Scholarships

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WikiConference North America 2016 • San Diego, California

There are two types of scholarships being made available to conference attendees: general and academic.

Scholarship goals include:

  • 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

General scholarships

Scholarships are being offered to offset partial travel and/or lodging expenses of select attendees to this year's conference. The scholarship application period for a general scholarship has closed. A total of 353 general scholarship applications were received from countries in North America, as well as from Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Egypt, England, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Kenya, Liberia, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and The Gambia.

Eligibility: Any active contributor to a Wikimedia project and/or Wikimedia volunteer in any other capacity is considered eligible.

Priority: Priority will be given to applications from North America.

Application form: As the application period is closed, the application form is no longer available.

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

Volunteer opportunities: Attendees, including scholarship recipients, are welcome to participate in event coordination as the conference is organized by volunteers from all over North America. Details regarding volunteer opportunities are available on the Volunteers page.

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.
  7. The application fails the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) requirement, a provision in the fiscal sponsorship agreement with the WMF for anyone potentially receiving funds from this grant.
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.

Reimbursement

  • The following expenses are eligible for reimbursement:
    • Travel (to and from the conference, as well as during the conference)
    • Lodging
    • Meals
  • Reimbursements will be made after departure from the conference according to the process outlined in the awardee's email.
  • Wikimedia District of Columbia, the conference's Fiscal Sponsor, is disbursing reimbursements. Every reimbursement request that is submitted through the required format is processed and paid individually. WMDC will occasionally cluster multiple requests from a single individual into one payment if the requests are processed at the same time.

Scholarship team

Academic scholarships

The Wiki Education Foundation is offering a separate scholarship process for academics submitting presentations under the Academic Peer Review Option. If you have completed a conference submission and checked the academic peer review option, there is no need to complete a separate academic scholarship application. You will automatically be considered for a Wiki Education Foundation academic scholarship.

If you did not submit for the academic peer-review option, your submission is not eligible for the Wiki Education Foundation scholarship.

Anticipated Funds

We anticipate funds to award a limited number of $500 scholarships for academic track presenters. Successful scholarship recipients will be notified by Bob Cummings by 15 September 2016 via the e-mail they provided in the presentation submission. Wiki Education Foundation will provide reimbursement for properly documented expenses associated with presenting at Wiki Conference North America.

Timeline

  • Presentation Submissions open: 9 August 2016
  • Presentation Submission deadline: 31 August 2016
  • Notification of academic track acceptance and scholarship award: 15 September 2016
  • Confirmation of acceptance from recipient: 22 September 2016 or earlier

Evaluation Process

The process for evaluating academic track submissions is modeled on the general scholarship process, and will operate as follows:

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 candidate is currently blocked or banned by any Wikimedia project and does not have significant contributions to other Wikimedia projects.
  3. The candidate has been globally banned from Wikimedia projects.
  4. The candidate has been banned from any Wikimedia event under the Safe Space Policy.
  5. The application entirely or primarily consists of content which is off-topic or abusive.
  6. The application fails the Specially Designated Nationals List (SDN) requirement, a provision in the fiscal sponsorship agreement with the WMF for anyone potentially receiving funds from this grant.

Phase Two: In-depth evaluation

Each reviewer will grade the applicants on a scale of 0-10 based on value addition regarding the qualities as noted below:

  1. Time: Is the presentation timed to be less than 20 minutes?
  2. Format: Does the presentation include visual references, e.g., slide deck, power point, film, handouts?
  3. Language: Is the presentation in English or Spanish?
  4. Engagement: Does the presentation show promise to engage an audience interested in Wikipedia and/or higher education?
  5. Audience: Does the presentation address both a public and academic audience?
  6. Coherence: Does the presentation identify and support a main idea throughout?
  7. Literature: Does the presentation reference literature of its field and/or the growing literature of teaching with Wikipedia?
  8. Impact: Does the presentation offer a significant insight, as defined by its author(s)?

Academic Scholarship Team

For inquiries, please contact: bob@wikiedu.org .

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