[IGFmaglist] WS Diversity - Open Questions

[Lynn St.Amour]

Dear Rasha, all MAG members,

this was not about the individual MAG member WS evaluation process (as diversity is already one of the key requirements/differentiators in that process), but rather I was hoping that we might find a better way to assess all the selected workshops - as a whole - that were preliminarily identified to be part of the IGF Annual Meeting.    I can see how this was confusing when looking back at the original note.

So, said differently, when the MAG comes together for our 2nd “F2F" meeting, we will want to ensure the selected workshops provide good coverage when compared against the interests of all stakeholders and regions, and meets MAG stated goals of more cohesive, less parallel tracks (number and theme), etc..  One suggestion was to compare against the Call for Issues, other suggestions were to carefully examine those preliminarily identified.  What would be helpful would be to think about how to improve this process given the changes to this years process.

Hope this helps clarify, and please all MAG members come in with your suggestions.

Best,
Lynn


> On Jun 24, 2018, at 2:01 PM, Dr. Rasha Abdulla <rasha at aucegypt.edu> wrote:
> 
> Dear Lynn,
> 
> Thank you for your email, and apologies for the relatively late response as I was out of Cairo in an area with very limited Internet access.
> 
> I'm not sure what time frame we are talking about here. I do recall a discussion on diversity on the last call, and a sense of agreement among the MAG members that diversity of content and speakers was more important than diversity of organizers, especially that this is the first time we've allowed co-organizers in an attempt to not let this be a backdoor to play the system. I would be very reluctant to introduce any changes right now as some MAG members have already submitted their reviews and the majority are in the process of doing so. That's why I'm not sure about the time frame of the required discussions. I would think any recommendations at this point are to be considered for the next IGF cycle not this one. Unless I'm missing something?...
> 
> All the best.
> Rasha
> 
> Rasha A. Abdulla, Ph.D.
> Professor
> Journalism and Mass Communication 
> The American University in Cairo
> www.rashaabdulla.com
> Twitter: @RashaAbdulla
> <http://twitter.com/rashaabdulla>
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Lynn St.Amour <Lynn at internet-matters.org> wrote:
> Dear Rasha, colleagues,
> 
> following the discussion on our last MAG call with respect to the need to better understand the diversity within the WS proposals, some MAG members volunteered to review this and and make additional recommendations.   This is important work and is essential to guiding our discussions at the upcoming MAG face to face meeting.  Is this something the Working Group on Workshop Review and Evaluation Process can take on?
> 
> The text from the meeting summary is included here for reference.
> 
> "A discussion followed on how best to understand the diversity within the proposals as some felt that focusing on co-organizers was not necessarily reflective of the diversity (stakeholder, region, gender) within the workshops, nor could one directly correlate topics of interest to regions/stakeholders based on the metric of co-organizers.  Some MAG members volunteered to review this and provide additional information/recommendations to the MAG.”
> 
> Best and thanks in advance for considering this,
> 
> Lynn
>