Thanks for bringing these questions and answers to this list, Florence and Theo! Fellowships are definitely their own role category at WMF as for other organizations, and the nuances aren't very clear-cut, so its always good to see how others view things.
Theo, I'm glad to hear you think the roles are becoming more clearly fleshed out - thats really nice feedback, thank you! The program pages on meta are still a work in progress, and I'm hoping to do another run on them this summer. As the program evolves, we're learning which fellowships are good models to build on and which ones might be done differently next time. For this reason, I'm always trying to update my thinking and will point to the most recent fellowships as probably the best examples of what WMF fellowships are today.
As I see it, there are 2 angles to consider in discussing fellowships: the spirit or intent, and the paperwork.
The spirit of a WMF fellowship is a bit different from both traditional staff roles and contractor roles. Fellowship work is based around a project and generally a fellow focuses on completing 1 or occasionally a few projects during their fellowship period. Projects are scoped to be completed in 12 months or less and designed to be largely worked on independently and led by fellows themselves, with some support from myself and other WMF people as needed. Some fellows work in teams to complete a project, some work by themselves. Fellows do technically report to someone at WMF - usually that's me, but I'd characterize my management style as something along the lines of "lets talk about where you want to go and what help you might need in order to get there." Fellows bring some expertise with them related to their project, and are also expected to learn something and professionally develop over the course of their project.
Example: Peter Coombe's fellowship, which began this month, is a 6 month fellowship to pilot a data-driven method for redesigning Help pages on EN:WP. Peter is a long-time editor of EN:WP so he brings his community expertise as well as his experience writing explanatory documentation from other past work. He's keen to learn more about usability testing and develop his skills in this area, so that will be where the professional development aspect comes in for this fellowship.
This is different from a staff role where someone is hired to work more generally in an area or department where they might contribute to many different projects going on at the same time and where there isn't a defined end date for their role. I see this as also different from a traditional contractor model, where the organization defines the set of tasks that need to be completed, finds someone who is an expert in those tasks, and contracts with them to complete these tasks. In the fee-for-service contractor model there isn't really a sense of professional development, and there isn't much organizational support or mentorship built into the model.
There are indeed Research Fellowships and Community Fellowships, but the distinction between these 2 titles now is mostly in the project focus and fellow's background. Community Fellowships are intended for members of the Wikimedia Community, and they generally work on projects that will have some direct impact on the community (again, Peter's fellowship). Research Fellowships are titles used for fellows who work on research projects - for example, in last summer's Wikimedia Summer of Research we engaged a group of Research Fellows. Some of these research fellows were also active members of the community though, and some of their work does also have direct impact on the community (Research Fellow Jonathan Morgan is working on the Teahouse project with Community Fellow Sarah Stierch, for example), so these distinctions aren't always very neat and tidy.
We try to bring fellows to visit WMF in person at least once during their fellowship. Some relocate to work from the San Francisco office, some do not, and this is mostly decided based on the needs of the project and what other commitments the fellow has (school, family, etc).
The way the paperwork is structured for each fellowship is done case by case, though, and this is what I think starts to be confusing when we're trying to put fellows in any particular bucket of contractor or staff. The US has very specific regulations for engaging people that WMF must follow, and so while the intent of all fellowships in the program should be the same regardless of the paperwork, fellows come from many different countries and work on many different kinds of projects. Duration and location varies, so the type of contract or any benefits or liability varies from case to case, and is determined by what the law says based on all of these factors. I'm thankful that legal liability issues haven't come up yet, hoping they never will, and figure that if they do our legal team will take it on a case by case basis as well.
Sorry for the long email - and now I guess you see why the program pages are still kind of confusing too :-) Let me know if this sparks other questions or feedback!
Thanks, Siko
Message: 4 Date: Thu, 10 May 2012 15:42:09 +0530 From: Theo10011 de10011@gmail.com To: Wikimedia Mailing List wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Fellowship Message-ID: <CAP9+R95T0PQcEN395TKk69ofNR--gBWd7B8Taveqve1+Rp=YgQ@mail.gmail.com
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Hi Florence
I'm sure someone from the staff is going to explain this better later, but I will give it a shot until they do. I fielded questions about this last year, and did some clean-up work on Meta, so I looked up the information about this. I might be wrong on a couple of things, but I will try and explain to the best of my knowledge.
Fellows, and their organizational, administrative roles have been fleshed out much better now than they were before. I believe Siko deserves a lot of the credit, along with other staffers. The delineation are becoming more clearer now than they were before.
As it stands, there seem to be 2 types of fellows- one is, Research fellows and the other, Community fellows.
Research fellows are usually remotely located, who sign on for a limited time and project. Their terms are usually smaller and only for the duration of the project which they sign on for. They are signed on for a specific task or project and supported through it. They are remote contractors, whose purpose is the completion of their research project and WMF supports them through it.
Community fellows, which might be more familiar, are usually community members. They are usually located at the WMF office, and usually have one year terms (in majority of the cases). They may or may not have a specific project, or take on more projects during their fellowship. They are usually community resources/representatives at the staff with some familiarity with the staff and inner-workings. The last 3 community fellows incidentally, moved on to staff positions after their terms - Steven, Maryana and James. As far as I know, no past fellow exceeded the one year term.
To the best of my knowledge, Community fellows are contractors. They are technically separate from staff, and technically not answerable to a direct superior. Traditionally, fellows are independent of the organization that appoints them. (not sure if that is the same in WMF context)
I answered a couple of your questions in-line also.
On Thu, May 10, 2012 at 2:15 PM, Florence Devouard <anthere9@yahoo.com
wrote:
Hello
Following a conversation started on another mailing list on the meaning
of
"fellowship", I am forwarding here a question that I hope will be
answered
by someone (I can not help being curious :)).
My original question was
"I have also been wondering myself what the difference is between a
fellow
and a staff member. The only difference I could personally figure out is that the fellow is there for a very specific mission and for a fixed
amount
of time, whilst the staff person may have his role and tasks change over time and is supposingly on unlimited time (until he leaves or get fired). Am I correct in my interpretation or is a fellow something different than what I think it is ?"
I got the following answers
"From a communications perspective I have no problem defining what a fellow is, and what they're doing. They are receiving compensation from
the
Foundation to really focus on the work that they do, but I don't believe would we call them 'staff' of the Foundation, nor contractors. Creative Commons has fellows as well, but I've generally seen them communicating
and
carrying out work within their research or area of activity focus: https://creativecommons.org/**fellows<
https://creativecommons.org/fellows%3E
I do believe in either case a fellow does work on a specific project or initiative for a set period of time."
as well as
"See also https://meta.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships#** What_a_Fellow_is.<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Fellowships#What_a_Fellow_is.%3E..
(and the following section, "What a Fellow is not...") "
and
"In other contexts, one of the important reasons why a fellow might not
be
considered "staff" of the organization providing the fellowship is
because
they would remain on the staff of whatever organization they were affiliated with originally. Somebody at a university who receives a fellowship to pursue research while on sabbatical is still primarily seen as part of the university. (Not that Wikimedia fellowships are designed
for
purely academic research, but the principle about affiliation applies nevertheless.)"
Which answers partly to my question indeed.
I would be interesting to have not only a communication/management perspective, but also an administrative & legal one.
Does the fellowship status implies that the WMF pays for health or retirement benefits (as it would for a staff member) or does the fellow receive a lump sum and manages by himself to pay for taxes and benefits depending on the country he lives in (as would a contractor) ?
Depends on the type of fellowship. Research fellows don't get other benefits, they are purely contractors. Community fellows are different, the exact nature of benefits was going through a change from what I remember since last year. Since majority of the community fellows have been located in SF, the exact tax and benefit paid, depends on California laws than elsewhere.
Does the fellowship status implies that, should the fellow get in
trouble,
he would be considered "staff" (in terms of liability) or is he on his
own
? (which in my terms would be "if as staff", he is covered by WMF insurrance versus "if as contractor", he has to pay insurrance by
himself).
They are not staff. Research fellows truly are remote contractors, while Community fellows might be considered independent contractors working along-side staff. They are technically still not staff. In case of trouble, they would be considered as contractors. Perhaps not legally, but they are still considered representative of the organization that appoints them. I'm guessing, how far WMF takes the relationship or defends a contractor, would depend on the nature of the case.
I hope this helps, I'm sure someone will correct me if I missed anything.
Regards Theo
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