Grants:IEG/WOW! Editing Group
This project is funded by an Individual Engagement Grant
Project idea[edit]
What is the problem you're trying to solve?[edit]
Since women represent less than 10% of Wikipedia editors, efforts need to be made to teach authorship, research skills, and community building with college and high school women so that they can become regular contributors to Wikipedia. Furthermore, in order to sustain and support these emerging contributors, the community must be maintained and have a formalized plan for continued support.
What is your solution?[edit]
We propose to research and create a guide for forming and maintaining an Editing Group that partners college-age women with high school-age women. By setting up monthly socials, teach-ins, and edit-a-thons, we will form our first group while simultaneously writing a guide that can be dispersed, edited and shared with other institutions and community groups.
Our culture needs to get the next generation excited about authorship and leadership in the Wikipedia space. In order to get more women involved in the editing process, we need to foster personal connections with Wikipedia editing. As a university professor and a recent college graduate, we are uniquely positioned to act as role models and help facilitate relationships between young women in high school and higher education.
Many universities including UC Berkeley are focusing on digital humanities, and there are new initiatives that provide funding to bridge the divide between technology and writing. This is a testament to the longevity of this project, particularly the likelihood of securing future funds through initiatives at the university level.
Goals[edit]
- To increase the number of female Wikipedia editors
- To foster a sense of community among young female editors on Wikipedia
- To create a pilot editing group of college-age women and high school-age women to research and implement a plan for guidelines
- To create a blog/wiki to record the experiences of participants and document our process.
Get Involved[edit]
Participants[edit]
- Volunteer I would like to participate in teach-in's and add to the active discussion in regards to creating a network of knowledge that is not biased, but creates a hole view of an idea, enabling varying perspectives to be included and acknowledged. I would love to come to any events and help any way possible. 23.243.233.38 21:49, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
Endorsements[edit]
- These women are inspirational and will be able to motivate young females to take ownership of information. Laraberkeley (talk) 19:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- OR drohowa (talk) 20:11, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
- We were very impressed with the Berkeley Art+Feminism node, and have no doubt they will be successful in this endeavor Theredproject (talk) 02:51, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- This is a wonderful idea to support the next generation of female editors. Failedprojects (talk) 14:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- I support more women and girls becoming Wikipedia editors!!!! Gaildekosnik (talk) 15:07, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- I support this project which seems like a well thought-out process for supporting a new generation of female editors from Wikipedians already well-versed in training and event-organizing --Siankevans (talk) 16:04, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
- A much needed vision with and strong focused proposal and impressive team! Let's make this happen! Ericpaulos (talk) 19:14, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- Women should know their worth and their power and should find and use their voices at every opportunity. 2601:7:A580:686:411:C0F3:919B:7BC4 21:39, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- I believe in this idea. I believe that it is important to create a network of shared knowledge and information that is not edited by only one kind of person -- by many different kinds, including women. It is a very important thing to give this power to women and enable them to realize their power to add to the discussion and inform as well as change. 23.243.233.38 21:47, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- Mentorship rules! Vpseudo (talk) 22:24, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- Cause it's fucking awesome Dawnweleski (talk) 22:26, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
- It sounds like an idea that needs to be implemented. Tcahill2 (talk) 00:52, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
- It's important to have nuanced and diverse sources for knowledge creation.
Toddtime Toddtime (talk) 17:30, 6 April 2015 (UTC)
- I think it's important to close the gender gap! 104.32.161.67 00:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- I love and support the idea of gender equity and advocacy for women's place in history, and in making the world today. There should be equal numbers of female editors as there are male editors for wikipedia!!! The authors of history have been disproportionately male for far too long! Please help change this! Wikipedia is so revolutionary in so many ways - but this is a big are in which it is still regressive. Please help Wikipedia Buddy Group train more women to be wikipedia editors! It's a positive and proactive response to an area of great need! 76.91.52.233 13:54, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- Good idea, my support and greetings. Ahmed Nisar (talk) 11:12, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
Project plan[edit]
Activities[edit]
We will divide our tasks into Research, Act, and Document.
Research[edit]
- Ethnographic research and interviews with long-term leaders and members of community groups
- Surveys and outreach to college and high school-age women
Act[edit]
- Identify college-age women to participate by reaching out through various student groups. We have connections with several but we plan to reach out to: Panhellenic Sororities, Graduate Women of Engineering, Society of Women Engineers, Society of Women in Science, Prytanean Women’s Honor Society, CS KickStart
- Reach out to administration at local high schools to form partnerships with institutions
- Monthly edit-a-thon socials for forming peer relationships; will make it a “fun” environment with food and music, but also have themed editing sessions (i.e. women in science, women in art, women of color, etc)
- Form a system of aggregating work a partnership has done, so each pair can track all of the work they’ve contributed to Wikipedia together
Document[edit]
- Develop protocols for engaging with a local university or a local high school
- Document and create archives of research and events.
- Seek partner institutions for future support as project grows and expands
Phase 1 - Summer 2015
Activities: 1) Send Surveys 2) Recruit participants 3) Document process
Phase 1 - Early Fall 2015
Activities: 1) Editing group implementation 2) Initiate regular monthly socials 3) PR and community connections 4) Documentation
Phase 3 - Late Fall 2015
Activities: 1) Monthly socials 2) PR and community connections 3) Editing group evaluation 4) Documentation of Editing Pairs and Successes/Challenges
Budget[edit]
- Food/Drinks $800
- PR Material printing & distribution $500
- Principal Investigator - $4500
- Conduct basic, preliminary research; Create web-based surveys to collect cultural information about project participants; Liaise with local university and high school staff and students; Recruit and manage Project Assistants; Develop and implement plans and materials for community outreach; Oversee and advise Editing Group events and activities; Keep online record of events, participant feedback, updates. (Variable hours)
- Project Assistant (Summer) - $750
- Create and disseminate web surveys to target groups; Assist in research on local community groups; Assist in documentation of interviews; Collect contact information on UC Berkeley clubs and groups; Invite/Recruit college-age participants for WOW! Editing Group; Help PI organize survey responses for use in best practices guidelines; Design and disseminate informational paper ephemera about WOW! Editing Group; Form and manage social media identity for WOW! Editing Group; Facilitate original editing pairings (5 - 20 hours/week)
- Project Assistant (Early Fall) - $750
- Manage social media identity; Assist with WOW! Editing Group socials and meet ups; Maintain contact with WOW! Editing Group participants via email to encourage progress and get feedback; Facilitate surveys with participants regarding satisfaction with WOW! Editing Group; Keep materials organized for use in guideline development. (5 - 20 hours/week)
- Project Assistant (Late Fall/Winter) - $750
- Manage social media identity; Assist with WOW! Editing Group socials and meet ups; Maintain contact with WOW! Editing Group participants via email to encourage progress and get feedback; Facilitate surveys with participants regarding satisfaction with WOW! Editing Group; Assist with draft of best practices guidelines. (5 - 20 hours/week)
Community engagement[edit]
By hosting our project at UC Berkeley, we will easily access college-age women and existing community groups. We will connect with local high schools to form our first editing group. Berkeley is an active, diverse community with a rich history in activism, which makes it an ideal site for this project.
Sustainability[edit]
This project is a pilot program that will serve as a learning tool. We will document our process for the formation of future editing groups all over the US and beyond.
Measures of success[edit]
The pilot editing group allows us to shift and change our practices based on participant feedback. Through documentation and publishing our guidelines, we will share our experiences with the larger community.
Our goal is to create a minimum of 10 editing pairs (or trios) during this pilot.
Another goal is to identify at least one college-age participant and one high school-age participant to act as hosts at their school site.
We hope to improve or add 100 articles by the end of our pilot program.
We plan to track retention of active editors, and we can set a numerical goal for this if necessary.
Project team[edit]
Jill Miller is an artist who creates collaborative, socially-engaged projects with diverse communities. She is faculty at UC Berkeley, the San Francisco Art Institute, and Stanford University. She and her former student Anna Carey co-hosted the first Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at UC Berkeley. Their Edit-A-Thon is mentioned in the East Bay Express and the Daily Californian publications. Anna made a guest appearance on KQED’s Forum show on NPR in San Francisco.