cash prizes for editing Wikipedia, especially if part of the initiative is to get new users to edit Wikipedia. What concerns me is that we'll have a lot of people, most to all of whom will have little to no editing experience, coming on to Wikipedia and making a ton of pages in order to win a cash prize. Since they don't have any true experience with editing, there will be an extremely high likelihood that the pages will have a lot of issues with them. This is a pretty common issue with university classes that create pages as part of the curriculum, so I am extremely concerned that this problem will only be exacerbated when you have a large group of people that will not have the close supervision that a student in a specific classroom situation would have. The number of people entering could be quite large, so it'd be a huge undertaking to keep track of everyone even if they did register with the project manager as a participant.

I think that this could be somewhat helped by being a little less vague in the wording and emphasizing that it's not the number of edits or pages created that will mark one as a top contributor, but the quality of the contributions that fall within Wikipedia guidelines. It'd also be a good idea to make sure that the supervisory staff (including project managers, student work study, etc) have an extremely good working knowledge of Wikipedia's guidelines, as you guys will be the first people that they ask for help or further explanation on a policy or guideline. You can get some experienced admins and non-college editors to help, but the "IRL" people will be the ones that they will want to turn to for help. Also, limiting the number of participants could be beneficial as well since it'd make it easier for the project manager to keep up with, since this would have the potential to turn into a full time job since they (and their helpers) would potentially have to monitor hundreds of accounts and edits. I do think that the scholarship should be open to both male and female editors, though. It just seems a little bit unfair that the project as a whole is open to everyone, but the scholarship is only available for female editors. I know that you're trying to get more female editors on the site, but that just seems a little uneven.

Overall I do like the idea, it just needs some more fine tuning. You've got the biggest parts mapped out, which is one of the harder parts. Tokyogirl79 (talk) 06:29, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

ties to existing Wikimedia/Wikipedia programs

@Leahmacvie: Hi there,

thanks for your idea. I wonder if you can expand on how your approach differs from existing programs that encourage use of Wikipedia in schools? I'm thinking specifically of the Wikipedia Education Program Wikipedia Education Program (WEP), which offers a lot of resources and provides necessary infrastructure for engaging university and college students in Wikipedia editing. (Perhaps of interest - there are also courses currently being through the program that focus on women and gender issues - see the course list for examples.)

Similar to the comment from above, I also wonder if you can provide more info regarding the competition idea that would specifically address female Wikipedia contribution. What might this look like? How might the competition be designed to achieve this aim? And do you think the series of workshops you propose could also include content specifically looking at the gender gap and how to address it?

Interested in learning more... -Thepwnco (talk) 17:14, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Just do this idea. If you want a cash reward, raise the money yourself. But it's hardly fair to ask the organization to benefit your campus and you. 72.191.61.91 21:49, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Interest in Collaboration

@Leahmacvie: Hi, I'm interested in working on a similar project on my campus (probably rather smaller scale, maybe with different funding). I'd like to get in touch with you if possible. Daclausen (talk) 21:15, 25 March 2015 (UTC) U Nebraska Women & Wikipedia Campaign

Eligibility confirmed, Inspire Campaign

This Inspire Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for the Inspire Campaign review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review begins on 6 April 2015, and grants will be announced at the end of April. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at grants(at)wikimedia.org.

Aggregated feedback from the committee for College Campaign to Promote Wikipedia as a Digital Literacy Skill

Scoring rubric	Score
(A) Impact potential Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both? Does it have the potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	5.0
(B) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support?	6.1
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe? Is the budget realistic/efficient ? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	5.1
(D) Measures of success Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success? Are they realistic? Can they be measured?	5.0
Additional comments from the Committee: Surveying attitudes pre- and post publicity campaign could give information to the Wikimedia movement. Would like to see the outreach plan developed to more specifically address gender diversity in contributors and content. Concerned that contributors may be attracted by monetary incentive without organic interest in Wikipedia (and thus not sustained contributors after-the-fact). The qualitative measures of success and storytelling are great and would work well with a publicity campaign to improve attitudes about Wikipedia. A competition that awards the 'top contributors' could lead to a misunderstanding of Wikipedia editing (a collaborative activity in which quality is valued over quantity). How will the competition ensure female participation? Recommend that grantee become familiar with the Wikipedia Education Program networks/resources already in place Concerned that 20 workshops may be unrealistic for one person (project manager) to run over 1 semester. I generally like the idea of an on campus publicity campaign about Wikipedia, but would like to see more emphasis on the gender gap issues. Currently, the the project may be more likely to improve attitudes about Wikipedia in general than the gender gap specifically.

Inspire funding decision

This project has not been selected for an Inspire Grant at this time.

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