Programa Catalisador do Brasil/Planejamento 2012-2013/Education Program/Job Positions/Coordination

Statement of Purpose

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is looking one contractor to coordinate the Education Program in Brazil and build partnerships with universities, experts, non-profits and build capacity of new contributors, analyze the achievements and current status of Education Program in Brazil and document the progress and challenges of the program. The Education Program Coordinator will work together with the Outreach and Community Engagement Contractor.

Background Information

In 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation executed an experimental pilot project Wikipédia na Universidade to work with university professors to engage students in the classroom with Wikipedia assignments, whose main goal is to improve the Portuguese Wikipedia quality. Professors from several Universities throughout Brazil participated of the program with support provided by Wikimedia Foundation and the community. The Foundation provided support in the form of instructional materials, such as sample lesson plans, the contact with Wikimedia community members and ambassadors.

Following the completion of some successful cases in the pilot in the first and second semesters of 2012, and from the experience of some professors who worked independently in 2011, we have begun supporting Wikipedia-editing in university classrooms and started new pilots in 2013, experimenting different approaches, such as inviting experts to join WikiProjects and partnering with translation courses. Some courses have already sprung up which have demonstrated the great potential for such a program, and we want to more actively support those existing courses while encouraging new courses to also help strengthen the Education Program in Brazil. A future expansion will be based on a thourough analysis of what worked in the past and what did not; this analysis will lay the groundwork by mid-2013. Ours goals are to improve the quality of articles in Portuguese and to bring new editors to the encyclopedia.

One of our priorities is to expand the Education Program in a sustainable way, as it is a priority region for Wikimedia Foundation according to its Strategic Plan of 2010. In the year of 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation decided to narrow its focus and to convert the catalyst projects into grants. The Brazil Catalyst Program, therefore, will be led by a local organization and will be funded by the Wikimedia Foundation grants program. The new contractor is expected to work in close collaboration with such organization (yet to be defined) and with Wikimedia Foundation team.

Further information

1. The program in the Portuguese Wikipedia: http://educacao.wikimedia.org
2. General information about the program: Wikipedia Education Program
3. Terminology: Wikipedia Education Program A–Z
4. Public Policy Initiative (including links to progress reports and case studies)
5. Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan Summary

Scope of Work

Duties of the coordination of the education program position include, but are not limited to:

• Build partnerships with Brazilian educational organizations to improve Wikipedia content and to increase participation in the Wikimedia movement.
• Evaluate the ongoing successes and failures of class-based Wikipedia editing projects throughout all phases of development
  • Document best practices and lessons learned
  • Actively communicate lessons across the Wikipedia Education Program teams around the world
  • Develop and track measures of success and create progress reports
• Class-room model For building a classroom-based education program in Brazil
  • Explore and document incentives for instructors, students and institutions in Higher Education to participate in the program within Brazil
  • Create guidelines and standards in order to achieve a shared understanding of the goals of the Wikimedia Education Program
  • Identify and provide connections with high potential schools and faculty
  • Oversee the translation of new support materials into Portuguese, as needed
  • Coordinate the creation of new support materials in Portuguese
• Actively communicate the plans, progress and outcomes of the program with the Portuguese Wikimedia community, including WMF staff in San Francisco, Wikipedia Education Program staff and volunteers around the world, the Brazilian community, and the lusophone editing community
• Outreach events: work closely with the contractor that will conduct outreach events at universities around the country to raise awareness of and interest in Wikimedia and the Wikipedia Education Program. It will be necessary to create a strategy for the outreach events.
• On wiki activities together with the outreach and community engagement contractor to support the revamp of Wikiprojects, engage the Wikimedia community in the program and help to maintain the project Wikipédia na Universidade page up to date, among other wiki pages when necessary
• Tutorials and trainning materials to coordinate the production and customization of locally relevant material
• Identify problems that arise and work with the WMF team, campus ambassadors and professors to develop effective solutions together with the Brazil team and the community

Who to report

The Education Program in Brazil coordinator will report to the Brazil Program coordinator.

Outcome and Performance Standards

A successful consulting engagement would result in:

• A document that analyses the current status of class-based initiatives and identifies best practices and lessons learned for a future launch of the Brazil Education Program
• Maintaing partnerships with about 15 professors, the actual organizations we are working with and start new partnerships
• Both students and professors shall have a positive experience using Wikipedia in the classroom
• Support documents and online materials that help the participants in contributing to Wikipedia
• Existing community of Portuguese editors is satisfied with the article additions in the program and are accepting of the new editing community

Term of Contract

The contract will be for a duration of six months beginning as soon as possible.

Payments, Incentives, and Penalties

To be defined according to experience, level of education, WMF standards.

Location and Hours

Location: The position is expected to be placed either in São Paulo or Rio

Hours: 20 to 30 hours a week

Required characteristics and qualifications

• High drive and commitment to the Wikimedia mission: Deeply believes in the value of Wikimedia in the Brazilian context; exudes enthusiasm for the mission and can powerfully embody and communicate the mission
• Strong analytical skills: Ability to measure and document the outcome of past and ongoing classroom-based experiments; ability to develop recommendations for a future strategy based on the outcome of the analysis
• Open and transparent: High level of integrity and comfortable working in a highly transparent fashion; open to input and feedback; proactive, candid communicator who wants people to know what she/he is doing and isn't afraid to bring others in when things are off-track or when they need help; can handle criticism in a mature fashion
• Strong written and oral communication skills: Must be a strong communicator in both Portuguese and English, who is able to do public speaking, communicate personally with academics and students, lead courses and events, and communicate via blogs, wikis, and email
• Understand academic setting in Brazil: Thorough understanding of the university teaching and learning environment; must be confident, engaging and adept in communication with instructors and university administrators;
• Program and time management skills: Ability to work effectively and meet deadlines even while traveling; ability manage him/herself and work alone; must follow a tight-timeline and meet goals and deadlines;
• Flexible: Must be willing to travel within Brazil to engage Wikimedia communities and conduct outreach activities; must be willing and able to flex schedule to operate within a global team, by being available for limited number of conference calls or email exchange some evenings weekly.

Process Schedule

Please submit the following documents:

• CV that highlights your understanding of Wikipedia, the university teaching and learning environment in Brazil
• A note (1 to 2 pages in length) that explains:

1. Why growing our editor community in Brazil is important for fulfilling the Wikimedia Foundation's mission
2. How you envision working with instructors, students and volunteers to achieve the goals of the project

Obs.: This page must be in English and may be required to be shared publicly (but announimously) with the Wikimedia Community in a further stage of the selection.

Evaluation

The submitted documents will be evaluated against the following criteria (in no specific order):

• Understanding of the mission and values of the Wikimedia Foundation;
• Understanding of the Foundation's strategic goals for increasing our community of active editors in the Global South;
• Demonstrated history of working with higher education and non-profits;
• Ability to work with Wikipedia's existing community of volunteers;
• Overall willingness and eagerness to undertake a highly complex challenge.

Points of contact for future correspondence

Deadline for submissions: 9 April 2013

Please submit your documents electronically at Jobvite.

Results

Desculpem por termos tomado tanto tempo para anunciar, mas era necessário ter os contratos devidamente redigidos e assinados. E agora já divulgamos também com seu email institucional.

De qualquer forma, segue o anúncio. Estamos muito contentes de contar com uma equipe tão animada, experiente e promissora!

Rodrigo Padula é pesquisador no Instituto Tércio Pacitti de Aplicações e Pesquisas Computacionais, onde lidera iniciativas e a implantação do Laboratório de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento de Tecnologias Livres - LAPTEL e atua com pesquisas no campo da tecnologia aplicada à educação, buscando melhores formas do uso das TICs em práticas educacionais. É militante do movimento do software livre na América Latina, tendo participado e colaborado em diversos projetos desde a década de 90. Há quase 8 anos atua junto à Mozilla Foundation promovendo tecnologias Web e a liberdade na internet. Quando não está na frente do computador pratica Brazilian JiuJitsu e aproveita as belezas da natureza praticando treking, camping, mergulho e snowboard.

Ao longo do processo seletivo, nos chamou a atenção o fato de o Rodrigo ser uma pessoa que já tinha tido experiência com diferentes comunidades online (ele também fora embaixador Fedora e gerente de comunidade para a América Latina), atuou na difusão do projeto OLPC e Um Computador por Aluno palestrando e capacitando professores em vários estados brasileiros. Ativista do movimento pelo conhecimento e tecnologias livres, participou e organizou de uma grande variedade de eventos, cursos e programas para integrar tecnologia e educação. Além disso, como vocês poderão perceber, ele é um profissional de muitas ideias e propostas. Neste momento de mudança não só da coordenação do programa de educação, mas também da estrutura da equipe (com mais uma pessoa para focar em outreach / formação de novos usuários / divulgação), da forma como nos estabeleceremos no Brasil (por meio de uma parceria com uma instituição local e um grant/financiamento da WMF), uma pessoa com tantas ideias de estratégias que podem ser seguidas nos pareceu ótimo: teremos oportunidade de olhar para o que fizemos até agora, avaliar o que é possível e desejável fazer, e seguir com o que tivermos feito de melhor, mas começar algo novo também.

Seu email na Wikimedia Foundation é rodrigopadula@wikimedia.org