FDC Proposal 2013/Budget/Strategy Proposal 2014

The objective of the chapter is to build a knowledge society through free and open education projects. This is in alignment with the WMF objective of giving free access to the sum of all human knowledge to every single person on the planet.

To support WMF, we can focus on five dimensions:

 * 1) 	Create a larger awareness among the Indian public. This will increase the reach as desired by WMF.
 * 2) 	To build capacity among Indian citizens to contribute to the Wikimedia projects. This measure will increase participation, and improve quality goals of WMF.
 * 3) 	To facilitate getting together of community members for sharing their ideas, and experiences. This will facilitate improve quality and encourage innovation dimensions of WMF goals
 * 4) 	To work with GLAM institutions and get access to reference artifacts, or get such artifacts released under open license. This will facilitate participation, quality, encourage innovation, and increased reach which are WMF goals.
 * 5) 	We will have to build the necessary infrastructure for making these happen. This can be both in terms of physical infrastructure as well as systems. This measure will help stabilize the infrastructure.

Goal 1 - Create awareness - Increasing reach:

 * 1) 	Increasing page views from India in proportion to the availability of literacy, computers / internet connectivity, and available article count
 * 2) 	The factors identified influence page views. Over and above this awareness is the factor. What we can influence is awareness.
 * 3) 	Educational institutions are the most influential forum for spreading awareness. Students will be a large segment of users. Once they get used to these, they can continue to use it in their professional career as well. They also have a high probability to generate future contributors. To this extent this segment is a prime target for awareness campaigns. This can be at the school level and college level.
 * 4) 	Awareness increase can be through participation in events such as local exhibitions where we can put up stalls to generate awareness. However, this costs money for stall space and needs volunteers time for the duration of the event.
 * 5) 	Awareness can also be generated through social media where interesting tidbits are shared and these in turn are shared, forwarded, retweeted, liked, etc. This would be relatively costless. The need would be to build a network. And have many ‘sources’ who would initiate posts. A internal contest for getting the maximum level of social media attention may be organized for the ‘sources’.
 * 6) 	Awareness can also be generated by frequent mentions in news paper articles, TV programs, etc. This also requires a lot of effort. News organizations require events based on which they provide the coverage.
 * 7) 	TV penetration being high in India, a quiz program appears to be a good way to promote knowledge and also create brand value. India has had some very successful programs in Kaun Banega Crorepathi and Bournvita Quiz Contest.
 * 8) 	Distributing DVDs, and print versions of customized versions to schools may also be a promotional approach
 * 9) 	QR code can be popularized and along with mobile access can make tourist spots popular and also generate enthusiasm for wikimedia projects
 * 10) 	Conducting national, regional level conferences etc as in 3 below.
 * 11) 	SMART GOAL: The wish may be to look for 75 Million page view / month to be grown to 500 Million page views/ month. This could perhaps take 5 years.
 * 12) 	 Developed languages are at 500 (German) to 1300 (English, Spanish, Japanese) range
 * 13) 	Wish would be Year 1 at 1.5x given 9x target for 5 years
 * 14) 	High visibility medium of TV may have to be used ultimately
 * 15) 	Popular category of quiz program proposed.
 * 16) 	A pilot program is proposed over 6 months to explore the mass appeal that can be generated by quiz programs in colleges and schools. Such a pilot may be run in 8 colleges and 8 schools.
 * 17) 	Participate in 4 major events within India where foot falls can be high
 * 18) 	Build a steady network in social media to keep posting on wikimedia
 * 19) 	Introduce QR code in a popular science and technology museum in India (Visweswaraya Technology Museum).

Goal 2 - Capacity building - (Increase participation)
Number of people trained in Editing and Administrative tasks, and the effective number who become active wikipedians in the subsequent 3 months.
 * 1) 	This will be part of building capacity involves teaching people how to edit, contribute
 * 2) 	WikiAcademies have been a traditional approach for doing this. This has been restricted to educational institutions where the computer infrastructure and internet connectivity is available. This can continue based on pull
 * 3) 	Target institutions of higher learning where specialization is done
 * 4) 	We do not have an avenue for training the public who are interested. This needs to be created. We can do this in many ways.
 * 5) 	By tying up with computer training institutes, who can offer such training as part of their portfolio
 * 6) 	By hiring the facilities of such institutes for public workshops
 * 7) 	By conducting training in corporate campuses
 * 8) 	By providing an online training platform
 * 9) 	In order to increase the training efforts, we need to train trainers
 * 10) 	This may make available a proven methodology for training
 * 11) 	We can build in mechanisms for getting feedback and use it for improvement
 * 12) 	 We may be able to reduce the distance at which a training resource is available as more trainers become available.
 * 13) 	Apart from training in Wikipedia we also need training in respect of other projects
 * 14) 	Wikimedia commons can be supported by periodic photo contests with selected themes
 * 15) 	Wiki Loves Monuments has been very popular. We have run this for 2 years.
 * 16) 	It may be desirable to broad base such a competition to cover other topics.
 * 17) 	 Wikisource has potential to support many traditional literary references
 * 18) 	This requires ability to scan and digitize reference documents
 * 19) 	Mediawiki training can also be promoted as India has a large technical community
 * 20) 	Wikidata, Wikivoyage, etc are new projects that need promotion
 * 21) 	As we go about training more volunteers to contribute, we also need to increase the people who perform administrative activities. Training may be required in these areas
 * 22) 	Courses may be developed for these activities, and delivered by experienced wikimedians in these functions
 * 23) 	such training may be held across the country in major cities
 * 24) 	Experienced editors who are interested may be sponsored to attend them at the nearest major city where these are conducted.
 * 25) Smart goal: From 450 active editors today one may ambitiously wish to aim at 100x increase in 3 years to reach 45,000 editors. However, it seems realistic to expect 10x growth in 5 years. Admin Editors to be 10% of editors. The first year target can be 50% of current to reach 675 active editors, since mass training initiatives may be in the work in progress stage
 * 26) 	Developed languages at 20 to 35 editors per million; India at 0.3 per million
 * 27) 	Training yield is 10%; So create a capacity for high number of people to be train themselves through self help. Mass education methods are required; MOOC like system proposed
 * 28) 	MOOC Program may take 6 months to develop; How many will take up this route is difficult to estimate. But we can target 6 languages to be covered for Video based tutorials.
 * 29) 	We expect 5,000 editors in year 2014 through self learning though this metric is difficult to estimate.
 * 30) 	Also need to conduct admin training at 10% of editors level so that new editors are also supported by admin editor functions
 * 31) 	Continue with current WikiAcademy program on demand. Conduct at least 1 Academy a month
 * 32) 	At the Bangalore office run frequent week end training programs for public. This can be for 12 people per session and as many sessions as there is demand.
 * 33) 	“Train the Trainer” program to be run to create distributed trainer availability through the country.
 * 34) 	Wiki Loves India contest for a season to build up images contribution to Commons of about 20000 images
 * 35) 	Engage a digitizing contractor for to scan newspapers.
 * 36) 	Set up a book scanning facility at the Bangalore office

Goal 3 - Community building - (building closeness of community):
Interactions between community members is widely believed to be the catalyst for increasing collaborations, greater productivity, and sustained enthusiasm among community members. This can be facilitated by group meets such as city meets, on line meets, social media posts, regional conferences, all india conference, and participation in international events.
 * 1) 	Facilitating getting together of Wikimedians to share ideas and experiences can be at different levels
 * 2) 	Sponsoring Wikimedians for international conferences and meets
 * 3) 	Conducting national level conferences
 * 4) 	Conducting regional level conferences
 * 5) 	Conducting city level meet ups
 * 6) 	Conducting events such as photo walks
 * 7) 	Conducting project specific conferences / workshops, and combining them with likeminded external groups where possible
 * 8) 	Conducting category specific conferences / workshops, and combining them with likeminded external groups where possible
 * 9) 	Conducting google hangouts for small niche groups of interest
 * 10) 	Encouraging small special interest groups across the country to have their own interaction forum within the chapter
 * 11) 	Set up special interest groups according to the popular choice of the community
 * 12) 	SMART GOAL: The social network parameters for community closeness are diameter of the network, and cluster coefficient for the network. These are well established metrics in the network theory. However, we do not have a measure of current level and a future target at this stage. These may be baselined and initiated this year. The surrogate measures are number of major events proposed in year 2014
 * 13) 	One National event with 400 people
 * 14) 	Three more regional events with 80 people each are targeted given the rapid growth proposed.

Goal 4 - GLAM initiative
Number of GLAM institutions tied with, and number of articles generated through this relationship.


 * 1) 	Build relations with important government agencies with whom we have common interests
 * 2) 	Education
 * 3) 	Culture
 * 4) 	IT
 * 5) 	Science and Technology
 * 6) 	Tourism
 * 7) 	Get public data released from appropriate agencies
 * 8) 	Develop internship programs aimed at educational institutions that directly target GLAM institutions
 * 9) 	Institutes of Art, Culture, Sculpture, Archaeology, Library science etc
 * 10) 	Develop agreements with institutions to organize hackathons
 * 11) 	Formally develop a Wikimedian in Residence program
 * 12) 	carry out proof of concept work before signing agreements
 * 13) 	provide continuity and coordination for multiple interns
 * 14) 	SMART GOAL: GLAM institutions are with Government. We assume it may be a year before we can get any artifacts brought out to public domain.
 * 15) 	Resource to be deployed - One Wikimedian in Residence to run pilots at 2 institutions in a year.
 * 16) 	GLAM projects and related results may be expected next year. This year we will target academic institutions specializing in GLAM related education.
 * 17) 	we can accept interns from such institutions over summer months for carrying out GLAM projects

Goal 5 - Operations Stabilize infrastructure:
Chapter initiatives to facilitate the above.


 * 1) 	Publish a grant approval process and publish the budget process to create transparency, and trigger advance planning and better reporting
 * 2) 	Recast MoA for a improved facilitation of chapter activities
 * 3) 	Make the membership process simple and induct more members
 * 4) 	Induct more SIG chairs and motivate them in organizing local meets and training programs
 * 5) 	Increase community participation
 * 6) 	Motivate members through recognition of noteworthy Wikipedians every year. This may be done even when there is no national conference scheduled
 * 7) 	Formally define and start Intern / Wikimedian in Residence programs
 * 8) 	Initiate relationship building with GLAM institutions
 * 9) 	Initiate Public training programs
 * 10) 	Initiate a online training program for mass training
 * 11) 	Initiate training in admin functions
 * 12) 	Support national and regional conferences
 * 13) 	Develop a large sized social media network and reach interesting posts to a large segment of population
 * 14) 	Develop a program for starting clubs in academic institutions
 * 15) 	Build a quiz program that can be used with promotion in schools
 * 16) 	Maintain a default online interactive sessions for the benefit of small groups scattered around the nation and unable to have physical meets
 * 17) 	Organize seminars with other organizations that overlap with Wikimedia’s interests such as translation technologies, or in the nature of promoting general interest in knowledge sharing
 * 18) 	Initiate a measurement and feedback program that develops baselines, evaluates program effectiveness
 * 19) 	Analyze wiki-statistics and draw insights
 * 20) 	SMART GOAL: For the above the goal will be in terms of schedule.

Membership
The chapter members are generally stretched and find it difficult to commit to a large number of hours. City meets do not happen easily, as people find the commute long and events not rewarding. Any one championing some activity burns out quickly due to excessive dependence on their personal involvement.


 * 1) 	Many hands make light work. We need a large number of people to be involved.
 * 2) 	 It is common for people to find their time is short. Everyone has an office life and a personal life.
 * 3) 	Commute times are high in many cities. So it is necessary to reward them with a positive event and talk.
 * 4) 	At least 4 talks of 15 minutes duration must be undertaken by members to be able to make such events worth attending
 * 5) 	Physical meets are essential to get new members bond to the organization. Online forums are available, but can not create the same magic as personal interactions.
 * 6) 	New members need mentors to whom they may be attached based on interest indicated by them.
 * 7) 	We have high membership discontinuations, because new joiners get disillusioned with lack of interactions / local events.
 * 8) 	 We need to develop a way to get them to participate meaningfully
 * 9) 	To support small cities with no sizable groups to converge for a physical meet, google hangouts can be organized.
 * 10) 	When community members want to organize any event, a lot of telephone calling happens. This cost is a burden to the member.
 * 11) 	We can try and set up a way by which community members cost of communication can be reduced

Event organization

 * 1) 	Many locations / languages do not have SIG chairs. We need to create more of them. Beyond city and language, we can promote SIGs by project, by category
 * 2) 	A SIG chair may be elected by the local members or get nominated by the EC, when no one comes forward to contest
 * 3) 	SIG chairs may be involved in budget making process, and their recommendation may be made a requirement for an event falling in any geography, language or such sub group
 * 4) 	Advance planning and execution must be a clear expectation. SIG chairs who do not organize any event should step aside and make way for others showing initiative in organizing events.

Project funding
Project funding has been in fits and starts. With low level funds we have let the funds be pulled and not actively introduced a budget process. We need to formalize this with a long term annual budget, in line with the FDC.
 * 1) 	Introduce a grants committee for grants above a threshold, so that they can screen proposals and approve
 * 2) 	We also need grant closures with a formal report, photographs, metrics, and a review of impact or effectiveness by the grants committee.
 * 3) 	Larger events such as national conference may be bid for by cities SIGs.
 * 4) 	 The strength of the proposal and the number of people underwriting support may be the criteria.
 * 5) 	The same city may not get a second opportunity within the next 4 years.
 * 6) 	Regional conferences may be bid for by language groups at the beginning of the year before an annual budget is prepared.
 * 7) 	5 bids may be accepted against 3 conference slots.
 * 8) 	The 4th and 5th bidder may get the opportunity when a winning bidder has not shown adequate preparation.
 * 9) 	We can make an initial allocation of the total funds in the proportion of edit activities in different languages and divide them in 12 monthly installments and create an entitlement to SIG chairs
 * 10) 	After a quarter, on a monthly basis, funds not utilized or planned to be utilized with an event within a month may be brought back into a general pool and reallocated
 * 11) 	This can create a sense of urgency to planning and organizing events which may be lacking now

Scale of operation / rate of growth

 * 1) 	India has high level usage statistics globally; But has lower contribution statistics
 * 2) 	Editors count, and Articles count are low
 * 3) 	 Active editors across languages seems to be sub 100 in most languages
 * 4) 	 All languages put together have about 0.5 Million articles
 * 5) 	A benchmark comparison with other well developed language groups such as Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Russian etc show, these are in the million plus articles group
 * 6) 	Most if them have high usage rates as well
 * 7) 	 The editor count in these languages is in thousands
 * 8) 	Indian language potential may be limited; but need to explore if they can be boosted by experimentation
 * 9) 	Factors affecting can be literacy rate, computer penetration, internet penetration, awareness, lack of skills
 * 10) 	The last two factors are what we can try and impact
 * 11) 	To be able to reach a million articles club in Indian languages, we need to boost awareness, and skills.
 * 12) 	 The average page views per available page in Indic languages are 100 times lower than in Russian and Japanese.
 * 13) 	So we need to create awareness and usage as the first priority
 * 14) 	This kind of scale of change (100 times) is not easy
 * 15) 	  The current articles count in popular Indic languages is 50K compared to the million articles group.
 * 16) 	 Our current annual growth rate is 10%.
 * 17) 	 The article count is 200 times lower.
 * 18) 	 So we need a massive number of new editors to be trained.
 * 19) 	 Commensurate with this we also need a proportionate number of admins.
 * 20) 	We must aspire to join the million articles club
 * 21) 	We need mass communication and mass training methods compared to the slow paced approaches we have been following