EiWiki:EiWiki Evaluation Projects

From EiWiki

Revision as of 08:34, 15 June 2013

An EiWiki Evaluation Project is a place for a group of members of the EiWiki Community to cooperate on developing an evaluation report. The discussion pages attached to a project are often used to coordinate changes that take place across texts that make up the report.

How to initiate an EiWiki Evaluation Project

Once you have determined that you are going to use the EiWiki platform, you must create a base page for the reporting project. The naming convention for EiWiki Evaluation Project is "EEP: Name_of_project". In general, a new Project page should be kept as simple as possible, and should be permitted to grow organically. An excessively complex structure can discourage potential new members, particularly if they're joining their first Project! It is recommended that Project page should include:

• Scope - the university that is to be evaluated
• Members of the evaluation team
• Open texts, that are part of the reporting project
• Related reporting projects

Ask the Administrator to list the project on this page!

The project's initiator should create a banner using simple contents and introducing them at the beginning of relevant EiWiki pages. For instance,

    {| class="wpb collapsible innercollapse tmbox tmbox-notice {{#ifeq:{{{small|}}}|yes|mbox-small}}"
    |- class="wpb-header"
    ! colspan="2" class="mbox-text" | [[EEP:University of Buhush]]
    |-
    | class="mbox-image" | [[File:Ozcan2.JPG|45px]]
    | class="mbox-text" | This article is within the scope of the '''[[EEP:University of Buhush]]''', a collaborative effort 
to elaborate an evaluation report on the University of Buhush.
    |}<noinclude>
    [[Category: Project banners|Buhush]]  
    </noinclude>

which will create this:

EEP:University of Buhush
	This article is within the scope of the EEP:University of Buhush, a collaborative effort to elaborate an evaluation report on the University of Buhush.

What kind of work should be done?

The simplest approach to focusing the attention of project members on particular articles is the creation of a central list of open tasks. There are a number of different items which are usually included on project task lists:

• Announcements

General announcements of important discussions and major tasks being undertaken.

• Peer reviews

Requests for peer reviews of FORwiki articles.

• Requested articles

Articles which do not yet exist, but which should be created.

• Cleanup and expansion requests

Which auxiliary facilities should you develop?

The number of articles and contributors might grow over time. Growth can itself be a problem, however, as the greater number of members and articles reduces the likelihood for individual group members to have contact with each other, and could potentially lead to factions within a project. For this reason, and others, projects are encouraged to develop a variety of regular communications. These might include newsletters, meet-ups, active conversation between members working in the same area of the project, and the like. Collaborations can also serve as an effective way to try to bring unity to the members, if they are successful.

One way of getting news to everyone is to put all the news on one page, and then ask people to either include the page on their own user page, or add it to their watchlist. Also, project members are encouraged to develop workshops dedicated to the project's topic and list them in the portal Current events.

How can a project fail?

The most critical task for a new project is figuring out how to work together. As part of this, members need to learn how to edit articles together, which involves identifying both content and language skills. Members also need to learn to communicate with each other on the project's talk page. But trying to solve every problem at once leads to fragmentation of effort and leaves editors feeling isolated. Taking on complicated tasks results in members feeling like they have failed. Taking on enormous or lengthy projects leads members to conclude that the project is unable to complete anything.

Common reason for the failure of FORwiki project might include:

• Having an overly narrow scope;
• Not recruiting enough members;
• Depending too much on a few members;
• Internal conflicts;
• Violating policies and guidelines.

Projects aimed at modifying the Foresight Wiki

Acording to the 20 Commandments of the FORwiki Covenant, the FORwiki Policies and Guidelines may be modified only by the platform’s Administrator, and only if he/she takes notice of a consensus among the Members in favor of change in a particular policy or guideline. The fact is that the Foresight Wiki and the FORwiki community are also subject to change; hence, one policy or guideline might become obsolete. The same thing goes for the software that supports the platform, which might need an upgrade at some point. In order to address such problems the proper way is to initiate a FORwiki Project.

FORwiki policies & guidelines

Changing policies and guidelines necessitates consensus among community's members. Achieving this is not easy, and a project that generates dialogue on the respective topic is needed. Once the project is initiated, the Administrator will place the project's banner on the policy's page. The members will be invited to state their point of view on the Discussion page during a certain interval of time. Ultimately, it is up to the Committee for arbitration to make the final call. The Administrator will implement the Committee's decision.

FORwiki software

The procedure for upgrading the software is similar. The project's banner will be placed on the Foresight_Wiki page. Again, The members will be invited to state their point of view on the Discussion page during a certain interval of time. The Administrator may also participate to the dialogue, and provide an expert point of view on technical feasibility of the project. But, ultimately it is up to the Committee for arbitration to make the final call.

List of active projects

This is the place where the Administrator lists all the active projects.