Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Introduction to Wikipedia and Commons micro credential course (ID: 22362462)/Final Report
Application type: Standard application
Part 1: Project and impact
1. Describe the implemented activities and results achieved. Additionally, share which approaches were most effective in supporting you to achieve the results. (required)
I created a course on WikiLearn titled 'Introduction to Wikipedia'. Currently it is coming out of beta testing where 6 Wikimedia users have viewed and reviewed the course, providing feedback that will assist in the final launch.
Creating this course was a challenge, and took much longer than originally anticipated. A second course focusing on Wikimedia Commons was also planned as part of the project, but has been delayed due to the need to re-record several videos and narration after the process to upload media to Commons was changed.
To create this project I first wrote scripts on how to use and contribute to Wikipedia. This included how to edit, where to find help, and how to join community events. These scripts were sent to staff at WMF and WMAU who provided feedback, and I then created a brand new Wikimedia account as I recorded myself exploring Wikipedia as a new user. This step showed there were additional changes required to the script, as the way a new user sees Wikipedia can be different to experienced editors.
I paired the videos with audio narration I had recorded separately, and once they had been edited, I began creating the course on WikiLearn, a learning platform where you can take a course on Wikimedia related topics and earn a certificate of micro credential badge.
I combined my videos with text and quizzes, so people taking the course can test their knowledge. I also created a PDF guide for each lesson that can be followed along for those unable to watch videos.
As mentioned, this project is only now coming out from beta so not all of the results, metrics, and achievements are complete. So far, those who have taken the course have found it useful and informative, and even some experienced editors who tested the course said they discovered new things they hadn't been aware of.
I created everything using a MacBook Air M2, and Final Cut Pro. Audio was recorded using Studio 4 at State Library Victoria with a Rode Rodecaster Pro standalone recorder and Rode Procaster microphones. Video was recorded using the in-built Screenshot feature in Mac OS, and then edited in Final Cut Pro. Videos were converted to webm format for Wikimedia Commons using HandBrake.
The entire project took additional time for a number of reasons, which I will discuss more in the Learning section below.
I was supported by WMF and WMAU staff via email, and they were quick to answer when I had questions. I gave them monthly updates on my progress, and WMAU additionally helped me find beta testers from their contacts.
2. Documentation of your impact. Please use space below to share links that help tell your story, impact, and evaluation. (required)
Share links to:
- Project page on Meta-Wiki or any other Wikimedia project
- Dashboards and tools that you used to track contributions
- Some photos or videos from your event. Remember to share access.
You can also share links to:
- Important social media posts
- Surveys and their results
- Infographics and sound files
- Examples of content edited on Wikimedia projects
The project Dashboard shows some impact. Of the beta testers, I excluded WMF/WMAU staff and myself from the Dashboard as we're all experienced and previous editors. This left two users who it seems have some familiarity with Wikipedia already, but I left them in the Dashboard as I'm not personally familiar with them. Ongoing, I won't vet the users, and anyone who enrols in the course will be added to the project Dashboard. https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/WikiLearn/An_Introduction_to_Wikipedia/home
I will also be presenting about this course at Wikimania 2024, so additional documentation will be available in the next month when the session is presented and later made available online: https://wikimania.eventyay.com/2024/talk/VJUYUP/
I have surveyed my beta testers but won't have full results until after this report is due as some were still completing the course when I sent it out.
Additionally, share the materials and resources that you used in the implementation of your project. (required)
For example:
- Training materials and guides
- Presentations and slides
- Work processes and plans
- Any other materials your team has created or adapted and can be shared with others
PDF guides of each lesson are here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Documents_for_Introduction_to_Wikipedia
Videos of each lesson are here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Introduction_to_Wikipedia_on_Wiki_Learn
Slides for my Wikimania 2024 presentation are here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1udyFXRnS7DWkwYqr9cA2MvDjWdkt_vQdINCc8JEniI4/edit?usp=sharing
A recording of my Wikimania session should be made available later. I will talk about developing the course and using WikiLearn.
3. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with this Rapid Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals. Required. Select one option per question. (required)
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Neither agree nor disagree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement | Agree |
| F. Other (optional) |
Part 2: Learning
4. In your application, you outlined some learning questions. What did you learn from these learning questions when you implemented your project? How do you hope to use this learnings in the future? You can recall these learning questions below. (required)
You can recall these learning questions below: This project will show whether there is interest in learning about Wikipedia in an online course, and whether Wiki Learn is the best place to host that. I hope to know the answers to the following questions:
- Is a certificate/micro credential enough to attract new users to learn about Wikimedia projects?
- Is Wiki Learn the best place to host such a course?
- Is there interest in creating additional introductory courses on Wiki Learn?
- Can these courses be used as part of professional development for employees?
- Is an online self-paced course a good alternative to existing edit-a-thon / Wikipedia workshops held in-person or online?
Given the project has so far only been available to beta testers and WMAU staff, it's hard to answer this 100%, but from this small group it has shown there is a STRONG interest in learning about Wikipedia in an online course, and that WikiLearn works as a place to host that.
In answer to my other questions.
- Is a certificate/micro credential enough to attract new users to learn about Wikimedia projects?
Those who took the course were more interested in it because it had the support of WMAU, and the certificate seemed to be less interesting to them than the learning content itself. This might change as individuals discover the course though.
- Is WikiLearn the best place to host such a course?
The feedback I have received is that WikiLearn works well. Presumably once more course becoming available on the platform, people will spend more time on there learning, completing one course and then another. I believe WikiLearn works for this type of project, and it's a useful example to show how a Wikimedia account can be used across different platforms.
- Is there interest in creating additional introductory courses on WikiLearn?
Yes. I presented at two WMAU hosted community meetings to discuss this project, and there was strong interest in the possibilities of learning about other WMF projects through WikiLearn. Several people are interested in my planned Commons course, but there is a lot of interest in a Wikidata course for beginners and advanced users. I noted that a course on Open Refine was recently added to WikiLearn, but it is not for beginners, and instead beginners are pointed to a course hosted on a different learning platform. Ideally WMF should fund porting existing course such as this to WikiLearn to build the catalogue.
- Can these courses be used as part of professional development for employees?
This will be answered later in 2024. I have had tentative talks with WMAU about supporting such a project, but this hasn't been finalised yet. I imagine it would work by having a WMAU provide an additional certificate of completion at the end of the course to meet professional development requirements of the participating organisation. Potentially it would also be tied in with regular drop in sessions to support people who prefer face-to-face learning.
- Is an online self-paced course a good alternative to existing edit-a-thon / Wikipedia workshops held in-person or online?
This is also can't be answered 100% yet. The feedback from beta testers suggests, yes this is a useful tool. But an edit-a-thon usually lasts a few hours, and this course is designed to take over a longer period of time. I expect to have a full answer by the end of 2024.
As mentioned earlier, I have surveyed my beta testers but won't have full results until after this report is due. I have surveyed them relating to the above questions, so should have more information later.
5. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities? This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences? (required)
For the negative, this project took much longer than anticipated. I had estimated 26 days or 156 hours based on my previous experience creating video content and tutorials. But this had jumped to 227 hours by the end of June when the Wikipedia course was going into beta and still required additional work. I had expected things to go a bit over, as unexpected hiccups tend to occur. But I didn't anticipate such a large discrepancy.
This was mostly due to needing to re-record audio and video for various reasons. I became sick and had to scrap some audio narration I'd recorded as I clearly sounded unwell. Other times, I realised while editing that I'd explained something poorly and had to go back and add new narration, and sometimes re-recorded the whole lesson when the new audio sounded too different.
The studio I used to record my narration was often booked out, which I had to work around. Another issue I found was the recording equipment sometimes didn’t like my SD card and I lost some sessions when it corrupted. Using another SD card fixed this.
Originally, I didn't include a section about creating new articles. I initially felt this was too much for beginners to learn quickly, but then realised it was a massive oversight as it's something new users always wanted to know about. So, late into development, I decided to add a section on creating new Wikipedia articles. This added some unexpected time, but I'm glad it was added.
After finishing the videos, Wikipedia released the Appearance menu. After adding a new section about this, Wikipedia added Dark Mode to the menu too, so I had to redo this again.
The entire Wikimedia Commons project remains incomplete due to delays creating the Wikipedia course, but also the screen and menus for uploading media to Commons has now changed so I need to re-record several videos and narration to make this current. This will be reviewed after Wikimania and completed later in 2024.
Some other unanticipated problems were the need to convert videos to webm format so they could be shared on Commons. Previously I had uploaded videos to YouTube using mp4 files, but Commons doesn't support this. My video editor doesn't export webm files, which meant having to spend extra time converting everything. So, after exporting the mp4 and uploading it to YouTube, I would convert the video to webm so it could be added to Commons. This took considerable time that I hadn't accounted for.
In terms of what I learned from this. I shouldn't have applied for such a small amount of funding to complete the project, and should have applied for funding that would have given me more time, as right now I'm submitting this report before the project has gone public so my stats don't look good at all. Some of this is due to being sick for a while earlier in the project, and other life delays, that pushed the project completion to the July, when it should have been complete earlier. But the delays also helped give time for my beta testers to look over the entire course while I made minor updates in the background.
On to the positive, I enjoyed seeing what Wikipedia looks like for a beginner. Some things were slightly different, but it also pushed me to rediscover the policies and guides to understand why some things are they way they were. This also lead to me finding additional resources that are perhaps hidden away on Wikipedia (or at least I'd never seen them), and I could add links to these in my lessons.
I also feel very confident to create new courses on WikiLearn, which will be useful while I complete the Commons course.
I expect to gain more learnings in the coming weeks as people hear about the course and provide feedback.
6. What is your plan to share your project learnings and results with other community members? If you have already done it, describe how. (required)
First, to announce the course, I will present a session about creating this course at Wikimania 2024 on Saturday 10 August. https://wikimania.eventyay.com/2024/talk/VJUYUP/
This will mostly be a behind the scenes type of presentation, but will announce the course to many people as well.
I will also publish a blog post on Diff about the course, and partner with WMAU to create a blog post and information page for their website too.
To share learnings and results, I first need more time to allow those to come in. I will publish a follow up blog post on Diff &/or WMAU to provide metrics on how the course has been used, and how additional feedback has been taken on in the past 6 months.
Part 3: Metrics
7. Wikimedia Metrics results. (required)
In your application, you set some Wikimedia targets in numbers (Wikimedia metrics). In this section, you will describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used.
| Target | Results | Comments and tools used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 20 | 5 | Dashboard and WikiLearn Gradebook.
Of the 8 accounts enrolled in the course, two were my accounts for testing and creating the course, and one was WikiLearn/WMF staff. Of the remaining 5, three were experienced editors so weren't added to the program Dashboard. Due to the course only now coming out of beta, I am confident I will achieve my goal of 20 participants by the end of 2024, which was the goal stated. |
| Number of editors | 20 | 5 | See above comment. |
| Number of organizers | 1 | 1 | This is me, although Belinda from WMAU was a great help by reviewing all of my scripts and providing feedback along the way, as well as organising the beta testers. Melissa from WMF also greatly assisted me with WikiLearn behind the scenes. |
| Wikimedia project | Target | Result - Number of created pages | Result - Number of improved pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 20 | 0 | 7 |
| Wikimedia Commons | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Wikidata | |||
| Wiktionary | |||
| Wikisource | |||
| Wikimedia Incubator | |||
| Translatewiki | |||
| MediaWiki | |||
| Wikiquote | |||
| Wikivoyage | |||
| Wikibooks | |||
| Wikiversity | |||
| Wikinews | |||
| Wikispecies | |||
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
8. Other Metrics results.
In your proposal, you could also set Other Metrics targets. Please describe the achieved results and provide links to the tools used if you set Other Metrics in your application.
| Other Metrics name | Metrics Description | Target | Result | Tools and comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
9. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? (required)
No
9.1. Please state what difficulties you had. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges? (required)
Part 4: Financial reporting
[edit]10. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency. (required)
7800
11. Please state the total amount spent in US dollars. (required)
5106.59
12. Report the funds spent in the currency of your fund. (required)
Provide the link to the financial report https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qs_whQoNZfn1ubJL5H7mocOUuubQ640KUE1Weup-sps/edit?usp=sharing
12.2. If you have not already done so in your financial spending report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal. (optional)
There were no changes to how funds were spent, but additional time was required to complete the project. Additional days have been included in final report.
13. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
No
13.1. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
13.2. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
13.3. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
14.1. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
14.2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
14.3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
15. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here. (optional)
Review notes
[edit]Review notes from Program Officer:
N/A
Applicant's response to the review feedback.
N/A