User:ReaderofthePack/Wikipedia:WikiProject Online Ambassadors

Ambassadors serve as mentors, advisors, and helpers to students, educators, and other educational professionals who are using Wikipedia in the classroom or want to share their resources on Wikipedia. Their role is to keep the newcomers from being "bitten" and help them learn both the how and the why of editing Wikipedia and participating in the community. Wikipedians from around the globe are invited to apply to become an Ambassador. If you are interested in supporting students in countries other than Canada and the United States, please visit the WMF Outreach program for more information. This program is an extension of the now-inactive Online Ambassador and the Ambassador program on Wikipedia. It is aimed at supporting the efforts of Wikipedia's education program and the Wiki Education Foundation, but is not a formal part of either project.

The Ambassador program will initially support groups that fall within the scope of GLAM and the education program and if successful, will expand to include other groups that could benefit from interaction with an Ambassador. Typical groups that will fall within this program are as follows:

Instructors and their classes, where the classwork includes a requirement for the students to edit articles on Wikipedia.
Galleries, libraries, archives, and museums that want assistance in adding resources, creating articles, or making edits to Wikipedia.

The types of edits made by each group can differ greatly depending on their individual needs, as some will only require assistance with a few edits or they may require help creating or adding a large amount of new material to Wikipedia. Assistance can be offered in multiple ways, including answering questions in an IRC chat room.

Scope

This program aims to support students, educators, and other educational professionals seeking to utilize Wikipedia in their classrooms or other educational contexts by way of Online Ambassadors that will provide help throughout the educational process. Ambassadors are free to reach out to classes they would like to assist, and educators will be able to place requests to receive help.

Goals

The goal of this program will be to help make the educational process easier for instructors and WikiEd. This will ideally leave the students and educators with a positive impression of Wikipedia and raise the chances of retaining the student editors while also encouraging the educators to use Wikipedia again in the future. The role of the ambassador is to keep the newcomers from being "bitten" and help them learn both the how and the why of editing Wikipedia and participating in the community.

About Ambassadors

What they are

Experienced Wikipedians who like working with newcomers or have an interest in helping with issues relating to the education program and GLAM ("galleries, libraries, archives, and museums"). There are two types of Ambassadors, the Online and On-site Ambassadors. Online Ambassadors will, as the title implies, provide online assistance to editors either through the Wikipedia sites, IRC, e-mail, or other avenues for communication. They are not expected to meet anyone offline. On-site Ambassadors will also provide similar online assistance, but will also provide face-to-face training and support to local schools and GLAM-related facilities.

Wikipedia Ambassadors provide assistance in several ways, such as:

mentoring editors who are assigned to edit Wikipedia as it relates to their class or institution.
working with On-site Ambassadors and professors to support and manage Wikipedia assignments.
working with other Ambassadors and the Wikimedia Foundation to develop new ways to help new editors.
answering questions on the wiki, and (if you like) by email, on IRC, and other media as well.
for those who use IRC: training editors via IRC on the technical and social basics of editing Wikipedia.
explaining how to enable and use gadgets (e.g. HotCat) and tools (e.g. reFill) as needed.
helping editors learn the key processes of Wikipedia.
explaining Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and norms, and guide new users to the appropriate resources.
helping shape the future of the Wikipedia Ambassadors program.

The Wikipedia Online Ambassador role is a volunteer position. The estimated time commitment is 2 hours per week or more. Ambassadors should have experience with the basics of Wikipedia—particularly creating quality content and giving detailed feedback on others' work—a record of being friendly and helpful with newcomers, and a desire to make Wikipedia better.

What they are not

Although some administrators may be Ambassadors, Ambassadors do not hold the same user rights and cannot overrule decisions enforced via ANI, ARBCOM, or the Wikimedia Foundation. Ambassadors also cannot go against firm "set in stone" policies that concern copyright violations or ignore guidelines that cover notability or other important elements.

Time commitment

Time commitment will depend greatly upon the need, participant, and the type of Ambassador. Online Ambassadors will be expected to be available at least two hours per week during a given university term if there are active classes. On-site Ambassadors may find that the amount of time needed to assist students and educators differ. It is generally expected that an Ambassador will regularly visit the project to see if there are any requests for assistance. If assigned to assist a specific class, editor, or group, an Ambassador is not expected to be online at the same time as the person or persons they're assigned to, but should be responding to queries and requests for feedback in a timely manner as well as regularly monitoring their contributions. Also, if Ambassadors are online and use IRC, extra time can be spent helping participants in other capacities.

Ambassador roles

On-site Ambassador

On-site Ambassadors are students, staff, faculty, and local residents who provide face-to-face Wikipedia training and support on educational campuses or any facilities that fall within the scope of GLAM. Their role is to:

support any professors or educational professionals in the area who have incorporated (or are interested in incorporating) a Wikipedia assignment into their classroom or facility
help professors develop an assignment that is appropriate both for their students' learning objectives and Wikipedia
give presentations that introduce new editors to Wikipedia norms and editing basics
offer support and constructive advice during the assignment via email, on-wiki, in class, labs, and in other appropriate venues
work with other Wikipedia Ambassadors to make sure professors, students, and professional editors have all relevant information and that program leaders can evaluate each class or need

Online Ambassador

Online Ambassadors are, first and foremost, experienced Wikipedia editors who are interested in helping new editors with their particular need on Wikipedia. Their role is to:

provide constructive feedback to student editors, educational professionals, and educators
answer questions about editing
direct editors to appropriate resources
support classes and facilities as a liaison to other community members, as needed
explicitly praise good work (e.g. give out barnstars, WikiLove)

Resources for Wikipedia Ambassadors

The main communication portal for those using Wikipedia in the classroom is the education noticeboard, which you should add to your watchlist. On the noticeboard, you can participate in discussions about specific classes, ways to improve support to the academic and Wikipedia community, and you can respond to requests from educators and student editors.

This needs a place for people to ask questions about GLAM related matters.

On-site Ambassadors should use this resource page for tips on working with educators, students, and Online Ambassadors in the Wikipedia Education Program.
Online Ambassadors should use this resource page for tips on working with educators, students, and On-site Ambassadors in the Wikipedia Education Program.
Material on GLAM can be found here.

Becoming an Ambassador

Are you interested in becoming an Online or On-site Ambassador? The needs and requirements for each position will differ, but the basic core criteria is for the applicant to be competent and friendly enough to make an effective Ambassador. Any user can submit an application to become an Online Ambassador, but On-site Ambassadors must be able to physically travel to the facility in question and be competent enough to hold an in-class presentation on Wikipedia, if requested.

If you're an experienced and friendly editor, apply now to become an Online or On-site Ambassador.

Get involved as an Ambassador in the Wikipedia Education Program

If you are unfamiliar with the Wikipedia Ambassador roles and are interested in applying, please first read about the expectations, commitments, and application criteria before beginning the application process.

Steps to becoming an On-site Ambassador

Complete the Ambassador training
To apply, create a new section on this page for your application using the input box below and answer the questionnaire. Replace USERNAME with your own username.
Once you have this user right, create an On-site Ambassador profile

Steps to becoming an Online Ambassador

To apply, create a new section on the Education noticeboard for your application using the input box below and answer the questionnaire. Replace USERNAME with your own username.
If the community of current Online Ambassadors approves you, complete the Ambassador training
Request the online volunteer user right on this page (or, if you are a Wikipedia administrator, you may grant yourself access)
Once you have this user right, create a Online Ambassador profile

Current Wikipedia Ambassadors

List of Campus Ambassadors
List of Online Ambassadors