Wikimania Scholarships app/status

Last update on: 2014-06-15

2013-10-17
Bootstrapping project.
 * Created wikimania-support Labs project
 * Created Wikimania _Scholarship_app project page

2013-10-23
Starting two week cleanup sprint with sprint goal of a functioning version of the existing application running in Labs with major code cleanliness and security concerns addressed.

2013-10-30
At midpoint of cleanup sprint approximately half the listed tasks are completed, but these tasks encompass only about one third of the total work. Progress is being made and the only roadblock is managing non-sprint related interruptions. The project should be in good shape for a progress review meeting in the later half of next week.

2013-10-monthly
A two-week cleanup sprint began on October 23, with the goal of having a functioning version of the existing application running in Labs with major code cleanliness and security concerns addressed. At the close of October, approximately half the listed tasks were completed, but these tasks encompass only about one third of the total work. The project should be in good shape for a progress review around November 8.

2013-11-13
Sprint 1 cleanup completed and review meeting held. Sprint 2 will be focused on documenting requirements and workflow for the submission review process and evaluating those requirements against the codebase and 3rd party products to make a "build/buy" decision on how to proceed.

2013-11-monthly
Work is progressing towards a planned launch of the application on 2013-12-19. The source code has been imported into an internal git repository and is now being managed via gerrit. A bugzilla component has been created under the Wikimedia product to track defects and feature requests. Several changesets are in review to complete the basic functionality of the application and prepare for an internal security review.

2013-12-19
The application was successfully deployed to https://scholarships.wikimedia.org/.

2013-12-monthly
All critical functionality and several stretch goals were reached for the "final" version which deployed to production on 2013-12-19. Chad stepped in in the final days leading up to launch and helped save the i18n features that were scheduled to be scrapped due to time constraints. Siebrand and the wonderful volunteers at translatewiki.net are providing translations at a rapid pace. Bryan also put in some extra hours to clean up the look and feel of the application with a new Bootstrap-based theme. The application period for the 2014 Wikimania will open at 2014-01-06T00:00:00Z and continue until 2014-02-17T23:59:59Z. The team will continue to monitor and support the product through the application period and the subsequent review and approval process of the Scholarship Committee.

2014-01-monthly
<section begin="2014-01-monthly"/>The team continues to monitor and support the product. Approximately 400 applications for scholarship have been collected with two weeks remaining in the open application period.<section end="2014-01-monthly"/>

2014-02-monthly
<section begin="2014-02-monthly"/>The application automatically transitioned from the active scholarship collection period to the review-only period on 2014-02-17. No major issues were reported for February. The back-end features of the application were demoed for the IEG team as part of their information gathering process for implementing a more structured review tool for grants.<section end="2014-02-monthly"/>

2014-03-monthly
<section begin="2014-03-monthly"/>Support of production application during applicant review period continued in March. A dataset of applicants passing the phase 1 review criteria who had opted-in to sharing application details with chapters and thematic organizations was prepared and delivered to Foundation staff. The beta testing server was migrated from the Tampa data center to the Ashburn data center as a component of the Labs environment migration. The new beta server in Labs is now managed via the MediaWiki-Vagrant role::wikimania_scholarships puppet role and labs-vagrant. This should make keeping development changes and the testing application in sync easier in the future.<section end="2014-03-monthly"/>

2014-04-monthly
<section begin="2014-04-monthly"/>Several small bug fixes and feature requests were worked on by volunteers applying for GSoC projects. No operational issues were reported.<section end="2014-04-monthly"/>

2014-05-monthly
<section begin="2014-05-monthly"/>The Wikimania Scholarships project for the 2014 cycle wrapped up with the final awarding of scholarships for Wikimania 2014. The current hope is that the 2015 application and review cycle will be managed mainly by the Wikimania 2015 organizing group with limited technical support from Platform Engineering.<section end="2014-05-monthly"/>

2014-06-15
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