Wikipedia:Ambassadors/UK/Online Ambassadors

Online Ambassadors serve as mentors, advisors, and helpers to the professors and students who are using Wikipedia in the classroom. 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.

The Online Ambassador program supports instructors and their classes, mostly at the undergraduate university level, where the classwork includes a requirement for the students to edit articles on Wikipedia. Each of the classes will have a class page where the instructor describes what the Wiki-assignment is for each student. Most of the instructors will encourage or require their students to team up with an Online Ambassador who can help them get started editing and watch out that their first efforts are sympathetically reviewed, so that the students have a positive experience here.

About the Online Ambassador role

Experienced Wikipedians who like working with newcomers or have an interest in reaching out to the academic community can apply to join the Wikipedia Ambassadors program as Online Ambassadors.

Wikipedia Online Ambassadors will:

mentor students who are assigned to edit Wikipedia in their classes.
work with Campus Ambassadors to support professors and manage Wikipedia assignments.
work with other Ambassadors and the Wikimedia Foundation to develop new ways to help newbies.
answer questions on the wiki, and (if you like) by email, on IRC, and other media as well.
for those who use IRC: train students via IRC on the technical and social basics of editing Wikipedia.
help students learn the key processes of Wikipedia
explain Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and norms, and guide new users to the appropriate resources.
help shape the future of the Wikipedia Ambassadors program

The Wikipedia Online Ambassador role is a volunteer position. 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.

Time commitment

Active Wikipedia Online Ambassadors will be expected to be available at least 2 hours per week during a given university term. Since the students follow an academic schedule, their involvement at Wikipedia is sporadic, so some weeks, your student mentees may be completely inactive on Wikipedia, and other weeks, they may have a burst of activity that needs review, especially the last couple of weeks in the school term. Ambassadors are not expected to be online at the same time as their students, but should be responding to queries and requests for feedback in a timely manner as well as regularly monitoring student's contributions. If Ambassadors are online and use IRC, extra time can be spent helping students in other courses.

Becoming an Online Ambassador

There are two options for applying to become an Online Ambassador: you can apply on-wiki and have your qualifications for being an ambassador discussed by anyone in the community, or you can apply off-wiki and have your application evaluated by the Online Ambassador selection team.

The criteria used, in a nutshell, are: whether the applicant is competent and friendly enough to make an effective ambassador. For more detail on what types of things may be relevant, see the guidelines for evaluation of applications.

Well qualified applicants will be immediately admitted as Online Ambassadors. Applicants with less experience or for whom there are areas of specific concern can be admitted as Online Ambassadors-in-training and go through a training program before becoming a full ambassador.