FINAL VERSION TO BE SUBMITTED IF RATIFIED
The final version to be submitted, if the draft is ratified, will be placed here by upon completion of the vote.
FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC
The final draft version to be voted upon by the ALAC will be placed here before the vote is to begin.
Summary:
The ALAC has noted that the Fellowship Program has only successfully integrated a small percentage of its alumni to be actively engaged and participating in At-Large specifically, but also other SO/ACs, to support their policy-related goals and objectives. It has been suggested that changes are required in order to achieve greater effectiveness of the Program not only to meet At-Large policy goals relating to the DNS. Metrics are needed to monitor effectiveness. The Fellowship has been more effective in recruiting people to be active in At-Large administrative activities and outreach.
Program Goals and Vision
1. What does your group believe should be the objective of the Fellowship Program? How would the success of this objective be measured?
The ALAC sees the objective of the Program as the Integration of Fellowship alumni into the various constituent parts of ICANN as active participants in ICANN, with a focus on policy-related activities, The Program should be viewed as an investment by ICANN because the output from the alumni has the potential to benefit not only At-Large but across all sections of the ICANN ecosystem. However, there is a need to ensure that metrics are used regularly to assess return on this investment and also to ensure that the Program is helping to develop Fellows who can not only commit to the policy work-related needs of the various sections of ICANN.
Those supporting ICANN's strategic goals for global outreach and engagement in their communities should also be tracked to what extent possible.
2. The Fellowship Program was established to provide access to ICANN meetings to individuals from underserved and underrepresented communities. In your group’s opinion, how effective is the Fellowship Program at fulfilling its current goal?
Although there have been a number of notable successes, the Program appears to be more effective at raising awareness rather than in generating workers actively engaging in regular At-Large policy activities.
What is not visible within the global ICANN community and therefore is not accounted for, is that in many of these underserved and under-represented communities are small pockets of proactive former Fellows promoting ICANN and its work through their own community based channels, and some are creating ALSes that join in with At-Large activities when they can. It is there that the program has in fact had a more positive impact, which is at least a start at grassroots level. Access issues are a major barrier to greater participation by those from underserved regions.
3. In your group’s opinion, is this goal still a priority for ICANN, given the new bylaws? If not, what new goals would your group propose for the program?
Yes, it must still be a goal but with a target of success as appropriately measured by the different AC/SOs dependent on their needs. More statistical data on follow-on activities after a Fellowship would identify how the Fellowship could be used effectively both within ICANN and their local communities. The value of the Program by some assessment mechanism could evaluate whether the basic outcomes of the Program have been achieved - particularly to do with what they have learned about ICANN and how they aim to use this knowledge in future engagement. Initiating something in their home community may already be an anticipated outcome, knowing what their limitations are.
Assessment of Program Impact on your SO/AC group
4. Have Fellows contributed to the work of your group? If so, where do you think they have added the most value? What might be changed about the Fellowship Program to enhance participation of Fellows in your group?
At-Large has had a number of great successes with Fellowship alumni. The greatest value has come from those who have chosen to devote time and energy to ICANN post-Fellowship. The vast majority of these, however, have become active in outreach and administrative roles and not policy-related.
This could be enhanced if the Fellowship Program could include those who are already members of the Internet community, within organisations that are already motivated to work with the ICANN community for a better good, and already have people within their system to support them to become more engaged in our community. On a wider scale, SO/ACs could recommend active participants from their communities to take part in a Fellowship Program that could focus on policy development upskilling similar to that of the ICANN Leadership Academy. This would create a new stream of entrants, but the current program has become too complex and confusing for new community members and too broad and repetitive for those already participating in ICANN.
If we are to have more successes with encouraging Fellows to participate in policy activities, changes must be made to have coaches and mentors who are themselves active in these areas.
5. Does your group make efforts to involve, educate, and/or inform Fellows about your work? If so, please describe these efforts.
Yes, but our formal contact with the Fellows program tends to be less regular - more due to the lack of availability of ALAC leaders and because of their full schedules at ICANN meetings. Selected representatives (former Fellows) make themselves available to participate in Fellowship activities and to share messages about At-Large. ALAC members also make a point to visit and engage with Fellows at the Fellows booth at ICANN meetings. But the ALAC could, and will, make more of a concerted effort to draw people into our activities. In order to improve their outreach, former At-Large fellows could form their own working group or outreach group to provide resources for new/returning fellows
6. How willing would your group (SO/AC/SG/C) be to participate and take ownership for selecting and developing fellows, including giving them assignments, assigning mentors, etc?
We are willing to participate. At-Large has rich expertise that could contribute to the development of Fellows and provide suitable mentors who could familiarise them with our systems and activities, but that would presume filtering candidates who have a particular interest in our areas. It must be noted, that while at ICANN meetings, most of our funded travelers (At-Large members who, not being employed in the domain industry, cannot self-fund) are heavily committed and would have limited time to devote to Fellows. Former Fellows and some others on the ALAC and on RALO leadership teams are particularly good at maintaining contact with Fellows during their activities, and in engaging them to join At-Large working groups and sessions.
Selection Processes
7. Are you aware of the Fellowship selection process? What changes, if any, would you suggest for the selection process?
The ALAC would be willing to be part of the selection process, based on guidelines/good practices produced by the ALAC for this purpose, but also in order to increase the transparency of the process and improve accountability of the Fellows programme.
Prospective fellows must be willing to participate in introductory courses from ICANN Learn. If there are not suitable courses there that will provide the needed background, they should be created.
One of the problems may be the categories used in the selection process. At-Large fits best into "civil society" but we do not comfortably fit into the typical model of "civil society". Therefore we may not be selecting for potential Fellows who have a real interest in user-issues.
It should be clear that the Program is not tourism, but a path towards active engagement. It was identified by a former fellow and now coach/mentor, that in order to get real engagement from Fellows, there has to be a sense of “giving back to the community”. Despite the best efforts of a mentor/coach some Fellows still do not understand the need for their engagement and involvement in the PDP process.
It is difficult to measure a Fellow's motivation, commitment or willingness to participate in calls at all hours of the day and night or to read through screeds of documents in order to make a comment that will contribute to an At-Large statement. All of these qualities cannot be assessed by their attendance at one ICANN meeting trying to absorb everything about a particular SO/AC of interest in one go. However, after reflecting on this experience post-meeting, they should be able to demonstrate, that they have what it takes to become a committed "ICANNer", and get another chance to receive a Fellowship. Post-meeting Fellows need to be set a task that ascertains what they learned and how it can make a difference to their lives and the lives of others in their community. There should be an expectation for returning Fellows, especially for those who have had multiple opportunities, to join a working group and actively participate, but only a small number actually do.
Returning Fellows should come with a specific AC/SO/Constituency in mind and these must be balanced over the organization. This should be accompanied by the identification of coaches from the appropriate group.
The effectiveness of Fellows returning as mentors and coaches should be evaluated. Currently only past fellows have the opportunity to be a coach, yet, having that as the requirement may not help us achieve the results that we believe the program needs to achieve. An ICANN Learn course specifically for Fellow mentors/coaches would be helpful – not only to give guidance on how to better engage “new Fellows” but also to encourage them to learn more about ICANN's mission and how they can be directed to help to achieve this.
8. An individual can be awarded a Fellowship up to three times. Do you suggest retaining or revising this number? Why?
We would like to see a study of who (and with how many trips) actually becomes active in ICANN.
9. For Policy Forum Meetings, currently only Fellowship Alums can apply. Do you support continuing with this approach? If not, what changes would you suggest?
We support this limitation IF there is measure to demonstrate that these people are already involved in policy activities within a particular SO/AC and are developing their knowledge and skills for participation. Participating in the Forum meeting should require the Fellows to then have done some homework first before they come to the forum meeting based on the issues to be discussed, and this can provide part of the Program content for this meeting, so that Fellows can be better informed for active participation in the policy meetings as well as the Public Forum..
Program Size
10. Considering your responses to previous questions, would you suggest making the program larger, smaller, or maintaining the current size?
When the Fellowships were first established there were 15 Fellows. This was increased to 30 which was considered an effective group size, and At-Large supported increasing it. It may be that 60 was overreaching and there are not sufficient available resources (throughout the community) to integrate them.
11. If the program were to be reduced in size, what would your group deem as the priorities for the program with a smaller cohort?
Our priority would be migration of Fellows to active participation and a reasonable part of those must be willing to participate in policy processes. This is too expensive a program to use it as purely dissemination of information about ICANN.
Program Structure
12. When you interact with Fellows at an ICANN Meeting, do you find that they are sufficiently knowledgeable about ICANN? If not, what skills or areas of knowledge would you suggest increasing focus on for pre-Meeting preparation?
It depends on whether they are new or have been to prior meetings. But we would expect the basics of an understanding of what ICANN is, what it’s mission aims to achieve, how it is constructed and the purposes of each of its constituencies. A specific pre-meeting ICANN Learn course and perhaps an online test before an application for Fellowship is accepted may establish a standard of knowledge required before starting work on more advanced policy development study during the face-to-face Program. Once at the meeting, it would be handy for first-time Fellows to attend sessions of the various SO/ACs so that they can see the policy development processes of the different SO/ACs in action and build better understanding of this from within the Program, but it would be expected that returning Fellows would get involved somewhere within the system..
One of our more seasoned veterans in At-Large said: “As long as we still have fellows at the public meeting asking questions why ICANN doing nothing to regulate dangerous content, we are clearly not getting the selection/preparation right.”
13. Do you think that Fellows spend sufficient time in working sessions with your group during the course of an ICANN meeting? If not, what would changes would your group propose?
No, but it would be good if we first of all submitted a list of sessions that might prove useful to them. Fellows should have a good understanding of ICANN’s purpose and of the roles of the SO/ACs within it, preferably before they get to make contact with the SO/ACs. In this way, subsequent learning within the Program is more relevant and meaningful, and Fellows can make better sense of what is going on when they visit a particular SO/AC session later on in the week.
14. Do you feel that you have enough time to engage with Fellows at an ICANN meeting?
Sadly, no.
Information Available on Program
15. Is the information currently available clear and sufficient for your community members to understand the Fellowship Program? If not, which elements could be improved and how?
A presentation either via teleconference or at an ICANN meeting would be a good start in order to get feedback from the different SO/ACs and for them to suggest content matching their roles and activities.
16. Are your community members aware of the differences between the Fellowship and NextGen@ICANN Programs? If not, please state what type of clarification would be useful.
Yes, we believe so.
General Questions
17. The Fellowship Program seeks to engage participants who will go on to participate actively in the ICANN community. What skills, attributes and backgrounds have provided the most successful and active participation in your SO/AC/SG/C? What skillsets and backgrounds would your group see as desirable for candidates for the Fellowship Program?
At-Large focuses on issues that impact individual end-users. A passionate consideration for end-users as well as knowledge of ICANN, is the key. See also the reference to “Civil Society” in Question 7.
18. With which elements of the Fellowship Program is your group most satisfied? What changes or improvements would your group most want to see implemented to the program?
We are most satisfied with the relatively small number of people who have gone on to make At-Large their home and productively work with us. We would like to see more!
19. Do you have any other questions or comments about the Fellowship Program?
We have some additional thoughts.
- The criteria (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/fellowship-applicant-criteria-2016-09-08-en) puts significant emphasis on "Internet Governance". While ICANN IS part of Internet Governance, it is not the part that many people think about. The criteria do not once mention the DNS or stability, security and resiliency of the DNS, which is ICANN's mission. And from an At-Large perspective, the criteria vaguely refer to "a member of civil society and engaged in studies or work related to Internet issues that reflect regional strategies or current work in ICANN" - this is not a particularly clear statement. Where does it make reference to our interest in how the 4 billion Internet users are affected by decisions that ICANN makes?
- According to the ICANN budget, in FY19, the average employee costs ICANN $180,919. The average Fellowship traveler cost $2,690, or 67 travelers per average employee. So the entire cost of the fellowship program is well under 1% of staff costs. If, as At-Large believes, it is a program that should help create active volunteer workers, it must be structured to actually do that, and funded accordingly to do that effectively. This is not to say the program needs more money - but all costs must be looked at in perspective.
- One of the difficulties of assessing the Fellowship program is that we have no other reference group (for instance, the people who come into ICANN directly, not through the Fellowship route). If we had such a reference group, one could compare the retention between the two groups, and then do a cost-benefit analysis. Maybe a later study can do this
- While getting underserved and underrepresented communities/regions participating is of utmost priority, we believe the programme should not restrict participation based on geographical location
FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED
The first draft submitted will be placed here before the call for comments begins.
Summary:
The ALAC has noted that the Fellowship program has only successfully integrated a small percentage of its graduates to be actively engaged and participating in At-Large specifically, but also other SO/ACs, to support their policy-related goals and objectives. Changes are required in order to achieve greater effectiveness of the Program not only to meet At-Large policy goals relating to the DNS, but also to achieve ICANN goals and expectations for global outreach and engagement. Metrics are required to assess how these essential outputs are being achieved by Fellows within ICANN as well as within their home communities.
Program Goals and Vision
1. What does your group believe should be the objective of the Fellowship Program? How would the success of this objective be measured?
The ALAC sees the objective of the Program as the Integration of "graduates" into the various constituent parts of ICANN as active participants in ICANN activities, The programme should be viewed as an investment by ICANN because this graduate output has the potential to benefit not only At-Large but across all sections of the ICANN ecosystem. However, there is a need to ensure that metrics are used regularly to assess return on this investment and also to ensure that the Program is helping to develop Fellows who can not only commit to the work-related needs of the various sections of ICANN, but are also prepared to support ICANN's strategic goals for global outreach and engagement in their communities.
2. The Fellowship Program was established to provide access to ICANN meetings to individuals from underserved and underrepresented communities. In your group’s opinion, how effective is the Fellowship Program at fulfilling its current goal?
Although there have been a number of notable successes, the Program appears to be more effective at raising awareness rather than in generating workers actively engaging in regular At-Large activities, .
What is not visible to the global ICANN community and therefore is not accounted for, is that in many of these underserved and under-represented communities are small pockets of proactive former Fellows promoting ICANN and its work through their own community based channels, and some are creating ALSes that join in with At-Large activities when they can. It is there that the program has in fact had a really positive impact, which is at least a start at grassroots level. It is their way of making up for their lack of access to communication tools and broadband access that developed country colleagues take for granted. Their lack of presence at ICANN meetings post-Fellowship or even at ICANN meetings online, may give a perception that they don’t care, but in fact some of our Fellows will not be able to participate for several more years until communication conditions improve in their countries, and despite their own good intentions.
3. In your group’s opinion, is this goal still a priority for ICANN, given the new bylaws? If not, what new goals would your group propose for the program?
Yes, it must still be a goal but with a target of success as appropriately measured by the different AC/SOs dependent on their needs. More statistical data on follow-on activities after a Fellowship would identify how the Fellowship could be used effectively both within the ICANN and their local communities. The value of the programme could be assessed externally to test whether the basic outcomes of the programme have been achieved - particularly to do with what they have learned about ICANN and how they aim to use this knowledge in future engagement. Initiating something in their home community may already be an anticipated outcome, knowing what their limitations are.
Assessment of Program Impact on your SO/AC group
4. Have Fellows contributed to the work of your group? If so, where do you think they have added the most value? What might be changed about the Fellowship Program to enhance participation of Fellows in your group?
At-Large has had a number of great successes with Fellowship alumni. The greatest value has come from the relatively few who have chosen to devote time and energy to ICANN post-Fellowship.
This could be enhanced if the Fellowship program could include members who are already members of an ALS or ISOC Chapter, which are organisations that are already motivated to work with the ICANN community for a better good, and already have people within their system to support them to become more engaged in our community. If we continue to take random and disconnected persons, they will continue to come and go and we will continue to repeat mistakes of the past
5. Does your group make efforts to involve, educate, and/or inform Fellows about your work? If so, please describe these efforts.
Yes, but our formal contact with the Fellows program tends to be less regular - more due to the lack of availability of ALAC leaders. because of the full schedules at ICANN meetings. Selected representatives (former Fellows) make themselves available to participate in Fellowship activities and to share messages about At-Large. ALAC members also make a point to visit and engage with Fellows at the Fellows booth at ICANN meetings. But we could make more of a concerted effort to draw people into our activities.
6. How willing would your group (SO/AC/SG/C) be to participate and take ownership for selecting and developing fellows, including giving them assignments, assigning mentors, etc?
At-Large fits best into "civil society" but we do not comfortably fit into the typical model of "civil society". We are willing to participate. At-Large has rich expertise that could contribute to the development of Fellows and provide suitable mentors who could familiarise them with our systems and activities, but that would presume filtering candidates who have a particular interest in our areas. It must be noted, that while at ICANN meetings, most of our funded travelers (At-Large members who, not being employed in the domain industry, cannot self-fund) are heavily committed and would have limited time to devote to Fellows. Former Fellows who work within RALO leadership teams are particularly good at maintaining contact with the Fellowship team.
Selection Processes
7. Are you aware of the Fellowship selection process? What changes, if any, would you suggest for the selection process?
The ALAC would be willing to be part of the selection process in order to increase the transparency of the process and improve accountability of the whole programme.
Prospective fellows must be willing to take intro courses from ICANN Learn. If there are not suitable courses there that will provide the needed background, they should be created.
It should be clear that the Program is not tourism, but a path towards active engagement. It was identified by a former fellow and now coach/mentor, that in order to get real engagement from Fellows, there has to be a sense of “giving back to the community”. Despite the best efforts of a mentor/coach some Fellows still do not understand the purpose of engagement and involvement in the PDP process.
It is difficult to measure a Fellow's motivation, commitment, willingness to participate in calls at all hours of the day and night or to read through screeds of documents in order to make a comment that will contribute to an At-Large statement - All of these qualities cannot be assessed by their attendance at one ICANN meeting trying to absorb everything about a particular SO/AC of interest in one go. However,after reflecting on this experience post-meeting, they should be able to demonstrate,that they have what it takes to become a committed ICANNer, and get another go. They need to be set a task that ascertains what they learned and how it can make a difference to their lives and the lives of others in their community... and they need to join a policy group and actively participate - not just sit on the Adobe Connect and not say a word, and communicate more than just social media entries.
Returning Fellows should come with a specific AC/SO/Const in mind and these must be balanced over the organization. This should be accompanied by the identification of coaches from the appropriate group.
The effectiveness of fellows returning as mentors and coaches should be evaluated. Selecting coaches based purely on them being past fellows is a poor way of achieving the results that we believe the program needs to achieve. An ICANN Learn course specifically for Fellow mentors/coaches would be helpful – not only to give guidance on how to better engage “new Fellows” but also to encourage them to learn more about ICANN's mission and how our role in At-Large can help to achieve this.
The Fellowship program currently only allows people to be a coach if they were a previous fellow. Experienced At-Large members from North America or Europe, for example, are denied the ability to mentor or coach new fellows since they were never a fellow themselves. This is not a fair rule and should be overturned although the implication is that they may need additional funding because only ex-Fellows will be funded.
8. An individual can be awarded a Fellowship up to three times. Do you suggest retaining or revising this number? Why?
We would like to see a study of who (and with how many trips) actually becomes active in ICANN on an ongoing basis prior to addressing this.
9. For Policy Forum Meetings, currently only Fellowship Alums can apply. Do you support continuing with this approach? If not, what changes would you suggest?
We support this limitation IF there is data to demonstrate that these people participate in the policy activities and do so across the community. If they are not known to be already participating in policy activities which requires them to have done some homework first before they come to the forum meeting, then why are they being invited.
Program Size
10. Considering your responses to previous questions, would you suggest making the program larger, smaller, or maintaining the current size?
When the Fellowships were first established there were 15 Fellows, 30 was considered an effective group size and At-Large supported increasing it. It may be that 60 was overreaching and there are not sufficient available resources (throughout the community) to integrate them.
11. If the program were to be reduced in size, what would your group deem as the priorities for the program with a smaller cohort?
Our priority would be migration of Fellows to active participation. This is too expensive a program to use it as purely dissemination of information about ICANN.
Program Structure
12. When you interact with Fellows at an ICANN Meeting, do you find that they are sufficiently knowledgeable about ICANN? If not, what skills or areas of knowledge would you suggest increasing focus on for pre-Meeting preparation?
It depends on whether they are new or have been to prior meetings. But the basics of an understanding of what ICANN is, what it’s mission aims to achieve, how it is constructed and the purposes of each of its constituencies. Once at the meeting, it would be handy for them to attend sessions of the various sectors so that they can get a better understanding of each sectors PDP program which should be the principal focus of the Fellowship program. These observations could provide the basis for a better understanding of the differences between the SO/ACs and their policy development processes.
13. Do you think that Fellows spend sufficient time in working sessions with your group during the course of an ICANN meeting? If not, what would changes would your group propose?
No, but it would be good if we first of all submitted a list of sessions that might prove useful to them. If Fellows have a good understanding of what ICANN’s purpose and role is, then the Fellowship program could include backgrounding of some of the important issues currently under discussion by the SOs/ACs that they may visit – otherwise the discussions aren’t going to make any sense to them.
14. Do you feel that you have enough time to engage with Fellows at an ICANN meeting?
Sadly, no.
Information Available on Program
15. Is the information currently available clear and sufficient for your community members to understand the Fellowship Program? If not, which elements could be improved and how?
A presentation either via teleconference or at an ICANN meeting would be a good start, but to get feedback from the different SO/ACs to suggest content matching their roles and activities.
16. Are your community members aware of the differences between the Fellowship and NextGen@ICANN Programs? If not, please state what type of clarification would be useful.
Yes, I believe so.
General Questions
17. The Fellowship Program seeks to engage participants who will go on to participate actively in the ICANN community. What skills, attributes and backgrounds have provided the most successful and active participation in your SO/AC/SG/C? What skillsets and backgrounds would your group see as desirable for candidates for the Fellowship Program?
At-Large focuses on issues that impact end-users. A passionate consideration for end-users as well as knowledge of ICANN, is the key.
18. With which elements of the Fellowship Program is your group most satisfied? What changes or improvements would your group most want to see implemented to the program?
We are most satisfied with the relatively small number of people who have gone on to make At-Large their home and productively work with us. We would like to see more!
19. Do you have any other questions or comments about the Fellowship Program?
- The criteria (https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/fellowship-applicant-criteria-2016-09-08-en) puts significant emphasis on "Internet Governance". While ICANN IS part of Internet Governance, it is not the part that many people think about. The criteria do not once mention the DNS or stability, security and resiliency of the DNS, which is ICANN's mission. And from an At-Large perspective, the criteria vaguely refer to "a member of civil society and engaged in studies or work related to internet issues that reflect regional strategies or current work in ICANN" - this is not a particularly clear statement. Where does it make reference to our interest in how the 4 billion Internet users are affected by decisions that ICANN makes?
- According to the ICANN budget, in FY19, the average employee costs ICANN $180,919. The average Fellowship traveler cost $2,690, or 67 travelers per average employee. So the entire cost of the fellowship program is well under 1% of staff costs. If, as At-Large believes, it is a program that should help create active volunteer workers, it must be structured to actually do that, and funded accordingly to do that effectively. This is not to say the program needs more money - but all costs must be looked at in perspective.
47 Comments
Alberto Soto
This program is very important for all the members of the ICANN ecosystem. In particular for us, it allows contact with the participating end users, and the corresponding direct fedback.
It is a program that must be maintained, and if there is a need for reduction due to budgetary problems, I believe that the reduction should be sought in other items.
For example, the selection of places for iCANN meetings that are not as expensive as Kobe. And if there is no other form of reduction, do it gradually in lower annual percentages.
ICANN receives many benefits from this program, as well as from the CROP program. It is not an expense but an investment. The impact it will have on dissemination to all sectors that are not in contact with ICANN should be measured
Particularly in Argentina, there has been a lot of emphasis on the repetition of people from multi-stakeholder groups that have the possibility of financing their own trips (ISPs or ISP cameras). But it has not proceeded in the same way with civil society or academia, which have no chance to participate f2f in ICANN. It is a matter of sector diversity and they do not have financial support.
Alan Greenberg
Please contribute your comments here. We have been asked for an ALAC position and not individual statements, so it is important that we have input.
In addition to what has been done well, please include anything you think must change. As an example, I suspect (but do not really know) that the addition of Fellowship Mentors/Coaches may not have been as effective as expected, or at least may not generate as much payback as bringing in new Fellows with those same travel funds.
Maureen Hilyard
Fellowships have traditionally targeted people from underserved regions. Disappointingly, we don't get many of these Fellows engaging directly in At-Large following on from their Fellowships. Sometimes, I know that this is because they don't have access to internet or other communication resources, or broadband is not adequate for our communication systems, etc. They may attend APRALO meetings, but find it difficult to participate in working groups.
Before Fellows attend their first ICANN meeting, they should have to complete an ICANN Learn course on "What is ICANN , how is it made up and what is the purposed of each of its various sections ?" It would therefore save time for the Felowship to concentrate on who the important people are in the different sections of the ICANN people and how they all contribute to the work of ICANN - particularly in regards to policy development.
Engaging in the online course will also identify those who will have difficulty with communicating with ICANN as followup, so that if they cannot engage directly, then they must plan a program of outreach and engagement within their local community to demonstrate how they can contribute to the work of ICANN at a local level, until capacity builds within their countries and they themselves can get more engaged.
Because there is a lack of direct engagement from a majority of our Fellows from underserved regions, maybe in order to increase the potential of interested participants in the policy development area, we need to open Fellowships up to a proportion of semi-developed country participants who have a specific interest area around domain name governance or in some of our more technical issues.
Even within our ALAC we lack expertise within some areas which are left to a select few, who have to mix with experts from other constituencies, rather than from within our own At-Large community. Therefore we should try to identify Fellows who could become more active in the ALAC and provide them with mentors who can guide and hopefully engage them through the ALAC policies and policy development processes and working groups.
Shreedeep Rayamajhi
Amrita Choudhury
The Fellowship has over the last 10 years been highly effective in creating Ambassadors of ICANN all across the globe- and specifically amongst people residing in the developing nations who are new to the world of names and numbers, These are also the areas where the next billion internet users reside.
The fellowship program provided an opportunity to people like me residing in a developing country with limited resources to participate and learn about ICANN’s work, which helped me also to understand and build awareness in India on how and why the community in India should participate in the various stakeholder groups of ICANN. All this would not have been possible without the fellowship program.
•Most of the fellows have been contributing to the ICANN ecosystem in some way or the other. There are several fellows who are contributing significantly and are in leadership position, apart from being in ICANN Board or joining as ICANN staff. While some have made more substantial contribution than others and their contributions have been visible to the global community, there are many who have been working in their respective countries spreading awareness of ICANN, and whose contributions have not been visible to the global ICANN community and therefore gone unaccounted.
From the prespective of AT Large, it is also important to analyse what motivates a Fellow to join/ not join as an ALS
Also there is a need to conduct a careful and detailed review on :
1.The effectiveness of the Fellowship program to bring diverse voices in ICANN vis-a vis the other approaches adopted by ICANN to increase diversity especially from developing countries and women in particular.
2.A detailed analysis and mapping of the ICANN fellowship Alumni's based on their contributions to the ICANN ecosystem till date and also on how they are promoting the objectives of ICANN within their own countries and communities, their participation in different SO/ACs
3.A study on what has been done by ICANN, its SO/ACs to revive interest of people who have stopped contributing.
4. The Fellowship selection criteria also must take into consideration the requirements of the SO/ACs
I agree that, like any other program there is definitely scope of improvement even in the Fellowship Program. This could be in terms of improving the selection process, laying down clear expectations from a Fellow, or for second fellowship - how the fellow is contributing after his first fellowship or other parameters which ICANN deems fit, togeether with inputs from the SO/ACs rather than reduction in the numbers of fellows in the program.
Krishna Seeburn
The bottom line question is to ensure those who were fellows statistically we need to understand how much contribution came after that. This will be effectively the way it will show some effectiveness. But also the bottomline is understanding the why not participate? Any programme needs to be assed from time to time. Does the programme content eventually helps the participants? At the end of the day its not having loads of fellows, but mainly the quality of the inputs as well. I see a dysfunctional fellowship programme and added programmes being added. Also at the stage of when ICANN org is resting on a clear no reserve end. Qualifying the programme is important.
Andrey Kolesnikov
May I recommend the following criteria for incoming / outgoing fellows:
We still have fellows at the public meeting asking questions why ICANN doing nothing to regulate dangerous content...
What is criteria of successful engagement? I think it is very simple: to know what ICANN is, it's role, how DNS operates and what is the difference between gTLD and ccTLD (and few other questions like this). It can only be measured by running simple. Scoring fellows' understanding on input and output will help for future engagements in different SOs/ACs
Narine Khachatryan
Agreeing with most of the points raised by colleagues, yet I’d like to add that fellowship selection criteria and the selection process may require revisions, accompanied by increased transparency of the process and improved accountability of the whole program. The fellowship selection criteria, ideally, should go hand in hand with priorities stated at each new cycle of the ICANN org development, it can be adjusted every 5 years (in particular for the upcoming 2020-2025).
Alfredo Calderon
Maureen Hilyard
Comment contributed by Sam Goundar (Fiji)
The ICANN Fellowship program in my opinion is achieving ICANN’s Strategic Goal of empowering current and new stakeholders to fully participate in ICANN activities. However, the fellow’s participation is mostly active during the fellowship days and at the venue of the fellowship. After the fellowship is over, most fellows do not know what to do next. The fellows feel that they are not competent enough to start making contribution towards policy development. The fellows need guidance and mentorship on how to join different policy development groups (and this should happen during the face-to-face fellowship) and need to be brought up to speed with policies that are being worked upon for months before the fellows are requested to contribute. The academic and experience credentials of fellows are of high calibre, but where, when and how they fit into the policy development of their regional organisations needs scrutiny.
Looking at the fellowship representation by region (ICANN29 – ICANN60), it seems Oceania is underserved and underrepresented, getting only 9% of the fellowships, while some regions are well above 20%. Oceania comprises of 25 different countries with a population of about 40 million people. Apart from Australia and New Zealand, the other 23 countries are grossly underserved, underrepresented, remote, sparsely connected with overpriced Internet connectivity. ICANN is failing in its mission for Oceania.
Fellowship budgeting seems to be an issue as well. As I understand, FY18 total program budget is $557,000 for 180 fellows. In FY19, the number of fellows is going to be halved, but the budget is going to reduce by $155,000 only, not even 50%.
As reported by the ICANN Fellowship Program 10 Year Survey and as I commented above, there is a need to streamline how fellows engage in the community’s policy development and advice work after their fellowships. ICANN states that Meeting B is a policy forum and is only interested in candidates that are experienced or have worked with ICANN’s policy development at regional level. What about the new fellows – when will they ever get a chance to get engaged with such a requirement? Therefore, it so happens that for Meeting B, most fellowships are awarded to fellows that are experienced and have already been to three or more fellowships and are well integrated into policy development (but these are a select few) and this shouldn’t be the case. APRALO ALAC should actively seek new fellows that are awarded fellowships and approach them to see if they are interested in the policy development process. If the new fellows are interested, they should be provided a mentor that would gradually coach them into the policy development process. Policy development does not come to everyone naturally, people actually attend a three degree programme at universities to understand and learn about policy development and spend years in government departments learning policy development. Therefore regional organisations like APARALO should not expect that new fellows would naturally join and start making effective contributions to policy development.
The ICANN Community Onboarding Pilot Program is a step in the right direction for new fellows (mentees) to be coached by mentors who understandably are well versed with regional policy development process, experienced and seasoned. But the requirements for mentees to have experience with policy development totally defeat the purpose of this initiative. With such requirements new fellows will never be able to make it on board. Fellows that make it to the fellowships need to be taken on board and maybe from the second fellowship onwards start getting trained on the policy development process. As I said earlier, policy development and contribution towards policy development does not come naturally to everyone.
Alan Greenberg
I see lots of comments, but no attempt to address the specific questions put to the community. Here is a first cut at answers, some my own, some drawn from the comments here.
Program Goals and Vision
1. What does your group believe should be the objective of the Fellowship Program? How would the success of this objective be measured?
2. The Fellowship Program was established to provide access to ICANN meetings to individuals from underserved and underrepresented communities. In your group’s opinion, how effective is the Fellowship Program at fulfilling its current goal?
3. In your group’s opinion, is this goal still a priority for ICANN, given the new bylaws? If
not, what new goals would your group propose for the program?
Assessment of Program Impact on your SO/AC group
4. Have Fellows contributed to the work of your group? If so, where do you think they have added the most value? What might be changed about the Fellowship Program to enhance participation of Fellows in your group?
5. Does your group make efforts to involve, educate, and/or inform Fellows about your work? If so, please describe these efforts.
6. How willing would your group (SO/AC/SG/C) be to participate and take ownership for selecting and developing fellows, including giving them assignments, assigning mentors, etc?
Selection Processes
7. Are you aware of the Fellowship selection process? What changes, if any, would you suggest for the selection process?
8. An individual can be awarded a Fellowship up to three times. Do you suggest retaining or revising this number? Why?
9. For Policy Forum Meetings, currently only Fellowship Alums can apply. Do you support continuing with this approach? If not, what changes would you suggest?
Program Size
10. Considering your responses to previous questions, would you suggest making the program larger, smaller, or maintaining the current size?
11. If the program were to be reduced in size, what would your group deem as the priorities for the program with a smaller cohort?
Program Structure
12. When you interact with Fellows at an ICANN Meeting, do you find that they are sufficiently knowledgeable about ICANN? If not, what skills or areas of knowledge would you suggest increasing focus on for pre-Meeting preparation?
13. Do you think that Fellows spend sufficient time in working sessions with your group during the course of an ICANN meeting? If not, what would changes would your group propose?
14. Do you feel that you have enough time to engage with Fellows at an ICANN meeting?
Information Available on Program
15. Is the information currently available clear and sufficient for your community members to understand the Fellowship Program? If not, which elements could be improved and how?
16. Are your community members aware of the differences between the Fellowship and NextGen@ICANN Programs? If not, please state what type of clarification would be useful.
General Questions
17. The Fellowship Program seeks to engage participants who will go on to participate actively in the ICANN community. What skills, attributes and backgrounds have provided the most successful and active participation in your SO/AC/SG/C? What skillsets and backgrounds would your group see as desirable for candidates for the Fellowship Program?
18. With which elements of the Fellowship Program is your group most satisfied? What changes or improvements would your group most want to see implemented to the program?
19. Do you have any other questions or comments about the Fellowship Program?
Sam Goundar
Alan Greenberg: We are most satisfied with the relatively small number of people who have gone on to make At-Large their home and productively work with us. We would like to see more!
Sam Goundar: And you will remain with that relatively small number of people with your restrictive criteria for engagement and contribution towards the policy development process. The same number of people will always qualify. How will you get more, when the newcomers don't qualify for anything.
Refer to my comments ...
Alan Greenberg
I agree with your comments above about the difficulty in diving into policy discussions, particularly when some have been ongoing for a long time.And ways need to be found for helping.
But I do not understand understand your point on the "restrictive criteria" for engagement and contribution. Exactly what criteria are you referring to?
Sam Goundar
By "Restrictive Criteria", I mean:
And the list can go on ...
Alan Greenberg
Those are restriction on travel, not working on policy. Each of these program is designed with specific targets and for various reasons, each wants people who are there to work, not starting to learn. As you mention, we have other program such as COB, NextGen and the Fellowship for those who need help getting started.I note that the At-Large "restrictions" for COB were not to be active, but to the "desire or ability". Neither of the people who were selected were currently active in policy issues.
There are no restrictions other than time, interest and access to communications in getting involved in policy discussions. Communications CAN be an issue in some regions, but it is not clear what ICANN or At-Large can do to address that. There are people in most or regions who have done this and therefore later qualify for the travel opportunities that you cite.
Sam Goundar
Alan Greenberg: Each of these program is designed with specific targets and for various reasons, each wants people who are there to work, not starting to learn
Sam Goundar: When it comes to policy, as a newcomer, you have to learn first and only then you can work. And for policy you need an in-depth understanding of the issue, before you can work/contribute.
Maureen Hilyard
**
I have added to Alan's responses by including some expansion on his responses which just add a little depth and based on those who made the time to respond and from some of the responses that arose out of the ALAC meeting.**
THIS IS NOW THE EDITED VERSION BASED ON COMMENTS MADE IN RELATION TO THE ORIGINAL FIRST DRAFT.FINAL EDITED VERSION WITH ALAN GREENBERG'S FINAL COMMENTS INSERTED (02/04)
Summary:
The ALAC has noted that the Fellowship Program has only successfully integrated a small percentage of its alumni to be actively engaged and participating in At-Large specifically, but also other SO/ACs, to support their policy-related goals and objectives. It has been suggested that changes are required in order to achieve greater effectiveness of the Program not only to meet At-Large policy goals relating to the DNS. Metrics are needed to monitor effectiveness. The Fellowship has been more effective in recruiting people to be active in At-Large administrative activities and outreach.
Program Goals and Vision
1. What does your group believe should be the objective of the Fellowship Program? How would the success of this objective be measured?
The ALAC sees the objective of the Program as the Integration of "Fellows graduates" into the various constituent parts of ICANN as active participants in ICANN, with a focus on policy-related activities, The Program should be viewed as an investment by ICANN because the output from the alumni has the potential to benefit not only At-Large but across all sections of the ICANN ecosystem. However, there is a need to ensure that metrics are used regularly to assess return on this investment and also to ensure that the Program is helping to develop Fellows who can not only commit to the policy work-related needs of the various sections of ICANN. Those supporting ICANN's strategic goals for global outreach and engagement in their communities should also be tracked to what extent possible.
2. The Fellowship Program was established to provide access to ICANN meetings to individuals from underserved and underrepresented communities. In your group’s opinion, how effective is the Fellowship Program at fulfilling its current goal?
Although there have been a number of notable successes, the Program appears to be more effective at raising awareness rather than in generating workers actively engaging in regular At-Large policy activities.
What is not visible within the global ICANN community and therefore is not accounted for, is that in many of these underserved and under-represented communities are small pockets of proactive former Fellows promoting ICANN and its work through their own community based channels, and some are creating ALSes that join in with At-Large activities when they can. It is there that the program has in fact had a more positive impact, which is at least a start at grassroots level. Access issues are a major barrier to greater participation by those from underserved regions.
3. In your group’s opinion, is this goal still a priority for ICANN, given the new bylaws? If not, what new goals would your group propose for the program?
Yes, it must still be a goal but with a target of success as appropriately measured by the different AC/SOs dependent on their needs. More statistical data on follow-on activities after a Fellowship would identify how the Fellowship could be used effectively both within ICANN and their local communities. The value of the Program by some assessment mechanism could evaluate whether the basic outcomes of the Program have been achieved - particularly to do with what they have learned about ICANN and how they aim to use this knowledge in future engagement. Initiating something in their home community may already be an anticipated outcome, knowing what their limitations are.
Assessment of Program Impact on your SO/AC group
4. Have Fellows contributed to the work of your group? If so, where do you think they have added the most value? What might be changed about the Fellowship Program to enhance participation of Fellows in your group?
At-Large has had a number of great successes with Fellowship alumni. The greatest value has come from those who have chosen to devote time and energy to ICANN post-Fellowship. The vast majority of these, however, have become active in outreach and administrative roles and not policy-related.
This could be enhanced if the Fellowship Program could include those who are already members of the Internet community, within organisations that are already motivated to work with the ICANN community for a better good, and already have people within their system to support them to become more engaged in our community. On a wider scale, SO/ACs could recommend active participants from their communities to take part in a Fellowship Program that could focus on policy development upskilling similar to that of the ICANN Leadership Academy. This would create a new stream of entrants, but the current program has become too complex and confusing for new community members and too broad and repetitive for those already participating in ICANN.
If we are to have more successes with encouraging Fellow to participate in policy activities, changes must be made to have coaches and mentors who are themselves active in these areas.
5. Does your group make efforts to involve, educate, and/or inform Fellows about your work? If so, please describe these efforts.
Yes, but our formal contact with the Fellows program tends to be less regular - more due to the lack of availability of ALAC leaders. because of their full schedules at ICANN meetings. Selected representatives (former Fellows) make themselves available to participate in Fellowship activities and to share messages about At-Large. ALAC members also make a point to visit and engage with Fellows at the Fellows booth at ICANN meetings. But the ALAC could, and will, make more of a concerted effort to draw people into our activities. In order to improve their outreach, former At-Large Fellows could form their own working group or outreach group to provide resources for new/returning fellows
6. How willing would your group (SO/AC/SG/C) be to participate and take ownership for selecting and developing fellows, including giving them assignments, assigning mentors, etc?
We are willing to participate. At-Large has rich expertise that could contribute to the development of Fellows and provide suitable mentors who could familiarise them with our systems and activities, but that would presume filtering candidates who have a particular interest in our areas. It must be noted, that while at ICANN meetings, most of our funded travelers (At-Large members who, not being employed in the domain industry, cannot self-fund) are heavily committed and would have limited time to devote to Fellows. Former Fellows and some others on the ALAC and on RALO leadership teams are particularly good at maintaining contact with Fellows during their activities, and in engaging them to join At-Large working groups and sessions.
Selection Processes
7. Are you aware of the Fellowship selection process? What changes, if any, would you suggest for the selection process?
The ALAC would be willing to be part of the selection process, based on guidelines/good practices produced by the ALAC for this purpose, but also in order to increase the transparency of the process and improve accountability of the Fellows programme.
Prospective fellows must be willing to participate in introductory courses from ICANN Learn. If there are not suitable courses there that will provide the needed background, they should be created.
One of the problems may be the categories used in the selection process. At-Large fits best into "civil society" but we do not comfortably fit into the typical model of "civil society". Therefore we may not be selecting for potential Fellows who have a real interest in user-issues.
It should be clear that the Program is not tourism, but a path towards active engagement. It was identified by a former fellow and now coach/mentor, that in order to get real engagement from Fellows, there has to be a sense of “giving back to the community”. Despite the best efforts of a mentor/coach some Fellows still do not understand the need for their engagement and involvement in the PDP process.
It is difficult to measure a Fellow's motivation, commitment or willingness to participate in calls at all hours of the day and night or to read through screeds of documents in order to make a comment that will contribute to an At-Large statement. All of these qualities cannot be assessed by their attendance at one ICANN meeting trying to absorb everything about a particular SO/AC of interest in one go. However,after reflecting on this experience post-meeting, they should be able to demonstrate,that they have what it takes to become a committed "ICANNer", and get another chance to receive a Fellowship. Post-meeting Fellows need to be set a task that ascertains what they learned and how it can make a difference to their lives and the lives of others in their community. There should be an expectation for returning Fellows, especially for those who have had multiple opportunities, to join a working group and actively participate, but only a small number actually do.
Returning Fellows should come with a specific AC/SO/Constituency in mind and these must be balanced over the organization. This should be accompanied by the identification of coaches from the appropriate group.
The effectiveness of Fellows returning as mentors and coaches should be evaluated. Currently only past fellows have the opportunity to be a coach, yet, having that as the requirement may not help us achieve the results that we believe the program needs to achieve. An ICANN Learn course specifically for Fellow mentors/coaches would be helpful – not only to give guidance on how to better engage “new Fellows” but also to encourage them to learn more about ICANN's mission and how they can be directed to help to achieve this.
8. An individual can be awarded a Fellowship up to three times. Do you suggest retaining or revising this number? Why?
We would like to see a study of who (and with how many trips) actually becomes active in ICANN.
9. For Policy Forum Meetings, currently only Fellowship Alums can apply. Do you support continuing with this approach? If not, what changes would you suggest?
We support this limitation IF there is measure to demonstrate that these people are already involved in policy activities within a particular SO/AC and are developing their knowledge and skills for participation. Participating in the Forum meeting should require the Fellows to then have done some homework first before they come to the forum meeting based on the issues to be discussed, and this can provide part of the Program content for this meeting, so that Fellows can be better informed for active participation in the policy meetings as well as the Public Forum..
Program Size
10. Considering your responses to previous questions, would you suggest making the program larger, smaller, or maintaining the current size?
When the Fellowships were first established there were 15 Fellows. This was increased to 30 which was considered an effective group size, and At-Large supported increasing it. It may be that 60 was overreaching and there are not sufficient available resources (throughout the community) to integrate them.
11. If the program were to be reduced in size, what would your group deem as the priorities for the program with a smaller cohort?
Our priority would be migration of Fellows to active participation and a reasonable part of those must be willing to participate in policy processes. This is too expensive a program to use it as purely dissemination of information about ICANN.
Program Structure
12. When you interact with Fellows at an ICANN Meeting, do you find that they are sufficiently knowledgeable about ICANN? If not, what skills or areas of knowledge would you suggest increasing focus on for pre-Meeting preparation?
It depends on whether they are new or have been to prior meetings. But we would expect the basics of an understanding of what ICANN is, what it’s mission aims to achieve, how it is constructed and the purposes of each of its constituencies. A specific pre-meeting ICANN Learn course and perhaps an online test before an application for Fellowship is accepted may establish a standard of knowledge required before starting work on more advanced policy development study during the face-to-face Program. Once at the meeting, it would be handy for first-time Fellows to attend sessions of the various SO/ACs so that they can see the policy development processes of the different SO/ACs in action and build better understanding of this from within the Program, but it would be expected that returning Fellows would get involved somewhere within the system..
One of our more seasoned veterans in At-Large said: “As long as we still have fellows at the public meeting asking questions why ICANN doing nothing to regulate dangerous content, we are clearly not getting the selection/preparation right.”
13. Do you think that Fellows spend sufficient time in working sessions with your group during the course of an ICANN meeting? If not, what would changes would your group propose?
No, but it would be good if we first of all submitted a list of sessions that might prove useful to them. Fellows should have a good understanding of ICANN’s purpose and of the roles of the SO/ACs within it, preferably before they get to make contact with the SO/ACs. In this way, subsequent learning within the Program is more relevant and meaningful, and Fellows can make better sense of what is going on when they visit a particular SO/AC session later on in the week.
14. Do you feel that you have enough time to engage with Fellows at an ICANN meeting?
Sadly, no.
Information Available on Program
15. Is the information currently available clear and sufficient for your community members to understand the Fellowship Program? If not, which elements could be improved and how?
A presentation either via teleconference or at an ICANN meeting would be a good start in order to get feedback from the different SO/ACs and for them to suggest content matching their roles and activities.
16. Are your community members aware of the differences between the Fellowship and NextGen@ICANN Programs? If not, please state what type of clarification would be useful.
Yes, we believe so.
General Questions
17. The Fellowship Program seeks to engage participants who will go on to participate actively in the ICANN community. What skills, attributes and backgrounds have provided the most successful and active participation in your SO/AC/SG/C? What skillsets and backgrounds would your group see as desirable for candidates for the Fellowship Program?
At-Large focuses on issues that impact individual end-users. A passionate consideration for end-users as well as knowledge of ICANN, is the key. See also the reference to “Civil Society” in Question 7.
18. With which elements of the Fellowship Program is your group most satisfied? What changes or improvements would your group most want to see implemented to the program?
We are most satisfied with the relatively small number of people who have gone on to make At-Large their home and productively work with us. We would like to see more!
19. Do you have any other questions or comments about the Fellowship Program?
We have some additional thoughts.
Sarah Kiden
Hi Maureen,
Great summary here. I believe this has captured the discussion well. I still have a problem with the word haphazard (response to question 5) because it shows that we are not making efforts yet many efforts have been made to reach out at ICANN and other events. Particularly at the Africa Internet Summit, AFRALO usually has a booth and on many occasions is asked to speak at some sessions, including the opening ceremony. I know many RALOs also have such efforts as well.
Regarding the mentors and coaches, I believe that people from SOs/ACs can continue to mentor fellows. I think there's a misunderstanding on the role of coaches in the fellowship program. They basically provide an easier start for fellows, to guide them and make their first experiences better. This does not stop new fellows from seeking experienced mentors for guidance. And the reason why I believe former fellows are selected is because it is easier for a newcomer to reach out to another fellow.
In addition, do we need to add this statement? I believe the message has still been delivered through the explanations before.
"And lastly, as long as we still have fellows at the public meeting asking questions why ICANN doing nothing to regulate dangerous content, we are clearly not getting the selection/preparation right.
Maureen Hilyard
Hi Sarah
I have changed haphazard to "less regular" - it was more to do with the ALAC leadership involvement in the Fellowship programme and it was usually a rush from one event to another and I often wondered how valuable it was for the Fellows when I was involved in this with Alan (as the former Fellow) - although haphazard was Alan's word not mine
. I also think that with mentors and coaches, they need to be special people, and the ones that have been chosen really work hard. But I guess when it comes to effectiveness, we really should be focusing the mentorship on some goals that will enhance the mission of ICANN - that's the whole purpose of the capacity building for Fellows. So that mentors and coaches should be trained too, to give the right messages to our newbies - as well as the admin stuff that I know Siranush expects from the mentor/coaches - having been one! And the last statement, I didn't like either so I have scrapped that. Thanks for reminding me.
Narine Khachatryan
While the mission of the Fellowship Program is to ensure basic and easy start for newcomers and provide initial guidance, Coach-Mentor interactions should pursue a broader set of objectives. It goes without saying, that continued, regular and focused engagement and capacity building requires systematic approach, as Maureen suggests. Even in the case when fellows are empowered enough to seek experienced mentors for guidance themselves.
Alan Greenberg
Maureen, some comments.
In 1, you say the rationale should be to get workers and talk about return on investment, but in 2 you say that an additional benefit is that is raises local awareness. to a large extent, ICANN as a whole may reap that benefit, but not At-Large or any particular group. So the natural question is (and I think we need to include it) is whether this secondary benefit (from our point of view) is a sufficient return on investment). The answer to 11 seems to say it is too expensive if that is the main aim. investment.
On #4 (number of successes, I should have stats tomorrow (Thursday).
In 6, you may want to mention that while at ICANN meetings, most of our funded traveler (and At-Large members, not being employed in the domain industry cannot self-fund) are heavily committed and have limited time to devote to Fellows.
In 7, what do you mean by "increase the transparency of the process and improve accountability of the whole programme"? Are you proposing that the evaluations be made public?
Also in 7: Returning Fellows should come with a specific AC/SO/Const in mind and these must be balanced over the organization. This should be accompanied by the identification of coaches from the appropriate group. Should we suggest that there is a need for funding such coaches. They already do IF they are ex-fellows, but not if they are people we feel could really help!
In 9, add: If they do not really participate (and not just listen) in the policy activities, why are we bringing them?
Under 19, consider adding:
Judith Hellerstein
This comment relates to coaches- The fellowship allows fellow alumni to be allowed to be coaches after only one term as fellow. Most fellows do not have the experience needed to be coaches after only one time. Fellows should not be chosen as coaches until after their third time being a fellow.
Also Fellowship program only allows people to be a coach if they were a previous fellow. As such experienced people with deep AT Large and/or RALO experience who live in North America or Europe where the fellowship wa snot open to them are denied the ability to mentor or coach new fellows since they were never a fellow themselves. I think this is a bad rule and should be overturned. What we want is people who have much experience and want to share with others and mentor others and having this restriction prevents this.
Fellowship says coaches must provide the fellow with an understanding of all constituencies but in reality this is not the case and most of them get steeered to NCUC. Also some NCUC fellows think they have to choose only one constituency and if they want to change they have to resign or quit this constituency. We know this is false but it seems are message is not getting across and think we need to do a better job on outreach here.
At NASIG we explained what NARALO and At Large are all about and I think this was very helpful to the students who normally would have gone straight to NCUC. We need to do more outreach to the fellows, but our schedule often does not allow for it.
Perhaps the coach/mentor program needs to be separate from the fellows application and more effort made to provide a better mentor experience.
Narine Khachatryan
Coach/Mentor Program will greatly benefit if ALAC could contribute its rich expertise to the program, putting on institutionalized basis the whole process of knowledge transfer from experienced members of the community to newcomers and insuring the balanced selection and 'placement' of fellows within different constituencies.
Alan Greenberg
Getting At-large people who come to ICANN meetings, many with specific requirements of things they must do, to put time and enery into coaching fellow is a really difficult thing to arrange. and even more difficult to do it with continuity.
Alan
Judith Hellerstein
HI Alan, I think the case is that coaches should be picked and funded from within At Large. But most of the US and/or Europeans or Australians who what to volunteer to be a funded mentor are not allowed since they were never fellows. As it currently stands you can only be a coach if you were a fellow. This policy should be changed and then you will see more at large people being selected as coaches
Alan Greenberg
I do not agree that they should be "funded from within At-Large". They should be funded as part of the Fellowship program since it is acost of the program working effectively.
I agree that selecting coaches base purely on them being past fellows is a poor way of achieving the results that we believe the program need to achieve.
Judith Hellerstein
I meant to say that they should be funded by fellowship but selected from At Large
Glenn McKnight
I tried for years to expand the candidates for the fellowship to include North America. Only recently we managed to have North American members and the largest number were NCUC membership who were either from civil society or Academia. Despite repeated reminders we had very few applications from the ATLARGE community.
My main suggestion as in the case of ISOC Ambassadors. The pool of fellows should come from existing ALS membership, not the leaders but other members who are already engaged and familiar with their RALO and ICANN in general. These individuals either ALS or unaffiliated are oriented and mentored and they would already be on a track of involvement. If we continue to take random and disconnected persons we will continue to have persons come and go and it will repeat mistakes of the past
Ricardo Holmquist
Hi Maureen, thanks for the new version. I have comments on some points:
"9. For Policy Forum Meetings, currently only Fellowship Alums can apply. Do you support continuing with this approach? If not, what changes would you suggest?
We support this limitation IF there is data to demonstrate that these people participate in the policy activities and do so across the community. If they are not known to be already participating in policy activities which requires them to have done some homework first before they come to the forum meeting, then why are they being invited. "
R: This should mean no AC fellows should come to a Policy forum, once the ACs do not make Policy, only advises the board on them?.
"13. Do you think that Fellows spend sufficient time in working sessions with your group during the course of an ICANN meeting? If not, what would changes would your group propose?
No, but it would be good if we first of all submitted a list of sessions that might prove useful to them. If Fellows have a good understanding of what ICANN’s purpose and role is, then the Fellowship program could include backgrounding of some of the important issues currently under discussion by the SOs/ACs that they may visit – otherwise the discussions aren’t going to make any sense to them."
R: As a former fellow it was difficult for me in the first two meetings to engage better on the ALAC meetings due to the agendas. Usually ALAC meetings are heavily based on the first two days, same as the fellowship ones. And because of that, usually the ALAC meeting with the fellows is almost at the end of the ICANN meetings, when there is almost no ALAC meetings left if they want to come and engage. I understand agendas are very difficult to set at the ICANN meetings.
Maureen Hilyard
Hi Ricardo - with regards to Q9, I think Alan's statement was basically saying that for the FORUM meeting which usually accepts returning Fellows, that they should be by now participating in some sort of policy activity already within any section of the ICANN community - not just At-Large. It is asking for a metric to be used to assess participants for this level, so we can see how effective the Program is in actually engaging Fellows in SO/AC policy work following on from the Program. Perhaps I can delete the question at the end, it doesn't add anything.
I agree with your second statement (re Q13), that there needs to be some better coordination between the Program and the SO/ACs so that their involvement with the Fellows becomes a more relevant and meaningful part of their Program - thank you for that observation.
Sarah Kiden
Hi Maureen,
Thank you once again for putting this together. Please see further comments.
Question 2: first paragraph...... At-Large activities, . - remove comma and space before full stop
Question 3: used effectively both within the ICANN and their local - remove the ICANN, have just ICANN
Question 4: Full stop after last paragraph. Also instead of saying "already members of an ALS or ISOC Chapter", can we say "already members of the Internet community...". ALS or ISOC Chapter may be restrictive as there are organisations that deal with Internet issues locally that are not an ALS or ISOC Chapter.
Question 7: Paragraph 4.......comment that will contribute to an At-Large statement - All of these qualities..... - Full stop before All of these qualities instead of -. Same paragraph, use quotes for ICANNer
Question 16: Yes, I believe so should be changed to we believe so since this is a joint statement
Question 19: Line 4, ....work related to internet issues.... - Internet with capital I
Seun Ojedeji
Thanks for the first draft Maureen. Kindly find below my comments on the questions:
Question 1: Fine by me
Question 2: Reads good
Question 3: Okay
Question 4: Edit: "....to become more engaged in our community. Such approach will be more effective if applied to returning fellows. If we continue......."
Question 5: Edit: "...we could and will make more of a concerted effort to draw...."
Question 7: I suggest changing the the following text "...Selecting coaches based purely on them being past fellows is a poor way of achieving the results that we believe the program needs to achieve..." To "....While only past fellows should have the opportunity to be a coach, having that only as the requirement may not help us achieve the results that we believe the program needs to achieve..."
I do not agree with last paragraph of question 6. I will be fine with it if for instance we then suggest that the mentorship/onboarding program be scrapped. Otherwise i think its important that a returning fellow knows that he/she is competing with other colleagues of hers and not overly experienced folks who have not even gone through the program before. I think those category of people should continue to serve within the onboarding program.
Question 8: Edit: "...ongoing basis prior to addressing this. However literarily speaking it is obvious that a one time fellowship program cannot be sufficient.
Question 9: Fine with this. Though i don't think the second sentence is necessary i.e "...If they are not known to be already participating in policy activities which requires them to have done some homework first before they come to the forum meeting, then why are they being invited."
Question 10: I don't agree with the response, i don't think its about number but about the value and the reach. I don't get the insufficient community resources referred to here. So long as they are supported to attend, i think every other activity they will do at the meeting will be participation and the same talk that is given to 1 is given to 60 at the same time. Maybe we can say there may be issues with Coaching because of the number but i think that is already well managed in that it is within the 60 that coaches are identified.
Question 11: Based on my comment on 10, and if its not accepted, i will suggest the following edit: " While number may be an issue, reducing or increasing is not our priority, Our priority would be migration of Fellows to active participation. If we get more fellows fulfilling that task then we will be glad. We expect that numbers of the fellows to various meeting will then vary significantly depending on the applications for the particular meeting. This is too expensive a program to use it as purely dissemination of information about ICANN."
Question 12: Looks good
Question 13: Looks good
Question 14: Looks good
Question 15: Looks good
Question 16: looks good
Question 17: Looks good
Question 18: Looks okay though i would have preferred removing "relatively small"
Question 19: Looks good
Regards
Maureen Hilyard
Thank you to Sarah and Seun for your edits and your comments - really appreciated. I have just want to address some of Seun's issues.
Seun, with regards to your comment about the last paragraph of Section 6 (about the onboarding/mentoring program?) Perhaps it was Section 7? which suggests that Fellows mentors/coaches should have additional training on ICANN's mission and bylaws and a deeper dive into what the SO/ACs so? Coaching should be a little more than "onboarding"... and the training could be a new course on ICANN Learn.
Questions 8&9 - made some deletions of text to help here.
Question 10 - i have to disagree. When I was a first time Fellow (2010) there were 20 of us and I still see a lot of those Fellows still engaged in different constituencies in ICANN.. There was a lot more interaction and discussion across the group and we got to know everyone and perhaps a lot more about a lot of things happening within the system. How does that effectively happen with 60 people? and if you are talking policy, does everyone really get a chance to contribute? Not the best situation for newbies coming into an unknown system and having to compete for attention? I would opt for a smaller group with quality programming input.
Question 11 - although more succinctly stated, I think that what you want to say has been said, except for the funding implication about the numbers attending. Currently that is the issue.
Question 18 - Telling it like it is. We can count the Fellows on the ALAC at the moment on one hand - among the 100s that have been through? relatively tiny!
Glenn McKnight
As a whole the document works well and thanks to the penholders for being proactive in writing up the summary. I noticed that it's a bit critical of the lack of outreach to the Fellows during the meetings. My experience and I can`t speak for others is that we have made lots of efforts to outreach in advance of an ICANN meeting through the gatekeepers. An example is our NASIG in San Juan, we made lots of efforts to the NETGEN and the Fellows to attend the school and we provided free accommodation. very few attended. We also through the O and E and the TTF we made direct efforts with an invitational mailcard, personal invitations at the Fellows cocktails and regular visits to their room and the ICANN booth. Generally we encountered a wall of indifference and lack of cooperation to encourage them to participate. Perhaps its protectionism or something but the program treats the fellows as they are high school students rather than professionals. Another example of engagement is what NARALO did prior to their GA in New Orleans. We had mandatory Webinars about ARIN the North American RIR so they were informed. A few were angry on this idea but the majority understood the value and were cooperative. In short. the program has to be rethought with identifying where the members come from and where will they go.
Satish Babu
Thanks to Paul, Maureen, et al., for a well-drafted response. Apologies for my late inputs...here are a few thoughts.
Q 2:
"..generating workers actively engaging in regular At-Large activities." Would "volunteers" be a better word than "workers"?
I feel that Para #2 somewhat over-emphasizes the lack of communication facilities as a reason for non-participation. The question could be raised as to how they could participate effectively in the Fellowship program over these same communication channels. A bit of toning down may be good to make it realistic. Of course, if we had separate metrics for participation for the Fellow himself/herself and participation from his/her home community, this point can be resolved conclusively.
Q 4:
This is an excellent point. If we were to have a stream of "sponsored" Fellows from the existing At-Large community (with some length of association), they would be able to leverage the Fellowship opportunity much better than someone picked out from a bunch of applications. Perhaps we need to state this more assertively.
Q 6:
This is to be read together with Q #4. I would suggest that ALAC/RALO leaders should share, at least to some extent, the burden of screening/selection of Fellows, which must in turn be based on guidelines/good practices produced by ALAC for this purpose.
Q 12:
I'd suggest that prospective Fellows have to undergo one or more ICANN Learn courses and pass an online test before their application for Fellowship is accepted. Not sure if this is too hard!
Finally, one of the difficulties in assessing the Fellowship program is that we have no other reference group (for instance, the people who come into ICANN directly, not through the Fellowship route). If we had such a reference group, one could compare the retention between the two groups, and then do a cost-benefit analysis. Maybe a later study can do this.
Maureen Hilyard
Thanks for these suggestions Satish - great additions to the mix.
Only disagreement is replacing "volunteers" for "workers" - we have hundreds of "volunteers", but its the actual "workers" we need!
BTW - who is Paul cos I haven't seen his comments ??
Maureen Hilyard
Thanks everyone.. got some work to do.. will try to incorporate as much as I can without repeating ourselves..
Susannah Gray
Apologies for the late response - a couple of comments:
Q1. As someone else noted on the call, can we use alumni instead of graduates.
Q4. The Fellowship programme needs to be split into two streams: one for those people completely new to ICANN and one for those who are already participating in SO/ACs. The current programme is too complex and confusing for new community members and too broad and repetitive for those already participating in ICANN (see Q10).
Q5. To improve our outreach, we could suggest that former At-Large fellows form a working group or outreach group to provide resources for new/returning fellows
Q7: "... and they need to join a policy group and actively participate - not just sit on the Adobe Connect and not say a word, and communicate more than just social media entries." Much of the advice given to newcomers is 'sit and observe until you have enough background knowledge to participate' so I don't think this is a particularly useful comment to make: it takes quite some time to understand the protocol and intricacies of participation.
Q10: Agree on reducing the number of fellows: a smaller group will allow better tailoring in line with my notes on Q4.
Q19: While getting underserved and underrepresented communities/regions participating is of utmost priority, I believe the programme should not restrict participation based on geographical location. This was an issue in the past for those in NA which I believe has now been solved.
Maureen Hilyard
Thank you Susannah, Some great suggestions here that are in line with what others have said.
Q1 - I left the "graduates" but changed the second reference to alumni. The graduates was a specific reference to how they could be viewed following their Program especially for those who have attended several Fellowships. Several fellows have attended 5or 6 times with one who has been on 8 Fellowships. Most unusual.
Q4 This suggestion got quite a bit of support from others.
Q5 I like this suggestion
Q7 I have deleted this statement because it referred to a specific event
Q19 I have included this into the additional comments section as I think it is very relevant.
Abdulkarim Ayopo Oloyede
Hi Maureen,
I have alot of comments on what you are proposing but i don't know how we can go about this cos I believe you are already integrating some other comments.
Let me try one question after the other
2. I also disagree with your response in question 2. Starting with "although " that word cannot start a sentence and it giving the response a negative meaning. .....I have lots of comments which i believe a lot of people would agree with. can we work together on this document? I mean editing because it would be difficult for you to incorporate all these comments
Maureen Hilyard
Thank you Abdulkarim, while we do occasionally refer to other SO/ACs, our responses are specifically from the perspective of At-Large and we are running out of time to get these comments in.
Alan Greenberg
Abdelkarim,
Regarding your point 1, Maureen does address that in her answer to Q 2. However, in our mind, that is not the reason we have the fellowship. In Q1, we address why we think we need the fellowship and it is THAT aspect that we need metrics.
for the work done later at the community level, it is not possible to measure and ICANN needs to decide if the high cost of bringi Fellows to meetings jis justified for that benefit (not saying it isn't, but it needs to be considered).
The answer to #2 IS deliberately somewhat negative because although the Fellowship has been effective in getting people interested or involved in ICANN and even At-Large, it has not resulted in many people active in ICANN's policy processes.
There is no opportunity for joint drafting at this point. You may submit whatever comments you have here for consideration.
Abdulkarim Ayopo Oloyede
Dear Alan,
The fellowship has helped alot of people get involved in ICANN's process. You need to talk to fellows. I can give examples.
Abdulkarim Ayopo Oloyede
Dear Maureen,
How do you think the success of the program can be measured, i mean short-term measurement?. This is because I think if it is difficult to answer this question then you might want to change some of the responses. I think "The value of the program could be assessed externally to test whether the basic outcomes of the program have been achieved" should be taking out of question 3.
Maureen Hilyard
That is our challenge. We have to be able to measure it because without any measures, ICANN can just say "well if it doesn't have any value then we won't fund it". I am not sure what was meant by externally and might remove it, but I think that having a team of SO/AC members evaluating it could be a way to go - except that I understand one SO wants the Fellowship Program shut down.
Daniel Khauka Nanghaka
It is great progress for the Fellowship program, I would to inquire about CROP is it aso being included as part of the fellowship or it is being whitewashed?
Alan Greenberg
CROP is completely separate from the Fellowship. As you know, it was not included in the Draft FY19 budget, but I am hopeful that this may change when the final budget it announced. We'll have to wait and see.