Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Steering Committee/2010-10-07

Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative Steering Committee Meeting

• 7 October 2010
• 9:45 PM EST
• via TokBox and EtherPad

Members present

• Fletcher Commons
• Annie Lin
• Sage Ross
• Alex Stinson
• PJ Tabit
• Cheryl Moy
• Frank Schulenburg

Agenda

Expansion

• Rate of expansion
  • As a start, the grant plan is to get to at least ~20 classes for Spring
  • We'll bring ~6 people from international chapters as observers to the next training, to begin moving toward an international ambassadors program
  • 50 classes is a cool goal (and might include other disciplines if it doesn't come from the PPI budget) but first we should try to reach 20.
    • Milestone goals en route to 20 would be good.

• Recruiting campus ambassadors and universities/professors
  • Who should deal with this? The committee? Another committee?
  • A regional structure, with a point person (regional ambassador) for each region?
  • Is it necessary to have in-person meetings for recruitment? If so, how much (and in which regions) would volunteers be able to handle, and what role would be required for WMF staff? West Coast and central U.S. may be only reachable by staff, since ambassadors are all on the East Coast and Indiana at this point.
  • We may be able to reach out to establish regional representative for next time?
  • Organize by state? By larger regions? (West/Middle/East)?
  • Host regional seminars to attract professors? Webinar?
  • How do you identify the professors?
  • We need a list of targeted universities/professors.

• WMF efforts for Spring recruitment, based on schools that reached out to Annie and place where strongly interested faculty were easy to find:
  • We're focusing more on diversity in the types of schools: state schools, teaching schools, women's schools? HBCU's?
  • Michigan State contacts are strong
  • San Diego State expressed interest
  • Louisiana State University expressed interest
  • Howard University, Washington D.C.
  • Mills College, Oakland
  • New Berkeley faculty
  • SF State interested
  • NYU interested
  • Wellesley (all women's college)
  • Sienna College interested
  • James Madison University
  • Students for free culture schools?
    • Virginia Tech - Already has a Students for Free Culture org there. Public policy program - http://www.cpap.vt.edu/
    • Yale, NYU have strong free culture groups.
    • Recruit through SFC's Discuss-l mailing list?

• Necessary criteria
  • Enthusiasm to work with us
    • Not worthwhile if faculty don't have a strong interest or need a lot of convincing
  • Clear understanding of what kind of thing professors want to do and how that matches up with Wikipedia's requirements and what matches the ways ambassadors want to work

• Chicken and Egg problem of Campus Ambassadors and faculty
  • Recruiting Ambassadors first could make recruiting professors easier
  • Timeline too compressed to recruit ambassadors first?

• Ask Ambassadors to list which schools with public policy programs/classes they have personal connections to.
  • Provide some recruiting documents (e.g., the emails WMF staff have been sending to profs)
  • Push people toward Wikipedia:Campus Ambassadors and create some active recruiting infrastructure/advice/plans there.

• Cheryl will ask LiAnna if we can get access to the contact info of people who commented on the various press we've gotten.

• ACTION item: ask Google Group to help with recruiting, especially at the schools we're more interested in. List the schools we're very interested in. Retool WP:CAMPUS so that it's more useful as a tool for active recruiting.
  • Alex: Contact SFC contacts he knows. Virginia Tech.
  • Sage: Contact SFC's Discuss-l list
  • Annie: UC Berkely and other UC schools contacts

Preliminary agenda for future meetings

Selection

1. Ambassadors

   Written Application

   Who reads them?

   Committee input?

   Interview

   Who interviews

   Committee input?

   Is there any role for the community in this process

1. Professors

   Compatibility of Wikipedia with assignment goals

Training

1. Venue for Training

   Online

   In-Person

2. Cost

   Should universities be chosen with location in mind?

   Focus on metropolitan areas with several universities – cut down on travel costs