Empowering Italian GLAMs/Midterm learning report

Basic information

Name of Organization	Wikimedia Italia
Name of Individual or Primary Contact	Iolanda Pensa
Grant Application Type	General Support Fund
Title of Proposal	Empowering Italian GLAMs
Objectives of Proposal	The project is structured into three workpackages, designed to implement the strategy with a series of activities: Workpackage 1 - Reaching 3000 museums; Workpackage 2 - Triggering 500 museums; Workpackage 3 - Focusing on 5 museums. Among the main activities implemented by the project there are improving Wikidata, producing a survey and form, producing an awareness campaign designed to reach 3000 institutions, engaging 500 institutions, focusing on 5 case studies, uploading and monitoring content, documenting and evaluating the activities and disseminating the results. (Please refer to the attachment "Activities" for a detailed presentation of the activities, their link to the strategy and their expected outcome; the table is also available on https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Empowering_Italian_GLAMs. Please refer to the budget for the detailed list of activities and who will implement them and with how many working days).

Part 1: Understanding your work

1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?

√ An awareness raising campaign among Italian GLAMs. The project is indeed contacting all Italian museums through a communication campaign, press communicates and media relations at a national and local level, conferences webinars and monthly meetings, networking with stakeholders, emails (mass mailing managed with Wikimedia Italia’s CRM system, CiviCRM with reports on https://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Empowering_Italian_GLAMs/Invii_email_ai_musei) and direct and personal contact.

√ Having a system to monitor the implementation of open access by the Italian museums. https://www.adert.it/musei/report.php, https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Musei/Liste

√ We created a tool to collect data from institutions, to upload documents associated to cultural institutions and to allow them to review Wikidata data. The tool is designed also for possible future translations. https://glams.wmcloud.org/

Changes:

• It is unlikely that we will have 500 institutions releasing collections by February 2024. We are planning to double the number of case studies and to reduce that expected result.

Observations:

• The dataset of all Italian museums edited and improved within this project is a very significant result: we did not expect it to be so significant and useful. It can support the work of Wikimedia communities, the work of ICOM Italia and research. We uploaded data from "Surveys of Museums and Similar Institutions" (collected in 2011, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) made by ISTAT (the Italian National Institute of Statistics), information related to wikiGLAM initiatives and we manually checked them in collaboration with ICOM Italia.

• We furthermore created a system to contact all Italian museums. This experience can be replicated in other countries or continents (it has been tested on almost 4'000 institutions).

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To address the “Workpackage 1 - Reaching 3000 museums” we started with data from "Surveys of Museums and Similar Institutions" (collected in 2011, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020) made by ISTAT (the Italian National Institute of Statistics). This activity was used to derive data from museums to update Wikidata, including new items/statements: almost all Italian institutions were associated with a Wikidata ID and were updated. The outcome of this phase is available at https://www.adert.it/musei/report.php, in which the results are presented by region and with the percentage of institutions associated with Wikidata. Lists of these museums are also available on the Italian Wikipedia: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Musei/Liste

The project team created databases with all individual institution contacts for each Italian region. These databases were uploaded to the Wikimedia Italia’s CRM system, CiviCRM, for the purpose of contacting and inviting all institutions to join the project. Mass mailing was planned taking into consideration the geographical distribution (north, south, center) and the number of institutions in the regions. Invitations and open rate can be monitored at https://wiki.wikimedia.it/wiki/Empowering_Italian_GLAMs/Invii_email_ai_musei.

Institutions can join the project via a online form: https://glams.wmcloud.org/. The form is an upload interface made by Wikimedia Italia to allow museums to easily share their content with Wikimedia projects. Also, to investigate the attitudes and needs of institutions, a survey on open access was constructed (https://survey.wikimedia.it/index.php/324835).

To test the procedure and improve it, some pilot cases were selected to help the developers and the team initiate a strategy for the campaign. Various tools were used to communicate the initiative, with the aim of making it as effective as possible. To present the campaign, an event was organized on Feb. 16, 2023 by ICOM Italy (https://www.icom-italia.org/giovedi-di-icom-italia-i-musei-e-il-mondo-wikimedia/). To improve the communication of the campaign, each mass mailing to institutions by region is preceded by a press release addressed to the local media. In addition to these communication tools, there are articles, interviews, etc. dedicated to the project and open access (e.g. repubblica.it; agenziacult.it). Finally, with the aim of improving direct communication with institutions, it was planned to dedicate a monthly Q&A meeting with institutions (calendar available here: Empowering_Italian_GLAMs/Calendario).

The monitoring phase of the institutions participating in the campaign is an essential activity for the “Workpackage 2 - Triggering 500 museums”. Monitoring is done through access to the backend (of both the form and the OA survey) that allows tracking of responses. This is supplemented by saving within the cloud the submitted images, open access policies and participation document, both signed by the institution. Institutions that decide to join are supported by a team including the competences of Wikimedia Italia (staff and trainers), Creative Commons (legal support), ICOM Italia (FAQ and communication with the museums) and researchers from University of Turin. To prepare for the “Workpackage 3 - Focusing on 5 museums”, the research team is drafting a qualitative and quantitative analysis strategy (Empowering Italian GLAMs/Criteria for assessment and evaluation) to draw up a Data Management Plan for each case study and to identify metrics that can measure accessibility. This will be preceded by a qualitative analysis, semistructured interviews. The number of case studies initially proposed will double and we will have about 10 case studies. That's because museums want to deepen their collaboration with Wikimedia. Case studies are selected by geographic, management, and typological differentiation.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?

One of the most efficient strategies to involve museums and to disseminate open access was the organization of a regional event/workshop to present the project and to increase awareness. The first of these was organized on March 28 by ICOM with the collaboration of Wikimedia Italia, Creative Commons Italia, Department of Economics and Statistics (project's partners) and Lombardy Region. The video made available online allows all interested institutions to find information (https://www.icom-italia.org/webinar-tutti-i-musei-italiani-su-wikipedia-28-marzo/) In fact, 26% of the institutions that joined the campaign are from Lombardy. This successful strategy will be replicated by holding an event in Piedmont (on 29 may 2023) as well.

3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?

One of the most troubling obstacles has been the rate at which institutions open massive emails. From the first mailings by regions, a low email open rate was noted, which highlighted some weaknesses in the communication strategy. The project team immediately sought solutions to address these issues and improve its strategy. In particular, the following solutions were considered:

• revise the text of the email sent;
• organizing more events with the aim of devoting time to listening to the curiosities, perplexities and problems encountered by institutions.

Another challenge arises from the current policy adopted by the Italian Ministry of Culture, which provides a closure that makes open access and its implementation difficult for Italian public institutions.

4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work

Within the project we collaborate with cultural institutions and the Wikimedia communities.

Museum employees and institution referents are at the centre of our communication campaign and they can participate in workshops, monthly events, and most importantly they can train through MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), which are made freely available and aim to train on how to contribute to Wikimedia. They were made in collaboration with University of Padova and are available on eduopen.org.

The Wikimedia communities have been involved through the museum campaign already planned in May with a site-notice devoted to it. We also collaborate with Wikimedia Italia regional coordinators (volunteers) and we invite the communities to attend events and training.

5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups

Our efforts are helping cultural institutions open up their content by having support in policy change, including through creating a network for institutions. The biggest effort to engage participants and build the content was the sharing of a MOOC completely aimed at cultural heritage organizations (https://learn.eduopen.org/eduopenv2/course_details.php?courseid=531) and anyone who wants to learn how to use the different Wikimedia projects for cultural heritage and contribute to GLAM projects.

This is complemented by events and editathons with the aim of encouraging writing about cultural institutions, such as the writing week (May 15-21 - it:Wikipedia:Writing week/Musei italiani e non solo) and events (May 15 - it:Wikipedia:Raduni/Editathon alla Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense con Archivio Ricordi) on Italian museums, on the occasion of International Museum Day (May 18).

Our approach is designed for all museums, regardless of their size, location, staff and focus; the complete dataset and the support provided to all institutions is meant to create an entry point for anyone (not only major institutions).

6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?

So far we learned that:

• Yes: we reach the vast majority of Italian museums. It is not an easy job considering that we have over 4000 museums but it is possible.
• It is early to say if anything changed after we contacted them, but certainly we are testing a new approach and this communication campaign is allowing many institutions to hear about open access and starting understanding what is about
• The museums in Italy which have already contributing to the Wikimedia projects are 63 (the data is on Wikidata now). Over 900 cultural institutions have been contributing to Wiki Loves Monuments and provided an authorisation to take photos of their buildings and collections (which is already a step toward open access)
• We now have a system to monitor the institutions that have digital collections: it can be tracked with Property P2283 with value Q212805 based by the data of the Italian national statistics we uploaded on Wikidata. The result of the query can be accessed at https://w.wiki/6kdB
• With a dataset and the use of CiviCRM we can indeed differentiate our proposals to institutions. At the moment for example we send email by region and we accompany the work with press communicates to local media.

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https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Empowering_Italian_GLAMs#Strategy_and_Approach

Workpackage 1

With this project we’ll reach the vast majority of Italian museums. Thanks to the work mentioned in answer No. 1, it was possible to reach most of the Italian museums because we collected the contacts of most of them.

Currently many institutions are contributing to wikimedia projects. In particular:

• 1062 cultural institutions are contributing through Wiki Loves Monuments (including 156 in the latest edition with the Italian Institute of Castles)
• 63 through different GLAM projects: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:GLAM/Progetti
• 21 through the Museums, Archives and Libraries (MAB in Italian) call (2021,2022,2023)
• 44 Museums that have joined the campaign 44 through the form and 135 from museum networks that have joined the campaign.

From the work of ISTAT data we found out the number of institutions that have the digital collection, this can be tracked with Property P2283 with value Q212805. The result of the query can be accessed at https://w.wiki/6kdB.

Workpackage 2

At the moment the motivations of institution that decided to join are dissemination of content and knowledge for reasons of enhancement, while as obstacles the policy imposed by the Ministry of Culture.

These issues will be analyzed in detail in the second part of the project through the analysis of responses from the Open Access Survey, mentioned earlier, and from the semi-structured interview that will be submitted to the case studies.

Workpackage 3

The open access model is currently difficult to apply to Italian institutions, especially to the collections. This is due to the policy adopted by the Ministry of Culture, which is in fact based on the proprietary image licensing model. Therefore, the second phase of the project aims to ask institutions for other types of content that can increase knowledge in Wikimedia projects.

For the different type of contents, we are working on creating a DMP template that suites institutions, this will be tested and improved in the second phase of the project through its applicability to the identified case studies.

7. What are the next steps and opportunities you'll be focusing on for the second half of your work?

Next steps:

• Continue to improve the communication strategy and track issues that can arise
• Make a recall for all museums
• Increase direct and personal contacts with museums
• Involve regions in organising events and in the communication
• Working with the museums and accompany them
• Produce the case studies

Part 2: Metrics

8a. View summary of main open and additional metrics data

Main Open Metrics (1) - Institutions contacted

Number of institutions monitored on Wikidata and contacted to involve them in a Wikipedia communication campaign to collect open content for Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects.

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
3000	About 6810	Many emails are inactive or have changed domain, this value will be more accurate in the second phase	Data retrieved from ISTAT surveys, and where possible, email addresses retrieved from other sources were enriched

Main Open Metrics (2) - Institutions reached

Number of institutions which reply to us with a positive or negative answer. We collect also attitudes, motivations and needs

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
900	47	No of institutions joined the campaign, of which 5 decided not to join (updated to May 25). Email opening around 30%.	Through the online form
	135	No. of Museums network that joined project without procedure	Through email
	16	No. museums that have decided to join but need to start the form	Via email
	2066	No. of institutions that received the email. many museums have the same email and emails are bounded by CRM, we will proceed to contact museums by groups (25 May → regions: Molise, Sardinia, Aosta Valley, Lombardy, Piedmont, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Emilia-Romagna, Abruzzo, Apulia, Trntino-South Tyrol)	email sent from CRM

Main Open Metrics (3) - Institutions involved

Number of institutions which provides us with content

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
500	1190	Number of museums involved in different extends in Open Access	Through Wiki Loves Monuments, Empowering Italian GLAMs, MAB call (Museums, Archives and Libraries - MAB in Italian) and other GLAM project

Main Open Metrics (4) - People contacted collaborating with institutions

Number of people contacted working with institutions

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
1000	2082		Contact with at least one referent for each Museum or referent that sent us emails

Main Open Metrics (5) - People involved

Number of people involved indirectly in the Wikimedia projects, by producing content with open licenses and tools

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
600	47	People involved in releasing content with open licenses and tools	Data not collected yet

Organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
100			Data not collected yet

8b. View summary of additional core metrics data

Participants

Number of people involved indirectly in the Wikimedia projects, by producing content with open licenses and tools. We measure their involvement through our form and survey

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
600	47	People involved in releasing content with open licenses and tools

Editors

Please note that the project triggers indirect contribution to the Wikimedia projects (see above). We envision the participation of 15 volunteers

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
15	14	Writing week’s Participants
	15	Editathon at the Braidense National Library with Archivio Ricordi
	29

Organizers

Please refer to the project team. We also plan to involve other 15 volunteers (not counted in this target)

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
13	10	Dario Crespi, Sarah Orlandi, Cristina Dal Min, Alice Fontana, Marco Chemello, Alessia Minella, Federico Benvenuti, Guido Baratta, Deborah De Angelis, Daniele Scasciafratte
	2	General staff of Wikimedia Italia engaged in the project: Alice Montrasio (administration) and Paolo Casagrande (communication)
	2	In-kind contribution of University of Torino Enrico Bertacchini (senior researcher)
	17	Wikimedia Italia Regional Coordinator
	3	Other volunteers: Susanna Giaccai, Patafisik, Elena Marangoni
	1	Project lead volunteer Iolanda Pensa
	35

Content contributions to Wikimedia Project (1) - Wikidata

Curated item on Wikidata for all Italian museums and heritage institution with upload of statistical and research data related to the collections, the propriety, the digitalisation process, open access policy... We can monitor the list of curated item with a code but Wikidata doesn't allows us to report details on changes (this is real obstacle for producing relevant metrics)

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
3000	6810	No. Of institution’s data from ISTAT
	6522	No. of institution with a category on Commons (https://w.wiki/6kdQ)

Content contributions to Wikimedia Project (2) - Wikimedia Commons

Images provided by the institutions involved and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
12000	40664	Sum of images received by form (N=77), images from Museo Egizio (N=2383); images from Musei Civici Reggio Emilia (N=309); images from Museo Civico Modena, (N=408), images from....... (to be completed with other case studies and new adhesions) WLM (N=37487)

Content contributions to Wikimedia Project (3) - Wikipedia

We expect articles on Wikipedia in Italian to be improved with data, content and images produced by the projects. We monitor this data. We expect that 20% of the articles related to institutions involved in the project will be improved

Target	Results	Comments	Methodology
100	35 articles created		Museum Writing week
	19 expanded or improved articles		Museum Writing week
	15 articles created or modified		Editathon at the Braidense National Library with Archivio Ricordi
	69

9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?

Many emails are incorrect and need to be corrected: this makes measuring the institutions contacted difficult and is still an ongoing process. We can monitor the list of curated item with a code but Wikidata doesn't allows us to report details on changes (this is real obstacle for producing relevant metrics).

10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

Yes, the project involves the volunteer communities and regional liaisons. For example, during the Piedmont region event, the regional coordinator is involved in the presentation of the Wiki Loves Piedmont. We also planned to share our experience during Wikimedia Europe and Wikimania Singapore.

11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact

Please find on meta the detailed report of all the activities in Italian https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Empowering_Italian_GLAMs/Relazione and the documentation about the case studies in English (under construction).

Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance

12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency

EUR 45.190 of the Wikimedia Foundation funding (plus EUR 45.550 supported by Wikimedia Italia and in-kind)

14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund

We recommend you use the template provided or do this based on any other format you used to present your initial budget. Please either upload your financial report file, or provide a link to it. If you use Google Sheets please remember to provide the link and share access with us.

15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?

No

16. We'd love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far

Thank you very much for the support in preparing the project and the availability to meet and discuss if needed. We are looking forward to the conversation and we will ask some help to better connect the project to the WMF international network.