Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2018-2019 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Proposal form

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Staff Expenditure And More[edit]

Hi, I have few questions and I would be happy to hear about them.

(a) Why there is break-up for salary of Program Manager and Program Director in two different sections?

(b) How does CIS-A2K intend to follow a recruitment pattern for new job like Wikidata, Tech Consultant etc? What additional steps would CIS-A2K adopt to bridge Gender Gaps in its staff base?

(c) Is there a work profile prepared for new jobs?

(d) What does digitisation program cover? Can community also submit few books (discrete in number) for digitisation?

Thanks. --Abhinav619 (talk) 03:20, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hello User:Abhinav619, thanks for your questions, and interest. Answers:
  • a) Program director's and Program manager's work may be divided into two categories, a) direct involvement in Wiki-programs and events (includes preparation and planning) and meta and operation work. Meta and operation works are not direct Wiki-programs/events, but essential for the team and for the programs. A few examples of operational works: directing the team, managing the team, supervising team members' work, internal audit, hiring and grooming new team members, communication with WMF, and grants team, etc. (estimated, approximate) 80% of Program Director's time will be spent on this, so 80% is shown as Operational Expenses, similarly Program Manager will spend 40% of his/her time for team management, supervising, Meta work.
  • b) Wikidata and Tech consultant applications will be posted on CIS website, and will be also be posted on Wikimediaindia-l mailing list. This year we have plan to post this opening option on Meta-Wiki also, other than CIS website. It will be under CIS-A2K/Opening or CIS-A2K/Team/Applications. we have not finalised the exact page name still. (please see the answer to bridging gender gap related question at e)
  • c) Work-profile: the plan is for the next work-plan year. Our proposal is still in the consultation stage, which will be followed by WMF review, decision. We expect to start this work in May. We are planning on the process and appointment timeline. See an example JD.
  • d) Digitisation work: The budget and the effort here are for digitising/helping to digitise books, manuscripts etc. Communities may request digitisation/support for digitisation. Requested which are specific, feasible and discrete in number, as you have mentioned, will be helpful.
  • e) In our last and current years' events, you may have noticed that we tried to involve more female Wikimedians. We will put more effort to involve Wikimedians. Please see a study we have done here ("Gender ratio" section). The bridging gender gap intern will lead gender gap bridging research work.
Thank you for your questions. --Tito (CIS-A2K) (talk) 10:56, 17 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Tito (CIS-A2K): Many thanks for your answers. I would like to provide few suggestions
  • a) Please make your salary classification is aligned with best practices followed by Affiliates. Advisable to provide links on how the dedicated rationale had been reached.
  • b) It would be great if you also have a selection panel for new recruitment’s. Maybe provide a first preference for female members, if it does not work then move towards open for all.
  • c) Once your application has been reviewed by WMF, you ask for community members also to draw suggestions on how the profile should be. Maybe, some good inputs are found from the excercise.
  • d) Thank You for Digitisation.
  • e) As also stated last October in a personal mail to cis-a2k and copying directors, where I have cited promoting job notifications on Village Pump as a suggestion received on India Mailing List, this May be helpful in getting female staff members. All one has to do is to keep trying to remove Gender Imbalances. --Abhinav619 (talk) 05:25, 20 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Abhinav619: Thanks for suggestion and questions will get back to soon with a detailed reply --Ananth (CIS-A2K) (talk) 05:58, 23 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hello,
I am not aware of any such "best practice" which suggests to write/not write budget section in any particular form. Moreover this year there is not any template. The 20%-80% (or the ratio) comes from the concept which I explained above.
About staff/consultant posts, we'll follow standard practices and CIS guidelines.
Village pump idea is an interesting one.
Regards. --Tito (CIS-A2K) (talk) 06:15, 24 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Abhinav619: Thank you for your questions. As a point of clarification, I am not sure about the "best practices followed by affiliates" that you mention. Could you be clearer in what you mean by this. In any case, the classification between operational and programmatic is a classificiation we discuss with our APG grantees that often makes much more sense than having just "staff salaries", because it shows how much of the budget is spent towards actual programs and how much is spent towards running the operations. Both are equally important, because we wouldn't want to have programs that are not backed up by strong operational practices and we wouldn't want operations that support no program. Hopefully this clarifies some where this classification comes from. Delphine (WMF) (talk) 06:26, 24 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
* @Delphine (WMF): Thank You for participating in the discussion. I have asked this question as over a quick-scan I couldn’t find something similar in other APG Grants. I am curious to know how does Audit and Assessment takes place with this salary break-up?
  * @Tito (CIS-A2K): Thank You for writing back. Could share and provide some details and descriptions about what you mean by CIS guidelines and also standard practices. Also, if you could share the financial reports which I had previously asked here. Helpful in learning on salary breakup. If there are any latest reports other than that, requesting it also.--Abhinav619 (talk) 09:43, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • User:Abhinav619, the positions will be announced on mailing lists/CIS website/village pumps. A general organisation SoP for staff hiring is here.
    Our utilization report comes before or around 30 September (3 months from the grant period). You may see another copy of the previous UC. This year's annual UC will come around the same time, 30 September. Regards. --Tito (CIS-A2K) (talk) 10:09, 26 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Tito (CIS-A2K): Thanks for writing back. My questions are more or less answered completely. As this plan progresses I may keep adding more suggestions, however, at the moment with the documents shared, I am assured. I would take the opportunity to convey by regards to CIS-A2K Team And best wishes for this cycle. --Abhinav619 (talk) 07:50, 29 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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