Hello all,

The Wikimedia Foundation is looking for volunteers who would like to support the management of relationships between Wikimedia communities and the broader communities of researchers who study Wikimedia projects. We hope to create a committee with volunteers from both groups with a rich combination of skills and backgrounds.

Here are some areas of work that this new Wikimedia Research Committee, with help from the Wikimedia Foundation staff, is intended to explore:

* developing policy around researcher permissions for non-public data * supporting the development of subject recruitment processes * reviewing research projects when conflicts-of-interest arise * articulating and channeling requests for data and technical resources * helping to formulate the key strategic research objectives of the Wikimedia movement (see strategy.wikimedia.org) * helping to formulate small tactical experiments related to Wikimedia's strategic goals * developing an open access policy as a requirement for significant support from the Wikimedia Foundation * helping create a "starter kit" for researchers to avoid duplication of effort

To date, many of these issues have been handled by the Wikimedia Foundation on a case-by-case basis, with various points of contact and unclear responsibilities. The research committee will act as a first point of contact for many, if not most, of these requests, and help us to formulate processes and policy beyond the boundaries of projects and languages.

We are estimating the minimum time commitment for membership in this committee to be 2-4 hours per week.

To be clear, we are also hiring additional research and engineering staff. This committee is intended to work in close partnership with Wikimedia Foundation staff.

If you are interested in joining this committee, please write an off-list e-mail response to <erik at wikimedia dot org> with the following information:

1) Your name and background; 2) Explanation of your role and interest in research projects and/or community; 3) Key areas of activity you'd like to focus on as a member of such a committee.

This will help us seed the committee with a diverse group of individuals. The committee can later be expanded beyond the initial membership, once internal processes for doing so are established (similar to the chapters committee).

We look forward to hearing from you. :-) Please disseminate this message further where relevant. We will aim to respond to applications within two weeks.

All best, Erik