User:Vandana~mediawikiwiki/OPWProposal

Wikidata Documentation : A innovative and user friendly guide

 * Bugzilla report
 * Wikidata Outreach

Name and contact information
Name

Vandana Ravindran

Email

ravindranvandana@gmail.com
 * Web Page / Blog / Microblog / Portfolio
 * https://sites.google.com/site/ravindranvandana/
 * Location
 * Gandhinagar, Gujarat India


 * Typical working hours
 * atleast 5 hours a day anytime

Synopsis
I would like to redesign the documentation and work on outreach strategy. Wikidata is such an exciting project and everyone should be highlighted about the project. The project should reflect why anyone's contribution would be of great help and that anyone with the interest to learn should contribute.

Secondly, As a new user I faced a lot of difficulty in understanding the overall structure of Wikidata. I would like to first figure out the loop holes in the documentation that one would face as a new user. For instances I found that the Wikidata does not grab attention to non technical user. They are also potential contributors to the project. Also the data structure is not very clear. The list of contributions to the project though are under a heading, needs to be more clear and mentioning the skills that one needs to contribute in it. A visual represenattion would be more helpful. The documents need to be crisp and not involve too much time for reading. Need to keep in mind time factor and represent data by graphic very where it is possible.

Every task's documentation should be in layman readable form. Encourage people to contribute 10 mins of their time in doing a task including reading a documentation and that can also be during their relaxation.

Encouraging more advocate's to spread a word about the project along with that on social media. I am still working on finding the draw backs in the documentation and hence at this moment cannot specify more points.
 * Possible mentors
 * Lydia Pintscher

Deliverables
Exact details are still to be determined. I would like to break the work into 3-stages.
 * Stage-1(~4 weeks): Through survey and review of the existing documentation available and structure of Wikidata. Summarize them and restructure them if required.


 * Stage-2(~4 weeks): Begin implementation of the user guides and conduct a survey about the user friendliness from new and existing users.
 * Stage-3(-4 weeks): Iterations to the documents based on the survey and research on ways to popularize Wikidata on social sites and by advocates. Implement the result and keep track of the contributors to wikidata.

Participation
Gather feedback from all users by communication and coordinating on social sites and Wikidata mailing list and Project Chat page.

About you

 * Education completed or in progress

Master in Bioinformatics (completion June 2011), Currently pursuing PhD in Information and Communication Technology with specialization in Systems Biology (tentative year of completion 2017).

Through a friend
 * How did you hear about this program?

I am a Junior research fellow and will be working on my PhD simultaneously. But will give equal time to this project and there would be no hindrance in my work.
 * Will you have any other time commitments, such as school work, another job, planned vacation, etc., during the duration of the program?

No, just FOSS Outreach Program for Women.
 * We advise all candidates eligible to Google Summer of Code and FOSS Outreach Program for Women to apply for both programs. Are you planning to apply to both programs and, if so, with what organization(s)?

I have played with Wikidata by adding labels and description and also edited Wikipedia page to get a feel of the overall project. Wikipedia has always been my guide in understanding many concepts. I will be happy to be a part of the project and contribute in a way or the other to make this project more popular.

Past experience

 * Please describe any relevant projects that you have worked on previously and what knowledge you gained from working on them (include links)

I am currently working a PhD student and working on vaccine design for HIV. Along with other lab members I was part of a software BioSpectrogram. Contributed in the website design, documentation part and made promotional videos and tutorials and guided them. Software can be found http://guptalab.org/biospectrogram/. This project enhanced my leadership qualities as a graduate mentor. Also being from a non-techical background I learnt techcalities involved in software development.

Previously I was as a Research assistant in Thrombosis Research Institute and worked in Bioinformatics and Biostatistics department. I gained knowledge in data analysis ,research methodologies, enhanced by knowledge in Bioinformatics, Biological techniques and learnt to work in a team.

My list of publication can be found below

https://sites.google.com/site/ravindranvandana/publications