That's a great idea!
Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 17:04:39 -0700
From: andrew.lih(a)gmail.com
To: glam-us(a)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(a)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(a)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/….
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
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