Learning and Evaluation/Evaluation reports/2015/Important definitions

A program is a group of activities that share a similar theories of change and often have the same mission or goals. A program may be a one-time event, the same recurring event, or a series of events with new or returning participants.

Our team has been looking at programs organized and run by Wikimedia community members. These programs include conferences, editathons, editing workshops, GLAM content donations, hackathons, on-wiki writing contests, photo upload competitions and events (e.g. Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Takes, Wiki Expeditions), the Wikipedia Education Program, and Wikimedians in Residence. Some of these programs share similar theories of change, and many share goals of editor recruitment, engagement, and retention along with Wikimedia content creation and improvement. With the help of program leaders who report key program information, we plan to expand the number of programs we examine with each round of evaluation.

A program leader is a person who plans, executes and, typically, evaluates programs. Sometimes programs have multiple program leaders. Wikimedia program leaders might be individuals with no chapter affiliation. They might be the (volunteer) president of a chapter, or perhaps a paid employee of a chapter who designs and executes its programs; or a member of an affiliate group recognized by the Wikimedia community; or a librarian who hosts workshops at their library to teach people how to edit Wikipedia. You might be a program leader!

A program implementation is an instance where a program leader plans and executes a program. An implementation may be for a single program round, or it may be ongoing. Either way, a program implementation refers to a particular time and place in which a program and its activities occur.