Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
*Attendees:* * * We posted a list of attendeeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions. * * *Program:* * * We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program. * Logistics:*
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach granthttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013 to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
*Speakers:* * * The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
*Venue:*
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
*Outcomes:*
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
Thank you so much for this very helpful overview! I look very much forward to helpful documentation, so that it can be replicated. It sounds like a successful step in volunteer empowerment.
Best, Lodewijk
2013/5/3 Dominic McDevitt-Parks mcdevitd@gmail.com
Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
*Attendees:*
We posted a list of attendeeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions.
*Program:*
We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program.
Logistics:*
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach granthttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013 to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
*Speakers:*
The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
*Venue:*
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
*Outcomes:*
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners@wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.
Lodewijk,
As an attendee who had some experience doing outreach, but wasn't 100% confident that he was communicating the party line as relates to GLAM, I would like to endorse the power of this event. By bringing Wikipedians who may or may not be aware of how much knowledge and skills they could communicate to cultural institutions and other allies outside the community, it created a sense of community and empowerment amongst the attendees hard to come by unless you are in metropolitan area with regular Wikimedia activities. I would strongly recommend funding and replicating intensive outreach training events like GLAM BootCamp and Education trainings,
Alex Stinson
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 1:52 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote:
Thank you so much for this very helpful overview! I look very much forward to helpful documentation, so that it can be replicated. It sounds like a successful step in volunteer empowerment.
Best, Lodewijk
2013/5/3 Dominic McDevitt-Parks mcdevitd@gmail.com
Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
*Attendees:*
We posted a list of attendeeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions.
*Program:*
We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program.
Logistics:*
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach granthttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013 to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
*Speakers:*
The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
*Venue:*
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
*Outcomes:*
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners@wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
Thanks to all of those who put effort in to making the event work :)
Talking a bit more about the venue: I think that it was much more of a plus than a minus, even with the problems with getting catering in on the weekends. Security was generally super-accomodating - we jumped all the queues, were allowed to bring drinks in, etc. I suspect that having an event like this hosted in the National Archives with the archivist present for a non-trivial amount of time drove home for many of us the significance of GLAM-Wikimedia partnerships in a way that hosting the event in another space would not have.
I also do strongly agree that face-to-face interaction makes useful connections in a way that isn't always possible online, and that events like this, when well-focused, are more than worth funding. I strongly suspect that a number of productive collaborations will occur as a result of this weekend that would not otherwise have occurred.
Tangentially: it did also strike me partway through one of Lori's talks that Wikimedia, despite how good we are at documenting the outside world, are not very good at documenting ourselves. This was a problem that I ran in to while conducting my grant review - a lot of information about the early history of the grants program is not easily retrievable, if retrievable at all. Frequently, information about the early days of the program was only retrievable directly from the heads of those involved in the early days of the program (many of which have now left.) Listening to Lori talk about the early history of GLAM outreach, it occurred to me that this problem exists in the GLAMwiki world as well, and probably in many other segments of Wikimedia as well.
A lot of this information is stuff that we're going to want to have access to in the future. We're lucky that Lori/Dominic/Sarah&co are around now, but five years from now they may have moved on - either become incredibly busy with other stuff, hit by a bus, otherwise inaccessible, etc. It seems to me that it may be a worthwhile expenditure of funds to have, essentially, a movement historian. Trying to reconstruct info five or ten or fifty years down the line is a pain in the ass, to put it lightly. I think it might be a worthwhile exenditure of funds for WMF to literally hire a movement historian to document the past, present, and future of the movement in a central way.
Thanks, Kevin Gorman
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 8:51 AM, Alex Stinson stinsoad@k-state.edu wrote:
Lodewijk,
As an attendee who had some experience doing outreach, but wasn't 100% confident that he was communicating the party line as relates to GLAM, I would like to endorse the power of this event. By bringing Wikipedians who may or may not be aware of how much knowledge and skills they could communicate to cultural institutions and other allies outside the community, it created a sense of community and empowerment amongst the attendees hard to come by unless you are in metropolitan area with regular Wikimedia activities. I would strongly recommend funding and replicating intensive outreach training events like GLAM BootCamp and Education trainings,
Alex Stinson
On Fri, May 3, 2013 at 1:52 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.orgwrote:
Thank you so much for this very helpful overview! I look very much forward to helpful documentation, so that it can be replicated. It sounds like a successful step in volunteer empowerment.
Best, Lodewijk
2013/5/3 Dominic McDevitt-Parks mcdevitd@gmail.com
Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
*Attendees:*
We posted a list of attendeeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions.
*Program:*
We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program.
Logistics:*
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach granthttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013 to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
*Speakers:*
The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
*Venue:*
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
*Outcomes:*
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners@wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
GLAM mailing list GLAM@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam
For anyone who hasn't noticed, please see the WS discussion of the Signpost article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/N.... Asaf Bartov has inquired as to our choice of work.
Doug
On 5/2/13 8:11 PM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:
Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
*Attendees:*
We posted a list of attendees http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions.
*Program:*
We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program.
Logistics:*
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach grant http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013 to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
*Speakers:*
The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
*Venue:*
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
*Outcomes:*
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
In case it wasn't clear from the session -- I found the WikiSource lesson/session really useful and fascinating.
I would not have understood how to do the tasks without face-to-face instruction, and it's interesting and unexpected to see that type of workflow support in a MediaWiki environment.
Thanks again for showing us,
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Doug wikipediadoug@googlemail.com wrote:
For anyone who hasn't noticed, please see the WS discussion of the Signpost article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/N.... Asaf Bartov has inquired as to our choice of work.
Doug
On 5/2/13 8:11 PM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:
Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
*Attendees:*
We posted a list of attendeeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions.
*Program:*
We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program.
Logistics:*
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach granthttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013 to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
*Speakers:*
The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
*Venue:*
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
*Outcomes:*
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
GLAM-US mailing listGLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
Andrew,
Thanks again for pointing out that very substantial difference in Wikisource, as one who works there regularly, I had never really thought about it but it seems fairly obvious now that you mention it.
It's also useful to know the importance of face-to-face instruction. We'll try to organize something more in-depth along these lines in the future (Chris Lee is already talking about trying to get something going later this summer) and I'd like to consider how we might be able to create some distributed learning tools and possibly host some online live events to teach wikisource.
Doug
On 10.5.13 16:57 , Andrew Lih wrote:
In case it wasn't clear from the session -- I found the WikiSource lesson/session really useful and fascinating.
I would not have understood how to do the tasks without face-to-face instruction, and it's interesting and unexpected to see that type of workflow support in a MediaWiki environment.
Thanks again for showing us,
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Doug <wikipediadoug@googlemail.com mailto:wikipediadoug@googlemail.com> wrote:
For anyone who hasn't noticed, please see the WS discussion of the Signpost article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes. Asaf Bartov has inquired as to our choice of work. Doug On 5/2/13 8:11 PM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (link <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp>); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C. The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere. All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities. As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points: *Attendees:* * * We posted a list of attendees <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees> to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions. * * *Program:* * * We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program. * Logistics:* The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach grant <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013> to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day. *Speakers:* * * The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-) *Venue:* The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted. *Outcomes:* For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start. The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended. We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions. Dominic _______________________________________________ GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us_______________________________________________ GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org <mailto:GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
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I think it'd be nice for Wikimania to have a regular "fair" that had booths for each of the major projects, where people could learn about the project in 10 minutes -- overall status, major milestones, how-to contribute, hands-on editing, and future work. Right now people get it a bit haphazardly from presentations, lightning talks, and just serendipity. But having each major project have a booth might be a good way to do it.
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Doug wikipediadoug@googlemail.com wrote:
Andrew,
Thanks again for pointing out that very substantial difference in Wikisource, as one who works there regularly, I had never really thought about it but it seems fairly obvious now that you mention it.
It's also useful to know the importance of face-to-face instruction. We'll try to organize something more in-depth along these lines in the future (Chris Lee is already talking about trying to get something going later this summer) and I'd like to consider how we might be able to create some distributed learning tools and possibly host some online live events to teach wikisource.
Doug
On 10.5.13 16:57 , Andrew Lih wrote:
In case it wasn't clear from the session -- I found the WikiSource lesson/session really useful and fascinating.
I would not have understood how to do the tasks without face-to-face instruction, and it's interesting and unexpected to see that type of workflow support in a MediaWiki environment.
Thanks again for showing us,
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Doug wikipediadoug@googlemail.comwrote:
For anyone who hasn't noticed, please see the WS discussion of the Signpost article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/N.... Asaf Bartov has inquired as to our choice of work.
Doug
On 5/2/13 8:11 PM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:
Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/News_and_notes#GLAM_Boot_Camp); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that *we fully funding all attendees* from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we *specifically invited the people we thought would be key*, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
*Attendees:*
We posted a list of attendeeshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions.
*Program:*
We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program.
Logistics:*
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach granthttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:WM_US-DC/Outreach_2013 to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
*Speakers:*
The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
*Venue:*
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
*Outcomes:*
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
GLAM-US mailing listGLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.orghttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
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That's a great idea!
Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 17:04:39 -0700 From: andrew.lih@gmail.com To: glam-us@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [GLAM-US] Recap of first-ever GLAM Boot Camp
I think it'd be nice for Wikimania to have a regular "fair" that had booths for each of the major projects, where people could learn about the project in 10 minutes -- overall status, major milestones, how-to contribute, hands-on editing, and future work. Right now people get it a bit haphazardly from presentations, lightning talks, and just serendipity. But having each major project have a booth might be a good way to do it.
On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 7:41 AM, Doug wikipediadoug@googlemail.com wrote:
Andrew,
Thanks again for pointing out that very substantial difference in Wikisource, as one who works there regularly, I had never really thought about it but it seems fairly obvious now that you mention it.
It's also useful to know the importance of face-to-face instruction. We'll try to organize something more in-depth along these lines in the future (Chris Lee is already talking about trying to get something going later this summer) and I'd like to consider how we might be able to create some distributed learning tools and possibly host some online live events to teach wikisource.
Doug
On 10.5.13 16:57 , Andrew Lih wrote:
In case it wasn't clear from the session -- I found the WikiSource lesson/session really useful and fascinating.
I would not have understood how to do the tasks without face-to-face instruction, and it's interesting and unexpected to see that type of workflow support in a MediaWiki environment.
Thanks again for showing us,
On Sun, May 5, 2013 at 10:20 AM, Doug wikipediadoug@googlemail.com wrote:
For anyone who hasn't noticed, please see the WS discussion of the Signpost article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-04-29/N....
Asaf Bartov has inquired as to our choice of work.
Doug
On 5/2/13 8:11 PM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks wrote:
Thanks Lodewijk for being so enthusiastic that you beat us to posting our recap first. ;-) Lori and I have been a bit worn out the last couple of days. Ed's Signpost article is a good start, especially since he was in attendance (link); please do read it. I wanted to talk a little more about this event, which took place this past Friday and weekend, from April 26–28, in Washington, D.C.
The idea for GLAM Boot Camp was first proposed and developed at GLAMcamp London last September, as some of you may remember. You can see our original notes from GLAMcamp here: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM_Boot_Camp. The event we just held was http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp. The
stated, ambitious goal of the first GLAM Boot Camp was to broaden the participation of the general Wikimedia community in GLAM-Wiki movement by inviting and training key Wikimedians I think that we were successful in taking a big step towards that goal. Another goal was to establish a model for future similar events, and I hope that as we work on our documentation, others will be able to use our experiences to guide them in making another GLAM Boot Camp elsewhere.
All of us who have been to events like GLAMcamps or Wikimanias know that oftentimes the most important thing is not the structured sessions, but just being with a group people for a couple of days and sharing perspectives—even over coffee or back at the hostel—so both of the main takeaways for me were about the attendees. The fact that we fully funding all attendees from across the US and Canada was integral to ensuring we were able to bring in fresh people. Second, we specifically invited the people we thought would be key, rather than hoping people would sign up. This ended up making even more sense in retrospect, because we were so happy with who came, but if the idea was to reach people who were not normally part of GLAM-Wiki projects, we were trying to reach people who wouldn't already be following our normal channels and who might not sign up even if they heard about it because for some reason they haven't already gotten involved whenever they have heard about GLAM-Wiki already. This also allowed us to try to get a diversity in terms of geography (especially folks in areas without chapters or meetups) and in people's types of on-wiki activities.
As co-organizer, I want to tease out a few more important points:
Attendees:
We posted a list of attendees to the page; the names in green were those who we invited as full participants for the entire event. Of these, only about 3 had actually signed up or registered interest before we started inviting. For the others, I spent hours looking asking for opinions of others and looking through user contributions of people who had participated online in any GLAM WikiProjects, participated in meetups, or participated in any of various other Wikimedia activities or subcommunities, like administrators, featured content writers, Wikisource/Commons editors, Did You Know writers, WikiProject organizers, education program participants, and so on. Participants came from all over the US (New York, Maryland, LA, SF, Portland, Philadelphia, Kansas, Michigan, and Chicago) and Canada (Halifax, Vancouver, and Winnipeg), not one from the same metropolitan area, and most from areas without regular Wikipedia events. For more than one attendee, this was their first time at a Wikipedia event of any kind. The size of the group, 12 regular attendees with about 5 more at any given time with guests and organizers, was the perfect amount to allow for productive discussions.
Program:
We designed a program very unlike GLAMcamp, and a lot more both structured than a lot of Wikimedia unconference-type events are, but more practical than a traditional conference—it was something between a Wikipedia Academy and a campus ambassador training. You can see our program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Boot_Camp#Program. We generally moved from presentation-heavy to discussion-heavy sessions. Generally, the first day was our high-level overview of and introduction to cultural institutions and the history and present circumstances of GLAM-Wiki. Michael's inspiring talk to lead off was really to give them an insider perspective of cultural institutions, and we talked a lot about institutional missions and how to connect the work of Wikimedia with that of cultural institutions. The second day we moved into more practical matters, going through the whole "lifecycle" of a Wikimedia project, and talking about specific events and projects. By the third day, we spent more time in discussion, and getting the boot campers to articulate their own visions of GLAM-Wiki, and how they personally could improve upon or contribute to it. We ended up having unplanned breakout sessions a couple of times because attendees were so exited ideas they had as we showed them things like our one-pager or the portal pages they wanted to actually have time to edit them. If you would like to dig into the etherpad notes from each day, they are listed at the top of the program.
Logistics:
The event was possible for us in the US because logistics and funding were largely handled by James Hare and Wikimedia DC. They funded us with approximately $8000 USD from their 2013 Outreach grant to the WMF, as well as covering group dinners and some incidental costs over budget from general funds. The large majority of the money (about $5500 out of $8500) went towards funding the travel and accommodations of attendees. All attendees were fully funded, and this was an essential characteristic of the event. Most of the travelers had their flights booked by WMDC and stayed in a hostel (same as used for Wikimania 2012 and GLAMcamp DC). WMDC also hosted two dinners and provided coffee/refreshments throughout the day.
Speakers:
The ambitiousness of the workshop, with three full days of programming, meant a lot of talking from Lori and I. We broke things up a little by inviting special speakers in certain topic areas, often where they had as much or more expertise as either of us did. Some of these speakers were locals from the DC area that agreed to come in, and some were attendees we invited to present to the group on something they are skilled at. Examples include the Wikisource and Commons workshops, a session on event planning, a session on grants and chapters. We also led off with special GLAM professional guests: David Ferriero gave a welcome and Michael Edson, who just got back from keynoting GLAM-Wiki London gave an epic talk for most of the first morning. At least half of the sessions were led by Lori or I, though, and future GLAM Boot Camps probably would want to find ways not to give so much work to two individuals, for their own sanity. ;-)
Venue:
The venue was provided by the U.S. National Archives, though there were pros and cons for this. The main pro was that there was no cost associated with securing a venue! We might have been able to find a room elsewhere without a cost, but 3 days, all day for no cost is a big ask. The other main benefit was that we were in a good location and were able to take advantage of having David Ferriero make appearances. We did face typical problems with working with a bureaucratic venue, like catering and security all taking more time than we wanted.
Outcomes:
For me, the most important outcome was seeing the attendees who were all *not* the same old faces as at every other GLAM-Wiki event come in excited and gradually take more ownership and responsibility for GLAM-Wiki, as they began to feel more empowered and a part of the effort. There were practical outcomes, like specific documentation or project pages to improve. More than that, though, most attendees came away intent on contacting local institutions or organizing their local Wikipedia community. I am as excited by the overall community-building I think we did around GLAM-Wiki, which will help it be more successful as it is more accepted and integrated with the Wikipedia community, as I am by any specific skills attendees may have learned or GLAM projects they may go off and start.
The need to reach out more to the Wikimedia community, as much as to cultural institutions, is something I feel very strongly about, so I am so glad we were able to hold this event, and grateful to everyone who made it possible and attended.
We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.
Dominic
_______________________________________________ GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
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