Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Research Fund/Understanding the Czech Wikipedia community better for more effective targeting of Wikimedia support

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statusnot funded
Understanding the Czech Wikipedia community better for more effective targeting of Wikimedia support.
start and end datesJuly 2023 - July 2024
budget (USD)17,500 USD
fiscal year2022-23
applicant(s)• Klára Joklová: User:Klára Joklová (WMCZ)

Overview[edit]

Applicant(s)

Klára Joklová: User: Klára Joklová (WMCZ)

Affiliation or grant type

Author(s)

Klára Joklová and Jana Landsingerová

Wikimedia username(s)

Klára Joklová: User: Klára Joklová (WMCZ)

Jana Landsingerová: User: Jana Landsingerová (WMCZ)

Project title

Understanding the Czech Wikipedia community better for more effective targeting of Wikimedia support.

Research proposal[edit]

Description[edit]

Description of the proposed project, including aims and approach. Be sure to clearly state the problem, why it is important, why previous approaches (if any) have been insufficient, and your methods to address it.

Main goal: To better understand the Czech Wikipedia community, which will allow us to more effectively target the support we provide to its members. This will lead to improved processes for recruiting and retaining active members of the volunteer community, as well as for selecting and implementing appropriate ways of providing support for their volunteer activities.

The research will include both quantitative data collection and smaller targeted qualitative research. This research will describe the composition, motivations, needs and other features of the Czech Wikipedian community. We will use the results to select an appropriate form of support for the Czech community. This is all for the purpose of cultivating Wikipedia in line with the community's ideas, attracting newcomers and supporting the existing community.

In the research itself, we will build on a pilot study of the community that we are currently conducting internally with our own resources.

For the research we have arranged a partnership with the research team of the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the University of Pardubice.

The role of the research team will be the design, implementation and evaluation of the entire independent research.

In the main part of the research, we will reach out to the entire Czech Wikipedian community with a quantitative structured questionnaire

The main research questions are:

What are the subgroups of the Czech Wikimedia community and what are their characteristics?

What is the motivation of community members to engage in association activities?

What are the forms, shortcomings and opportunities for communication within the community?

We plan to build on the methodology of quantitative questioning from the Survey of Dutch Wikipedia editors conducted in 2015, 2018, 2022. We will also incorporate findings from the New Editor Experiences research (2017), conducted among others in the Czech newcomer community. This will allow us to compare the results obtained with both studies. We expect to involve 5-10% of active Czech editors.

The qualitative guided interviews will go into more depth and show us other aspects, we also plan to involve a personality questionnaire.

Our long-term goal is to engage with the Czech community in this way repeatedly, over a long period of time, and to be able to compare its development.

Personel[edit]

  • The research team of the Faculty of Economics and Administration of the University of Pardubice:
  • Ing. Kateřina Kantorová, Ph.D.
  • Ing. Martin Mlázovský
  • Mgr. Veronika Lipovská
  • Mgr. Hana Boháčová, Ph.D.

Budget[edit]

Approximate amount requested in USD.

17,500 USD

Budget Description

Briefly describe what you expect to spend money on (specific budgets and details are not necessary at this time).

The project budget will cover the costs of the research team - in particular staff costs, including the preparation and implementation of the questionnaire and interviews with respondents, data collection, processing and evaluation (85% of budget). In addition, other direct costs - in particular travel and services, overheads and administration and any other minor costs for dissemination of results and outputs (up to 15%). The budget covers the full cost of the annual survey.

Impact[edit]

Address the impact and relevance to the Wikimedia projects, including the degree to which the research will address the 2030 Wikimedia Strategic Direction and/or support the work of Wikimedia user groups, affiliates, and developer communities. If your work relates to knowledge gaps, please directly relate it to the knowledge gaps taxonomy.

The research focuses specifically on the community of Wikipedians. The data collected will help to better understand its shape and needs, as well as to better understand the entire ecosystem of the Czech Wikipedia. This in turn will allow to support the cultivation of the Wikipedia space while also supporting its community. Alternatively, it will be an incentive for targeted support. By comparing the data with the Dutch study (the Netherlands and the CR are comparable), we hope to make the data more transferable to the entire community.

This is in line with the Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Recommendations. Specifically with recommendation no. 8 - Identify Topics for Impact and recommendation no. 10 - Evaluate, Iterate and Adapt.

Dissemination[edit]

Plans for dissemination.

  • research team's report - published in MetaWiki:Research, Czech Wikipedia namespace, publicly on the Diff
  • results will be shared in the international Wikimedia community - at thematic meetings (ED group, WM CEE Hub) and conferences (CEE Meeting)
  • partial outputs in the form of infographics through our standard channels (social networks, WMCZ blog, newsletter)
  • dissemination of lessons learned
  • partner institution plans to publish the results of the study in peer-reviewed journals

Past Contributions[edit]

Prior contributions to related academic and/or research projects and/or the Wikimedia and free culture communities. If you do not have prior experience, please explain your planned contributions.

Our research will extend the findings of the New Editor Experiences research (2017) and use a quantitative interviewing methodology from the Survey of Dutch Wikipedia editors (2015, 2018, 2022).

This year we have been researching related research, and have started our first mapping of the Czech Wikimedia community and ways to get to know it better.


I agree to license the information I entered in this form excluding the pronouns, countries of residence, and email addresses under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. I understand that the decision to fund this Research Fund application, the application itself along with all the information entered by my in this form excluding the pronouns, country of residences, and email addresses of the personnel will be published on Wikimedia Foundation Funds pages on Meta-Wiki and will be made available to the public in perpetuity. To make the results of your research actionable and reusable by the Wikimedia volunteer communities, affiliates and Foundation, I agree that any output of my research will comply with the WMF Open Access Policy. I also confirm that I have read the privacy statement and agree to abide by the WMF Friendly Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.

Yes