If a fellowship starts in Feb but ends in April, does that count toward Q1 data or Q2 data?
Regarding the number of participants for fellowships, I’m not sure how that data is collected, but maybe Marie Buhl reached out directly privately to fellowship organizers to collect this data. Anyway, there’s a good chance that data for EA Philippines’s chapters aren’t accurately included in Q1 data.
For example, 2 of our student chapters in EA Philippines, EA UP Diliman and EA Blue, are both running intro fellowships since Feb and March respectively. They have a combined 67 participants (36 and 31 respectively), though a few have already dropped out or are not set to graduate. I assume both universities are non-focus universities. So if our participant data is part of your Q1 data set, then that means 29% of fellows (67/230) from non-focus universities are from our universities. I think that’s too high, so my assumption would be most or all of their fellows are not yet in the data set.
Related to #2, I think it would be useful to have a public Google Sheet with rows for which groups are running fellowships, and columns for what country and university they’re from, when they’ve started, when they will end, how many participants, and how many graduates (if data exists on that already). I assume most fellowship organizers would be okay with this data being public. I think having this public Google Sheet can let us easily know which groups are and aren’t on the list yet. I think it’s also good for others to know which universities/cities have fellowships—maybe they can recommend friends from those universities/cities to join those fellowships.
I think it would be good to include data for both participants and graduates. Would be interesting to know what the avg. drop-off rate is for these fellowships.
Also, a separate Google Sheet that lists which groups are going to run fellowships or reading groups in the next 1-3 months (and whether they accept people virtually or not) could also help people interested to know what fellowships or reading groups are coming up. But I think this is less important to do than the other things I suggested or mentioned above.
Great to hear about your enthusiasm for fellowships!
Q1 data—we count fellowships based on when they start
We collect data on this at the end of each fellowship, so the non-EAVP participant numbers in the report are guesses based on Marie’s conversations with group leaders. For groups Huw was not in touch with on a regular basis, Marie assumed an average of around 12 participants/group, so it’s possible that the number is higher based on EA Philippines numbers (although a number of fellowships are smaller than 12 participants).
Marie is planning to make a spreadsheet like this from next quarter and will post it on the EA Groups Slack.
We’re collecting data on both starting and finishing numbers of participants at the end of each fellowship.
Marie is planning to include future fellowships in the spreadsheet. Adding a tab for other reading groups seems like a good idea.
Feel free to reach out to Marie directly on the EA Groups slack if you’d like to discuss more
On #1 and 2: Got it! I guess CEA should be more cautious (i.e. by putting significant caveats or not reporting the data yet) then about reporting participant data for non-EA Virtual Programs participants, since you collect data at the end of fellowships, and the data are just guesses before then.
On #1 and #2: In our report in footnote 5 where we reported this data we said: “As some students leave fellowships before finishing, and fellowships are run independently through groups, our estimates of the number of fellowships in Q4 and participants across Q1 / Q4 are somewhat uncertain.”
I do think the benefits of reporting estimates are more valuable than only reporting precise information, but we do try to add additional detail about where the uncertainty comes from. I’ll keep this comment in mind when we do our Q2 report as well.
Yeah estimates are probably better than nothing. Maybe making the caveat/uncertainties about the data more easily seen, i.e. as asterisks beside some numbers on the fellowship data table, rather than as a footnote might help. But yeah it’s a minor thing!
On Fellowship Data:
If a fellowship starts in Feb but ends in April, does that count toward Q1 data or Q2 data?
Regarding the number of participants for fellowships, I’m not sure how that data is collected, but maybe Marie Buhl reached out directly privately to fellowship organizers to collect this data. Anyway, there’s a good chance that data for EA Philippines’s chapters aren’t accurately included in Q1 data.
For example, 2 of our student chapters in EA Philippines, EA UP Diliman and EA Blue, are both running intro fellowships since Feb and March respectively. They have a combined 67 participants (36 and 31 respectively), though a few have already dropped out or are not set to graduate. I assume both universities are non-focus universities. So if our participant data is part of your Q1 data set, then that means 29% of fellows (67/230) from non-focus universities are from our universities. I think that’s too high, so my assumption would be most or all of their fellows are not yet in the data set.
Related to #2, I think it would be useful to have a public Google Sheet with rows for which groups are running fellowships, and columns for what country and university they’re from, when they’ve started, when they will end, how many participants, and how many graduates (if data exists on that already). I assume most fellowship organizers would be okay with this data being public. I think having this public Google Sheet can let us easily know which groups are and aren’t on the list yet. I think it’s also good for others to know which universities/cities have fellowships—maybe they can recommend friends from those universities/cities to join those fellowships.
I think it would be good to include data for both participants and graduates. Would be interesting to know what the avg. drop-off rate is for these fellowships.
Also, a separate Google Sheet that lists which groups are going to run fellowships or reading groups in the next 1-3 months (and whether they accept people virtually or not) could also help people interested to know what fellowships or reading groups are coming up. But I think this is less important to do than the other things I suggested or mentioned above.
Hi Brian,
Great to hear about your enthusiasm for fellowships!
Q1 data—we count fellowships based on when they start
We collect data on this at the end of each fellowship, so the non-EAVP participant numbers in the report are guesses based on Marie’s conversations with group leaders. For groups Huw was not in touch with on a regular basis, Marie assumed an average of around 12 participants/group, so it’s possible that the number is higher based on EA Philippines numbers (although a number of fellowships are smaller than 12 participants).
Marie is planning to make a spreadsheet like this from next quarter and will post it on the EA Groups Slack.
We’re collecting data on both starting and finishing numbers of participants at the end of each fellowship.
Marie is planning to include future fellowships in the spreadsheet. Adding a tab for other reading groups seems like a good idea.
Feel free to reach out to Marie directly on the EA Groups slack if you’d like to discuss more
On #1 and 2: Got it! I guess CEA should be more cautious (i.e. by putting significant caveats or not reporting the data yet) then about reporting participant data for non-EA Virtual Programs participants, since you collect data at the end of fellowships, and the data are just guesses before then.
On #3-5: Great!
On #1 and #2: In our report in footnote 5 where we reported this data we said: “As some students leave fellowships before finishing, and fellowships are run independently through groups, our estimates of the number of fellowships in Q4 and participants across Q1 / Q4 are somewhat uncertain.”
I do think the benefits of reporting estimates are more valuable than only reporting precise information, but we do try to add additional detail about where the uncertainty comes from. I’ll keep this comment in mind when we do our Q2 report as well.
Yeah estimates are probably better than nothing. Maybe making the caveat/uncertainties about the data more easily seen, i.e. as asterisks beside some numbers on the fellowship data table, rather than as a footnote might help. But yeah it’s a minor thing!