Feed the Gnomes - Wikidata Outreach

Feed the Gnomes: Wikidata Outreach for New Users

 * Public URL: http://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xz_2Biohj9yZHzfZKDq004yJcC2Rg6mA8LlvnRMxSnA/edit?usp=sharing
 * Bugzilla report: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61991
 * Announcement:http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2014-March/075264.html

Name and contact information

 * Name: Helen Halbert
 * Email: helenhalbert@gmail.com
 * IRC or IM networks/handle(s): thepwnco on IRC
 * Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
 * Typical working hours: 9 or 10 am to 5 pm (PST)

Synopsis
Wikidata aka “Wikipedia’s game-changer” is an exciting project that presents new opportunities for using, interpreting, and improving Wikipedia (and other Wikimedia projects’) content through the creation, management, and integration of structured data. An important and complex undertaking, the project has leveraged the efforts and expertise of tens of thousands of contributors (as well as coordinating with others embedded within various Wikimedia project communities such as Wikisource, Wikiquote, etc.). However, Wikidata still has a relatively low profile and is not known widely or understood enough. Additionally, despite Wikidata being championed by contributors and celebrated for having a low barrier to participation, the demands of designing and developing such an ambitious project have, perhaps not surprisingly, made the focus of the project on first getting Wikidata off the ground and then maintaining its momentum - and not the recruitment and retention of new users.

I think that it is now the time for the promotion of Wikidata’s mission, as well as outreach to and support for new contributors, to be made a priority of the project. For my application for Round 8 of the FOSS OPW, I would like to work on outreach strategy, planning, and implementation for Wikidata. Outreach will primarily focus on the development and promotion of content for a sequence of modules built using the GuidedTours extension (a la Wikipedia Adventure) in order to engage newcomers to Wikidata, help them orient themselves to the project, and provide them with resources, strategies, and confidence to start contributing.

Lydia Pintscher; possible additional mentorship or technical assistance from Bene* who is now working on a GuidedTours extenstion for Wikidata
 * Possible mentors:

Deliverables
Content development, implementation, and usability testing of a GuidedTours extension, similar in some ways to the Wikipedia Adventure and specifically for introducing and onboarding new users to Wikidata.

The extension will be launched in conjunction with a variety of tie-ins and specially created promotional materials to increase the profile of Wikidata and general awareness of the project and its future directions. Such activities will include expansion and restructuring of existing Wikidata documentation, design of a portal and resource & support centre for new users, development of Wikidata edit-a-thon toolkits and identification of other pathways for participation, creation of educational and data literacy materials from a Wikidata perspective, and outreach efforts to communities and groups who could stand to benefit from more direct engagement with Wikidata.

For a more detailed breakdown of deliverables and a timeline of this project, please see my full proposal.

Participation
I love doing research, especially at the intersection of technology, learning, and social dynamics. Throughout my master's degree I have worked as a research assistant (often on my own schedule and remotely) for several faculty members within my department. I have strong project management skills and enjoy the combination of responsibility and freedom that comes with being trusted to take ownership of assignments. I also have learned a lot from collaborating and coordinating with research teams and value the feedback my supervising faculty members have provided and how they have pushed me to think in new ways and constantly refine my ideas. I currently also work at my university library in the systems & IT department where I am responsible for web services support and sit on a number of working groups and committees composed of representatives from across library units and branches. I also get to do occasional usability testing of new library applications and interfaces which is always exciting and enlightening. Nothing is quite as humbling, or makes you appreciate assessment and consultation, as realizing your grand designs are anything but...

I am always available by e-mail and am gradually getting into the habit of being on IRC. I prefer lots of communication, even to the point of redundancy, over little to none but am quite happy to chip away at a project once I feel confident of expectations and the direction of where it's going. Because I will not be working with source code much, discussion of the best and most effective way to communicate progress with my mentor, as well as the wider Wikidata community, will be an important first step once I am selected for an internship.

About you
I am currently in my last term of my Master of Library & Information Studies (MLIS) program. As an aspiring librarian, I am passionate about access to information and, as we increasingly create, access, and store our information in the digital realm, I believe it's equally as important to also advocate for free technologies and transparent systems of production and use. In a nutshell, open source is more and more becoming the new open access.

Throughout my study, two areas in particular have captured my imagination and interest:

1) emerging technologies and interaction design for online and/or self-directed learning (specifically in the context of post-secondary education). Only recently have I considered the ways in which this research applies to contributors of open source software and other collaborative projects

2) the complex social systems and structures that prevent change - whether that be change in thought, change in practice, or change of an institutional or organizational culture. (I have been particularly interested in how this relates to the politics of knowledge production and privileging of certain discourses over others...which is why Wikidata's approach to ranking statements and allowing for a plurality of data 'perspectives' is really exciting to me)

Working in Wikidata outreach just so happens to offer the chance to be involved with both of these areas of interest; the project is such a crazily ambitious undertaking that can and only will be successful if it's able to inspire people to participate and contribute and provoke them to rethink the web, their approaches to content creation, and what they think they know about data.

Also, attempting to change the way Wikipedia is used and understood AND wrestling back the idea of data as something free and for the public good rather than something sold and signed away by nefarious terms & conditions agreements or collected by government agencies)? Yeah, I want to be involved with that.


 * Education completed or in progress:

MLIS at the University of British Columbia, Canada; sub-specialization in Human-Computer Interaction and enrolled in the First Nations Curriculum Concentration.


 * How did you hear about this program?

I first heard about this program during application time for Round 7 through the devchix listserv (I did not apply because of school and work commitments). I also learned a lot more about the program and found support, encouragement, and helpful resources through the Geek Feminism and Systers communities.

I have planned vacation for the last 10 days of May - it will be first vacation since I started my degree in January 2012 - but then I will be available to work for the full duration of the program (and 2 or so weeks after to make up for lost time).
 * Will you have any other time commitments, such as school work, another job, planned vacation, etc., during the duration of the program?


 * 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)?

Nope. I wanted a non-coding assignment and will also be graduating in April.

Past experience

 * Please describe your experience with any other FOSS projects as a user and as a contributor:

I have lots of experience with MediaWiki (I work on a wiki instance as part of my work which mostly includes some templating, some documentation, and a lot of maintenance of content).

I'm involved (both as a student and mentor for HTML/CSS) with the local chapter of Ladies Learning Code, a non-profit organization that puts on computing and coding workshops and classes (the organization also has very close ties with the local Mozilla community).

I contributed to my university's first open and online course - built in WordPress instead of on a proprietary MOOC platform. The modules of the course are intended to help self-enrolled and self-paced students acquire digital learning skills. I created an introductory module on the digital humanities.

I also participatied in a OPW Round 7 participant's outreach project with Mozilla that explored opportunities for librarians and information professionals to get involved in FOSS (apparently it worked?).

hmm, how about some research?
 * Please describe any relevant projects that you have worked on previously and what knowledge you gained from working on them (include links):


 * Halbert, H., & Nathan, L. (2014). Designing for Negative Affect and Critical Reflection. In Proceedings of CHI '14 the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Toronto, Ontario [forthcoming]

This research seeks to explore how technologies and their affordances support transformative learning, a process through which individuals engage with feelings of discomfort and other negative emotions, with the intention of making recommendations for technologies and systems that support critical reflection and constructive dialogue and consensus-making


 * Seifi, H., Halbert, H., & McGrenere, J. (2014). Supervisor-Student Research Meetings: A Case Study on Choice of Tools and Practices in Computer Science. In Proceedings of GI ’14 the Graphics Interface 2014 Conference, Montreal, Quebec [forthcoming]

Exploratory study of the tools and practices used by supervisors and students in computer science for meetings and research collaboration and analysis of some of the contextual factors and individual differences influencing the selection of supportive tools


 * Halbert, H. (2013). The state of clinical librarianship in Canada: A review of the literature, 1970–2013. Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association, 34(02), 69-74. Access at: http://pubs.chla-absc.ca/doi/full/10.5596/c13-027

This paper traces the history of clinical librarianship in Canada from 1970 to 2013 as seen through the lens of practitioner narratives and published literature