Outreachy/Administrators

Read below the responsibilities of Wikimedia's organization administrator in various phases of the Outreachy program.

Note: Outreachy takes place twice a year and contents on this page follow the timeline of the two previous rounds which might be different next year, but the process of the program will more or less remain the same.

Before the application period
late December - February 16 / late July - September 30


 * 1) Recruit two organization administrators. As the timeline and process of both Google Summer of Code and Outreachy summer round are similar and require coordination, it's recommended to have the same administrators organizing them.
 * 2) Sign up your organization to participate in the program here.
 * 3) Create a milestone in Phabricator under Outreachy project and copy and adjust the milestone description from the previous Outreachy round. (Request permissions to create milestones if you don't have already.)
 * 4) Request to be added to the restricted Phab group Outreachy-mentors by asking one of its members to add you. Once you receive the permissions, add mentors to this group and restrict access to all featured project tasks to it. This step is important as the recent changes in the Outreachy application process requires keeping the featured tasks hidden from the applicants until the application period begins.
 * 5) Select ideas for possible projects from the outreach-programs-projects workboard or by reaching out to mentors on the mailing lists. See example here. Task description of chosen projects should meet the listed criteria.
 * 6) Ensure all mentors have signed up on the Outreachy site and uploaded their project descriptions.
 * 7) Create Outreachy/Round_XX subpage on MediaWiki.org only after the application period begins. Add ideas for possible projects, administrators contact information, and link to the application process steps.
 * 8) Subscribe to the Outreachy mentors mailing list to receive announcements, program updates and applicant queries. Remember to set a filter for   to ensure it ends up in your personal inbox.
 * 9) Participate in the Outreachy Twitter chat to answer applicants queries.

OPTIONAL: Host an information session for applicants For one of the previous rounds, we used YouTube for the live broadcast and IRC for a simultaneous discussion. See more details.

Application period
Before the deadline: February 16 - March 30 / September 30 - November 5


 * 1) Suggest next steps in the process to both interns and mentors. Encourage interns to follow both the official and Wikimedia's application process guidelines. Remind mentors to review intern proposals on Phabricator and give them feedback.
 * 2) Answer interns and mentors queries. They might approach you via various communication mediums (emails, Phabricator, IRC). Be prompt in your replies.
 * 3) Provide a group communication tool to interns and mentors In the few recent rounds, we have encouraged the use of Zulip for Q&A; check one of the previous streams.

After the deadline: March 30 - May 4 / November 5 - 26


 * 1) Ask mentors to review applications. Encourage them to follow the selection process tips and update the score in the Outreachy's system.
 * 2) Announce results on Wikitech-I & Wikimedia-I mailing lists once they are out. You could also send emails to accepted participants & congratulate them. See email examples one, two.
 * 3) Organize tasks in Phabricator, decline proposals not accepted (via "Add Action… 🡒 Change Status" plus add a comment "This proposal unfortunately did not get accepted, hence declining this task"; you could save some time by batch editing these tasks), move the accepted proposals to an appropriate column on the workboard of the corresponding Outreachy round.

Internship period
May 30 - August 30 / December 6 - March 6


 * 1) Engage interns in your community. Prepare a list of small tasks to help interns get familiar with the community practices and processes. See example here.
 * 2) Suggest next steps in the process to both interns and mentors. Encourage interns to write weekly reports, work towards accomplishing milestones in their project timeline, communicate regularly with mentors, and submit evaluations on time. Encourage mentors to continue providing guidance to interns during this time.

OPTIONAL:


 * Host an IRC chat with interns Allow interns to learn and share their work with fellow participants and request feedback.
 * Share interns' weekly reports with the community. See example here.
 * Add interns blog feeds to Wikimedia planet.

Wrap-up
August 30 - late September / March 6 - late April


 * 1) Suggest next steps in the process to both interns and mentors. Ensure no pull requests are remaining to be merged and deployed in production and documentation both on-wiki and in the code is complete.
 * 2) Add interns projects to the Outreachy past projects page.
 * 3) Archive the corresponding "Round" milestone project in Phabricator (select "Manage" in the left bar and select "Archive Project" on the right).

OPTIONAL:


 * Write a blog post for Wikimedia blog. Include information about interns, projects they worked on, what they accomplished, etc. At the very least, announce on Wikitech-I & Wikimedia-I mailing list.


 * Host a lightning showcase Invite interns to share the projects they built with the community.

Additional notes

 * For the sections listed above, do not miss any emails on the Outreachy mailing list or from the program coordinators as they will contain information about important deadlines.

= Resources =
 * Read the resources on the GNOME's Outreachy Admin's page.
 * Read lessons learned from the previous editions.
 * Read lessons learned from the 2017 edition.