Grants:Conference/Conference management resources

Conference planning resources

• CEE Meeting 2016
• WikiConference India 2016: The front page was updated during different stages of the planning process. For example, in the days before the event the front page was updated with directions on how to get to the venue, include information about the best buses, trains or other ground transport for participants coming from out of town.
• WikiConference North America

• Community engagement survey 1: This survey is required to complete the grant application. The purpose of the survey is to identify the discussion topics, projects and skills your community wants to focus on at an event.
• Community engagement survey 2: If you are gathering input from a large community, ask leaders to complete the first survey, and create a second multiple choice survey using this template. This will make it easier to identify top priorities.
• Wikimania 2015 Exit Survey:Evaluative and includes some retrospective questions for planning next event. The second tab includes survey questions for hackathons. Note that the topics must be updated and all questions reviewed based on changes to conference goals each year.

Your registration page should make it clear whether the event is open to anyone who wants to attend, or if the event will be closed to scholarship recipients and invited participants.

• Travel scholarship recipients must be in good standing with their local affiliates and with the Wikimedia Foundation. This means the scholarship applicant should not have any ongoing issues with friendly space policies or overdue grant reports.
• Travel scholarship recipients who represent an affiliate must be in good standing on the primary Wikimedia projects where their affiliate works.

When affiliates choose more than one representative to attend a conference, they should try to choose representatives of two different genders. If this is not possible, the affiliate should create a plan to improve gender diversity in their group, and include this gender diversity plan in their annual report.

Scholarship recipients are expected to attend and participate in the event. Scholarship recipients who do not attend or participate in an event will not be eligible for a travel scholarship to any WMF funded event (including Wikimania and Wikimedia Conference) for 1 year.

• If a scholarship recipient misses their flight (or a connecting flight) on the way to a conference, they are responsible for any fees to rebook the flight.
• If a scholarship recipient misses their flight (or a connecting flight) leaving a conference, they can either pay for a new flight themselves, or ask the conference organizer to book a new flight. If the conference organizer pays for a new flight, the scholarship recipient will be not be eligible for a travel scholarship to any WMF funded event (including Wikimania and Wikimedia Conference) for 1 year.
• If a scholarship recipient is unable to attend an event, they must notify organizers a minimum of 24 hours before scheduled travel so that flight tickets can be canceled. If the cancellation is not covered by a travel insurance policy, the scholarship recipient will not be eligible for a travel scholarship to any WMF funded event (including Wikimania and Wikimedia Conference) for 1 year.
• If a scholarship recipient notifies organizers that they are not able to attend an event before travel has been booked, they will be eligible for future scholarships.

Friendly space policies (often called "safe space policies" or "anti-harassment policies") are one important way to help prevent harassment at conferences and events. These types of policies set expectations for behavior and support increased participant diversity. They also give conference organizers guidelines on how to handle harassment quickly, with the minimum amount of disruption for the event. All WMF grantees are required to have a friendly space policy for their in-person events. We understand that this type of policy may need to be edited to fit different cultural contexts so we are not requiring the use of one specific policy.

• Friendly space policy for Wikimedia Foundation Events:You may use or adapt this policy to fit your context.
• Friendly space guidelines: Examples of policies for a variety of events, and a step-by-step guide for how to handle harassment at events. All members of the event organizing team should read this page.
• One month before the event you must have a friendly space policy posted prominently on your event page, and name at least two volunteers who will be responsible for implementing the policy. The Program Officer will schedule a call with the core organizing team and the friendly space team one month before the event to discuss the policy and ensure everyone feels prepared to follow the guidelines.

• Step by step guide for finding the right venue for a conference: Includes negotiation tips and suggestions of different kinds of venue.
• Checklist of items to have on hand for an event
• Guide to organizing travel visas
• Event planning timeline and checklist: Public documentation of important planning tasks, the person who is responsible for the task and status updates.

• Each session should be well documented with documentation posted on-wiki after the meeting.
• All sessions should have action items and designated people (more than one) who will follow-up within a set timeframe.
• Make sure to assign someone on the organizing team who can check-in with the designated follow-up people from each session in the months following the event. They should offer reminders and ask for progress updates.
• Consider asking scholarship recipients and people who are representing a user group to report on action items or opportunities they will pursue after the event, and provide links to the notes they shared with their community.
• Decide how and when you will evaluate progress made toward the conference goals and expected outcomes. For example, you might send out a survey six months after the event to find out whether participants have begun collaborating on new projects, or using skills they learned to use new tools.
• Traveling Wikimedians report to the stay-at-homes: ask participants how they will share with the local community afterwards.
• Workshop feedback forms: Can be used for any workshop or session to collect feedback for presenters and for participants to document how they will use the information in the next 30 days.

Conference Program

• Share conference goals in the submission process. Ask proposal writers identify how their session fits the conference priorities.
• Ask presenters to share their outcome targets (i.e., “What will participants learn or do differently based on your session?”).
• Ask proposal writers to share contact information so that you can follow up with them when you are developing the conference program.
• Workshop sessions should include skills/equipment that participants may need, the maximum group size and the amount of time necessary to complete activities.

1. Consider how the conference aims shared meet the program planning group’s intended goals for hosting the conference. Consider priority in light of both perspectives.
2. Weight and approve proposals based on chosen priorities. Consider how many goals you will service and what proportion of the time you will dedicate to each.
3. Group proposals by category, and rate them within category to create a ranked list of proposals for each category
4. Develop a rubric for scoring proposals that is consistent and considers factors like alignment to goals, speaker experience, proposed format fitting format priorities, audience interest, etc.)
5. Pay attention to similar proposals and consider if it makes sense to suggest they might be combined in a multi-presenter session or even as a synthesized presentation - Such connections can be important later when you are having to make cuts especially.
6. Set allotment count for each prioritized categories select the top sessions from each group up to the allotment quota

Examples:

• CEE Meeting program drafting process: 5 step process used to call for proposals and draft the program for the CEE Meeting, which is attended by representatives of 20+ user groups.

Use the table below to make sure the program includes sessions and workshops are aligned to the priorities listed in your approved grant request. You will need to complete this table for the grant report.

• How to facilitate a productive discussion or meeting
• Give presenters clear expectations and helpful guidance (see best practices shared for presenting on Wikipedia, poster presentations, hosting open meeting via IRC, and telling movement stories).