Community Resources and Partnerships/India Rapid Project/WikiForAll program series 2 – An Academic curriculum bridging program through Wikimedia projects
Applicant
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
Bhuvana Meenakshi
- Organization
N/A
- If you are a group or organization leader, board member, president, executive director, or staff member at any Wikimedia group, affiliate, or Wikimedia Foundation, you are required to self-identify and present all roles. (required)
N/A
- Describe all relevant roles with the name of the group or organization and description of the role. (required)
N/A
Project
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
WikiForAll program series 2 – An Academic curriculum bridging program through Wikimedia projects
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2025-09-01 - 2026-03-31
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
India
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Other (please specify) MediaWiki , EduWiki, WikiTech
- 6. What is the change you are trying to bring? What are the main challenges or problems you are trying to solve? Describe this change or challenges, as well as main approaches to achieve it. (required)
WikiForAll series 2 program is a training and development program which is designed to outreach Open Source and Open Knowledge in the suburbs of India. This program is the continuation of WikiForAll series 1([1]) which touched on-ground research and work to identify challenges, access and support for students who belong to the rural and semi-rural setups. These students are curious about pursuing an education and career in technology but have social and accessibility barriers. In these cohorts we invite students from various regions who are first gen Graduates to understand the technical subjects through Wikimedia projects. We also focus on encouraging more women participation in this program as they have institutional support for safe participation and can participate at the ease of their time.
In order to develop the technical skills through Free and Open Source Software projects we introduced the WikiForAll program series. WikiForAll is a series of training programs designed to train students on Wikimedia’s Technical platforms. By doing this training for the students we believe that the students will learn about how to apply their technical skills for developing Wikimedia projects. Moreover, this will also help to onboard new contributors in technical space on Wikimedia and thereby also help the young crowd to develop the core technical skills and programming languages. This program will also help them to pursue careers in tech and also add more value to their portfolio. This way the students are also introduced to Open Knowledge projects, culture and ecosystem.
The WikiForAll program series 1 has helped the students to gain the fundamental knowledge of the Web and also an introduction to the Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata etc. We want to continue these series of programs to sustain the participation of these newly onboarded contributors. WikiForAll program series 2 shall include initiating a WikiClub in the campus with the active contributors and regular activities shall be planned as part of this. In this program we shall cover a few internship programs on Wiki Tools and Wiki Tech for the students who will be guided by Wikimedian expertise and mentors.
- 7. What are the planned activities? (required) Please provide a list of main activities. You can also add a link to the public page for your project where details about your project can be found. Alternatively, you can upload a timeline document. When the activities include partnerships, include details about your partners and planned partnerships.
WikiForAll program series will be a 3 months long program. This is carefully planned to ensure that the students who come from a Computer Science background shall learn about the core skills required to develop for their career and education through Wikimedia technologies and projects.
The module planning and training is in association with the Wikimedians of Kerala User Group (https://www.wikimediakerala.in/)
The program will be carried out in partnership with Women In Tech collectives, India(https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/women-in-tech-collectives-indian-self-help-community-offering-digital-services/). The Self-Help Community supports the grassroot needs of the women participants viz., their educational fees, career mapping and coordinating activities between the student’s Academic Institution and the WikiForAll program.
The activities and training of the program will be carried out in the seminar hall at Dr.G.R. Damodaran College of Science (https://www.grd.org/grdcs/) who will be the venue and Institutional partner for this program.
The link to the course module:
- 8. Describe your team. Please provide their roles, Wikimedia Usernames and other details. (required) Include more details of the team, including their roles, usernames, Wikimedia group, and whether they are salaried, volunteers, consultants/contractors, etc.
1. Bhuvana Meenakshi (Wikimedian and Researcher, MediaWiki/ WikiCommons and Tamil Wikipedia) – Program Organiser and Researcher (paid – Contract basis) (240 hrs)
- Developing Academic curriculum that will include skill development projects through practical projects by engaging in Wikimedia projects.
- Organising the training events based on the syllabus and resources availability and ensuring the complete functioning of the program.
- Submit a research report based on the case studies and observations from the Program.
- Managing and supporting the program and mediate between the team members and the college organisation.
- Support the Institution in initiating a WikiClub to encourage more volunteer contributions.
2. Ranjith Siji (Wikimedian - Wikimedians of Kerala) and other trainers – Trainers and consultants (paid – Contract basis) (120 hrs)
- Design a syllabus that fits the target group and implement the training program.
- Train the students on the MediaWiki and help them contribute to the Wikimedia projects.
- Monitor the progress of the students and support them with all technical challenges.
- Facilitate in-person training programs organised by the WikiClub of the institution.
3. Reshma (Wikimedian) – Admin and event coordinator (paid – Contract basis) (25 hrs)
- Carry out the overall Admin works of the program.
- Understand the requirements of the program and the organisation and make decisions accordingly.
- Support the Program Manager and coordinate in the meetups and training sessions.
- Manage the logistics of the trainers and participants for both offline and online events.
- Track the activities carried out under the WikiClub and support in the planning of all the events.
4. Sujatha (Wikimedian) - Communications coordinator (paid – Contract basis) (25 hrs)
- Carry out communication works both formal and informal conversations required by the program and support the Admin.
- Organise training programs and internal meetups.
- Maintain the calendar schedules and payroll.
- Make bookings and maintain records for reimbursements.
5. Harish (CA and auditing)
- Support to maintain the financial records of bills and payroll.
- Audit the bills and invoices.
- Provide the financial statement and report on completion of the program.
6. Uma Maheshwari – volunteer
- Ensuring safe space policies are followed in both physical and virtual meetups. Be the point of Contact for any type of Grievance redressal related to the program.
7. Radhamani – volunteer
- Receive feedback from the community of students about the training and the program. Suggest improvements based on the feedback and do a quality check on the program.
- 9. Who are the target participants and from which community? How will you engage participants before and during the activities? How will you follow up with participants after the activities? (required)
In the second series of the WikiForAll program we are targeting a cohort of 30 participants who belong to first gen graduates and also have barriers in socio-economic backgrounds. This will include the majority of participants who identify as women and the rest will belong to other genders, this is to encourage a diverse participation in the program. This program will help the students to bridge their Academia and technical skills which will in turn help them seek for better opportunities in Tech industries. We have designed the module for WikiForAll and made some improvements after careful observation and research made from the first series of the program. The trainer(s) would assign various interesting tasks and projects on Phabricator/Gitlab for the students to get an individual hands-on experience. We shall develop training course materials with interesting interactions and media to help the students to understand the Wiki Tech tools and environment. To engage and follow-up on the status of the project tasks and activities we shall create Projects on Github and manage the repositories specifically assigned before or after the training sessions. The trainer and mentors would create groups on chat platforms in order to answer any questions from the student community.
We shall initiate the WikiClub activities with the students from first and second cohorts of the WikiForAll program. We shall plan to do activities around Wiki Tech and other Wikimedia projects which the students have received the training to contribute. We also intend to provide Internships for a few students who are interested to continue and who showed good progress in projects from the WikiForAll program series 1.
The research findings and observations from the case studies shall be compiled into a report and published for public use.
- 9.1. If your project includes in-person activities, are there any international participants travelling to India for them? (required)
- No
- 9.1.1. List all countries of participation. (required)
- 9.2. Will the project be transferring funds to any international participants? (required)
- No
- 9.2.1. List all international participants receiving funding and their countries. (required)
N/A
- 10. Does your project involve work with children or youth? (required)
- No
- 10.1. Please provide a link to your Youth Safety Policy. (required) If the proposal indicates direct contact with children or youth, you are required to outline compliance with international and local laws for working with children and youth, and provide a youth safety policy aligned with these laws. Read more here.
N/A
- 11. How did you discuss the idea of your project with your community members and/or any relevant groups? Please describe steps taken and provide links to any on-wiki community discussion(s) about the proposal. (required) You need to inform the community and/or group, discuss the project with them, and involve them in planning this proposal. You also need to align the activities with other projects happening in the planned area of implementation to ensure collaboration within the community.
The WikiForAll program series 2 is proposed due to the overwhelming response from the student participants and the faculty members of the Dr. G R Damodaran College of Science, Coimbatore, where we conducted the first series of this program. The student community of these groups wanted to learn about Open Source and they contributed to FOSS and Open Knowledge projects. Their feedback on continuing this program because the first series happened for a short timeline and the students wanted to learn the advanced techniques in the upcoming series. Therefore, we wanted to collaboratively do this with Wikimedia volunteers to support and facilitate the students to start their Open Source journey through Wiki projects. The students who were trained from the first series of the program shall also be involved in the mentoring and training process to their juniors who will be part of the new cohort under the WikiForAll series 2. Therefore, establishing a WikiClub would encourage the students to create their own spaces to contribute on different Wikimedia projects of their choice and also to effectively encourage further participants into the ecosystem. The output of the WikiForAll series 1 has been the main reason for the continuation into the next series of this program and in the long term we want to widely collaborate with other Institutions who fall under the same interests.
- 12. Does your proposal aim to work to bridge any of the content knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Other Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context)
- 13. Does your proposal include any of these areas or thematic focus? Select one option that most applies to your work. (required)
Education
- 14. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select one option that most apply to your work. (required)
Socioeconomic status
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Evaluate, Iterate, and Adapt
Metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
The major takeaways for me and my teammates from this project are:
- Creating a WikiClub in the campus and sustaining the contributors on the Wikimedia projects by helping them find the required support systems and guide.
- Involve the students in first hand experience of coding in a live server of a live project in Open Source.
- Identify and design an educational curriculum for the Wiki Tech project based on the student's interests and skills in the technology.
- Create a project structure to help students to contribute to the projects such as identifying bugs, fixing code and writing codes based on the community's needs.
- Observing the challenges involved in the learning process and addressing the same through alternative research and techniques.
- Understand the Academia structure and help the students to meet the industry needs which can make them eligible for employment and also pursue their further interests in tech.
- This program will include introduction to the Wiki project, hands-on experience on the project and a research observation report to help us understand various outcomes from this project.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 30 | |
| Number of editors | 30 | |
| Number of organizers | 3 |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | |
| Wikimedia Commons | 200 |
| Wikidata | 2000 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | 10 |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | 15 |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
N/A
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
Yes
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of Wiki tools created | Tools created for Wikimedia projects | 5 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
- 20. What tools would you use to measure each metrics? Please refer to the guide for a list of tools. You can also write that you are not sure and need support. (required)
- To count the number of participants who will participate throughout this cohort and Diversity of participation: A registration Form will be used for signing up for this program in the beginning and with the participant’s consent the details shall be collected. - Outreach dashboard and Quarry service
- To track the project contributions : Phabricator / Gitlab
- For students to communicate with mentors throughout the learning : A messenger group on any Open Source platform shall be used.
- For running the SQL queries and extract any on Wiki information for analysis: Quarry
- All media related to this program shall be made available on Wikimedia Commons under the category WikiForAll
- To post on Social media about the project and for sharing the blogs we shall use a hashtag: #WikiForAll
- For sharing blogs : [3]
- Research: Interview, Focussed Group discussion and survey tools ([4]) and research report will be published on Meta Wiki.
Budget
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hgksumW2xJzxieH4Ulomhm49Sbs45i7h_ynzABsqNJc/edit?usp=sharing
- 22. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in Indian Rupees. (required)
426000 INR
- 22.1. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD. (required)
4988.29 USD
- By submitting this proposal request you agree with the Institutional Partner Privacy Policy, Application Privacy Statements, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
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