Introduction
In DebConf, we use some of the funds raised to cover some travel costs, accommodation and food to allow more Debianites to attend the conference. It's possible request one of this items or all of them, the bursaries team will analyse and provide what can be possible considering the budget avaliable.
The bursaries do not cover any other costs, like coffee at the airport or ride-sharing during the stay. It's important that someone who applies for a bursary also realises that it may take some while to get paid back via a trusted organisation.
Bursaries are applied for during the registration process in the web interface, this web interface is backed by Wafer, a free software conference management system. It's relevant provide all information necessary in the bursary application, it will help bursaries team during the bursaries process review.
There are a few different types of bursary available for DebConf, funded from different budgets: * Debian funded bursaries are available to active Debian contributors. * Debian diversity bursaries are available to newcomers to Debian/DebConf. Especially from under-represented communities.
Team membership in bursaries team
3 types of users exists in Wafer:
Regular Users: These are people who have registered on the site, who may have requested a bursary.
Bursary Referees: These are people who can rank regular users based on our criteria.
Bursary Admins: These are the admins who assign users to referees, and ultimately grant the bursaries.
Here is a table that lays out the permissions:
Permission |
Regular Users |
Bursary Referees |
Bursary Admins |
Request a bursary |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
Edit own request |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
Accept own bursary |
✓ |
✓ |
✓ |
Assign referees to a request |
|
|
✓ |
Score a request |
|
✓ |
✓ |
Access bursary CSV Exports |
|
|
✓ |
Grant bursaries |
|
|
✓ |
Source: https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-team/public/websites/dc19/issues/24
Walk through in wafer
DebConf bursaries alias
To manage bursaries@debconf.org
DebConf bursaries step-by-step guide
In this guide you will find information about DebConf bursaries process and what happen in each stage. In general terms, the bursaries process can be separate in 2 parts: First part before DebConf and the second part after DebConf. This process will be explain bellow.
First Part
Defining person who will coordinate DC bursaries process
It's necessary define a person to coordinate bursaries process. In general is recommended to be a person who already did this kind of task before and know about DebConf tasks and how to deal with it. This person will be responsible for prepare a bursary schedule, help the other bursaries team members and set a bursaries budget for current DebConf edition.
Defining deadline for applications
It's preferable defining about 5/6 months before DebConf date a deadline to bursaries application. It's important schedule the deadline considering that people will need time to arrange travel details as get visa or vaccination.
Opening call for bursaries team volunteers
It's necessary a team to review the applications, there's no an exact number of people. There's no problem if you are a newbie. It's necessary send an e-mail to the DebConf list asking about who will participate. It's a plus if a member of local team can participate of this process. This people will help the coordinator reviewing bursaries application.
Start analysis application
Bursaries team will be responsible to analyse the applications and scored them basead on some criterias. It's necessary that the team will be aware about these criterias as diversity bursaries would especially like to hear from:
- Women (cis, trans, queer), non-binary and genderqueer individuals, and transmen
- Residents from African countries, countries outside of Australia, North America, and Western Europe, and people from racial/ethnic minorities in their country of residence
- Individuals over the age of 35
- LGBTQ+
Usually bursaries will cover long distance transportation costs, if there is an specific case to cover another costs as Visa fee the bursaries coordinator can define specific rules for each DebConf.
Review applications
It's important that each member of bursaries team add observation as much as possible in each review to provide information that can help the other members to analyse the application. It's important to check if the person has some issue related to Debian or DebConf Code of Conduct, the Anti-harassment team can inform if there is some incident.
Publish bursaries result
After the review application, the coordination will work on the ranking, reviewing each aplication and ask the team in case of questions about specific review point. If will be necessary the coordination can request more budget, will be necessary to contact DebConf local team and DebConf commitee to know if it is possible or not.
Deadline for acceptance bursaries confirmation
Is necessary set a deadline for people confirm the bursary acceptance. It will help to manage budget, from who withdrew to other person who not received bursary in the first or second round.
Second Part
The process that happened after DebConf will be described bellow.
Send the list of people who had bursaries approved
After the end of DebConf, the bursaries coordinator will send the list of people who had bursaries approved to the financial institution responsible for bursaries reimbursement.
Receiving the reimbursement request
The reimbursement team will chek chek if the person received bursary and attended DebConf and will provide the reimbursement. If they need more information, they will send a message to the DebConf bursaries e-mail list. The attendees are responsible for provide all the information for reimbursement, as receipt and bank account details. The reimbursement tasks can be done by a trusted organisation, nowadays it has been doing by SPI. If you're looking for information on how claim your bursary, see: https://wiki.debian.org/Teams/DPL/Reimbursement for more information.
Checking person information and receipts
It's necessary that all receipt be according to the bursary rules with the bursary conditions, if they will not, will not be possible do the reimbursement. So, is important that DebConf website has all the basic information about reimbursement to attendees.
Contact people who attend DebConf and didn't request reimbursement
An important taks is check if a person attended DebConf and didn't request reimbursement, sometimes this person will not claim it.
Close financial tasks
In the end of reimbursement process, will send an e-mail to DebConf bursaries list confirming that task endeed.
General information
DebConf team can define a budget for bursaries, the bursaries admin can help to provide information about the bursaries budget in last DebConf.
In specific cases, some Debian teams that will do indispensable work at DebConf, can request as specific budget or apply for bursaries regularly.
TODO
Add:
- What about videoteam?
- What about next year's team?
- What about payments on-site?
Scripts on https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-bursaries-team/bursaries
https://debconf19.debconf.org/bursary/admin/export/referees > data/evaluations.csv
https://debconf19.debconf.org/bursary/admin/export/requests > data/bursaries.csv
- apt install python3 graphviz
- git clean -f
- make output/contrib_travel_rank.pdf
- make output/outreach_travel_rank.pdf
- To get output to import back into wafer:
- make output/accepted_travel_wafer.csv
- make output/accepted_food_wafer.csv
- note from dlange:
15:13 < DLange> o.k., just to sum up for next year: please 1) review earlier, 2) don't base on dates, 3) incorporate local transport cost and 4) be fair as in get people that fly from $place all the same grant *if* you need then it's only fair that they get the same level of adjustment
https://salsa.debian.org/debconf-team/public/websites/wafer-debconf/blob/master/bursary/models.py