It seems to me that RCom is currently suffering from having too many responsibilities that are not fulfilled. I'm not sure we are ready to add a new responsibility. <div><br></div><div>We should carefully consider whether RCom can effectively fulfill this additional role. </div>
<div><br></div><div>-Aaron<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Nov 22, 2011 at 6:43 PM, Dario Taraborelli <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org">dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div style="word-wrap:break-word">All,<div><br></div><div>here's a message from Siko, WMF Head of Community Fellowships. As with the 2011 Summer of Research, WMF is willing to fund research (both in the form of individual fellowships and small grants) to contribute to a better understanding of our community and projects. While there are existing procedures for community fellowships and grants, we don't have guidelines to apply for research fellowships/research grants.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Some community members have started submitting research proposals for RCom review and I thought this could be a good chance to get Siko and Asaf (Head of the WMF grants program) to help us draft guidelines for the evaluation of research fellowship/research grant proposals, which are currently missing from <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:FAQ" target="_blank">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:FAQ</a></div>
<div><br></div><div>What I envision is a two-tiered process: </div><div><br></div><div>(1) RCom will first review proposals based on its standard procedures, regardless of funding requests. We will solicit the opinion of external referees via a single-blind review process when needed (we did this for the EPIC/Oxford proposal). We will then write our recommendations whether a specific proposal is methodologically sound, relevant and non-disruptive to our community to help WMF make a funding decision .</div>
<div><br></div><div>(2) WMF will request supplementary information to projects applying for funding and use this information, feedback from RCom and its internal assessment of the priority/usefulness of the proposal to make a funding decision.</div>
<div><br></div><div>This will help RCom focus on the research value of the proposal per se while leaving to the WMF fellowship/grant program the actual funding decision. On a related note, I am working closely with Philippe Beaudette to configure SugarCRM to help us triage, handle and assign requests for RCom review.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Please let me know if you have any comments or concerns on the overall proposal. As Siko notes, the Dispute Resolution project below is a research proposal from a community member asking for regular SR support/review, not a WMF-sponsored project, and potentially a good case to get this process started.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Dario</div><div><br></div><div><div><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium">Siko Bouterse <<a href="mailto:sbouterse@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">sbouterse@wikimedia.org</a>><br>
</span></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium">November 22, 2011 10:33:58 AM PST<br></span></div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium">Dario Taraborelli <<a href="mailto:dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org</a>><br>
</span></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><span><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica';font-size:medium"><b>surveys by community members</b><br>
</span></div><br>Hi Dario,<br><br>This is a survey request from a community member interested in learning more about his Wikipedia projects, for RCom's review:<br><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Dispute_Resolution" target="_blank">http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_Dispute_Resolution</a><br>
<br>Background:<br>Steven Zhang is active in MedCab and the creator of some other DR pages and processes on EN:WP. I've been speaking with him about the possibility of doing a fellowship on dispute resolution, though an exact project is still to be pinned down and nothing is approved for fellowship at this point. Although the survey is not an official WMF project, and Steven is acting in the capacity of community member, I am interested in the results of his survey to learn more about current issues with DR and see if there are projects that we should support in the form of a fellowship.<br>
<br>This may be a growing need, I've gotten a couple of similar inquiries so far and
expect they will increase as we ramp up community fellowships. I'm curious to know what the RCom process looks like for surveys run by community members, some of whom might not have the same research background or methodological training as academic researchers, but are motivated to learn and share understanding about their community and projects. Is this something worth asking about on the RCom list? (If so, feel free to forward my message).<br>
<br>In this case, its a relatively small sample size so hopefully not too disruptive. I think Steven could also use some guidance about what free survey collector would be recommended for use - is RCom ok with something simple like Google Forms or have other recommendations?<br>
<br>Thanks!<br>Siko<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Siko Bouterse<br>Head of Community Fellowships<br>Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.<br><br><a href="mailto:sbouterse@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">sbouterse@wikimedia.org</a><br>
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