2016/Scholarships

WikiConference North America 2016 • San Diego, California

Wikiconference North America is offering scholarships to offset the travel costs of select attendees to this year's conference. Scholarships will cover round-trip travel, accommodations, and some daily living expenses.

Recipients are encouraged to commit to 1-3 hours of volunteer time during the conference. Details regarding volunteer opportunities will be available soon.

You can apply for a scholarship by filling out the form here.

Goals

• To make WikiConference North America 2016 a successful and productive conference by promoting experience-sharing among participants
• To enrich the conference by enabling a diverse group of participants from across the Wikimedia movement to attend
• To facilitate the broader enrichment of Wikimedia communities by having contributors share their conference experiences and lessons learned with their home communities
• To enable new collaborations, creations, and improvements both on-wiki and off-wiki

Eligibility

Any active contributor to a Wikimedia project and/or Wikimedia volunteer in any other capacity is considered eligible. Priority will be given to applications from North America.

Timeline

• Applications open: August 9
• Application deadline: August 23
• Notification of scholarship award: August 30 or earlier
• Notification of acceptance from recipient: September 6 or earlier

Selection process

1. Phase One – Eligibility assessment: All applications will be reviewed by the Scholarship Committee, with a score of zero (fail) or one (pass) awarded on an application-by-application basis.
2. Phase Two – In-depth evaluation: All applications that pass Phase One will be reviewed in more detail by the Scholarship Committee, with a minimum of three reviewers per application. Each reviewer will independently examine and score each application against the Phase Two selection criteria to reach a final score for each application.
3. Phase Three – Final approval for scholarships: There will be an average final score generated for each applicant based on the Phase Two reviews. The final awarding of the scholarships will be to encourage diversity regarding gender, region, language, and Wikimedia projects.

Selection criteria

Phase One: Eligibility assessment

Applications will fail Phase One if any of the following failing criteria apply:

1. The applicant has failed to make a reasonable effort to answer the questions on the application form.
2. The applicant has failed to demonstrate any significant Wikimedia contributions or activities which may merit the awarding of a scholarship.
   • Examples of "significant Wikimedia contributions or activities" are as follows:
     • Active contributor to a Wikimedia project (e.g. Wikipedia, Commons, or Wikisource), with at least 500 contributions (edits)
     • Organizer of Wikimedia events (e.g. Wiki Loves Monuments, edit-a-thons, etc.).
     • Mediawiki code contributor, gadget or other tool-builder for Wikimedia projects.
     • Wikimedia Foundation Grantee or Researcher.
     • Wikimedia Administrator, CheckUser, Bureaucrat, Steward, or OTRS volunteer.
3. The candidate is currently blocked or banned by any Wikimedia project and does not have significant contributions to other Wikimedia projects.
4. The candidate has been globally banned from Wikimedia projects.
5. The candidate has been banned from any Wikimedia event under the Safe Space Policy.
6. The application entirely or primarily consists of content which is off-topic or abusive.

Phase Two: In-depth evaluation

Each reviewer will grade the applicants on a scale of 0-10 based on value addition regarding Collaboration, Leadership, Impact, and Potential. These will cover many aspects of one's activity as noted below:

• Contribution to Wikimedia projects
• Demonstrated collaborative activities (either online and offline) related to Wikimedia projects
• Offline work related to Wikimedia projects, including contests, weekly collaborations, etc.
• Blog posts, reports, social media management, etc., that demonstrate a valuable contribution to the community.
• Role in organizing WikiConference North America 2016
• Event participation (paper, talk, workshop, hackathon, panel, discussion, poster, etc.)
• Role within most active Wikimedia community (editor, administrator, bureaucrat, etc.)

The review team will follow the universal best practices adopted by the Wikimedia Foundation Scholarships Program.

Scholarship team

• Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight
• Ivan Martinez
• Jason Moore