User talk:Mike Cline/USCAN Working Group Drafts/Phase I Task Forces/U.S. Canada Education Program Proposed Structure

Agenda for in-person meeting on October 20

Goal of meeting: decide on a concrete organizational structure and board composition that answer all of these questions and that are ready to be proposed to the rest of the Working Group.

We will take breaks throughout the day as necessary.
8:30–9:00 — Breakfast (provided by WMF)
9:00–9:30 — Overview of organizational models we've already heard about
9:30–10:00 — What are all the responsibilities that WikiEduCa's structure needs to account for?
10:00–12:00 — What WikiEduCa looks like on the local (e.g. campus) level

• What is the driving unit (a student club? an "alliance"? something else?)? How is it affiliated with the university?
• Who is involved in the driving unit? (stakeholder groups, governance)
• Which responsibilities are taken care of on the local level, and by whom (roughly)?
• How does a new local group start? What are the requirements for a group to be officially recognized as being part of WikiEduCa? What must it do to remain part of WikiEduCa?
• How does an individual join their local group? What are the requirements for joining and remaining in the group?
• In what areas can local groups vary from one another? What needs to stay consistent across all local groups?

12:00–12:30 — Lunch (provided by WMF)
12:30–2:30 — What WikiEduCa looks like on the (dual)national level

• Central staff
  • Size
  • Responsibilities
  • Is there a central office somewhere?
  • How will the central staff involve local participants in central decision-making?
• How will learnings and news across the various local groups be shared?
• How will WikiEduCa strengthen a sense of community among participants? (both participants who are geographically close to each other and those who are not)
• How will WikiEduCa hold its local groups accountable to results?
• Is there a "career path" for participants?

2:30–3:00 — Consolidate and summarize decisions around organizational structure
3:00–5:00 — Board composition (criteria for selection)
6:00–8:00 — Dinner with Jami (optional)

Notes from call with Kathrin on October 15

Major points for us to discuss further:

• Driving unit
  • Student club might not be our best unit (professors can't really join student clubs; Ambassadors might not be able to either)
  • Other ways to "house" our participants, other than student club:
    • "Alliance"?
    • Kathrin: one risk for not having a formal institutionalized umbrella like a student club is less university recognition and the group is more likely to fall apart
    • Would be good to still affiliate this with a formal, university-recognized entity like a student club
• Rewards/incentives for each of our stakeholder groups is this in the scope of this task force? Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 01:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
• Participant retention within program
  • Current retention rate: about 70% for professors, 70% for CAs, lower for OAs.
  • Students graduate! We need to keep this natural turnover in mind.
  • Bob: we need to have realistic goals around retention rates (e.g. given our context we might not be able to go above a certain retention rate)
  • Diana: we can encourage former students to take on roles that require less commitment than being a formal Ambassador
• Culture / mission / what motivates people to participate / what ties people in the organization together is this in the scope of this task force? Annie Lin (Wikimedia Foundation) (talk) 01:19, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
  • E.g. for Red Cross, it's helping/saving people
  • Bob: we need to find out what motivates different people in the Wikipedia Education Program