The Education Collab is a relatively new structure within the Wikimedia Movement. As such, it is evolving and adapting to its context and the opportunities that arise around it. Since October, and  up to now, there’s been a discussion around the evolution of one aspect of the Collab: membership. Based on discussions over email, video and on wiki, there seems to be a consensus on the following ideas:

Open membership

The Education Collab needs to move to an open membership model, where anyone interested in contributing to the goals of the Collab is welcome to join and participate. Contributing to those goals is in no way exclusive to the Collab: anyone is welcome to help reach them. Collab members happen to focus a significant part of their volunteering time to them, and use the Collab as a mechanism to facilitate collaboration around those goals.

In practical terms, as in most Wikiprojects, membership means signing on the Wiki page, thus indicating your willing participation and dedication of time and energy to pursuing those goals.

The expectation linked to membership is thus focused on your contribution to achieving those goals. The goals are set by consensus, and support the larger Wikipedia Education Program goals.

Monitoring contributions from the Collab members

In order for the Collab members to learn from each other and from each others’ contributions, the following means of sharing the achievements are considered:

1. Use of Phabricator: This is the main tool to register your contributions to the Collab goals. Activities, reports, and any relevant contribution to the Collab goals should be represented here. There is a dedicated Phabricator project for the Education Collab at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/1479/

2. Sharing activities and results through additional communication channels:

1. Attendance at Collab meetings, while not a requirement, helps the Collab as a whole to hear your voice, and helps you benefit from input from the Collab

2. Sharing to the Collab mailing list is also beneficial, be it to share activities, successes, challenges or asking questions to your Collab colleagues.

3. Other communication channels may emerge, depending on the needs of the Collab. Participation in them accelerates the achievements of the Collab as a whole.

These means of monitoring the Collab’s activities will help the Collab assess its value and contributions to the Education Program and the Wikimedia Movement.