Grants talk:Project/Rapid/Wikimedia Tanzania/East Africa Regional and Thematic Hub (EARTH) Research grant

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Overall Positive Feedback[edit]

An amazing collaborative effort and a promising project! Generally, the research plan is clear and makes it easy to see the potential impact of the project, in East African communities and for initiating strategic conversations across the region. The background of the project team is encouraging, as strong regional organizers who are capable of coordinating regional activities. YPam (WMF) (talk) 21:27, 19 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Feedback For Improvement[edit]

Project Scope

  • Provide additional clarity on the scope of the project. The proposal states that this is to inform thinking for an East Africa Regional and Thematic Hub, yet describes a focus on only one language community - Swahili. Will the focus of the research then apply only to Swahili speaking communities, and if not, how does the project team intend to ensure equity for other language communities within the region.  To put this simply, the research team should consider an answer to this: What questions will the research aim to answer and why?
  • The proposal mentions a goal to cover 11 countries, which countries are those specifically?


Clarity on the research and project planning phases

  • The research portion of the project is marked clearly, however the planning phase of the proposal is lacking in that level of clarity. It would be good to explain better what steps will be taken in the planning phase to assess the potential impact envisioned.
  • It might be beneficial to expand the time window for conducting the research. The one month window seems tight considering that the team will have to design the research, reach out to volunteers, conduct the research which involves virtual and physical interviews and sending out questionnaires  and then analyze the data gathered.
  • In deciding on the number of participants to be involved in the research, how is the team planning to ensure effective representation for the communities in all 11 countries, based on the numbers proposed?


Details on project team

  • This project is ambitious, and while the team comprises of experienced regional coordinators, it seems the core organizing team is rather thin. Consider providing more information and details on how many people will actually be involved, their specific roles, and how those will be distributed during the project implementation.
  • To achieve the wide impact that this project envisions, the team might benefit from external consultancy to ensure a higher quality research. This will ensure that the foundation for the future work is strong and truly set up for impact.

YPam (WMF) (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Improvement worked upon[edit]

Hello @YPam (WMF), thank you for this feedback, we have worked on the suggested areas of improvement as below;

We will reach out for further clarification. Douglaseru (talk) 11:40, 30 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Request for project Extension[edit]

Hello @YPam (WMF), we are requesting for an extension of the EARTH Research project for another 4 months, until June 2023, due to the following factors;

  • Project and grant administration took more time in June/July 2022, which was more than anticipated during the project phases.
  • The steering team got engaged with key Movement events and activities to share the EARTH research project with the community, and receive insights via Wikimania in August, the Wikimedia Summit in September, and WikiIndaba in November 2022 (Including supporting the WikiIndaba local organising committee with the conference), these insights/learnings have been incorporated in the research phase, and will also be included in the planning, and reporting phases.
  • We recruited the research consultant in December 2022, and Kicked off the research process in January 2023, which is expected to conclude in 8 weeks.
  • We hope to do the project planning for 3 months, and reporting for one month.

We look forward to your feedback and are happy to discuss this further with you. Thanks.

Douglas (On behalf of the EARTH Steering Team) - Douglaseru (talk) 10:33, 9 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello @Douglaseru and the EARTH Steering team,
Your request for project end date extension for 4 months has been approved by the MSG team. Your new project end date will be June 30, 2023.
Well done to the team for the work done so far and we look forward to the research findings and what those might mean for the East Africa region. YPam (WMF) (talk) 09:52, 24 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]