Registration team
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Revision as of 08:49, 19 September 2013
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* On-line registration (see tool)
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* On-line registration (see tool).
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* Visa assistance. This is probably one of the most time-consuming and complicated thing to consider. As Wikimanias get larger, the number of countries represented also increases. The basic concept is that attendees from some countries may need a travel visa from your country's government in order to attend Wikimania, and while your government may have firm requirements such as sufficient home-country ties, an invitation letter can help your attendee. Writing these letters is a full-time job, and being able to turn them out in time is necessary so that attendees can apply for visas in time.
* on-site registration. All attendees will need badges and will need to be checked in.
* on-site registration. All attendees will need badges and will need to be checked in.
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* you will need adequate registration software, a list of information to collect from attendees, an established registration fee structure and payment collection method, and enough information about the conference so that people will want to sign up.
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* you will need adequate registration software, a list of information to collect from attendees, an established registration fee structure and payment collection method, and enough information about the conference so that people will want to sign up.
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* Past conference teams have used the [[w:Drupal|Drupal]] content management system with the "UberCart" extension, along with a few other extensions.
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* Whatever software backend you use must support the creation of custom registration forms (obviously), with the ability of registrants to revise those forms after they filled them out. You need to know all the information you need to collect in advance—this is important, since otherwise you may be missing important details from registrants. Your system should have a coupon code system that allows registrants to pay a reduced rate or nothing, especially for scholarship recipients. You need an online payment system like PayPal or a credit card merchant service, though some registrants may ultimately need to pay in cash in person due to issues with e-commerce in certain countries like Ukraine. Your registration form must be made available in many different languages, and you need a convenient way to export your data so that it can be incorporated onto name badges.
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* An important caveat: registering for the conference and registering on the conference registration system should be the same process. If you have website registration and conference registration as two separate processes, it confuses attendees into thinking they have registered for the conference when they have not. It makes data collection very frustrating, since you end up needing to reconcile two different sets of databases (the user database and the attendee database).
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* '''Badge information'''
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** First Name
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** Last Name
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** Project (featuring listing of wiki projects) and Project Language (if applicable—e.g., French Wikiquote)
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** Username
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** Optional: Affiliation
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** Optional: Preferred languages
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** Optional: Interests (this is an open-ended field meant more to facilitate conversation and is low-priority, given limited space available on badges)
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** Attendees should be able to '''specify whether or not they want certain information on their badge'''. For instance, some attendees may want to leave their last name off their badge, going only by their first name.
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* '''Non-badge information'''
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** Choice between discounted registration price or full registration price
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** Days attending (check box for each day)
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** Tracks (check box for each track—be sure to note that this is to help with assigning rooms and is not binding)
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** Gender (male/female/decline to state) (this is for statistical purposes and helps with ordering t-shirts)
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** T-shirt size
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** Dietary restrictions
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** Special accommodations needed (sign language interpreters, etc.). This should be an open-ended field.
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** Coupon code
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* '''Visa assistance''
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** Name as it appears on passport
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** Passport number
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** Passport expiration date
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** Issuing country
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** Date of birth
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** note the recipient's accomplishments and explain how their travel is being paid for (needed to write the invitation letters for scholarship recipients).
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* '''Accommodation''' (If attendees are signing up for hotel or dorm rooms through the conference and not directly through the hotel)
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** check-in and check-out dates
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** smoking or non-smoking room
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** bed needs.
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** If an attendee is bringing someone with them, they should make a note of that.
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** information on roommate preferences
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*** whereby people ask to be randomly paired with a roommate so that they can split the costs of a room
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***whether the roommate smoke
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***whether they need to be the same gender.
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***Registrants should also have the option to specifically name a roommate.
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* Those applying for scholarships should have the option of submitting a conditional registration, where they can submit information as though they were registering for Wikimania but not have it be finalized until they can confirm their attendance. As for the scholarship application process itself, the information you collect will depend on what the scholarship committee wishes to collect.
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* By integrating the program process with the registration conference, you may save yourself a lot of effort. You won't have to worry about whether speakers have registered for Wikimania, and you will have a simple, efficient way of finalizing each speaker. The first step is the original submission of the presentation, with a title, name of presenters, brief abstract, and more information if applicable. Then, as the program committee accepts presentations, presenters can use the form to confirm their attendance and provide more information if they have any.
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* Registration for press should be separate from regular attendee registration, since they register for free and different information is collected about them. You will need the following information for press credentials:
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* '''Press credential request'''
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** Organization
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** Contact name, address, phone number, and email address
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** Day attending
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** Type of media
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** Circulation
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** Media market
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** Editor's name
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** Special needs (i.e. room for interviews and editing videos)
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** Interview requests, if applicable
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* Sponsor registration is slightly different. If an attendee is registering as a representative of a sponsor
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* Sponsor registration
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**Office phone
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**Mobile phone
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**Company logo (optional),
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**A one hundred-word description (optional)
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**A yes/no field asking “Are you the main contact for this sponsor?”
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**A yes/no field asking “Are you the billing contact for this sponsor?”
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**A yes/no field asking “Are you attending this conference?”
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* For validation, add a sponsor code field. Sponsor registration is free. If a registrant is not attending the conference, add them to a separate list from the other registrants. There are two different types of sponsor codes: regular sponsor codes and guest sponsor codes. Regular sponsors get a “Sponsor” ribbon, while sponsor guests do not.
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* Groups, such as Wikimedia chapters, will want to register attendees in bulk for their scholarship awardees or staff members. Coupons can provide free/discounted registration, free/discounted hotel stay, or it can provide both. Groups will be billed based on use.
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* '''Groups'''
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** Name of group (e.g., Wikimedia Hong Kong)
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** Name of group contact
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** Group contact email address
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** Group contact title (e.g. Treasurer, Travel Coordinator, etc.)
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** Billing name
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** Billing address
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** Billing email address
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** Number of codes requested of each:
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** Registration discount only (and amount discounted)
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** Hotel discount only (and amount per night discounted)
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** Both registration and hotel discount (and amounts discounted)
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** Additional requests
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* The idea of specifying the amount discounted is that it allows the coupon code user to either stay at a cheap dorm for free or stay at a more expensive hotel for a subsidized cost.
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* This form generates the coupon codes, but before they go live, someone from the Wikimania team needs to email the named contact person to make sure the order is authorized. This is to ensure that the group intended on taking on the potential cost. Common sense should be exercised. Once the person from the Wikimania team approves the request, the codes should be emailed to the contact person who will distribute the codes as necessary.
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* As coupon codes are used, their use and the amount discounted should be recorded in a central database. This will ultimately yield an invoice to be payable by the group.
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* Additionally, the Wikimania team can use this feature to generate coupon codes for its own uses (for example, for free registration codes for sponsors).
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; Challenges
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The problem with[[w:Drupal|Drupal]] content management system with the "UberCart" extension, along with a few other extensions is that while it is highly customizable free software, the code is very unreliable. The number of things that needed to be resolved with the code (some of which were never fully resolved) took up a lot of time and caused a delay in beginning registration. Future conferences should implement more robust software, or better yet, use a third-party service like [http://eventbrite.com EventBrite] that simply works without any need for configuration. Of course, the downside with third-party registration is that you must trust the third party provider with other people's data, which, while it is not a substantial risk with a good company, may still concern some people.
=== Press team ===
=== Press team ===