Wikipedia:Ambassadors/Steering Committee/Pod structure changes

As the Wikipedia Ambassador Program expands to include more professors and students, it's clear that the 1-on-1 mentor model for Online Ambassadors isn't scalable. Too many students, and not enough mentors. The pace of courses also isn't that great for 1-on-1 mentoring, since students edit in spurts that are hard to predict; following the (lack of) contributions of a student over 3 months is a chore, when they are likely to be active for only a small fraction of the time when deadlines approach.

For future terms, we should change the role of Online Ambassadors: instead of 1-on-1 mentoring, a small group of Online Ambassadors will be the mentors for each class. Before the class begins, or during the very early stages, the instructor, assigned Campus Ambassadors and other ambassadors will put together a team of Online Ambassadors with interest / expertise in the subject area of the class.

(Appealing to individual editors to become Online Ambassadors on the basis of their particular editing interests and WikiProject affiliations will also be a more effective way to recruit ambassadors, since they will be able to help build the content areas they care most about.)

The course talk page will be the central place for students and instructors to request help from Online Ambassadors, and the ambassadors working with a given course will be jointly responsible for watching out for the students, answering questions, helping students navigate Wikipedia's policy and processes, and giving--or finding others to give--feedback on students' work.

Benefits of this model

 * Students takes greater responsibility in ensuring that their assignment is completed the best of their ability
 * Ambassadors aren't working with students from multiple different classes on different schedules
 * Ambassadors are more likely to be content area experts

Draw backs

 * Students lose constant monitoring by a singular online ambassador
 * Processes like DYK nomination and GA review become primarily the responsibility of the student