User:Ocastro/Reports and Plans/August Report

Report on Brazil for the Global Development team

Education program

Workshop in São Paulo: about 30 people participated in the Education Program Workshop in São Paulo, including 8 professors, their teaching assistents, ambassadors, Wikimedia volunteers), Everton, Oona and Frank. In the Workshop we have taught teaching assistents the basics on how to edit Wikipedia as well as what role they need to play as campus ambassadors. Professors have worked on planning and methodologies to develop the program within their courses. In the evening before, professors have attended a dinner with us, where they could interact and have more information about the program and our past experiences.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:14_WikiSampa_August_2012_-_27.JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:14_WikiSampa_August_2012_-_17.JPG
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:14_WikiSampa_August_2012_-_40.JPG

Status: So far, 8 professors are involved in the program, not including the ones in strike (from Rio, Espírito Santo, Bahia and Paraná). We have 4 professors from the capital of São Paulo, 2 professors from the countryside of São Paulo, 1 professor from Rio and 1 professor from Porto Alegre), working directly with a very active volunteer from there. UniRio’s extension course is still on progress, with the participation of very closely with another very active wikipedian, but they’re on strike right now. There are other 7 courses expected to start this semester when strike definitely ends.

Organization and debate on Rio’s Education Workshop: discussion over the the planning of Rio’s Workshop, with professors selected on the open call who are on strike. It’s been decided to focus on professors who are not in strike - however, a workshop will take place in September, 22, at PUC-Rio. Visits to places (Bee’s office, PUC-Rio, and UFRJ lab) and contacts with institutions have been made to find a good place to host the event. Schedule and Agenda planning has been made collaboratively on the Wiki. http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia_Discuss%C3%A3o:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade/Oficina

Follow up with professors: follow up with professors to finalize the planning and the courses pages. We’re sending print versions of the survey related to the beginning of the activities. http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade/Cursos

Meetings with Frank and possible partners: - a meeting took place in UniRio to discuss a formal partership between the University and Wikimedia Foundation. We need to work on the details of what the parts may offer and need in counterpart to see in which extent it’s feasable and desirable to set it up. This may be a way to experiment institutionalization on a way Univsersities are committed and have tools to increase their participation and leadership in the program.

- presentation of the program at COPPE-UFRJ: researchers at COPPE-UFRJ (very high level production engineering course in Rio have edited Wikipedia in Portuguese, and have faced obstacles to make work it out. We explained community is independent and runs Wikipedia according to rules collectively established and made a presentation on the Education Program so they can think of different ways to contribute to Wikipedia.

Tutorials production: Brazil team and volunteers have been working on tutorial online and to be print, in Portuguese, to support not only the courses which have been selected, but also the collaborators who will be developing some activities in Wikipedia but won’t receive more of our support. http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade/Guia_do_Estudante http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Wikip%C3%A9dia_na_Universidade/Guia_do_Professor

Wiki-meetings

Wiki meeting São Paulo: communtity has gathered together in São Paulo for chatting and open debate. Some discussions and proposal came up, such as the one to develop the education program on high school. 2 volunteers are working on a proposal to be developed and presented. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:14_WikiSampa_August_2012_-_41.JPG

Wiki meeting in Rio: only one volunteers showed up and we’ve discuseed more about the education program and also how to organize meetings with active participation of the community, bringing more people together.

National Program

Data analyst and experiment consultant job description: after long debate, we finally have issued the description to HR, changing the first profile to be hired from community facilitator into a data and experiments consultant, aiming at providing support to the community to better analyze impacts of community driven initiatives to increase participation, improve the editing experience and building new policies and campaigns. http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3APrograma_Catalisador_do_Brasil%2FPlanejamento_2012-2013&diff=4079338&oldid=4079043#Data_analyst_consultant

Experiments and data gathering: we worked gathering and analyzing data regarding experiment developed by the community in the first semester. We also worked on discussing metrics and tools to analyze a campaign community is developing for bringing IPs into creating accounts. We’re also gathering information and references to debate possible experiments on the use of CAPTCHA in the Portuguese Wikipedia (which is still on ‘emergency mode’, which means that irrespective of having URLs or not, non auto-confirmed users are asked to enter CAPTCHA). http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Programa_Catalisador_do_Brasil/Planejamento_2012-2013#Sobre_o_CAPTCHA

* Office: discussions and information gathering on possible formats for establishing the office in Brazil (different models have been used in India and the Arabic world) and new models could also take place in Brazil. This is not super cheap and easy to start (and mainly to close) a company or a non profit association, and partnerships require a lot of search and agreements.

* Metrics: New articles in the Portuguese Wikipedia have been growing constantly, and the growth of new and active editors have remained steady (unlike the decrease of growth rates seen during 2011, active editors growth has been small but consistent in the last 4 months). Small growth of 0,5% in active editors in comparison to July in 2011 and 52% growth re-new articles (https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AoM2xDBi-taQdENxeVdXcVBCYzVCNkxDV1JyNU5qdEE#gid=0)