Scholarship Committee

Scholarship committee

Members

Organizers
  • Slashme, South Africa, languages: af, en, de-3
  • DerHexer, Germany, languages: de, en-3, es-1
Committee members
Non-voting members with access to application data

Tasks

The scholarship review committee is an important and diverse group of volunteers who help to run the scholarship program.

The main duties of the committee members prior to Wikimania 2018 are:

  • Participation in periodic online meetings with scholarships program manager and other committee members.
  • Review and edit communications material (e.g. Scholarship wiki, application questions).
  • Assistance in determination of scholarship applicant requirements.
  • Assurance of due consideration and speedy response time to Wikimania scholarship applications in multiple languages.
  • Work with the local team.

They were selected on the following criteria:

  • fluent in written English and have good communication skills, or can name local community member(s)/ambassadors who help them with English translations.
  • discreet and able to handle confidential applicant information, and objectively assess candidates.
  • willing to review scholarship applications in early 2018, estimated time is 30 hours.
  • having either or both:
    • previously attended Wikimania.
    • strong knowledge of the cross-project Wikimedia community.

The committee members will work remotely. The local Wikimania team cannot guarantee financial support for the committee members' travel expenses since scholarship review committee members may not apply for a scholarship themselves.

Timeline

See main page.

Formal invitation

Dear Wikimaniacs,

we are now calling for the Scholarship Committee.

The Scholarship Committee is an important and diverse group of volunteers
who help to run the scholarship program. We encourage people from all
Wikimedia wikis to apply for this position so that the committee can handle
applications in many different languages.

The main duties of the committee members prior to Wikimania 2018 are:
* Participation in periodic online meetings with scholarships program
manager and other committee members.
* Review and edit communications material (e.g. application questions).
* Assistance in determination of scholarship applicant requirements.
* Assurance of due consideration and speedy response time to Wikimania
scholarship applications in multiple languages.

For further information please visit
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_Handbook#Scholarships and
https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships.

We are looking for Wikimedians from all over the world, who are:
* fluent in written English and have good communication skills, or can name
local community member(s) who help them with English translations.
* discreet and able to handle confidential applicant information, and
objectively assess candidates.
* willing to review scholarship applications remotely in early 2018,
estimated time is 30 hours. A review guide can be found on
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars/Reviewer%27s_guide
.
* having either or both:
** previously attended Wikimania,
** strong knowledge of the cross-project Wikimedia community.

Scholarship Committee members may not apply for a scholarship themselves
but there is a small budget for supporting committee members to attend
Wikimania. Please tell us if you need financial support in case you’ll be
selected.

If you're interested in serving on the Scholarship Committee, please send
us an email to  wikimania-scholarships at wikimedia.org. If you have any
questions, please don't hesitate to contact us there as well.

Deadline to apply is Sunday, December 10, 2017. The organizers will contact
all candidates and publish the list of scholarship committee members right
afterwards.

Proposed timeline
* Nov 30–Dec 10: Call for Scholarship Committee
* mid-December: Selection of the Scholarship Committee and start of the
submission time
* 5–26 February (estimated time frame): main review time

Before the start of the submission time, we are adapting the application
process to take recent activities more into account than the years before,
as proposed on wikimania-l. On the one hand we want to encourage returning
Wikimania participants to share their knowledge, on the other newcomers to
Wikimania to apply for a scholarship at all. Former scholarship recipients
can help us with the latter by sharing their successful applications on
MetaWiki:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:TPS/Wikimania_scholars#2017_WMF_Wikimania_Scholarships.
In case you don’t have your text at hand, you can send us a confirmation
mail to wikimania-scholarships at wikimedia.org where you allow us to publish
it for you.

Above all, we want to support African community members with applying for
scholarships. To achieve that, we are especially looking for volunteers who
want help us with encouraging people, assisting with the application form,
finding the right level of presenting one’s activities, etc. Please reach
out to us if you'd like to help.

Many thanks,
David Richfield
<https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Slashme> and Martin
Rulsch <https://wikimania2018.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:DerHexer>
Wikimania 2018 Scholarship Committee co-organizers