Education/Wikipedia Education Collaborative/Survey 2016

Survey Background and Summary

The Wikipedia Education Program team in partnership with the Learning and Evaluation team conducted a survey of Wikipedia Education Collab members. They survey was conducted in January 2016, and the anonymous results were summarized in February 2016. The summary is provided below. These results are being shared with the Collab members leading up to the face-to-face meeting in Stockholm on March 5-6, 2016.

Survey Questions and Results

1. How long have you been a member with the Education Collab?

Eight (50%) Education Collab members have been members for less than one year and eight (50%) have been members for more than one year.

2. Since July 1, 2015, to what extent have each of the following changes made your experience with the Education Collaborative better or worse?

For the Education Collab members who had been present since before July 1,2015, the top four changes that were rated as making the Education Collab experience better were guidance from WMF education program staff, having monthly meetings, clarification of membership criteria, and using Phabricator. The three areas that were rated lower were overall changes to the Education Collab, making the closed mailing list open, and growing the number of members. Two respondents found that changing the closed mailing list to open made the Education Collab experience worse.

3. What other changes have you experienced in the Education Collab not listed above, and did these changes make your experience better or worse?

Members call out that the group feels more active. There are still improvements to be made to make the group more active and cohesive, and to clarify how the Collab work relates to local education programs.

4. To what extent are each of the following important in your experience with the Education Collaborative?

The important elements of the experiences in the Education Collab are Interaction with WMF staff, clarity of WMF guidance, how well WMF listens to Collab members, and interactions with other Collab members. The three areas that are less important are Phabricator task management system, monthly hangouts and ability to mentor others (which was had the lowest importance).

5. To what extent are you satisfied or dissatisfied with each of the following aspects of the Education Collaborative since July 2015?

Among the various aspects of the Education Collab, members were most satisfied with their interaction with WMF staff, interactions with other Collab members, clarity of WMF guidance. Members were less satisfied with Phabricator, monthly hangouts and their ability to mentor others.

6. What, if anything, about using Phabricator do you like best?

Respondents appreciated the clarity and transparency of Phabricator. The task-focus is also mentioned as being helpful. Phabricator's email system with notifications was called out as being a particularly useful feature.

7. What, if anything, about using Phabricator do you think needs improvement?

The lack of due dates, the ability to co-own a task and to get reminders were called out as needing improvement. Some people don't like the interface. Finding your way among a large number of tasks and finding what is most important is also challenging for some members.

8. On average, about how many hours each month do you dedicate to the Education Collab tasks?

50% of Education Collab members spend between 4.5 hours and 12 hours each month on Education Collab tasks. The median is 8 hours per month (we use the median because we have too few numbers to use the mean).

9.To what extent is this amount too little or too much time to dedicate to the Education Collab tasks?

14 (88%) members reported that they spend too little time or just about enough time on Education Collab tasks each month.

10. What top 3 strengths do you bring to the Education Collab?

Here are some of the strengths our members call out:

• Long experience with the Wikipedia Education Program in their country
• Ability to mentor others
• Understanding of and advocating for needed (technological) tools
• Translation skills
• Skills at developing new materials 

11. From your view, what are 3 key skills that the Education Collab may be lacking as a whole, if any?

Some of the key skills the Collab may be lacking as a whole are the following:

• Technical skills to help develop technical tools we need
• Strategic thinking, focus and coherence among members
• Diversity in terms of geography and age
• Direction for the Collab
• Teamwork

12. To what extent are the following blockers to your participation in the Education Collab? 

The three largest blockers to participation in the Education Collab are other Wikimedia tasks (e.g. board, chapter), not having enough time for volunteering, and local Wikipedia Education Program activities.

13. What other resources do you feel you need? (for example: training on how to mentor others, having Collab resources in my local language, more interaction with WMF staff, more interaction with other Collab members, etc)

Resources Collab members need:

• More interaction (with WMF staff and other Collab members)
• Training on how to mentor others
• Collab resources in local languages
• Good tech tools

14. Please share a short example (1-2 sentences) about how the Education Collaborative is helping or not helping the Education Program grow in your geographic region.

How the Collab is helping (or not):

• Providing teaching / training materials
• Helping people realize they are part of a global movement, and they can learn from other people's experiences
• Inspiration to start mentoring others
• People are working on shared task and share the same vision. 

15. Overall, to what extent do you feel that your level of engagement with the Education Collab has worsened or improved over the last six months?

Eight members (out of 12) say that their level of engagement increased over the last 6 months, while 6 members found their level of engagement stayed the same or decreased