Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Wiki Education Annual Plan Grant
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Applicant details[edit]
Wikimedia username(s):
- LiAnna (Wiki Ed)
Full staff list of usernames available on meta:Wiki Education Foundation
Organization:
- Wiki Education Foundation
G. Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Applied previously and did receive a grant
H. Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- Yes
H.1 Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Stanton Foundation Simons Foundation Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Heising-Simons Foundation Broadcom Foundation Google Michelson 20MM Foundation WITH Foundation
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Additional information[edit]
R. Where will this proposal be implemented?
- United States of America
S. Please indicate whether your work will be focused on one country (local), more than one or several countries in your region (regional) or has a cross-regional (global) scope:
- International
S1. If you have answered regional or international, please write the country names and any other information that is useful for understanding your proposal.
T. If you would like, please share any websites or social media accounts that your group or organization has. (optional)
- wikiedu.org
dashboard.wikiedu.org outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org twitter.com/wikieducation
M. Do you have a fiscal sponsor?
- No
M1. Fiscal organization name.
- N/A
Proposal[edit]
1. What is the overall vision of your organization and how does this proposal contribute to this? How does this proposal connect to past work and learning?
Wiki Education engages students and academics to improve Wikipedia, enrich student learning, and build a more informed public.
2. What is the change that you are trying to bring about and why is this important?
Wiki Education is working to improve the quality, accuracy, and representation of content and contributors on Wikipedia and Wikidata. We are also serving the needs of movement organizers globally with a tool that helps them prepare, run, evaluate, and share the impact of their programs. We do this through two major programs and one technical project:
- Wikipedia Student Program: We empower college and university faculty at diverse institutions in the United States and Canada to assign their students to edit Wikipedia as a class assignment. Through this program, we routinely support more than 600 courses assigning Wikipedia editing each year, and the scale at which we’re doing it means we bring 19% of all the new active editors to the English Wikipedia. Our student population is dramatically more diverse in terms of race/ethnicity and gender than the existing Wikipedia contributors. In 2022, we will increase our efforts of outreach to diverse institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and tribal colleges, as well as faculty who teach in subject areas relevant to helping fill English Wikipedia’s knowledge equity gaps.
- Wiki Scholars & Scientists Program: We run courses teaching subject matter experts how to contribute to Wikipedia and Wikidata. Many of these courses are focused on equity issues, such as biographies of historically marginalized populations. As a fee-for-service model, this program diversifies our revenue streams. In 2022, we expect this program to grow to the point where it is self-sustaining, revenue-wise.
- Programs & Events Dashboard: We also support the most widely-used tool for program leaders in the Wikimedia movement (including many in emerging communities) to track and report on the impacts of their work. A major focus of our work in 2022 will be building out more features and support for the Programs & Events Dashboard, based on input we received from our user survey in 2021. In particular, we anticipate working on a “campaigns of campaigns” internal organization for events, better metrics for Wikidata projects, and more how-to support resources, such as videos.
3. Describe your main approaches or strategies to achieve these changes and why you think they will be effective.
Much of our 2022 work continues the existing work of prior years; information on the strategies we routinely deploy for our Wikipedia Student Program and Wiki Scholars & Scientists Program can be found in prior years’ grant applications. These strategies have proven effective, and we intend to keep doing them.
In 2022, we intend to focus on two major areas of expansion: (1) Equity-related outreach for the Wikipedia Student Program, and (2) Development of the Programs & Events Dashboard. Both are areas we have done work on in prior years, but we are seeking a larger grant this year to build out additional capacity in these areas.
In the Wikipedia Student Program, we find it takes around 6–12 months from the point where we first connect with a new instructor until they begin teaching with Wikipedia. Thus, we are seeking funding to conduct outreach during 2022 that will likely result in more courses in 2023 and beyond. This additional outreach would be focused, in line with the Movement Strategy recommendations, on knowledge equity, in both content and contributors. We will focus on instructors who teach in subject areas that will lead to more diversity within the content of English Wikipedia, such as women’s and gender studies, African American studies, or Latin American studies. We will also seek additional instructors from HBCUs, HSIs, tribal colleges, and other diverse institutions. Adding additional instructors in these content areas and from these institutions will help improve our movement’s equity.
For the Programs & Events Dashboard, we will begin tackling projects from our product roadmap, which we built based on results from our user survey. Our initial thoughts are to tackle three major areas: (1) Improved statistics for Wikidata projects, by customizing the interface with Wikidata terminology and customizing the data update process to generate and display Wikidata-specific stats, (2) determining a way to create a sort of “campaign of campaigns” so organizers can more easily manage overlapping campaigns and sets of events, and (3) better how-to documentation, including videos with closed captions available for translation. While Dashboard feature development has in the past prioritized our own needs, we will focus on the P&E user community’s needs in 2022.
4. What are the activities you will be developing and delivering as part of these approaches or strategies?
In 2022, we will continue to scale our work to improve content and contributor diversity. By December 31, 2022, we will have supported 12,500 program participants (95% new editors) to add 9.5 million words to 12,000 Wikipedia articles and improve 15,000 statements on 5,000 Wikidata items, focusing on contributors and content who improve knowledge equity. We will also add at least one new feature to the Programs & Events Dashboard, ensuring it can be used by more than 1,500 global organizers.
5. Do you want to apply for multi-year funding?
Yes
5.1 If yes, provide a brief overview of Year 2 and Year 3 of the proposed plan and how this relates to the current proposal and your strategic plan?
- Will be based on conversation mid-year.
6. Please include a timeline (operational calendar) for your proposal.
7. Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
A full description of our staff roles can be found on our website: https://wikiedu.org/about-us
Our user names are all available on Meta: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Education_Foundation#Staff
8. Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified CONTENT knowledge gaps (Knowledge Inequity)? Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Content Gender gap, Geography, Socioeconomic Status, Sexual Orientation, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context), Cultural background, ethnicity, religion, racial
8.1 In a few sentences, explain how your work is specifically addressing this content gap (or Knowledge inequity) to ensure a greater representation of knowledge.
9. Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or THEMATIC focus. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work and explain the rationale for identifying these themes.
Education, Culture, heritage or GLAM , Open Technology, Diversity
10. Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Please note, we had previously asked about inclusion and diversity in terms of CONTENTS, in this question we are asking about the diversity of PARTICIPANTS. Select up to THREE that most apply to your work.
Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation, Ethnic/racial/religious or cultural background, Disabilities
11. What are your strategies for engaging participants, particularly those that currently are non-Wikimedia?
Wiki Education has always strived to bring diverse participants to the Wikimedia movement through our programs. Our current demographics reflect:
Gender
- 67% identify as women (vs 22% of existing editors in Northern America)
- 30% identify as men
- 3% identify as non-binary or other
Race/Ethnicity
- 89% of U.S. Wikipedia editors identify as white, while only 55% of our program participants do (compared to a U.S. population percentage of 72%).
- 8.8% of U.S. Wikipedia editors identify as Asian or Asian American, while 18% of our program participants do (compared to a U.S. population percentage of 5.7%).
- 5.2% of U.S. Wikipedia editors identify as Hispanic or Latino/a/x, while 12% of our program participants do (compared to a U.S. population percentage of 18%).
- 0.5% of U.S. Wikipedia editors identify as Black or African American, while 8% of our program participants do (compared to a U.S. population percentage of 13%).
- 0.1% of U.S. Wikipedia editors identify as Native American, while 1% of our program participants do (compared to a U.S. population percentage of 0.9%).
- An additional 6% of our program participants identify as biracial, multiracial, or another self-reported category we didn’t offer as an option.
Disability
- 10% of our program participants identify as a person with a disability
In lieu of attempting to retain student editors, who typically don’t stick around after the conclusion of their assignment, we instead focus on retaining instructors, especially those who teach at diverse institutions. These professors, who teach with Wikipedia year after year, are able to bring a fresh group of diverse students to the Wikimedia movement each year. In the 11 years we’ve been running this program, we’ve found this to be the most sustainable way to grow the diversity of content and contributors to Wikipedia.
In 2022, we will continue to support these diverse participants on Wikipedia. We also intend to further our outreach to diverse institutions. While our program participant population is dramatically more diverse than the existing editing population, we still have room to improve until we match the demographics of the United States population, particularly in the area of Black/African American or Hispanic/Latino/a/x participants. Thus, we are seeking additional funding this year to do more outreach to HBCUs and HSIs.
12. In what ways are you actively seeking to contribute towards creating a safer, supportive, more equitable environment for participants and promoting the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy, and/or equivalent local policies and processes?
Ensuring all our program participants have a supportive experience editing the Wikimedia projects is of tantamount importance to us. When issues arise (typically in conflict with an existing editor), Wiki Education staff steps in to resolve the problem, with a focus on ensuring that the experience is as positive, safe, and healthy for our program participants as possible.
13. Do you have plans to work with Wikimedia communities, groups, or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
Yes
13.1 If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
Our work with the Programs & Events Dashboard means we support every Wikimedia community, group, or affiliate who is interested in using the tool. We maintain regular communication on the Meta talk page for the Programs & Events Dashboard: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Programs_%26_Events_Dashboard
We also published a recent blog post outlining the results of the recent survey we ran to determine priorities for the Dashboard: https://wikiedu.org/blog/2021/10/06/setting-priorities-for-programs-events-dashboard/ We also published a roadmap: https://github.com/WikiEducationFoundation/WikiEduDashboard/projects/14
We also regularly host “Tips and Tricks for the Programs & Events Dashboard” sessions, including an unconference session at Wikimania and a session at WikiConference North America. Additionally, we do individual 1:1 coaching sessions with movement organizers who have specific questions for their use.
14. Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
Yes
14.1 Please describe these partnerships and what motivates the potential partner to be part of the proposal and how they add value to your work.
We have an extensive partnership program, including formal partnerships with academic associations like the American Chemical Society, American Sociological Association, American Anthropological Association, and National Women’s Studies Association — just to name a few. We also collaborate with partner organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, the American Physical Society, and 500 Women Scientists to host our Wiki Scholars & Scientists courses.
These partnerships play a key role in our outreach: Partners share our programs in their social media, email lists, and publications, encouraging their members to participate in either program. Many Scholars & Scientists partners also provide funding for those courses in our earned income stream. Our Partnerships and Sales team will spend much of 2022 pursuing new partnership opportunities and maintaining our existing relationships to further our programmatic goals.
15. How do you hope to sustain or expand the work carried out in this proposal after the grant?
We’ve sustained and scaled this program from its beginnings supporting 200 student editors in its first term to routinely supporting more than 6,000 student editors each term. We know how to scale this program; the only thing standing between our current numbers and twice as many is a lack of funds. We are actively seeking additional funding from external funders, including institutional and individual prospects, to support our work. We have also created the Scholars & Scientists Program specifically to have an earned income revenue stream, as a way to diversify our funding sources and ensure financial sustainability of our organization. Our request of $600,000 represents only 31% of our overall revenue in 2022. We expect to raise an additional $400,000 from our earned income stream (or 21%) and the remaining $920,000 (or 49%) will come from our extensive fundraising efforts in institutional and individual giving. With more revenue from all these sources, including the Wikimedia Foundation, we would easily be able to grow our impact in future years.
16. What kind of risks do you anticipate and how would you mitigate these. This can include factors such as external/contextual issues that may affect implementation, as well as internal issues, such as governance/leadership changes.
- N/A
17. In what ways do you think your proposal most contributes to the Movement Strategy 2030 recommendations. Select a maximum of three options that most apply.
Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement, Identify Topics for Impact, Innovate in Free Knowledge
18. Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
- Yes
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation[edit]
19. What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
Learning and evaluation is a big part of the programmatic work Wiki Education does. Every year, we reflect on what’s working well with our programs and what we want to improve. We look at trends across courses, identifying opportunities to better scale our support or provide better clarification about Wikipedia or Wikidata editing for our participants. This ongoing learning and evaluation is a key part of our everyday work.
For the two new elements we are requesting in this proposal, we are seeking to answer specific questions of the course of our multi-year funding period, with initial work taking place in 2022 to lay the foundation to answer them:
- What is the most effective recruitment mechanism to bring in additional instructors from diverse institutions?
- Are the technical solutions we create for the Programs & Events Dashboard successful at meeting the needs of movement organizers?
As part of our learning and evaluation, we routinely publish detailed evaluation reports on Meta. See: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wiki_Education_Foundation_evaluation_reports
20. Based on these learning questions, what is the information or data you need to collect to answer these questions? Please register this information (as metric description) in the following space provided.
| Main Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Words Added | Words added to the article namespace of Wikipedia in 2022. | 9500000 |
| Statements improved | Statements improved on Wikidata in 2022. | 15000 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
Here are some additional metrics that you can use if they are relevant to your work. Please note that this is just an optional list, mostly of quantitative metrics. They may complement the qualitative metrics you have defined in the previous boxes.
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | Number of courses taught by returning instructors in the Wikipedia Student Program in 2022. | 500 |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | Number of existing strategic partners actively engaged in supporting our work in 2022. | 10 |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | Number of instructors from diverse institutions (HBCUs, HSIs) added to our CRM (Salesforce) in 2022, to be cultivated to teach with Wikipedia in the future. | 50 |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A |
21. Additional core quantitative metrics. These core metrics will not tell the whole story about your work, but they are important for measuring some Movement-wide changes. Please try to include these core metrics if they are relevant to your work. If they are not, please use the space provided to explain why they are not relevant or why you can not capture this data. Your explanation will help us review our core metrics and make sure we are using the best ones for the movement as a whole.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Number of editors in Wikipedia Student Program and Scholars & Scientists Program, plus instructors in the Student Program, in 2022. | 12750 |
| Number of editors | Number of editors in Wikipedia Student Program and Scholars & Scientists Program, in 2022. | 12500 |
| Number of organizers | n/a; our programs are run by staff. | N/A |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Number of articles improved in 2022. | 12000 |
| Wikidata | Number of items improved in 2022. | 5000 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
21.1 If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
N/A
22. What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
Primarily Wiki Education’s Dashboard and the Programs & Events Dashboard's usage metrics.
Financial Proposal[edit]
23. & 23.1 What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency. If you are thinking about a multi-year fund, please provide the amount for the first year.
- 1035000 USD
23.2 What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 1035000 USD
23.3 Please upload your budget for this proposal or indicate the link to it.
- Please see: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18KyEchFJ4yhMceXw8hbcdmowFxBc7N3VSDHQmwe09wA/edit?usp=sharing
23.4 Please include any additional observations or comments you would like to include about your budget.
- N/A
Please use this optional space to upload any documents that you feel are important for further understanding your proposal.
- Other public document(s):
Final Message[edit]
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
We/I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes
Year 2 Plan
Annual Plan for Year 2
1.1. Please upload or indicate a link for Year 2 Annual Plan. (required)
1.2. Please describe any major changes in your Annual Plan. If there are changes that require a budget change, please specify. (required)
Since Wiki Education's fiscal year runs July to June, our annual plan linked above covers only the first six months of the period. We expect, however, that projects described in the attached document will continue throughout 2023. In particular, we'd like to highlight two specific initiatives that represent additions from our 2022 Wikimedia plan:
- We're planning to launch a two-year capacity-building project aimed at laying the foundation for growing our Scholars & Scientists Program in the long term, pending finalization of the external funding for this project.
- In January 2023, we're launching a two-year initiative sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation to facilitate student editors at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), and other diverse institutions to add biographies of diverse people in STEM to Wikipedia.
Budget for Year 2
2.1. Do you request an increase or decrease from what has been approved for Year 2? (required)
- Yes, I am requesting a budget increase for Year 2
2.2. Please upload a detailed budget file or indicate a link to it for the Year 2 proposal. The revised budget should show your anticipated yearly budget from the beginning of Year 2 through the end date of the grant. (required)
- Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xiMZScjE2sczWw8wjSHMBiaBvKnKQ_gpt7sv6nYZJic/edit?usp=sharing
2.3. What is the percentage increase you are requesting for Year 2 (with respect to the Year 2 budget submitted with your original proposal)?
- 20%
2.4. How much do you request for Year 2 in USD with the increase? (required)
- 600000 USD
2.5. How much do you request for Year 2 in your local currency with the increase? (required)
- 600000 USD
2.6. Please describe the main major changes in your new budget. Your response to this question should provide a brief summary of the changes and give the reasons for them. (required)
Our budget has increased year over year mostly due to the addition of staff for the capacity-building project (in Scholars & Scientists and Technology program areas) and Broadcom initiative (in Student Program area), both of which are funded through other grants. Inflation in the U.S. also accounts for some of the increase.
We are once again requesting an amount of $600,000 annually, the same as our original request. In 2022, we received $500,000, with comments from the committee that they "encourage the Wikimedia Foundation to support and facilitate the Wiki Education Foundation in their fundraising efforts (to the extent this does not happen already)"; discussions with the WMF in 2022 revealed this to not be possible. Additionally, the committee encouraged us to treat budget components about supporting movement affiliates (like our work on the Programs & Events Dashboard) to be funded through other programs; however, the Wikimedia Technology Fund (a natural home for Dashboard funding) has not yet launched. Due to these challenges, as well as inflation in the U.S., we respectfully request our original dollar amount again, which represents a 20% increase year over year.
Metrics for Year 2
3.1. Main open metrics (required)
| Metrics Name | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Words added | Words added to the article namespace of Wikipedia in 2023. | 11 million |
| Statements improved | Statements improved on Wikidata in 2023. | 16000 |
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | Number of courses taught by returning instructors in the Wikipedia Student Program in 2023. | 525 |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | Number of existing strategic partners actively engaged in supporting our work in 2023. | 12 |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | Number of instructors from diverse institutions (HBCUs, HSIs) added to our CRM (Salesforce) in 2023, to be cultivated to teach with Wikipedia in the future. | 300 |
3.2. Core metrics (required)
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Number of editors in Wikipedia Student Program and Scholars & Scientists Program, plus instructors in the Student Program, in 20223 | 15250 |
| Number of editors | Number of editors in Wikipedia Student Program and Scholars & Scientists Program, in 2023. | 15000 |
| Number of organizers | n/a; our programs are run by staff. | N/A |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Number of articles improved in 2023. | 15000 |
| Wikidata | Number of items improved in 2023. | 5000 |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
3.4. If you are introducing new metrics related to a major change in your budget or programmatic plans, please describe them below. (optional)
N/A
Additional information for Year 2
4.2. If there are additional links, files, or information you would like to share related to Year 2 planning, please add them here. (optional)
We remain interested in global conversations about metrics and measuring impact of programs, particularly Wikidata programs.
Feedback[edit]
- Please add any feedback to the grant discussion page only. Any feedback added here will be removed.