Grants talk:Project/Research & Engagement Project/Designing a template for a sustainable education program

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Latest comment: 2 years ago by Mjohnson (WMF) in topic Round 2 2021 decision

Questions from Joalpe[edit]

Latest comment: 3 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Hello! I hope this message finds you well. I am eager to see such an interesting proposal being made.

I have a couple of questions, that I hope make sense. (For transparency: I am reading and commenting on this proposal as a member of the project grants committee.)

  1. What exactly do you mean by template? Is the proposal about this kind of template, or is the proposal about a series of suggestions/tips education programs should follow? Anyhow, could you please specify what guidelines are orienting the actual output you expect to generate from this project? Are there equivalent documents or resources you think are good models for what you intend to do --even if in other languages?
  2. Was any meeting with the WMF education team organized? What about the Wikipedia & Education User Group? These are two stakeholders you would probably want to connect with.
  3. On a different note, we are currently assessing research and development proposals, and I read your proposal more like community organizing. Could you please explain more how your proposal fits the current call? (Also pinging ‎MCasoValdes (WMF), as there might be some confusion here.)

I hope these questions make sense. --Joalpe (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2021 (UTC)Reply

Responses to the Questions[edit]

Hi ‎Joalpe,

Thank you so much for your review & comments. Please accept our apologies for not attending to this earlier, the new and sudden Covid restrictions kept us engaged with students to an extent that we had to keep this on hold till the weekend. The responses to the shared questions are as follows-


1. By Template we meant, a process/ methodology of doing something which can be used as a pattern/guidelines for similar intended outcomes. As far as guidelines are concerned, we intend to practice the methodology we have been adopting for the last one year where we organized multiple activities with students and managed to keep them engaged even in times of pandemic (Details of the activities can be shared if required). Along with this, we are also reviewing the shared resources-

The final outcome will be a set of guidelines on best practices in regional context following the adopted methodology based on experience and existing models.

2. We shared our proposal on the mailing lists-

We requested SPatnaik (WMF) to reserve a slot for us so that we can share about the proposed project. We joined the Education Office Hours on 23rd March, 2021. We shared about the project and received positive feedback, resources for review and also support from other project leads. We are also planning to reach out to the individuals who extended support for feedback for an extensive review but were waiting for initial review (on the proposed project) before taking the next steps. We intended to join the Education User Group call scheduled for March 30th, but there was an announcement by the Chief Minister of the State on that same evening about the extension of Covid restrictions in the state. Considering our engagement with Educational institutions, it involved extensive engagement to notify students and move the planned sessions/classes to an online platform. This led to unintended absence from the UG meeting, but we look forward to joining the next call. Considering you are one of the Board members of the UG, can you guide us on how to engage with the User Group if the next meeting is not yet planned (if that is not a direct COI with your current role).

3. A section on the https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project, mentions-

“If you wish to submit a proposal that includes both community organizing elements and research or software elements, you are welcome to submit a single hybrid proposal in either round.”

The proposed project is a Research and Engagement Project where we intend to review the past Education Programs in the region, design and practice a model based on review of existing programs in collaboration with communities, and propose recommendations for the future. The expected outcome is to develop (advance) the existing models for a better engagement with regional education institutions in order to expand the Wiki Projects. As none of the two proposed work fronts- Research and Engagement, dominate the other, so we submitted the proposal in the second round.

Thanks & Regards,

FebinCtu (talk) 18:40, 4 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

@FebinCtu: Thank you for the answers :)
  1. It makes sense, and I think your community has enough use cases that you can indeed distill from them more abstract guidelines.
  2. Great to hear the WMF Education team is involved. I understand your proposal would benefit from their advisorship! For the W&E UG group, don't worry: as soon as eligibility is confirmed, I will relay the proposal and see if we can have a meeting to discuss your ideas. We have had this kind of meetings with other community members, as they were designing education-related programs, and they were both pleasant and fruitful!
  3. For the sake of improving the proposal scope, I strongly recommend you improve the section on the review. Though I read your request carefully, I had not understood the Review Section had a research component. You might want to address at least the points research proposals are encouraged to work with. As for now, the proposal reads almost entirely as a project for community organizing.
I am sorry to hear about the worsening of the COVID-19 situation in our context :( I can only express my solidarity and hope that everyone around you is doing fine. Best. --Joalpe (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2021 (UTC)Reply
=== Response ===

Hi ‎Joalpe, Thank you so much for your valuable feedback. Following the instructions in the template on not to be elaborate with the details, it was hard to decide what to share and where to draw the line. We understand mentioning “Review” might not have communicated our plan to actively engage in research and analysis. We really appreciate your inputs as they have helped us add more clarity to the vision for our project. We look forward to learning more.

Regards,

FebinCtu (talk) 18:15, 5 April 2021 (UTC) P.S.- We have expanded the “Review” Section in our proposal.Reply


Connecting to Education UG[edit]

Hi ‎Joalpe, As we have qualified the first round we are reaching with a request for you to connect us with the Education User Group to discuss the project.

Regards,

FromPunjab (talk) 11:32, 21 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Eligibility provisionally confirmed, Round 2 2021 - Research and Software proposal[edit]

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This Project Grants proposal is under review!

We've provisionally confirmed your proposal is eligible for review in Round 2 2021 for Research and Software projects, contingent upon:

  • confirmation that the project will not depend on staff from the Wikimedia Foundation for code review, integration or other technical support during or after the project, unless those staff are part of the Project Team.
  • compliance with our COVID-19 guidelines.

Schedule delay

Please note that due to unexpected delays in the review process, committee scoring will take place from April 17 through May 2, instead of April 9-24, as originally planned.

  • Please watch your talkpage, which will be the primary method of communication about your proposal. We appreciate your timely response to questions and comments posted there.
  • Please refrain from making changes to your proposal during the scoring period, so that all committee members score the same version of your proposal.
  • After the scoring period ends, you are welcome to make further changes to your proposal in response to committee comments.

COVID-19 planning for travel and/or offline events

Proposals that include travel and/or offline events must ensure that all of the following are true:

  • You must review and can comply with the guidelines linked above.
  • If necessary because of COVID-19 safety risks, you must be able to complete the core components of your proposed work plan _without_ offline events or travel.
  • You must be able to postpone any planned offline events or travel until the Wikimedia Foundation’s guidelines allow for them, without significant harm to the goals of your project.
  • You must include a COVID-19 planning section in your activities plan. In this section, you should provide a brief summary of how your project plan will meet COVID-19 guidelines, and how it would impact your project if travel and offline events prove unfeasible throughout the entire life of your project.

Community engagement

We encourage you to make sure that stakeholders, volunteers, and/or communities impacted by your proposed project are aware of your proposal and invite them to give feedback on your talkpage. This is a great way to make sure that you are meeting the needs of the people you plan to work with and it can help you improve your project.

  • If you are applying for funds in a region where there is a Wikimedia Affiliate working, we encourage you to let them know about your project, too.
  • If you are a Wikimedia Affiliate applying for a Project Grant: A special reminder that our guidelines and criteria require you to announce your Project Grant requests on your official user group page on Meta and a local language forum that is recognized by your group, to allow adequate space for objections and support to be voiced).

We look forward to engaging with you in this Round!

Questions? Contact us at projectgrants (_AT_) wikimedia  · org.

Marti (WMF) (talk) 05:35, 17 April 2021 (UTC)Reply


Hi ‎Mjohnson (WMF),

Thank you so much for the update. We have informed the concerned groups through mailing lists and have also shared the proposal via individual messages, during Office Hours & Research Summit. We agree to abide by all the precautionary measures related to Covid-19 and have also plans to completely move to online space (if required).

Regards,

FebinCtu (talk) 17:49, 21 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Observations from Bodhisattwa[edit]

Latest comment: 3 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion

I have some observations regarding the proposal.

  1. I am missing the research part in the whole proposal. It feels more like a capacity building proposal to me, which should be out of scope to this grant. @Joalpe: has expressed the same observation too.
  2. I find that the proposers lack experience in terms of online edits and duration in the movement. See global contributions of FromPunjab and FebinCtu.
  3. The goals of the proposal does not corroborate with research outcomes. IMO, Delivery of medical words, images or quality content on Wikipedia etc. are out of scope of research grants.
  4. The project impact does not corroborate with research in any way.
  5. The financial request entirely lack research component.
  6. Why do medical reviewers need money to review translated articles? Wikipedia volunteers do it for free. -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 07:31, 21 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Responses[edit]

Hi ‎Bodhisattwa,

Thank you so much for your questions. We appreciate you finding time for the proposal and sharting your much valued feedback. The clarifications to the shared observations are as follows-’

  • We understand there was a clarity concern as pointed by Jaolpe. But following his suggestions, we added sections highlighting the Research & engagement parts. If you see the main page, the section- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Research_%26_Engagement_Project/Designing_a_template_for_a_sustainable_education_program#Review%2FAnalysis_of_past_Education_Programs contains details about the research part of the proposal.
  • We understand your concerns here and would like to share our engagement history for clarity. We have been working with students as a Wiki Club since October 2019, which was a pilot to test various aspects of engagement with Educational institutions & students but also for the Institutions to understand the expected commitment. We organized an awareness session for students in October 2019, 2 Wikipedia editing training- English & Indian languages in February 2020, content translation training by Amir Ahroni in March, 2020. We organized Syberthon-1 in February, Wiki4Women edit-a-thon and Syberthon-2 in March 2020. Syberthon is an initiative we designed and ran with our Computer Engineering students, faculty in association with Punjab Cyber Cell considering the sensitivity of the field following the fact that the whole world moved to cyberspace because of pandemic. We organized a Webinar on Cyber Safety in April 2020, Syberthon Cycle 3 in April 2020, Cycle 4 in October 2020. We also co-organized & attended the workshop organized for students in March 2021 and joined the WikiGap-Wiki4Womxn edit-a-thon in 2021. Even in the times of pandemic, we were providing online support to the students and were not disengaged. There are very few edits on our account as we usually only do corrections and that too on a student's laptop or via online call support.

Also, we checked for specified Wikimedian experience, but could not find those details. Also, no such guidelines were available on the grants page. We attended Research Office hours and enquired about the eligibility criteria and we were informed there were no specified limits on the engagement grounds.

“If you wish to submit a proposal that includes both community organizing elements and research or software elements, you are welcome to submit a single hybrid proposal in either round.” The proposed project is a Research and Engagement Project where we intend to review the past Education Programs in the region, design and practice a model based on review of existing programs in collaboration with communities, and propose recommendations for the future. While we intend to design the engagement template, we need to run some test activities, and the engagement section & listed outcomes are our defined metrics for a considerable engagement.

  • We understand there are many research aspects we have not listed in the proposal as that support has been extended by the institution- statistical tools, access to resources, expert guidance, panel discussion, tool testing, blind sample testing, and publication support (if any)
  • We intended to work using free & open access medical resources but considering the limitation of regional language resources & language support we could gather, we have added this section to seek professional support. We would really appreciate more guidance and support from you on this.

We are grateful for your insights and seek your support in reaching out to individuals with expertise and experience to help us.

Regards

FebinCtu (talk) 17:44, 21 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Reply to your responses and other questions[edit]

Hi @FebinCtu:, thanks for your prompt reply.
  1. Thanks for expanding the activities part and including research component there. However, the research component is still missing in the other part of the proposal. They don't match at all.
  2. It feels contradictory to me to read the project idea and research component in the activities part. It seems you have already identified the problems in Education like Unmapped Partnerships, Compromised quality of content generated in Education Programs & Community Distrust, Episodic and limited growth of projects etc. If that is so, why do you need a research then?
  3. How did you or other identified the concerns in Education like Unmapped Partnerships, Compromised quality of content generated in Education Programs & Community Distrust, Episodic and limited growth of projects etc. Please share the links of the study done before as you have mentioned "There are some identified concerns about previous engagements ..."
  4. Regarding medical content and reviewer, have you consulted the volunteers from Wiki Project Med? There are many medical experts who can give you professional support for free while reviewing medical articles or contents. I think, the money to be spent on the Medical Reviewer is unnecessary and can be omitted from your proposal.
  5. Please explain the extremely high salary/remuneration for the Project Coordinator. 1.87 million INR salary/remuneration for a part-time Project Co-coordinator is way too high according to Indian standards. What's your opinion on this?
  6. Please explain 2000 USD for institutional support. What kind of support will you give to which institutions?
  7. What do you mean by "mentor at one of the partner institutions"? Which partner institutions? Partners of whom? -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 02:47, 22 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Response 2[edit]

Hi ‎Bodhisattwa, The responses to your questions are given in the same numbered list-

  1. Sorry but the question isn’t clear. Can you specify the section?
  2. We mentioned the identified concerns, those aren’t reported or documented concerns. The purpose of research is to evaluate and analyze information. The idea is the guiding light for the project. You can call this a hypothesis which is a possible explanation but needs substantial grounds for validation.
  3. So in simple words, this is an attempt to conduct “Problem Analysis”. Studies are usually designed and proposed to address the identified problems. It involves identifying the overriding problem and establishing the associated factors.
  4. Yes, we have. The reason we intend to deploy someone for this task is the sensitivity of the subject and limitations in terms of regional language expertise available as of now. The Medical reviewer will not only check the content but also be the liaison for the medical review.
  5. Can you please specify what explanation you seek here? Please review the available guidelines by various funding agencies and other projects proposed, or approved. Research is never part-time, but trackable engagement can be and that is what has been specified in the proposal.
  6. As we are working with Science students and they have their classes & practicals every day unlike other courses, we might need to stay on-campus for extra hours and that might require additional support. Also, for the support which isn’t a part of the already extended institutional support, the proposed budget line will cover all those expenses.
  7. Apologies if this is misleading. This isn’t a formal Partnership as of now. We received requests for engagement from institutions where we went for guest lectures (primary subject expertise) and for their students, we are mentors. Also, as we specified we are already working on some initiatives, we usually call the subject expert a “mentor”. We have been advised not to change the proposal, otherwise, we would have added this for clarification.

FromPunjab (talk) 21:08, 23 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Reply to Response 2[edit]

Hi @FromPunjab:, thanks for your reply.

  1. Sorry for the misunderstanding. That was not a question. That was an observation that the research component is missing in other parts of the proposal and the component in activities part was not matching with the rest of the proposal.
  2. Thanks for the explanation. When it is said that "There are some identified concerns", it does not feel like a hypothesis. It means that the problems are already identified (by you or others). When I read the solution part too, it looks like you have already identified the problems and thus intend to work on the solution. There is no mention of research to evaluate or analyze those information as you are saying.
  3. There must be something, be it a previous research by someone, reports, publications etc. which led you to hypothesize (as you are saying) the problems. Can you please share them.
  4. Please explain "liaison of the medical review" to let us understand better.
  5. 20 hours per week is usually considered as part time work in standard terms. If you feel that, INR 1.87 million INR is totally normal for the job of a Project-coordinator working 20 hours/week as per Indian standard, please justify that as the seeker of the grant. Asking me instead to review other funding agencies in stead of providing justification yourselves should be avoided.
  6. Thank you for your explanation.
  7. Thank you for your explanation.

-- Bodhisattwa (talk) 03:51, 24 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Bodhisattwa Ji, I can't say for sure. What I heard from others is that, for Indians, WMF has at least $15 per hour in their lowest grade jobs. Also Indian standard has very much inconsistency and inequality. See

Although this report have conclusion of both formal and casual wage combine. The main point is that we should not be strict to a reference which is inconsistent. This comment is only for "Indian standards reference" and nothing to do with proposal. Thank you--Jayprakash >>> Talk 10:26, 24 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

@Jayprakash12345:, thanks for your thoughtful comments. It is definitely true that, the minimum wage standardized by GOI has received criticism when comparing with foreign standards. A highly skilled worker working in a private educational institute or a scientific industry in Punjab (the state where the proposers are from, assuming the username) has a minimum wage of INR 457.72 (eq. ~6 USD) per day only (see 1, 2) which comes to around 160,000 INR (eq. ~2220 USD) only for the whole year. Well, however bitter that seems to be, but it is the current standard for the economics of the low-income country like India. That is why, the proposed 24960 USD for the whole year as asked in the grant proposal seems disproportionately high than what is set as average Indian standards. To be clear, personally, I am not strict against any high wage, but it should be justified and that is why I requested the proposer for justification w.r.t the proposal. -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 12:59, 24 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Response 3: To Questions raised in Response 2[edit]

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  • Question-1 Sorry for the misunderstanding. That was not a question. That was an observation that the research component is missing in other parts of the proposal and the component in activities part was not matching with the rest of the proposal.

RESPONSE- The Research section is separately mentioned and so are activities. The observations and recommendations will be based on the mets analysis of previous reports with outcome of planned activities. The activities are the subject of research. Do you expect more details to be shared? We have the details and as a caution not sharing everything in advance. But we don't mind answering specific questions about methodology, sampling, analysis, statistics, etc.

  • Question-2 Thanks for the explanation. When it is said that "There are some identified concerns", it does not feel like a hypothesis. It means that the problems are already identified (by you or others). When I read the solution part too, it looks like you have already identified the problems and thus intend to work on the solution. There is no mention of research to evaluate or analyze those information as you are saying.

RESPONSE- The template advised the applicant to be specific and not to share too much details. The report once published will definitely be elaborate.

  • Question-3 There must be something, be it a previous research by someone, reports, publications etc. which led you to hypothesize (as you are saying) the problems. Can you please share them.

RESPONSE- Sure. Not all reports available are formal but out of many ongoing projects across the globe, there are a few of the reports relevant to India initiatives-

There are many modules available as resources as well.

  • Question-4 Please explain "liaison of the medical review" to let us understand better.

RESPONSE- The terminology for medical words in Punjabi isn’t standardized. Not only medical, but for other regional terminologies as well, the debate has been ongoing. As the aim is to create a centralized dictionary as we aim to share our work as a template, the liaison will help us conduct expert sessions and also review the content for Academic & usage relevance.

  • Question-5 20 hours per week is usually considered as part time work in standard terms. If you feel that, INR 1.87 million INR is totally normal for the job of a Project-coordinator working 20 hours/week as per Indian standard, please justify that as the seeker of the grant. Asking me instead to review other funding agencies in stead of providing justification yourselves should be avoided.

RESPONSE- We guided to other resources believing it was a genuine ask. In case, this question intends to know our opinions about the budget structure, we don’t believe this is unusual. Quoting minimum wages isn’t a fair justification for the proposed budget line. We agree there are minimum wage standards, but that is not the only acceptable financial assistance, the range is dependent on various parameters which we believe you are aware of. We have already provided response for hours.

Thanks & Regards,

FromPunjab (talk) 15:30, 26 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Title of the project[edit]

Latest comment: 3 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Irrespective of the project plan, I strongly feel that the title has to be reconsidered. EduWiki programs are quite complex and there are a number of factors why a program is successful or not. I just feel that there can't be one template that can be called "template for a sustainable education program" that works in all contexts. A program in Punjab may not work in other state or outside India. For example, Armenian wikiclubs are quite successful, but we can't replicate it exactly in India. I don't have a suggestion of what it can be called, but the current title doesn't feel right. KCVelaga (talk) 18:37, 1 May 2021 (UTC)Reply


Hi KCVelaga, Thank you for your feedback. I clearly understand your viewpoint but I want to bring one important thing to your kind attention. Students in this project and partner institutions are not only from Punjab. There are students from various Indian states (11 Indic languages). In addition, there are students from ASEAN and African countries too. Therefore, any study conducted in these institutes has a general characteristic. Also, generally a template is proposed for the kind of engagement and set expectations. There can be multiple templates on grounds of focus projects, partnerships, engagement type and collaboration as these can impact the program type where the education system is comparable. We can consider calling it Template on sustainable education program Model I and can be more specific with naming while preparing resources for publication and usage. With the expertise of education on team, we intend to use pedagogical approaches for favorable outcome. Hope you understand what I tried to convey

FebinCtu (talk) 18:59, 4 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

@FebinCtu: Thanks for your response. It is great to see a diversity of students - but that is not the only factor that ensures diversity. The whole idea of having a defined template is risky. I am not sure how you are envisioning the final product to be like - will it be a set of instructions? I am saying it is risky because if you see the current EduWiki and GLAM-Wiki programs (which have been highly sustainable), no two programs are completely identical - while they may share a common pattern, how they execute is quite different and is according to the local contexts. Trying to forcefully fit a successful program from Africa in the Indian context, can lead to failure, and vice versa. As you said to "set expectations" - I personally think this isn't quite right, as program organizers can have their own objectives and ways to achieve them, but if expectations are set by a template it can be demoralizing. The title can send a wrong signal to new program organizers who might assume that this template would be the best fit. A well-documented case study can be a good model. I would like to ask if you have read existing case studies about successful EduWiki programs. KCVelaga (talk) 05:10, 5 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Designing a template for a sustainable education program[edit]

Scoring rubric Score
(A) Impact potential
  • Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both?
  • Does it have the potential for online impact?
  • Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?
 6.6
(B) Community engagement
  • Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often?
  • Does it have community support?
 6.2
(C) Ability to execute
  • Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe?
  • Is the budget realistic/efficient ?
  • Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?
 6.4
(D) Measures of success
  • Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success?
  • Are they realistic?
  • Can they be measured?
 6.0
Additional comments from the Committee:
  • This kind of project helps to WMF mission to reach new users to Wikimedia projects and tries to narrow the gaps between the real world and the virtual world (or communities). I like the improvement about trying to solve past problems in the training in local communities.
  • it has a good point of building structure/capacity for further learnings but I don't know how they would make other contributors/providers follow that or even be aware of developed solutions
  • The project fits strategic priorities of wikimedia. It can be sustained and adopted in other communities.
  • It sounds like an interesting project to improve medical content on Wikipedia and Wiki Commons. This project directly aligns with Wikimedia's strategic priorities and can be sustained for a long period of time, based on the activities outlined. Its scope is scalable and can be adapted in several institutions after the project ends. This will definitely contribute greatly to the movement.
  • This kind of project has a key part in the engagement, but I feel a mistaken approach to problem, especially in COVID context, because engagement is more effective in-person meetings. In the past, some projects tried to improve KPI related newcomers engagement, but almost all has failed because the training sessions and editathons was the only meeting for newcomers. In this project I don't read anything about how to measure the increase of retained newcomers after Y months after the Wikiclub ends. I understand that isn't responsibility of grantee about reatian newcomers, but if the projects aims to create engagement and there is no metric to be measured, I don't have enough confidence to support the project.
  • It is unclear what the community will learn from this proposal.
  • The project seeks to use innovative means to solve a problem. It is a potential impact to the community. It seeks to have an evaluation plan to determine the outcome of the project.
  • Considering the programs and activities involved, I think the project is quite realistic and can be evaluated at any point in time to ensure quality deliverables. This could be a big step towards addressing Wikimedia education problems and some previously failed projects. This could bring the community more closer to education in India and also promote student participation in Wikimedia projects.
  • it lacks measurable outcomes (those that were proposed don't seem related to the project itself - like term translations). And I think grantees lack some wiki-experience, too
  • Some questions on the talk page about ability to execute are relevant and should be more addressed.
  • The scope of the project can be accomplished within a 12 month period. The budget is realistic and efficient enough but if there could be a reduction in the Fiscal Scholarship that would be good. Participants are having the necessary skills coupled with experienced editors
  • The goal of this project can be achieved within 12 months, depending on how they approach the various institutions involved. The budget looks great per the number of programs outlined. All participants have the needed skills/experience to execute this project.
  • as they are building an infrastructure they need a greater involvement of the community and others working in the same area. I understand that it could happen due to Grants timeline but still.
  • Questioning from community is pertinent and should be addressed with more detail.
  • The project seeks to target the Indic community. It has community support. The project supports diversity inclusion
  • The project is also building on some similar projects in the past, and the level of interest from the community is encouraging. The new innovative ideas will help the community to thrive. The team and the third party institutions involved are pretty diverse.
  • There is a lot point of failures to be considered by grantee, but is not covered by this proposal, especially due COVID and offline meetings. The capacity to create community from online contexts is pretty tricky and could lead to an unmet goals, due "non responsive volunteers" from the wikiclubs. There is a good approach, but I see this project to me more easily to develop without pandemics in "a normal context"
  • I would propose to postpone it for one granting cycle and give an opportunity of more thorough community review and inviting more stakeholders to ensure that the system they want to build answers the desires of other stakeholders
  • Research agenda is not sufficiently developed. There is plenty of literature on Wikimedia and education and none is addressed.
  • Yes, It will be one of the projects I will support to be fully funded but if there is a little bit of change in the Fiscal scholarship, it will be very helpful
  • I think this project should be supported because of the experience of the team involved and the overall standard of the proposal. Also, the project is focused on more than one Wikimedia projects. This will also bring new volunteers to the community.

Opportunity to respond to committee comments in the next week

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The Project Grants Committee has conducted a preliminary assessment of your proposal. Based on their initial review, a majority of committee reviewers have not recommended your proposal for funding. You can read more about their reasons for this decision in their comments above. Before the committee finalizes this decision, they would like to provide you with an opportunity to respond to their comments.

Next steps:

  1. Aggregated committee comments from the committee are posted above. Note that these comments may vary, or even contradict each other, since they reflect the conclusions of multiple individual committee members who independently reviewed this proposal. We recommend that you review all the feedback carefully and post any responses, clarifications or questions on this talk page by 5pm UTC on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. If you make any revisions to your proposal based on committee feedback, we recommend that you also summarize the changes on your talkpage.
  2. The committee will review any additional feedback you post on your talkpage before making a final funding decision. A decision will be announced Thursday, May 27, 2021.


Questions? Contact us at projectgrants (_AT_) wikimedia  · org.

Marti (WMF) (talk) 04:38, 5 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Response to Project Grants Committee concerns[edit]

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
  • QUESTION: it has a good point of building structure/capacity for further learnings but I don't know how they would make other contributors/providers follow that or even be aware of developed solutions
    • RESPONSE: The complete written report of the project will be published to share observations. We also intend to engage the community in reviewing the observations and generate inference. We are also actively engaged in the office hours for education and research, relevant events and meet-ups organized for the education community for shared learning and growth. We also intend to create a core committee with representatives from different working groups, who will help us stay relevant and will also support in sharing learnings with global communities.
  • QUESTION: This kind of project has a key part in the engagement, but I feel a mistaken approach to problem, especially in COVID context, because engagement is more effective in-person meetings. In the past, some projects tried to improve KPI-related newcomers engagement, but almost all has failed because the training sessions and editathons was the only meeting for newcomers. In this project I don't read anything about how to measure the increase of retained newcomers after Y months after the Wikiclub ends. I understand that isn't responsibility of grantee about reatian newcomers, but if the projects aims to create engagement and there is no metric to be measured, I don't have enough confidence to support the project.

Not only this, considering the Covid impacted everyone last year, we were able to keep the students engaged in multiple edit-a-thons, training and awareness campaigns. The list of all the activities is as follows-

  1. WikiGap-Wiki4Womxn 2021 Training and edit-a-thon: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/Consulate_of_Sweden,_Mumbai_and_UNESCO_India/WikiGap-Wiki4Womxn_2021_(12_March_to_15_March_2021)
  2. Syberthon-3: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/CT_university_Wiki_Club/Syberthon_2020-_Cycle_3_(17_October_2020)
  3. Syberthon 2: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/CT_University/Syberthon_2020_Indian_Languages-Cycle_2_(11_April_2020)
  4. Wiki4Women 2020: https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/UNESCO_India/Wiki4Women_edit-a-thon_(03_March_2020)
  5. Syberthon Awareness Campaign: https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/ct-university-and-university-business-school-organise-webinar-to-discuss-cyber-security-challenges/story-MjjByCEJ5QBMCloRacs2wK.html
  6. Wikipedia Awareness & Introduction 2019: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Syberthon_2020/Training_%26_Workshops

We have been using the dashboard to track our engagement & contributions. We intend to use the same and explore other tools to monitor the progress in future. We have an active group of students who are committed to the movement because of the way we have engaged them- they are working for the cause, not for the academic credits. We make sure that with our expertise, experience, skill, and guidance, this project becomes an interesting knowledge tool for them that not only fulfill their current thrust for knowledge but also work as a catalyst for their future endeavours. This is not only a research project to review the patterns of other projects, but also an attempt to design a prototype for further testing. Along with this, to track their retention and to monitor their progress, we also intend to gather timely feedback. Not only this, our advisors have the experience of building partnerships and engagements with various education institutions which can help us prepare countermeasures to address any kind of unforeseen circumstances.

  • QUESTION: It is unclear what the community will learn from this proposal.
    • RESPONSE: All the learnings from various education projects and studies are segregated and hard to track for new editors, we intend to create a one-point resource document with a list of resources and also, a meta-review of various reports correlating the associated factors. The final report will be a prototype based on shared learnings & observations. Our engagement piece of the project is based on an educational approach that aims to build awareness and knowledge among students, school or colleges, and communities that enable them to build networks and relationships, cultural diversity, critical thinking, and reflection. Wiki is an open source to propagate educational content where the knowledge and information is free and open for use and re-use, so by this project we hope to develop a well managed project with learnings and recommendations on methods of recruiting and training new volunteers, collaborative resource building, credibility, inclusive content building templates, shared learning, where all this together enhances engagement.
  • QUESTION: it lacks measurable outcomes (those that were proposed don't seem related to the project itself - like term translations). And I think grantees lack some wiki-experience, too
    • RESPONSE:

For Research: The measurable expected outcomes are-

    • A report on meta analysis of previously reported education project reports.
    • A report on analysis of previously organized Education programs in India with special focus on what worked and what didn’t.
    • A prototype for further testing.

For Engagement Part:

    • We have been advised to scale down the engagement part of the proposal. The measurable expected outcomes are-
    • At least 300 medical words (translation)
    • At least 200 medical images uploaded on commons
    • Quality content on Wikipedia (Improving/expanding/creating articles)- at least 100
    • New Users- At least 40
    • Number of languages for projects (based on the Club’s members and participation in editathons: minimum 2
    • Organize/Participate in six activities (training/edit-a-thon,etc.)
    • A discussion with a medical panel on translation
    • MoU with two institutions and collaboration with two partner organizations
    • 2 Awareness program with regional school/Groups as a part of Syberthon & WWWW
    • Resource Video on Process/Guidelines- 01

Lack of Experience- we agree that we are not highly experienced editors of Wikipedia but we don't consider ourselves as a newcomer. We actively participate in wiki programs and wiki workshops. We organized edit-a-thons in our institution, when all global affiliates were struggling, we were able to keep our students engaged to contribute to our project. We would also like to bring this to your notice that FromPunjab is a qualified educationist and researcher in the field of education where she has designed tools to evaluate education programs.

  • QUESTION: Some questions on the talk page about ability to execute are relevant and should be more addressed.
    • RESPONSE: We have tried to address all directed questions. In case we are missing some, please point us to the specific questions.
  • QUESTION: The scope of the project can be accomplished within a 12 month period. The budget is realistic and efficient enough but if there could be a reduction in the Fiscal Scholarship that would be good. Participants are having the necessary skills coupled with experienced editors
    • RESPONSE: Our fiscal sponsor agreed on a fixed amount of 2000 USD.
  • QUESTION: There is a lot point of failures to be considered by grantee, but is not covered by this proposal, especially due to COVID and offline meetings. The capacity to create community from online contexts is pretty tricky and could lead to an unmet goals, due "non responsive volunteers" from the wikiclubs. There is a good approach, but I see this project to me more easily to develop without pandemics in "a normal context"
    • RESPONSE: We understand the concerns. We analysed our engagements thoroughly while proposing this project. The students engaged with the WikiC;lub are active and willing to contribute & learn. There are others who wish to join as well. Considering the fact that student engagement is very demanding in terms of time & efforts, we have proposed this to make it more formal. We have defined our success markers considering the current situation.
  • QUESTION: I would propose to postpone it for one granting cycle and give an opportunity of more thorough community review and inviting more stakeholders to ensure that the system they want to build answers the desires of other stakeholders
    • RESPONSE: As you are well aware of the current pandemic situation, now every person is draining their energy on random stuff on the internet. We, by indulging students in this project, will focus their energy in the right direction, making them more responsible, improving their abilities and skills, and making them more flexible and adaptable. Worrying is the misuse of imagination instead we suggest using one's imagination or thought process for positive engagement. We have been working with the students for the last one year and have been waiting for the time to propose a project with the intention to build our collaborations and enhance our engagement. We will continue our engagement, but the growth and collaborative initiatives with partner institutions are based on the committee's decision.
  • QUESTION: Research Proposal Details
    • RESPONSE: considering the clarity on committee concerns by KCVelaga, we have been advised to edit the proposal by removing the engagement part entirely and focusing on the research part. Following the recommendations, we are proposing an updated methodology in the section below.

Additional suggestions from Committee's representative[edit]

Following the committee’s review, we sought help from KC Velaga to understand the committee’s concerns. Following his recommendations, we are dropping the engagement part and proposing the detailed Research methodology here-

Updated Title- ' A study on the meta-analysis of Wikimedia Education programs to design a prototype on considerable practices and evaluation of programs.'

  • DATA REVIEW: We will review the available data on the education programs that have been conducted in the last five years. As per the shared information, the data for last two years isn’t updated in Education Resources, we will design a survey to gather information from different communities.
  • DATA CLASSIFICATION & APPROVAL: Data classifying is an efficient way of management as it makes using & processing data easier. As there is no existing model available, we will use the manual method by creating & defining the data categories. We propose to create an initial data classification model, which will be reviewed and approved by the core committee.

Note: By data, we mean the details of programs & education events/activities.

  • DATA ANALYSIS: After the classification of data, the data will be presented to the core committee to select one category for further analysis. The selected category will be analyzed as follows-
    • Preparing a Questionnaire: A Questionnaire is a device consisting of a series of questions dealing with some psychological, social, educational, etc.; topics sent or given to an individual or a group of individuals, with the objective of obtaining data with regards to subjects under investigation.
      • Objective of the questionnaire: The main objective of preparing a questionnaire is to gather information to review the data of last 5 years educational programs.
      • Target population: Questionnaire will be designed for individuals who have worked on educational programs/activities for the last 5 years.
      • Test Items: These are the core identifiers in the questionnaire, that help to gather relevant information from the questionnaire. The questions are designed in the form of statements and are closed-end questions prepared on a 5 point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. The questions consist of both positive and negative statements to add diversity to the questionnaire.
    • Methodology: Questionnaire will be developed by adopting Likert scale following the data classification.
      • Item writing: A number of statements will be prepared by reviewing the data.
      • Editing of items: After framing the questionnaire, it will be presented to the educational experts and committee to check adequacy in terms of language and content and to examine the connection between objectives of the projects and test items. Only relevant and precise statements will be considered as advised by experts.
      • Instructions for the respondents: Instructions will be prepared and framed on the basis of the questionnaire and reviewing the data.
      • Privacy statement: Privacy statement will be published for the survey & questionnaire for the intended data collection.
      • Survey Routing: The survey will be sent to people who worked on educational programs to evaluate the program statistically. Using percentile, we will assess the frequency distribution falls to understand the effectiveness & engagement of projects. (It is a statistical tool)
  • FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION: The leads of the programs that will be selected for analysis will be called Focus Group members. We will schedule individual or group sessions to share the observations and to gather more details & learnings on the projects.
  • REPORT WRITING: A report will be prepared on the observations and inferences which will then be routed to the focus group for individual review.
  • FINAL REVIEW: A cumulative report will then be submitted to the core committee for review.
  • PUBLICATION & PROTOTYPE: After the review of the cumulative report, we will design a prototype for reference usage. The next step will be to publish the template & prototype for further testing.


Note: We intend to create a core committee for reviewing the research progress and to review the sampling, analysis, and associated methodology. All the surveys, questionnaires, and data sets will be shared with the core committee for review before implementation. The Core Committee will ideally have 8-11 members, where we intend to have 1 representative from Education UG, and/or 1 from WMF Education Team, 5 representatives from different education Programs, 2 Wikimedians, and/or 2 educationists.

Proposed budget changes following the recommendation to change the proposal[edit]

S.No Category No. of Units Cost per unit (USD) Total cost (USD) Remarks
1.         Program Coordinator-20hrs per week (52 weeks) 02 12/hour 24960
2       Travel and accommodation - - 1500 To attend a meeting/workshop/training
3         Office Supplies 01 - 750
4         Merchandise for Participants - 3000 Honorarium/gift for participation
5 Statistical Support & Publication 01 - 1500
6 Contingency expenses (7.5% of total expenses) -           -           2378
7. Fiscal Sponsor Charges (fixed amount 2000 USD) 2000
    Total 36088

Hi Marti (WMF),

Thank you so much for your kind consideration & the extension. We addressed the questions earlier and have now shared the updated proposal following the committee's recommendations. We look forward to the guidance on the next steps.

Thanks & Regards,

FromPunjab (talk) 11:59, 14 May 2021 (UTC) FebinCtu (talk) 12:00, 14 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

Round 2 2021 decision[edit]

Latest comment: 2 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This project has not been selected for a Project Grant at this time.

We love that you took the chance to creatively improve the Wikimedia movement. The committee has reviewed this proposal and not recommended it for funding. This was a very competitive round with many good ideas, not all of which could be funded in spite of many merits. We appreciate your participation, and we hope you'll continue to stay engaged in the Wikimedia context.

Comments regarding this decision:
We appreciate your focus on Indic languages, which are an important set of communities seeking to create local-language content for many millions of readers. You have identified a series of problems that make sense and we appreciate that you seek to build more sustainable solutions to them. Though you have a clearly planned sequence of activities, and what seems to be the right set of people and history to tackle a big problem like improving the sustainability of Indic-language education work, the project scope seems very stretched out to achieve a wide variety of objectives that touch upon project design, content creation, and community building. The research component of this project is relatively limited (more of a review of existing practices), and the proposal gave the impression that you already have answers (or strong assumptions) for a lot of their research questions. It’s not clear if or how you would change the activities given the research, and so there is concern that the broad scope of the proposal might be jumping ahead too much.

Next steps: Applicants whose proposals are declined are welcome to consider resubmitting your application again in the future. You are welcome to request a consultation with staff to review any concerns with your proposal that contributed to a decline decision, and help you determine whether resubmission makes sense for your proposal.

Over the last year, the Wikimedia Foundation has been undergoing a community consultation process to launch a new grants strategy. Our proposed programs are posted on Meta here: Grants Strategy Relaunch 2020-2021. If you have suggestions about how we can improve our programs in the future, you can find information about how to give feedback here: Get involved. We are also currently seeking candidates to serve on regional grants committees and we'd appreciate it if you could help us spread the word to strong candidates--you can find out more here. We will launch our new programs in July 2021. If you are interested in submitting future proposals for funding, stay tuned to learn more about our future programs.
Marti (WMF) (talk) 22:08, 27 May 2021 (UTC)Reply
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