User:MCruz (WMF)/Sandbox/Newsletter/2017/4/12/Draft

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Topic 1[edit]

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Topic 2[edit]

  • Title: Community Capacity Development pilot
  • Opening text (35 words): WMF has been piloting a new approach to community capacity development (CCD), and we have a report with positive outcomes.
  • Intro text (goes before images): There are certain community capacities all thriving Wikimedia communities need developed. Some Wikimedia communities have under-developed capacities, or have plateaued and aren't developing a particular capacity. Our hypothesis was that the Wikimedia Foundation can usefully assist a particular community to build a specific capacity, and to "level up" or overcome an obstacle, and let it continue developing on its own. In 2016, after a year of research, the Foundation identified and described six core capacities, with proposed approaches to building them. The capacities identified are:

Then, the Foundation piloted three capacity-building projects, with the Brazilian, Ukrainian, and Tamil communities, working on Communications, Conflict management, and On-wiki technical skills, respectively.

  • Images (3):
    Slides from the presentation of the pilot report in the Wikimedia Conference 2017 in Berlin
  • Descriptive text (250-300 words max): The conclusion from the pilot year is that this approach to capacity building is effective, in that the communities in the pilot program have shown measurable progress in at least two of the three pilots (the third is still very hard to evaluate), and are now making progress on their own: Brazilians revamped their site, revived their blog and social media handles, created a press kit; the Tamil community now engages with Wikidata where previous it did not. One Tamil volunteer amassed 200K manual(!) edits to Wikidata in under a year. The fact the project featured in-person, in-language, in-country training was identified in surveys as crucial for the project's engagement and effectiveness. The materials produced for the trainings are significantly re-usable, as needs are often shared across communities. One example is this comprehensive Wikidata training, originally developed as part of the CCD pilot with the Tamil community, but delivered since at international, regional and national conferences (Wikimania 2016, CEE Meeting, Wiki Indaba, WikiConference India, WikiConference Bulgaria, WikiConference Ukraine).
    How can we increase the reach of this model?
    The Community Capacity Development initiative builds capacities that are then maintained by the active community. In this sense, it sows seeds that keep on giving. After the workshops, participants stated that they were motivated to practice the new skills gained. We hope that once the initial obstacle or lack of awareness/knowledge is overcome, the community will continue organic growth.
    Capacity-building is inherently a high-investment activity (limited in time and specific in scope). But it is effective. Crucially, it fulfills a need not met by any other process. Technological innovation cannot be the only tool deployed by WMF in support of the communities it serves, as it does not address the variety of needs and obstacles those communities face in their natural growth and activity.
    So now what?
    1. Scale up (additional communities; additional capacities)
    2. Develop "core curriculum" and track individual communities' progress in pursuing capacities toward mastery/comfort in curriculum.  Plan training/help according to need and opportunity.
    3. Identify already-effective trainers and knowledge diffusers; enhance their opportunities to share knowledge; train prospective trainers and empower successful trainee trainers.
    The above implies increased resourcing (budget and staff time), as well as participation from additional teams.  This coming fiscal year (starting July 2017) will not see increased resourcing, but some other teams have agreed to contribute trainers occasionally.


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