Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Steering Committee/Campus Ambassador recruitment tips

In general

As the "managing" Wikipedia Ambassador Steering Committee member for particular universities, you do not actually need to do all of the recruitment footwork yourself. In fact, it is generally much more effective to work through other people who have closer ties to the university in question than you do.

• Ask your friend, your acquaintance, your old professor, a staff member, another Ambassador, a local Wikipedian - anyone with more direct links to the university than you do - to deliver the message, if at all possible.
• Going through personal networks is vastly more effective than sending "cold" emails! In practice, this means if at all possible, ask someone already affiliated with a university to send out the recruitment message
• People are immensely more likely to read emails from people they already know even indirectly
• Who delivers the recruitment message matters
• In other words: You are the main organizer for a university, but you might not be the most effective messenger!

More detailed best practices for recruiting Campus Ambassadors

Recruiting Wikipedians as Campus Ambassadors

Spread the word at local Wikipedian meetups

Meetups are in-person social gathering events that bring together Wikipedians from the same geographic region.

• If you can physically attend a meetup, great! Go, talk to the Wikipedians there, and stir up interest in the Campus Ambassador role.
  • Take another local Ambassador with you if possible.
• If you cannot attend a meetup yourself, you can still effectively take advantage of the meetups by working through intermediaries:
  • Ask another local Ambassador to go to the meetup
  • Contact the person who is organizing the meetup (or anyone who is going to the meetup), and ask him/her to spread the word for you. This could mean asking the person to
    • Make a verbal announcement about the Campus Ambassador role
    • Bring & pass out documents describing the Campus Ambassador role
• Wikipedian meetups are fun. You'll enjoy them. And you get to meet interesting Wikipedians from the locale.

Post a geonotice on Wikipedia

The geonotice message will show up for Wikipedians living in a specified geographic region. Posting these messages is an effective way to reach a large and location-targeted Wikipedian audience at once.

• To post a geonotice, contact Sage Ross (email him or leave a message on his Wikipedia user talk page) or another willing administrator, because only administrators on Wikipedia can put up geonotices directly.

Go through your own social networks on Wikipedia

Utilize your friends and acquaintances on Wikipedia.

• Contact specific Wikipedians about the Campus Ambassador role, by emailing them or leaving a message on their user talk page.
• And/or, ask particular Wikipedians you know to reach out to the Wikipedians that they know
  • Be sure to provide your intermediaries with sufficient information about the Campus Ambassador role
    • Give them the link to the Campus Ambassador description page: http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Campus_Ambassador
    • Provide them with a statement about the Campus Ambassador role, which they can include in their outreach messages to their acquaintances

Recruiting students as Campus Ambassadors

Ask your friends and local Ambassadors

• Have friends/acquaintances who would be good candidates for the Campus Ambassador role? Encourage them to apply!
• Have friends/acquaintances who might have contacts who would be good candidates for the Campus Ambassador role? Ask your friends to forward the statement about the role to their networks.
• Ask other local Ambassadors to contact their networks!

Contact departmental advisors/counselors

Ask departmental advisors, academic counselors, program coordinators, or some staff member with a similar title to forward the recruitment message to students in their department or program.

• This is an effective way to reach students because:
  • Departmental advisors are authoritative figures and students are much more likely to read emails from them than "cold" emails from strangers
  • Departmental advisors generally have email access to all students in the department
• Especially contact the advisors from public-policy-related departments (or programs), which include:
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Business
  • Law
  • Information Science
  • Media Studies
  • Journalism
  • Education
  • ...and a lot of other disciplines.
• Contact Honor's Programs/Colleges advisors and contacts - These students are highly motivated and generally are already academic and community leaders at their school.

Contact leaders of student group organizations

Ask student club leaders to forward a statement about the Campus Ambassador role to their members.

• Contact information for student club leaders are often available on the club websites: do some research (or ask a local Ambassador to do some research) on the university website.
• The following types of student groups tend to respond favorably to Campus Ambassador recruitment messages:
  • Clubs focused on computer-related topics and open source culture, such as Students for Free Culture (which has chapters at various U.S. universities)
  • Clubs focused on leadership development
  • Clubs focused on teaching, mentoring, and education in general
  • Clubs focused on media, journalism, communications, etc.
  • Professional fraternities, for example business fraternities
  • "Key" societies (e.g. Crimson Key at Harvard) which are generally in charge of planning campus-wide events and introducing new students to the university
  • Student-run programs and student-facilitated classes
  • Of course, other types of student organizations might be interested too!

Make announcement at student club meetings

...And/or ask a local Ambassador to do this. The tips here are pretty much the same as the tips for making classroom announcements. Announcements are an effective way to reach a large group of students on a face-to-face level.

• Find relevant clubs at the university, contact the club leaders beforehand to inquire whether it would be okay for someone affiliated with Wikimedia to make an announcement about the Campus Ambassador role at a club meeting, and go into the student club meeting and actually make the announcement in front of the club members!
• Obviously, be enthusiastic. Talk about what you like about being a Campus Ambassador.

Set up a table on campus!

Tabling on campus is an effective way to recruit students (and a few staff members) for the Campus Ambassador role. Also, it raises awareness on campus about the Public Policy Initiative, generates lively discussions about Wikipedia and the idea of using Wikipedia as a teaching tool, and provokes students to think about having a Wikipedia student club on campus

• Where and when you table is important. It's generally more effective if you table at the hotspots of student activity (for example, in the central quad of the university), and if you table during hours when a lot of students are gathered on campus (for example, during weekdays, in the late morning / lunchtime / early afternoon period).
  • Most universities hold "student club fairs" or other similar events a few times throughout the school year, when all student organizations gather in one spot and interested students can go talk to club representatives. If the timing works out, events like that would be a great setting for recruiting Campus Ambassadors!
• Bring & hand out documents that talk about the Campus Ambassador role
• Wikipedia swag, if available, is always good for attracting interest. Please contact LiAnna Davis if you would like some swag for your tabling event!

Make announcements in classrooms

...And/or ask a local Ambassador to do this. Classroom announcements are an effective way to reach a large group of students on a face-to-face level.

• Find large classes at the university, contact the professor beforehand to inquire whether it would be okay for someone affiliated with Wikimedia to make an announcement about the Campus Ambassador role, and go into the classroom and actually make the announcement in front of the class!
• Obviously, be enthusiastic. Talk about what you like about being a Campus Ambassador.
• The following types of classes might have the largest number of interested students:
  • Education
  • Media, journalism, computer science
  • Business /leadership development
  • Political science & sociology
  • Public policy
  • Students from other types of classes would be interested too!

Resources

Statement about Campus Ambassador role

Are you a fan of Wikipedia? Are you interested in training and recruiting new Wikipedia editors? Will you have fun organizing on-campus activities in support of free knowledge? If you answered yes, the Wikimedia Foundation wants you! The Wikimedia Foundation (the non-profit organization that operates Wikipedia) is currently looking for dedicated student leaders at [UNIVERSITY NAME] to serve as Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors in the Spring 2011 semester, and I thought you might be interested in this opportunity.

WIKIPEDIA IN THE CLASSROOM:
Starting in fall 2010 and continuing through spring 2011, the Wikimedia Foundation is working with professors at universities across the country to incorporate Wikipedia-editing into the curriculum. The aim is to benefit all parties: improve Wikipedia's content, expose students to feedback from a diverse and public community of editors, and educate students and professors about the inner workings of the web's fifth most-visited website. Professors at Harvard University, Georgetown University, UC Berkeley, and other universities have already joined this effort. See http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Initiative for more information about the fall 2010 participants (in the fall we only worked with public policy classes; in the spring we're interested in working with a more diverse range of classes).

THE CAMPUS AMBASSADOR ROLE:
The Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors are absolutely crucial components of this effort. The primary responsibilities of this volunteer role are:

• Provide face-to-face training and support for students on Wikipedia-related skills (how to edit articles, how to add references, etc.). This includes doing in-class presentations, running workshops and labs, possibly holding office hours, and in general providing in-person mentorship for students. Prior Wikipedia skills are NOT required for the role, as training will be provided for all Campus Ambassadors.
• Organize engaging on-campus events to encourage people to edit (and continue editing) Wikipedia.
• Help recruit new Wikipedia contributors on campus, possibly through the creation of a Wikipedia student club.

The Campus Ambassador role provides great opportunities for leadership development and professional networking. We're looking for undergraduate students, graduate students, and university staff members who are interested in using technology for educational purposes, who enjoy teaching, who support open-source knowledge, and who like to work closely with professors and students. No prior Wikipedia expertise is necessary. More details about the Wikipedia Campus Ambassador role are available at http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Campus_Ambassador.

If this is something that sounds interesting to you, please email [CONTACT PERSON'S NAME] at [CONTACT PERSON'S EMAIL] **by Friday December 3rd**. We are currently in the recruitment process and would love to talk with you! In the email, please tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in the Wikipedia Campus Ambassador role.

Thank you!