[IGFmaglist] Reflections on Grading IGF Workshop Proposals and How Far We have come as a MAG

Tue Jun 26 16:06:47 EDT 2018

Thank you Sala for sharing your thoughts, indeed has been a more smooth
process to evaluate the workshops, thanks for all the efforts from those
involved with the IGF!.

Best,

Julián

El 25/06/18 a las 21:03, Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro escribió:
> Dear All,
>
> As I sit and reflect on how far we have come since we graded Workshops in
> New York in conjunction with the High Level Forum at the UN Headquarters in
> New York, I cannot help but smile at how far we have come as the MAG and
> the IGF Secretariat. It is important that these milestones logistically are
> celebrated and that we continue to push for greater progress and look for
> even more efficient ways of grading and data analytics. Things I am
> grateful and thankful for in this journey:
>
>
>    1. Those who were present and marking Workshops in 2016 can only
>    remember how painful grading and marking were as we went through our
>    troughs without any systematic way of grading causing us to work through
>    the  3 days and 2 nights to get traction. We did manual data analytics in
>    our efforts to assist.
>    2. The establishment of a Working Group of MAG members to establish
>    criteria for grading was set up following discussions/debate and eventual
>    consensus with Dr Rasha leading the Charge.
>    3. The IGF Secretariat took feedback from the processes and in turn
>    developed a continuing evolving mechanism for grading which enabled less
>    paper handling and moved to more efficient platforms and in turn better and
>    more efficient data analytics in 2017. Clearly, there is still room to
>    improve indicators by differentiating them and work is still underway.
>    4. Collectively, we continued to seek ways to reduce conflict of
>    interest in the manner in which Workshops were graded and the IGF
>    Secretariat in redesigning the platforms this year, 2018 enabled this
>    feature so that we did not have to manually do the same.
>    5. As a MAG we were conscious of the transitionary nature of the entire
>    IGF process post WSIS+10 and sought to implement what we were collectively
>    seeing as calls for improvement and there is still much to be done.
>    6. In 2017, we struggled with budgetary allocations which led to our not
>    being able to support all the intercessional work and we entered 2018
>    conscious of these impediments in the past.
>    7. There are numerous people to thank for how far we have come, firstly
>    to all the former MAG members that have served and contributed to reforms
>    and developments turning what used to take 1 month to a mere few days and
>    what used to take an exhaustive 3 days to I am sure more efficient
>    mechanisms for dialogue (save the occasional heated exchange from being put
>    in the same room for a long time - tongue in cheek), secondly to Lynn St
>    Armour for her leadership, Chengetai Masango, Eleonora, Luis, Anja and all
>    the amazing Secretariat staff and consultants, all Working Groups within
>    the MAG and their respective Chairs, all MAG members, observers at MAG
>    meetings,  THANK YOU. I am grateful and thankful for all your lives. I am
>    thankful that one of the recommendations that the MAG made to get in
>    potential new MAG members at the IGF meeting to ensure more seamless
>    handing over has come to fruition.
>    8. There are still many things to build on and improve but that is why
>    we have a Working Group on Improvements which started last year and
>    re-commissioned this year, for us to collaborate to continue to make our
>    tasks as efficient as possible.
>    9. I have been thinking lately about how we can well before the call for
>    Workshop Proposals issue a call (I know we already have a resource list
>    that exists on the IGF website which again was one of the recommendations
>    for improvement by the MAG and also calls from the community) but to have a
>    more systematic and reformed way by geography and region to allow conveyors
>    to pool together to submit Workshop Proposals.
>    10. I am impressed with the level and quality of Workshop Proposals this
>    year even with the very little notice given but the volume and breadth of
>    diverse workshops this year, although one of the continued challenges
>    remains - attaining geographical and constituency diversity as per my
>    Sample Space for grading at least.
>    11. For once, I am happy and pleased to say that Grading this Year was
>    not a struggle. Thank you Luis!!!! :):)
>
> Till the next virtual meeting.
>
> With every best wish,
> Sala
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