Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Week September 2025 at UIC (ID: 23452226)
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Applicant Details
[edit]- Main Wikimedia username. (required)
zachmcdowell
- Organization
The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
- 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)
Main Proposal
[edit]- 1. Please state the title of your proposal. This will also be the Meta-Wiki page title.
Wiki Week September 2025 at UIC
- 2. and 3. Proposed start and end dates for the proposal.
2025-09-01 - 2025-09-30
- 4. Where will this proposal be implemented? (required)
United States of America
- 5. Are your activities part of a Wikimedia movement campaign, project, or event? If so, please select the relevant project or campaign. (required)
Not applicable
- 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)
We are hoping to build better relationships between Wikipedia, WMF, and the University of Illinois at Chicago for research, education, and participation in the movement.
- 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.
This grant will help to fund multiple activities throughout the week of September 15th: 1) September 15th 2025 - Colloquium (estimated attendance - 100 faculty, researchers, and educators from UIC and beyond), featuring speakers from WMF including Stan Adams and Costanza Sciubba Caniglia, as well as potentially a live discussion on zoom with someone else. This event will introduce WMF's mission and goals to an array of academics, and offer opportunities for involvement in the movement as well as opportunities for connection with researchers and policymakers (eg: Deans, Vice Provosts). This will also set the stage for the rest of the week.
2) September 16th - Education workshop - Wiki Education Foundation's Ian Ramjohn has volunteered to teach a workshop to educators on using Wikipedia in the classroom. This will get more teachers using Wiki Education, but also it will get more students writing Wikipedia.
3) September 17th - Librarian workhop - Jamie Flood and Dominic Byrd-McDevitt have volunteered to teach a workshop to librarians at UIC which will introduce both Wikipedia as an information literacy teaching tool, as well as Wikidata for librarians, and a general overview of GLAM activities. This will get more librarians involved with the movement and offer them opportunities for GLAM based engagements in the Wikimedia movement.
4) September 18th - Editathon - UIC will host a day-long editathon that will invite the attendees from earlier in the week to learn hands-on how to edit and engage with Wikipedia, focusing on underrepresented topics related to Chicago. This will involve the newly re-established Wikimedians of Chicago usergroup, who will help teach and mentor the participants
- 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. Team members involved in the grant application need to be aware of their involvement in the project.
Primary team is Zachary McDowell (user:zachmcdowell). This event is being run through the Humanities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, which is directed by Ellen McClure and staffed by Katie Corby. We are all employees of the University of Illinois at Chicago.
- 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)
Target participants range throughout the days from faculty researcher, teachers, and staff members, to librarians, to general population of UIC including students. We will have sign-ups for everyone involved, and follow up via email regarding their particular interests and activities, encouraging further discussion and involvement at UIC. We will invite faculty, staff, and librarians to join the digital humanities working group, which will continue to discuss, host, and promote Wikimedia in academic settings.
- 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.
We have not discussed this on-wiki yet, but have discussed this with 1) leadership of UIC through email and meetings over the last six months, and 2) with members of the Wikimedians of Chicago through their discord server.
- 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)
Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
- 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)
Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background
- 15. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select one that most applies. (required)
Innovate in Free Knowledge
Learning and metrics
[edit]- 17. What do you hope to learn from your work in this project or proposal? (required)
We are hoping to learn more about ways we can connect academics with Wikimedia projects more readily. In particular, the meetings and dinner with WMF staff and academics will be of particular use to help gauge excitement and interest in different projects. We will follow up with different participants to discuss ways in which we can connect participants with knowledge equity and representation concerns, learning more about how to encourage University members with Wikimedia.
- 18. What are your Wikimedia project targets in numbers (metrics)? (required)
| Other Metrics | Target | Optional description |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | 150 | We are expecting a large crowd for the first day, and 10-20 each training day, as well as 20 people over the day (or more) for the editathon. |
| Number of editors | 50 | Each of the training members as well as the editathon participants will most likely be newly registered. There will be probably ten or so returning members participating. |
| Number of organizers | 6 | There will be three major organizers, but additionally there are three volunteers for different days (Ian Ramjohn for Tuesday, and Jamie Flood and Dominic Byrd-McDevitt for Wednesday and Thursday). Additionally there will be members from the Wikimedians of Chicago usergroup. |
| Wikimedia project | Number of content created or improved |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | 5 |
| Wikimedia Commons | |
| Wikidata | 5 |
| Wiktionary | |
| Wikisource | |
| Wikimedia Incubator | |
| Translatewiki | |
| MediaWiki | |
| Wikiquote | |
| Wikivoyage | |
| Wikibooks | |
| Wikiversity | |
| Wikinews | |
| Wikispecies | |
| Wikifunctions or Abstract Wikipedia |
- Optional description for content contributions.
This is a low estimate as the Wikidata entries will be during a workshop, and we are hoping to focus the energies of the editathon to a few relevant articles.
- 19. Do you have any other project targets in numbers (metrics)? (optional)
No
| Main Open Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| 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)
We will use the dashboard for capturing information
Financial proposal
[edit]- 21. Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it. (required)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12slu2MGORFcic64Wn4HmNc_ol_0QIUkD5yHYWN10rG8/edit?usp=sharing
- 22. and 22.1. What is the amount you are requesting for this proposal? Please provide the amount in your local currency. (required)
4941.05 USD
- 22.2. Convert the amount requested into USD using the Oanda converter. This is done only to help you assess the USD equivalent of the requested amount. Your request should be between 500 - 5,000 USD.
4941.05 USD
- We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
Yes
Endorsements and Feedback
[edit]Please add endorsements and feedback to the grant discussion page only. Endorsements added here will be removed automatically.
Community members are invited to share meaningful feedback on the proposal and include reasons why they endorse the proposal. Consider the following:
- Stating why the proposal is important for the communities involved and why they think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected.
- Highlighting any aspects they think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc.
- Highlighting if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities.
- Analyzing if the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy.
- Analysing if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget, and expected results (metrics).