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Conference management resources

Event page templates, sample surveys, logistics guides and other resources to help plan and execute a successful conference.

General information

Event pages

  • CEE Meeting 2016
  • WikiConference India 2016: The front page was updated during different stages of the planning process. For example, in the days before the event the front page was updated with directions on how to get to the venue, include information about the best buses, trains or other ground transport for participants coming from out of town.
  • WikiConference North America

Remote event organization

Surveys

  • Event Evaluation Toolkit - In this page you can find a list of basic questions that the Wikimedia Foundation uses to evaluate large movement events like Wikimania and other regional and thematic events. Feel free to use any part of these questionnaires to evaluate your own event. You will find: Registration Questions; Post-event questions for participants and Follow-up questions for participants.
  • Community engagement survey 1: This survey is required to complete the grant application. The purpose of the survey is to identify the discussion topics, projects and skills your community wants to focus on at an event. DO NOT EDIT - Please make a Copy.

Registration

Your registration page should make it clear whether the event is open to anyone who wants to attend, or if the event will be closed to scholarship recipients and invited participants.

Please also refer to the Event Evaluation Toolkit where you can also fund a suggested registration form.

Travel scholarship policy

Scholarship eligibility

  • Travel scholarship recipients must be in good standing with their local affiliates and with the Wikimedia Foundation. This means the scholarship applicant should not have any ongoing issues with friendly space policies or overdue grant reports.
  • Travel scholarship recipients who represent an affiliate must be in good standing on the primary Wikimedia projects where their affiliate works.

Gender balance

When affiliates choose more than one representative to attend a conference, they should try to choose representatives of two different genders. If this is not possible, the affiliate should create a plan to improve gender diversity in their group, and include this gender diversity plan in their annual affiliate report.

Traveler responsibility

Scholarship recipients are expected to attend and participate in the event. Scholarship recipients who do not attend or participate in an event will not be eligible for a travel scholarship to any WMF funded event (including Wikimania and Wikimedia Conference) for 1 year. For more information about the scholarship recipient's commitment, please refer to the Wikimedia Foundation Scholarship Travel Policy. The policy was developed to ensure that scholars traveling on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation are treated equitably, regardless of which event they are attending.

Insurance for conference participants

What is covered?
Generally speaking, the insurance provides coverage for medical and some security needs. It does not cover participants for lost bags, canceled flights, or missed connections. It also does not cover lost or stolen items like computers, wallets, or other devices. Please contact conferencegrants(_AT_)wikimedia(_DOT_)org for additional questions about coverage.
Who is covered?
Conference participants whose travel is being funded (or reimbursed) through a Conference Grant are covered by the Wikimedia Foundation's insurance policy. This coverage applies both to partial and full travel scholarships. Participants whose travel is covered through a different Wikimedia Foundation grant, such as an Annual Plan Grant from a Wikimedia chapter, are also covered. Attendees whose travel is not covered or reimbursed by a travel scholarship are not covered by WMF insurance.
Insurance coverage is limited to those conference participants traveling from outside the country where the event is taking the place. Participants within the country who need medical help will need to use their own personal insurance.
When a list of travel scholarship recipients has been finalized, please send this list to conferencegrants(_AT_)wikimedia(_DOT_)org so Wikimedia Foundation staff knows who is being covered for your conference.

Friendly space policy

Friendly space policies (often called "safe space policies" or "anti-harassment policies") are one important way to help prevent harassment at conferences and events. These types of policies set expectations for behavior and support increased participant diversity. They also give conference organizers guidelines on how to handle harassment quickly, with the minimum amount of disruption for the event. All WMF grantees are required to have a friendly space policy for their in-person events. We understand that this type of policy may need to be edited to fit different cultural contexts so we are not requiring the use of one specific policy.

  • Friendly space policy for Wikimedia Foundation Events: You may use or adapt this policy to fit your context.
  • Keeping Events Safe booklet. This resource kit is a short, easily accessible summary of some best practices that may be useful when you are organizing an event. It is not intended to be a definitive resource, but should provide advice and guidance when handling safety issues at events.
  • Another valuable resource will be the event safety training modules. This training is intended to help event organizers prepare to handle incidents of harassment or abuse at events. This module should take around ten minutes to complete.
  • We highly recommend that you read and use The Community Toolkit for Greater Diversity (CTGD), created to teach Wikimedian organizers how to better support knowledge equity. It includes a module focused on making events safe and welcoming, and another on organizing an inclusive event for persons with disabilities, among several others. We suggest that you click on each of the topics listed in the sidebar of the website and browse through all of the resources available to see what is most useful to you.
  • Friendly space guidelines: Examples of policies for a variety of events, and a step-by-step guide for how to handle harassment at events. All members of the event organizing team should read this page.
  • One month before the event you must have a friendly space policy posted prominently on your event page, and name at least two volunteers who will be responsible for implementing the policy. The Program Officer will schedule a call with the core organizing team and the friendly space team one month before the event to discuss the policy and ensure everyone feels prepared to follow the guidelines.

Accessibility

Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity. The concept focuses on enabling access for people with disabilities, or special needs, or enabling access through the use of assistive technology.

How can we make movement events more accessible for participants, reducing linguistic, technological, cultural, economic, social, and other event barriers? See a collection of information and considerations for organizers; that is not meant to be a checklist, over time we intend to create or highlight additional smaller and more actionable stand-alone resources.

Required checklist

Required checklist - This checklist will be required for events going through the Wikimedia Foundation Conference Grants Program

Logistics

Follow up

  • Each session should be well documented with documentation posted on-wiki after the meeting.
  • All sessions should have action items and designated people (more than one) who will follow-up within a set timeframe.
  • Make sure to assign someone on the organizing team who can check-in with the designated follow-up people from each session in the months following the event. They should offer reminders and ask for progress updates.
  • Consider asking scholarship recipients and people who are representing a user group to report on action items or opportunities they will pursue after the event, and provide links to the notes they shared with their community.
  • Decide how and when you will evaluate progress made toward the conference goals and expected outcomes. For example, you might send out a survey six months after the event to find out whether participants have begun collaborating on new projects, or using skills they learned to use new tools.
  • Traveling Wikimedians report to the stay-at-homes: ask participants how they will share with the local community afterwards.
  • Workshop feedback forms: Can be used for any workshop or session to collect feedback for presenters and for participants to document how they will use the information in the next 30 days.

Conference Program

Call for proposals

  • Share conference goals in the submission process. Ask proposal writers identify how their session fits the conference priorities.
  • Ask presenters to share their outcome targets (i.e., “What will participants learn or do differently based on your session?”).
  • Ask proposal writers to share contact information so that you can follow up with them when you are developing the conference program.
  • Workshop sessions should include skills/equipment that participants may need, the maximum group size and the amount of time necessary to complete activities.

Conference program

  1. Consider how the conference aims shared meet the program planning group’s intended goals for hosting the conference. Consider priority in light of both perspectives.
  2. Weight and approve proposals based on chosen priorities. Consider how many goals you will service and what proportion of the time you will dedicate to each.
  3. Group proposals by category, and rate them within category to create a ranked list of proposals for each category
  4. Develop a rubric for scoring proposals that is consistent and considers factors like alignment to goals, speaker experience, proposed format fitting format priorities, audience interest, etc.)
  5. Pay attention to similar proposals and consider if it makes sense to suggest they might be combined in a multi-presenter session or even as a synthesized presentation - Such connections can be important later when you are having to make cuts especially.
  6. Set allotment count for each prioritized categories select the top sessions from each group up to the allotment quota

Examples:

Use the table below to make sure the program includes sessions and workshops are aligned to the priorities listed in your approved grant request. You will need to complete this table for the grant report.

Description Priority Activities during the conference Conference report
Strategic discussions:

What are the top issues affecting your community that need to be discussed in person?

Please list any significant issues or ideas that your community needs to discuss at the conference.
  • For each issue, please describe the format of the session where you will discuss the issue.
  • High-level notes about the status of the discussion and the next steps that are planned.
  • Names of people will be responsible for following up.
  • If conference participants drafted a proposal or some other document for review, please link to the page.
Capacity development:

Are there important skills that many people in your community need to learn?

Please list capacity building sessions or workshops.
  • For each capacity building session, please describe one goal. For example, more people use X tool, more people apply for grants.
  • How many people participated in each training session?
  • Are people using the skills they learned at the conference?
  • Do participants want additional training or support to continue to improve those skills?
Working groups:

Are there joint projects that need to be planned in person?

Please list any projects that participants worked on together at the conference.
  • For each project, please describe the type of session where project based work will be done. For example, will a project be presented in a lightning talk, will there be a workshop where people learn skills they need to join a project, will there be a discussion or planning session to start a new project?
  • Brief description of new projects that were planned at the conference or summary of improvements/changes that were made to existing projects after the meeting.
  • Names of people who are responsible to follow up or complete projects
  • Have new people joined projects after the conference?
Community building:

Are there other in-person activities are important for community building?

  • What will you do to have fun and bond together?
  • Are there mediated discussions planned to help community members resolve a conflict?
  • Did people have fun and meet new people?
  • Were conflicts resolved, or is additional support needed to address these issues?

Effective sessions

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