Hi all,

I am more than happy to share this announcement with you.

We are about to wrap up the Public Policy Initiative and at the same time, the Wikimedia Foundation will launch a Global Education Program. Our goal will be to take the learnings from the Public Policy Initiative and expand our activities in the field of education globally.

Over the next few days, I will publish some articles on the Foundation's blog (blog.wikimedia.org) and give you more information.

All the best,

Frank

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Von: Sue Gardner sgardner@wikimedia.org Betreff: [WMF Staff] Announcement: Wrap-up of PPI and launch of GEP Datum: 27. Juli 2011 16:40:57 GMT-07:00 An: WMF Staff List staff@lists.wikimedia.org

Hi folks,

The purpose of this note is to update you all on the status of the Public Policy Initiative.

First, a little background. The PPI is a 17-month-long project funded by a restricted grant from our friends at the Stanton Foundation, and staffed by our colleagues Frank, Annie, LiAnna, Rod, Amy, Sage and Mishelle. (And also in an earlier phase of the project, Pete Forsyth.) Its purpose was to improve the quality of articles on public policy topics in the English Wikipedia, by supporting university professors in assigning article improvement to their students as coursework. In running the project, the Wikimedia Foundation hoped to develop scalable mechanisms for improving article quality on any topic in any language, working with Wikipedians, students and their professors.

The PPI is coming to a close: it officially wraps up at the end of September. And I'm delighted to tell you it's been a huge success.

First and importantly, the project actually successfully drove up the quality of public policy articles, which was by no means a slam-dunk. Over the course of the project, 800 students added 1.8 million characters of text to Wikipedia, and the quality of articles they worked on improved by 140%. (You can read more about that in LiAnna's blog post here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/06/08/public-policy-initiative-wraps-up-pilot....)

What's even better, though, is that the PPI successfully laid a foundation for future activities in more countries and more languages. The project was a solid proof-of-concept, demonstrating that class-based university programs can be a highly successful model for making Wikipedia articles better and for recruiting people to do editing work. The incentives for students and professors are clear and persuasive. (Students think Wikipedia is fun, and they like the idea that somebody will read their work who isn't paid to do it. Professors like it when their students are engaged, and they enjoy being associated with something innovative and ground-breaking.) Wikipedians are willing to do ambassador work, and they're really good at it. There are a variety of tools and supports needed to make the model work, and thanks to the PPI and its participants, we know what they are, and we're equipped to provide them.

So. In this note, I want to thank the staff of the PPI: Frank, Pete, Annie, LiAnna, Rod, Amy, Sage and Mishelle. I'd also like to thank Sara Crouse, who worked with Frank, Pete, Erik and me to develop the initial proposal. It was a great project.

And I want to announce what happens next. This is not exactly news, because it appears in the 2011-12 plan and probably lots of other places too, by now. But officially: I am happy to tell you that as a result of the success of the PPI, we are launching this year a new Global Education Program, that will be funded not by a restricted grant, but out of the Wikimedia Foundation operating budget. Its purpose is to support our strategic goals of growing the number of active Wikimedia editors and improving the quality of information we offer, by persuading professors to assign article-writing as classwork using the PPI model. Its work will start this fall, and its priorities in the coming year will be India and Brazil, with a lesser emphasis on Canada, Germany and the U.K. Whereas the Public Policy Initiative had a narrow topical focus, the new Global Education Program will encourage participation from all disciplines. There are already people pounding at its door :-)

The Global Education Program will be led by Frank Schulenburg, who is being promoted into a new role of Global Education Program Director, reporting to Barry. Annie Lin will join the staff of the Foundation as Global Education Program Manager and LiAnna Davis will join as Global Education Program Communications Manager. Both will report to Frank. Rod Dunican will support the group as a consultant, leading Ambassador training on a part-time basis.

I want to congratulate and thank everybody who worked on the PPI. Really, it was excellent, inspiring work. You broke new ground for the Wikimedia movement, and what you learned through your 17 months of experimentation and building is going to be critically important as we work towards driving up editor recruitment and retention.

And my special fond congratulations to Frank, our outreach pioneer. In the early days of PPI planning, Frank, Erik, Sara and I had some late nights nailing down the overall shape of the project, and I know there were times when Frank doubted the project could succeed. He knew the expectations were high. But through a combination of ingenuity and sheer persistence, he made it work – really, really well. Thank you, Frank :-)

Thanks, Sue

-- Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation

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