Lessons from the Organizer Lab? How should we train the next generation of campaign organizers in the Wikimedia Movement
Alex Stinson and Felix Nartey
FOCUS: Climate Change & Sustainability
Organizer Lab
beta
TOPICS FOR IMPACT
Why are we running an organizer capacity development course?
Who are we hoping to include?
Local Event Organizers
Have opportunities to participate in affiliate and campaign programs
Meta organizers
Participate in global activities, run campaigns, facilitate capacity building.
Medium experience organizers
What was the format?
Course outline
Unit 1: Learning what the Wikimedia Movement means by Knowledge Gaps and Topics for Impact
Unit 2: Using Knowledge Frameworks to Build Topic Lists for Wikimedia Activities
Unit 3: Identifying the Right Participants for Your Wikimedia Activities
Unit 4: Creatively Identifying ways to Engage Your Audience
Unit 5: Exploring Established Models of Activity in the Wikimedia Movement
Unit 6: Getting Support to Run Your Project Within the Wikimedia Movement
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Identifying Topics for Impact
Designing creative audience-based events and campaigns
Making best use of the Wikimedia Movement to support it
Why did we choose climate and sustainability?
Some numbers
143 applicants -- (⅓ of which were from Nigeria)
Accepted 37 -- 4 dropped, 21 graduated, 4 completed majority of content
In the 6 months following the course, Organizers who completed the course are running events that produce more edits than folks without the training and we have reports that organizers are using their skills for capacity building across regional and local activities
Some testimony from our graduates
Paula (Wikimedistas de Uruguay)
Paula (Wikimedistas de Uruguay)
Paula (Wikimedistas de Uruguay)
She’s invited by email to participate in a panel organized by a UG within the Wiki4HumanRights campaign. At the meeting to discuss the activity, she’s also told what the UG does and its mission, what the campaign is about and who will also participate in the panel.
She gladly accepts the invitation and begins to research what information there’s about the topic she will be talking about on Wikipedia. She realizes that there’s a huge information gap and that motivates her to participate.
Uruguay
Academic publishing, data management tools, bibliographic databases
English (professional), Spanish (native)
She uses Wikipedia daily to consult information, but doesn’t fully trust its content. She has never edited it or thought about this possibility.
Researcher
The panelist has a pedagogical vocation because, in addition to being a researcher, she is a teacher. Other experts and a Wikipedian who edits on climate change and sustainability also participate in the panel. She listens to their presentations and confirms that they share common goals.
She’s pleased with the experience because she knows that she exposed to a new audience: editors of Wikimedia projects in her country and the region. She knows that the talk will be available on Youtube and she can share the link with other colleagues and her students.
She’s interested in better understanding how the Wikimedia Movement works and curious with the possibility of meeting other experts in the region through these activities.
Motivations
and behaviors
Professor and researcher Grade 5 at the Universidad de la República. She is a marine biologist and lives near the beach in Ciudad de la Costa, near Montevideo. She coordinates an academic unit in the Biology Department of the Faculty of Sciences and is a member of a professional organization.
She advises a marine animal protection NGO and is concerned about plastic pollution in the oceans. She also participates in a political group that belongs to the Frente Amplio, a leftist political party in Uruguay.
Challenges
She has little free time available to add another activity such as editing Wikipedia.
She also doesn't understand how collaborative editing works and which policies Wikipedia has. For these reasons, thinks it's not good that just anyone can collaborate.
She understands the need for open access in scholarly publishing but doesn’t share all the values of free culture.
Credits: Marcelo Casacuberta / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY SA 4.0
AUDIENCE TYPE
NAME
Anamaría Sosa
COUNTRY
Languages:
Wikimedia Exp:
Digital Skills:
She has teaching objectives for university students. Wikimedia can collaborate with a Wikipedia in the classroom program.
May want to share information from her papers to a wider audience. It may also want to make her research more visible and therefore have more impact inside and outside the academic world.
Goals
She knows that the mass media treat environmental news superficially. She’s also aware of the information gap that exists in Wikipedia on environment and climate change in Uruguay. Understands the importance of making this information available to the public.
Catalysts
First interaction with Wikimedia
First event
Feelings after participating
Read more about some creative projects from the course!
Organizer LabV2
TOPICS FOR IMPACT
FOCUS: Gender and Climate
What are the big changes in round 2?
How to signup
Questions for you
https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Organizer%20Lab%20Wikimania