Grants talk:Programs/Organizer Lab/Simple Wikipedia Campaign for Climate Change (SWCCC)

Committee Feedback

Hello @Danidamiobi, thank you for your grant application and we appreciate your take on climate and sustainability-related coverage on Simple English Wikipedia.

After reviewing your grant our conclusion: Considering that this is your first time working on Simple English Wikipedia we will wish for you to treat this project as a pilot. We would want you to revise the project to a smaller, initial pilot of outreach activities and documentation of the processes of contributing to Simple English Wikipedia with one strategic audience or partner.

General observations:

Writing in simple English might be more complex than is estimated in the project proposal, and this might have affected the assumptions of the audience  (participants) of the project. We think contribution to Simple English Wikipedia requires more skilled contributors than highlighted in the proposal. We recommend partnering with Science Communication or Science Education professionals in learning how to teach and facilitate the development of this skill in this topic area.

The goal is to develop content in simple English for readers/consumers such as students, children, adults with learning disabilities, and non-native English speakers however there is no clear initial research that confirms the usefulness of the resources to these audiences or a clear strategy that demonstrates how they would work to align this to how the audience would want it to serve them.

Reservations:

Issues around skill to contribute on simple Wikipedia

The number of audiences is very broad and it makes it unclear how each strategy is going to be targeted at each audience.

The time period for training and ensuring a full grasp of the tactics to contribute is quite short and does not seem plausible to attain. Also, more detail on the approach to the training would help understand how the grantee intends to go about it.

We have budgetary concerns about the number of swags and activities intended for this project. Throughout the project, the proposal lists activities as only happening in Anambra and Lagos but the budget mentions other states such as Edo and Enugu which have no clear activities outlined for them.

What we would like the grantee to improve:

• For us to fund the project, we highly recommend that you turn this project into a pilot focusing on working with an expert who can work with preferably one target audience to contribute in simple English.  We would like you to treat this pilot as a research and documentation opportunity for writing scientific content in simple English.
• What are your strategies to document and provide good materials for the project?
• If you intend to create a toolkit on how to contribute such content to Simple English Wikipedia we will like you to review and improve your approach based on the materials from reading Wikipedia in the classroom.
• All your metrics are quantitative, there is no qualitative research to answer the learning questions. For instance, to measure readers' perceptions if  "content on climate change be best understood and simplified for diverse readership?" This could be measured by interviewing readers or if they are working with teachers and experts that are taking this to students, doing a simple check on comprehension or student perception. Likewise, we would like to see metrics to learn how easy it will be for participants, both experienced on-wiki and new, to create and improve the content on climate change on Simple English Wikipedia with what they learned.

NB: Please make indicated changes to your application on the Wikimedia Foundation Grantee Portal (Fluxx). Log in to the Grantee Portal and you will see your application in the 'Proposals need attention' section. Edit and re-submit your proposal by March 02, 2023. FNartey (WMF) (talk) 23:18, 23 February 2023 (UTC)

Dear @Felix,

Thank you for painstakingly reviewing this proposal and for being detailed with your constructive response.

1. I have restructured the project into a pilot project and refocused the target audience, number of events, and partners as well as looked into the budgetary concerns. I have also reduced the scope of the project to bridging content and contributor gap leaving out the plan to “Bridge the readership gap” in this phase. Since we will be focusing on a youthful audience of climate action enthusiasts, I have removed the need for a classroom tool kit for this phase and every other thing that has to do with readership for now. This would prevent us from doing, spending so much and achieving so little.
2. Regarding the absence of "clear initial research that confirms the usefulness of the resources to these audiences or a clear strategy that demonstrates how they would work to align this to how the audience would want it to serve them.", most of the rationale behind this project can be drawn from the very Wikipedia article for the Simple English Wikipedia which emphasizes on the purpose of the Simple English Wikipedia: to serve students, children, adults with learning disabilities, and non-native English speakers. Asides this, there are several sources to show that Simple English Wikipedia's simplicity makes Wikipedia and everything in it accessible to these people.
3. In line with your advice, I reached out on LinkedIn and made calls at length to replace two of my initial team Science Communication and Science Education professionals who would be working voluntarily to teach and facilitate the development of this skill in this topic area. They are:
   • Tomi Odugbemi, who just completed her Masters at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada and has studied Science Communication at The Open Notebook and Nature's Master Class. She is focused on making science knowlege more understandable by non sceintific audiences and believes advancements in science are futile if they cannot be applied in practice or related to the public. She also has experience as a Science Writer at Massive Science.
   • Olaitan Owoyemi has organized science outreached to market women and students in the past and has a proven record with working on courses for kids.  He has experience as a Creative Writer working on science topics for Afrilearn and as an Editorial Board Member for Traditional Medicine Research.
4. Further to your recommendation which I fully buy into, I have gotten one more skilled contributor to facilitate the sessions and advice the execution of the project after announcing on the Tea House equivalent of Simple English Wikipedia.

He is:

• Improv: Improv is an admin on the SEWP who loves patrolling new pages for any errors and create new articles in various different areas of interest. He has created 482 articles and made 28000+ edits on Simple English Wikipedia.

I have also sent a ton of messages to more proven contributors of which I carefully scouted and believe one more would join in.

5. I have added the metrics and methods to the learning questions. Thank you for flagging their omission.

One question.

Asides from the one time Internet data reimbursement budgeted for the facilitating team, do you advice we give any other stipends? If so, what could it moderately be? If no, it is absolutely understood. Danidamiobi (talk) 01:25, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Danidamiobi (talk) 01:46, 28 February 2023 (UTC)