2023:Scholarships/Travel Scholarship application

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The Travel scholarship is for support to attend Wikimania in Singapore, this includes flights, accommodation, and registration. There will be targeted bursaries for scholars who come from countries where there is a currency imbalance with the Singapore Dollar making it expensive to participate in some extra activities including any public transport costs from the accommodation to the venue. These bursaries will be distributed on discretionary system as decided by the Scholarship team based on program decisions.

Selection criteria

Phase 1

Applications will fail Phase 1 if any of the following failing criteria apply:

  1. The applicant received a scholarship in 2019, 2021, or 2022 but did not complete their post-conference report(s).
  2. The applicant is a current or past grantee from any WMF Grant program and found to be non-compliant.
  3. The application consists of content which is off-topic or abusive.
  4. The applicant has failed to make a reasonable effort to answer the questions on the application form.
  5. The applicant has failed to demonstrate any significant Wikimedia contributions or activities which may merit the awarding of a scholarship.
  • Examples of "significant Wikimedia contribution or activities" are as follows:
    • Active contributor to a Wikimedia project (e.g. Wikipedia, Commons or Wikisource), with at least 50 recent contributions
    • MediaWiki code contributor, gadget or other tool-builder for Wikimedia projects
    • Involvement in some form of Wikimedia organization (chapter, thematic organization or user group)
    • Wikimedia CheckUser, Admin, Bureaucrat, Steward or VRTS volunteer (current or former)
    • Wikimedia Foundation Grantee
    • Participant in a Wikimedia program (e.g. GLAM partnership or education program)
    • Participant in Wikimedia organized events (e.g. photographer contributing to Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), workshop attendee)
    • Organizer of Wikimedia events (e.g. WLM, edit-a-thons)

WMF staff reserve the right to remove people due to their conduct on/off-wiki. Examples would be those on global and event ban lists, or under sanctions from the Wikimedia Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC).

Applications for which no failing criteria apply will pass into Phase 2 for further evaluation.

Phase 2

During phase two, applicants will be assessed on two main dimensions – relevant experience and enrichment – with each applicant being awarded a score on a scale of zero to ten for each criterion. These scores are then averaged to give an applicant's final Phase 2 score. These criteria have been selected with the objective of highlighting applicants who have compelling Wikimedia-related experiences and demonstrate a particular ability to use their experience/learning to enrich their home community.

Relevant experience

Activity within Wikimedia projects or organizations (chapters, thematic organizations, and user groups) indicates that an applicant will add value to Wikimania through the experiences and knowledge they have gained from contributing. Applicants are encouraged to write about both their online and offline experiences within their applications using any language. Priority will be based on links, rather than writing a good story

An applicant's activities will be evaluated along the following dimensions:

  1. Collaboration – The degree of collaboration with other individuals or organizations in order to execute activities
  2. Impact – Online or offline results due to Wikimedia activities, described either quantitatively or qualitatively
  3. Community leadership – Role(s) played and scope of activities within the Wikimedia movement, e.g. members who serve on committees or project leaders

To assist applicants, the following examples of "Impact" have been provided. However, applicants should feel free to provide examples beyond what is included below:

Online Impact

Offline Impact

Qualitative

  • Increased awareness on the importance of reliable sources
  • Increased/Improved skills of on-wiki contributors (e.g organized editing workshops)
  • Made it easier for readers and new/experienced editors to engage (e.g. created or participated in on-wiki mentoring spaces)
  • Improved the ability for editors to be more productive on-wiki (e.g. improved or created new MediaWiki features)
  • Increased awareness about the Wikimedia projects through off-wiki channels (e.g. posted articles in blogs or newspapers, or gave a presentation at non-Wikimedia conferences)
  • Improved the public perception of Wikimedia as a source of reliable information (e.g. gave a talk about Wikipedia processes and policies that ensure reliability)
  • Improved gender, language, or geographic diversity off-wiki (e.g. organized an event targeted at raising awareness for under-represented groups or languages)
  • Increased/Improved skills of off-wiki volunteers (e.g. organized an event where volunteers gained knowledge on policy advocacy or event organization)

Quantitative

  • Identified/Addressed content or category gaps (e.g. number of new/improved articles in underdeveloped or missing categories)
  • Made reliable sources available to editors (e.g. gained and shared access to previously locked sources)
  • Increased access to Wikimedia by creating/improving a product that addresses access (e.g. improved QR codes or Kiwix to support offline Wikipedia)
  • New editors (e.g. new editors due to organizing an editing workshop)
  • For events organized, number of participants that attended a Wikimedia event you organized (e.g. for organizers of photo contests, the number of contest participants)
  • For Wikimedia programs you are involved in, the number of participants or volunteers supported (e.g. for Wikipedia Education Program campus ambassadors, the number of students supported in a semester)


Enrichment

Criteria:

  • The ability to share experiences and information with a wider community indicates that the applicant, if awarded a scholarship, would be able to bring those experiences or lessons learned at Wikimania back home, thereby enriching their home wiki community or home country. Applicants are encouraged to write about or provide examples demonstrating this ability; a few examples could be on-wiki reports, personal blog posts, or talks/presentations given about what they learned from an event, conference, or discussion.
  • New User with less than 2 years of activity that can demonstrate a commitment to the movement by way of their actions during this time. This can be providing access to resources for on going activities, or helping to support the growth of their community. Applicants are encouraged to write about or provide examples demonstrating this ability; event dashboards that show them as an organiser or participant, reports, personal blogs, or community about the event.


Reporting and other Obligations

In previous years scholars have been required to write a report about the event, including statements about how they use what they have seen to help their community. These reports are rarely followed up and the participants are never really held to account for what they plan to do afterwards. The need for a report about attending scholars will be replaced with volunteering tasks during Wikimania.

Volunteer tasks

  • Room Angels - taking notes on etherpads and voicing question from the online audience to the speakers during Q&A's
  • Tech support, upload videos to Commons.
  • Registrations desk
  • be on Expo space tables for a short period
  • support an excursion

Application Questions

The scholarship application will be divided into sections;

  1. Forward with basic acknowledge and acceptance of application conditions. Option to share data with your local affiliate that may also be offering scholarships should you be unsuccessful.
  2. Travel details, name, username, passport check (no number collected), location, nationality, and airport of choice. You opt to travel via train or other means to reduce your carbon impact.
  3. Demographic data; doesnt have any impact on applications, and will be anonymized before being used for Wikimania reporting then destroyed when completed.
  4. Assessment questions, links to verify activity and achievements is more import than your capacity to tell a good story.

Question will be posted below once applications are opened


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