Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-03-12/Interview
Liaising with the Education Program
On March 6, Rob Schnautz was announced as the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program community liaison. The following report is primarily based on an interview with Schnautz conducted in the subsequent week over IRC and email; for the transcript of the extended conversation, see the Signpost's Interviews desk archive.
The relentless volunteer
On learning of Wikipedia's existence in 2004, Rob Schnautz was at first skeptical about contributing: "I heard there was an encyclopedia anyone could edit, and I vowed never to touch it". An initial flurry of "pretty unconstructive" edits in early 2006 were overcome after he acclimatised to the project, and under the alias Bob the Wikipedian he has since graduated to a fixture of the core community: "I've become one of the 3,000 top editors, an administrator (in 2009), a regional ambassador (in 2011), and now online communications contractor this month." In his capacity as a volunteer editor, he has focused on templates and stubs related to paleozoology. In spite of its tendency to attract drama (due to its scope and impact), Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life's {{automatic taxobox}} has been a landmark collaboration: "I decided to get involved with that, and I've been helping change the face of organic life on Wikipedia since then." We asked what motivated him to become involved in the education program initially, and later as a regional ambassador in the Great Lakes region:
- I was doing some research on brown recluses one day, and noticed the banner at the top of the page wasn't asking for money, so I decided to read it; the Foundation was looking for people interested in motivating professors and students to use Wikipedia for educational assignments. So, I figured it couldn't hurt to see what that was about, and requested more information. Before I knew it, I was filling out an application and getting an interview set up for the role of regional ambassador in my region.
- The regional ambassador role is a lot like your typical middle management job. I recruit campus ambassadors throughout the region, as well as professors, and make sure we have the resources we need to support their classes. I also check on individual groups of campus ambassadors and professors (we call these groups "pods") throughout the semester to make sure they're on track and to let the Foundation staff know how things are going so they can make their reports and make adjustments to the program if necessary.
Schnautz sees his brief as community liaison as "to bridge the communication gap between the community of Wikipedia and the Education Program", and explained what attracted him to the position:
- I'm one of those guys who has to stay busy. Graduation was just around the corner, and since I like the education environment, it looked like a good way to stay involved. This isn't the first time I've volunteered; I volunteer for lots of things and usually enjoy them; it's satisfying to help someone purely to help them.
An evolving program
The Education Program is two years old now, and there have been several pilot schemes affecting the English Wikipedia to varying success, notably the United States EP (which pioneered the program with its well-received Public Policy Initiative), the Canadian EP and the Indian EP (deemed a failure by the Foundation). The Foundation have also launched pilots in Brazil, India, and Egypt, and Schnautz revealed that chapters in Germany, the UK, and Italy have expressed interest in organising their own schemes, as have volunteers in Mexico, Macedonia, Russia, Israel, and the Czech Republic. We asked what organisers have learned from the experience thus far:
- We've learned that the most successful pilots are those taught in a language the students are fluent in, and we've also come to understand a bit more about the academic cultures of various parts of the world. For instance, we didn't expect to learn that in India, plagiarism is a concept most students are unfamiliar with. We've also learned that bigger isn't necessarily better, which is why we've begun enforcing a new policy that requires at least one Wikipedian supporting every 15 students.
Organisers had "found that larger courses became more difficult for campus ambassadors and instructors to effectively manage", something for which "an interface that's hard to navigate and seems to require a lot more effort to maintain than it's worth" was partially responsible. In response to these findings and to prompting from the community, the Foundation has developed a dedicated MediaWiki extension and a set of requirements for courses participating in the program from 2012 on, including stipulations that each classroom be assigned experienced Wikipedians and that the number of ambassadors needed to scale up according to class sizes. The intended impact is that the organisers are "hoping that we see higher quality in student contributions".
Although Schnautz is set to work closely with online ambassadors as part of his new role, he had not been involved with the group when he spoke to The Signpost and so was not in a position to discuss the issues Wikipedians have been raising with their selection, monitoring and orientation processes (though he later contacted The Signpost to highlight a list of ambassador principles). He had much to say on the topic of campus ambassadors, however, outlining the ideal candidate for recruitment as "someone who has some sort of experience teaching others, knows how to edit Wikipedia (or is capable of learning in a short period of time), has good communication skills, and is comfortable working in the academic environment", with the caveat that "The folks we choose as campus ambassadors aren't your typical Wikipedia editor, though. We take care to make sure their social side is well-developed."
Students in the program have run into difficulty with Wikipedia's community of editors, falling afoul of the project's norms of original research, plagiarism and inclusion criteria and leaving editors with substantial clean-up efforts (see reports of problematic contributions to medical articles by Canadian students and The Signpost's special report on the Indian pilot). In the event of such issues arising, ambassadors are expected to act as "teachers and guides" rather than taking responsibility for the students' edits or intervening directly on their behalf:
- Campus ambassadors are expected to take all responsibility for teaching students to edit Wikipedia.... The idea here is that the professor shouldn't have to teach the students anything Wikipedia-related in order for the class to be successful.
- The campus ambassadors take on a mentor-type role, offering pointers and help, but not fixing the actions of students. When conflict arises between a student and the community, the student is encouraged to stand up for him- or herself, and the campus ambassador will offer suggestions as needed. Also, the campus ambassadors are expected to review the edits of students and provide feedback on the edits. I usually tell my campus ambassadors to encourage students to find their niche in Wikipedia. If they're going to become a full-time editor, it won't happen by simply writing an essay. ... We want them to have the full experience any other Wikipedian would have. Plus some, of course.
A failure to communicate
Why is a community liaison required at this stage in the program's development?
- Following the recent discussions on the English Wikipedia, the Education Program staff have realized they aren't very effective in communicating with Wikipedians. That's why they've contracted me, an active Wikipedia contributor who happens to be very familiar with the Education Program. My support of the Education Program and my relations with the community are essential for someone communicating between the two parties.
The report by Tory Read on the India Education Program (IEP) found that "the majority of problems that emerged during implementation could have been largely avoided by engaging the Wikipedia community as a partner in the pilot project planning process". Asked how he planned to change the culture of communication surrounding the program, he laid out his plan for reform:
- The changes you'll notice in the "culture" here are that the communication with other Wikipedians will actually be done by a Wikipedian rather than someone who doesn't really understand the ways Wikipedians communicate. I'll do my best to make myself available if there are questions or concerns, and if there is something that we can use the input of the community, I'll go out of my way to get that input from the community."
In response to the Read report's characterisation of announcement locations as ineffective and scattered, Schnautz declared that "I'm working on figuring out which platforms are effective for reaching the folks I need to reach out to. One of the goals in the next several months is to consolidate the program's pages so they're easier to navigate, with the hopes that this will also help centralize related discussions." He also highlighted those projects other than the English Wikipedia that needed to be catered to as one of the reasons why much of the communications effort, such as the program's newsletter, has been centralised at the outreach wiki rather than locally.
Schnautz acknowledged that the "need to refocus the IEP is perhaps the biggest reason the Education Program is being given so much attention this year", that "[w]e absolutely can't have the same problems happen again", and summarised the state of community relations with the programs in its wake as follows:
- The current state of things is that Wikipedians don't trust the Education Program staff. If all goes well, my role as online communicator will complement any actions the Program makes. We've gotten into a sort of rut with [our handling of] the IEP, and hopefully this new style of communication will help us get back out as we plan for the second IEP pilot.
Closing thoughts
The purpose of the Education Program, as it is and as it should be, is something that has been the focus of much debate, with many Wikipedians interpreting Foundation executive director Sue Gardner's comments as prioritising the growth of editors and articles, others agitating to make the quality of the content the paramount concern and one editor, Mike Christie, authoring a Signpost opinion essay urging the initiative to refocus on recruiting the academics themselves. We asked Schnautz whether it is first and foremost concerned with editor recruitment, content creation, building relations with academia, or some other focus. Editor recruitment was "certainly one of the big goals", he confirmed, citing its impact on "both improving and maintaining the health" of the projects and the ultimate threat of Wikipedia's falling into obscurity and irrelevancy without it. He went on:
- Content creation goes hand-in-hand with editor recruitment. If we have a steady input of editors, we get a steady input of content as well. After all, without editors, there's no new content. Editors are also required in order to update old content and patrol recent changes.
- Keep in mind the influx of new editors also means an influx in experienced editors, since many students end up liking to edit Wikipedia. That's where experienced editors are born.
We asked what his message would be to those editors who feel frustrated at the impact of the programs to date, who resent being asked to deal with the influx of student edits, or who are skeptical as to whether the programs are worth continuing:
- Our attention is increasingly shifting from numbers to quality. We're taking preventative measures as we gear up for the coming semester. Classes will be smaller. Experienced Wikipedians will be required in every classroom.
Whether such talk will win over a wary community remains to be seen, but with the Education Program on the cusp of dramatic expansion, its success or failure will likely have a significant impact on the encyclopaedia and the Wikimedia Foundation's relationship with the editors who maintain it. The Signpost will not be standing idly by; for an in-depth look at the activities of the program, interested readers can follow our nascent Education report in the weeks and months to come.
Full transcript of interview
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The following is a transcript of an interview conducted by Skomorokh for The Signpost with Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program community liaison Rob Schnautz over IRC on March 9, 2012. The transcript has been edited to remove parenthetical comments, with minor alterations to phrasing and sequencing for coherence. It is made available by the express consent of both parties. For the edited interview which ran in The Signpost's March 12, 2012 edition, see here. The Signpost: You've just been hired as the Wikimedia Foundation's Education Program community liaison. Can you tell us a little about your background as an editor?
Templates, stubs and image creation sound like lonely areas to work in; what have been your most discussion-intensive activities besides the education programs?
What motivated you to become involved in the education program initially?
Volunteering for such a task requires a significant investment of time and effort; what was it about the idea that appealed to you?
Last year you took on the role of regional ambassador for the Great Lakes region of North America; what has that experience been like?
What is the extent of the programs that are engaged with the English Wikipedia in the current academic year? How many courses/professors/universities?
And beyond the region, what is the scope of the programs involving English Wikipedia?
The Wikimedia Foundation has made the education program one of its top priorities for 2011-2012 [cf. the mid-year report]; can you explain to our readers just what the primary goals are? Is it first and foremost concerned with editor recruitment, content creation, building relations with academia, or what?
So, to clarify, the Education Program sees editor recruitment as the primary vector for improving the health of the project, and through that, the content of the encyclopaedia?
The education program is two years old now, and there have been several pilot schemes of varying success. What have organisers learned from the experience thus far?
How are the issues of students' difficulties with Wikipedia's content policies such as no original research and plagiarism being addressed?
So you're relying on focused direction from campus ambassadors and instructors to ensure students do not submit unencyclopaedic material?
Are there any other procedures in place or planned to monitor or curate student edits?
Can you explain the criteria according to which campus and online ambassadors are selected, what training they receive, and what guidelines they operate under?
Specifically, what minimum standards of understanding Wikipedia's policies, guidelines and social norms are required of ambassadors?
Are there guidelines or codes of conduct for ambassadors in particular?
You mentioned requiring students to publicly list themselves and the articles they are working on for review. What role do ambassadors have in evaluating edits by students? Should they act as intermediaries between the students and regular editors, or allow the student submissions to be judged by the community directly?
So the ambassadors have a responsive role, coming to students' aid when needed but otherwise leaving them to navigate the project independently? The ambassadors' feedback is directed at the students, with the edits themselves to be handled by the editing community?
Ambassadors don't act as intermediaries between students and other Wikipedians, rather they are guides.
Aside from education on best editing practices, what is the procedure for addressing problematic student contributions?
Could you elaborate on the path of response on the encyclopaedia/community aspects of the problematic contributions?
Are regular editors expected to resolve the encyclopaedic impact of situations where students' contributions have been suboptimal? So, if a student adds originally-researched content to a medical article, for instance; who is tasked with addressing that?
'What procedures are in place to monitor ambassador performance, and how are issues with ambassadors' conduct addressed if they do arise?
So the best way to address such issues is through the chain-of-command, if direct engagement with the ambassador in question is unsuccessful?
What is your brief as Education Program community liaison?
The report by Tory Read on the India Education Program found that "the majority of problems that emerged during implementation could have been largely avoided by engaging the Wikipedia community as a partner in the pilot project planning process". How do you plan to change the culture of communication surrounding the eduction programs, to reach out to and encourage feedback from the community?
Sure, although there is a question hanging over the system of announcements from program organisers; to refer to the Read report again, the locations used for announcements were deemed ineffective and scattered. At the moment, announcements of initiatives relating to the English Wikipedia education programs are being posted separately at the different national project talkpages, as well as on various mailing lists, with much of the documentation and development taking place off-wiki (i.e. at outreach wiki/mediawiki). As these talkpages show, English Wikipedians have been largely unresponsive to these cross-postings lately. Is there any plan to consolidate these communications, for example using a newsletter or noticeboard, so as to facilitate focused discussion among English Wikipedians concerned with the education program? Read report: "Wikipedians recommend ... that each announcement include a link to planning documents and a central communications page on English Wikipedia". Is this being implemented?
What do you think the most pressing issues for the education programs are in the coming year, in terms of community engagement and otherwise?
What would your message be to those editors who feel frustrated at the impact of the programs to date, who resent being asked to deal with the influx of student edits, or who are skeptical as to whether the programs are worth continuing?
So one of the things both the program organisers and the community learned from the pilot program was that which courses are selected for inclusion in the programs, and especially how large and well-supported they are, is an important predictor of success. Can you outline the main learnings on this point?
What impact do program organisers hope the revised participation requirements to have?
The Wikimedia Foundation is also developing a software extension to facilitate the education program. What motivated this and how is the extension intended to help?
As we wrap up, do you have anything to say to readers interested in learning more about or engaging with the Education Program?
Rob Shnautz, thank you very much for speaking with The Signpost.
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