Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round1/Wikimedia Serbia/Progress report form

Purpose of the report edit

This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their progress after completing the first 6 months of their grants. The time period covered in this form will be the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Global metrics overview - all programs edit

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees' programs. Please use the table below to let us know how your programs contributed to the Global Metrics. We understand not all Global Metrics will be relevant for all programs, so feel free to put "0" where necessary. For each program include the following table and

  1. Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
  3. In addition to the Global Metrics as measures of success for your programs, there is another table format in which you may report on any OTHER relevant measures of your programs success

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Education program edit

Education program has the longest tradition in WMRS. The cooperation activities with faculties and schools regarding promotion and editing of Wikipedia began in 2005. Over time, the activities have been defined and consolidated into concrete projects (Wiki Gymnasium, Wiki Student), the program modified, adjusted to the conditions of certain institutions, and gained official framework and norms. However, the education program has more potential to grow and leaves a constant space for learning, specialization, and progress. Every year we strive to enrich the program with new institutions, as well as bring innovations in the current line of work. We try to overcome the obstacles and shortages that have been spotted.

This year, for the first time in its existence, Wikimedia Serbia has hired a person responsible solely for the education program, so the expectations are high. Education program has been set as a priority of Wikimedia Serbia for 2015. This program has the objective to educate pupils and students, as well as their teachers and professors, how to edit Wikipedia in an academic environment through diverse projects. Education program includes the following projects, along with their specific objectives:

  • Wikipedia In Schools: The members and employees of Wikimedia Serbia have been conducting workshops and training within projects for all types of educational institutions: elementary schools, high schools, and faculties. The goal is for the projects of Wikimedia Serbia to be used in educational purposes, as a free platform that can be used in different ways. It most likely entails editing Wikipedia (seminal papers). However, the pupils/students are being presented with other Wikimedia projects during their trainings, which they can also contribute to.

The expected outcome of the 2015 project depends on the number and size of the institutions we would cooperate with. The goal is to establish cooperation with at least 15 institutions, where at least 500 articles would be written or edited by the end of the year.

  • Seminars and Training: this program entails a teacher/professor training for working on Wikipedia, so they could later edit Wikipedia or train their pupils/students on their own.

Seminars and training are directly correlated with the educational institutions that we cooperate with through the Wikipedia In Schools project. Over the course of the year, we expect a cooperation with professors and teachers from a minimum of 10 institutions.

  • Professional Development: The aim of this project is inclusion of seminars and training in the system of professional development of teachers through participation in mandatory seminars and courses. Unlike the “Seminars and Training” project, that is not compulsory and is carried out as a type of cooperation with educational institutions, “Professional Development” is a project where teachers and professors from all over Serbia participate in a seminar within a mandatory professional development fund. During the professional development seminar, the participants learn about Wikimedia, the online resources for education benefit, and editing Wikipedia.

Seeing as our accreditation is valid from this school year, we will consider this project successful if we conduct at least 3 seminars with minimum 25 (maximum 30) participants.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 345 A large number of users involved in the education program is comprised of new editors. We got this number from metrics, but we believe that a big portion of them are the “new active editors”, because only the input length (a few months) has allowed them to be counted as active editors.
2. # of new editors 100 A number obtained by metrics. Practice shows the number is far greater.
3. # of individuals involved 717 This is the number of editors who wrote articles within the program. Approximately 1050 pupils/students have attended the training.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 369 Most of the photos were uploaded with a goal to illustrate articles they had been working on.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 1423 1368 articles have been written and 55 improved.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 8326780 A far greater input (7839710) belongs to the Wiki-student project. The number of negative bytes in high schools students is very little (5899).


Wiki school - our school edit

The main objective of the program is enhancing digital competence of teachers and students through training to use and create resources within the Wikimedia project.

  • Specific objectives of the project are:
    • contribution to the development of free knowledge by increasing the knowledge base in the resources within the Wikimedia project;
    • developing collaborative, partner relationships of students and teachers by enhancing communication in direct contact and online environment;
    • networking the teachers, students, and schools of Pomoravlje, Resava, and Levča through cooperation and communication by the means of ICT;
    • developing awareness of elementary school teachers about the need for foreign specialization of personal and professional competences and life studies.
  • Measures of success:
    • 50 teachers are familiar with the concept of Wikimedia and trained in joining the work on Wikimedia projects on the professional training seminar;
    • at least 10 teachers and 20 students are actively involved in the work on Wikimedia projects;
    • at least 10 schools from the Pomoravlje, Resava, and Levča territory have been presented within Wikimedia projects;
    • at least 50% of the members of the Teachers’ Association Jagodina are familiar with the results of the projects presented at the final meeting;
    • at least 300 photographs uploaded on Wikimedia Commons (school buildings, cultural-historical monuments, and other landmarks of Pomoravlje, Resava, and Levča);
    • at least 10 Wikipedia articles written or improved.
Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 1
2. # of new editors 0 It is planned that new editors become active after trainings/workshops /seminars and to be able to coordinate school teams.
3. # of individuals involved 27 15 teachers (school coordinators) from 12 schools from the territory of Jagodina, Svilajnac, Rekovac, Despotovac and Kragujevac. School teams have been formed in May. Work on the implementation of the planned activities will begin in September, with the beginning of the new school year, after the trainings of the teachers.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 7 From 16 uploaded photos within Wiki Loves Earth competition (category: Брзанско Моравиште), 7 were used on Wiki pages.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 0 Implementation of the planned activities (articles about schools) will start in September, with the beginning of the school year, following the teacher training.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 7121


After signing the contract and removing all doubts about realization of the project with the representatives of Wikimedia Serbia, the following activities have been conducted:

  • The action plan of realization of the project was revised, and then expanded and improved with activities suggested by a microgrant named “Pomoravlje, Resava, and Levča through a lens”,
  • 6 project team meetings were held,
  • An informative meeting (work lunch) was held on June 30th, 2015 in Jagodina, attended by 9 registered school coordinators, project team members, and the representatives of the Dorm for high schools and Faculty of Pedagogy in Jagodina,
  • An arranged cooperation on the project with the representatives of the Dorm for high schools in Jagodina and the representatives of the Student organization of the Faculty of Pedagogy in Jagodina,
  • Participation in the Wiki Loves Earth contest,
  • At least one coordinator meeting is planned before the start of the new school year.

Wiki adventure edit

The main idea of this project is implementation of Wiki Adventure in high schools in order to start a new way of education of high school pupils about editing Wikipedia. The main objectives are bringing Wikipedia closer to younger audiences in a new and interesting way, but also comparing results of this project with the ones gained through standard workshops. This will be realized through a few activities, such as:

  • translating Adventure through Wikipedia into Serbian language
  • technical implementation of Adventure through Wikipedia
  • promotion of Adventure through Wikipedia in larger cities in Serbia
  • workshops with high school pupils in larger cities in Serbia
  • evaluation
  • comparison analysis
  • presenting the results to the Community
Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 0 Period of project implementation is in the second half of the year. For now we have started with translating Adventures through Wikipedia in Serbian language and creating evaluation forms. In September, technical implementation of Adventures through Wikipedia is expected.
2. # of new editors 0
3. # of individuals involved 2 Work on translating and creating evaluation forms.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 0
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 0


Free photo-content edit

Photo-safari edit

There were no photo-safaris in the first half of the year. The volunteers who participated in these wiki-expeditions so far were mostly board members. Seeing as the board has invested a lot of time and effort in restructuring the workplace, they were unable to devote themselves to this project as well. This type of activity was being promoted in the wider community in this part of the year. That is how high school pupils from Subotica have become active participants; they will photograph their environment (monuments, nature, landmarks…) and then the files will be uploaded within the education project that has been planned for the beginning of September. The interesting thing is that the high school pupils, along with their professor, have submitted the proposal to get the microgrant. Photo-safari was also promoted at the Wiki photo-school in Petnica, which prompted a few volunteers to join.

Wiki Loves Earth edit

This project represents a mass assemblage of photographs of cultural heritage in Serbia through a well-known contest. The contest lasted from June 1st to June 30th, and we are currently working on organizing exhibitions in which the project would be promoted. The expected objectives in the annual plan were:

  • 2000 photographs
  • 50 participants
  • 3 exhibitions
  • 15 printed photographs at the exhibitions
  • 3 institutions which would provide us with the venues for the exhibitions
  • 30 visitors per exhibition
  • 1 edit-a-thon
  • 2 photo-tours
  • tracked media coverage
Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 51 Number of participants.
2. # of new editors 0
3. # of individuals involved 3 Number of volunteers who worked in the organization of the project.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 268 Of the total of 831, 268 photos were used on Wiki projects. Participants who haven’t had contact with uploading photos on Commons had difficulties with uploading them and especially with putting the appropriate template. We believe that this affected the number of photos.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 8
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 155909


During the contest, a photo-edi-a-thon was organized at the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia, whom we cooperated with last year. 6 people participated in the edit-a-thon, yielding 8 new and 2 improved articles. The editathon was preceded by a photo-tour which resulted in 159 photographs of cultural heritage.

Wikicopter edit

The assemblage of the wikicopter began in the first half of the year. The project was unsuccessful last year and had certain setbacks. This year, the main challenge for its successful continuation was a lack of volunteers who would dedicate themselves to the technical aspects and assembling the quadricopter. The first phase of assembling the copter was done at the Hacklab, and the documentation can be found in this category. Due to the uncertainty of the human resources who would lead this project, there are options for the copter to be ceded to the project applicants within the Microgrants.

Wiki photo-school in Petnica edit

The idea of the photo-school was for every participant to successfully choose a license and upload at least one piece of content of good quality on Commons, and use that content in some other Wikimedia project. That content should be a photograph (of a characteristic part or the end of the experiment), or a series of photographs/a video of the course of the experiment. The quantitative metrics of the project were: an expected amount of at least 15 photographs (video material) uploaded on Commons, as well as at least 2 participants to continue filling Commons with free content. Qualitative metrics: material quality and participants evaluation.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 13
2. # of new editors 14
3. # of individuals involved 7 Number of volunteers working on the organization of the project.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 9 Out of the 59 (category 1, category 2), 19 photos were used on Wiki pages (category 1, category 2).
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 9
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 2892


As far as qualitative metrics are concerned, content quality is pretty high, measured by Commons’ tool “Good Photos”, and photo analysis at the very Photo-school by professional photographers.

Zapis - Sacred trees edit

Out of 8 suggested semiresults for monitoring project realization, best qualification are provided by the ones filed under 1, 2, 4, and 8. In this phase, the other semiresults are negligible.

  • number of visits to populated areas
  • number of records with designated locations (descriptive or with coordinates)
  • number of records for which photos of records from other authors were gathered / total amount of photos
  • number of personally photographed records / total amount of photos
  • number of sayings about the records
  • number of interviewed people
  • number of links to news, texts, literature
  • number of records whose photos were uploaded on Wiki Commons / total amount of uploaded material
  • number of documents gathered on the field (scanned photographs and the like)
Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 1
2. # of new editors 0
3. # of individuals involved 3 Number of volunteers working on the organization of a project.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 11 Out of the 1740, 11 photos were used on Wiki pages.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 0
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 1131


Discovering Pešter edit

Discovering Pešter has an objective to explore and document the natural, ethnographic, and social characteristics of multiethnic population of Pešter plateau during the annual cycle, which encompasses:

  • Nature Park Golija, Sjenica
  • Extraordinary landscape features of the Valley of Little Rzav, Arilje
  • The special reservation of nature Pešter Field, Sjenica, with a characteristic terrain, nature, river courses (Vapa, Uvac)
    • habitation (houses, infields, summer habitats);
    • economic activities (livestock breeding, livestock habitats, activities);
    • monuments, religious and sacral objects;
    • material and non-material cultural heritage;
    • characteristic food and the like.

The above mentioned areas will be illustrated and documented with a significant number of relevant photographs, textual and audio records, GPS trajectories with indicated important points, and all material will be available on Wiki projects (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons). Objectives: During the systematic and methodologically even research, the expected end results in a period from January to July are:

  • securing the new 5000-6000 thematically categorized photographs, with a complete assemblage of defined, relevant meta attributes (meta tags);
  • improvement of existing articles about settlements and geographic coordinates of the Pešter Plateau with new, relevant photos;
  • up to 2000 files for Wikimedia projects (Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Monuments and the like);
  • up to 2000 photographs which illustrate the extreme winter conditions in Pešter;
  • up to 2000 photographs which illustrate the summer and winter habitats in Pešter.

A total amount of 2261 photos were taken. Approximately 1549 photos were selected for Wikimedia Commons.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 1
2. # of new editors 0
3. # of individuals involved 6
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 10 Out of the 1549, 11 photos were used on Wiki pages.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 0
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects /


GLAM and Digital Belgrade edit

GLAM project has had numerous activities in the first half of the year: edit-a-thons, QR codes settings, as well as activities regarding content release. Wiki Librarian project has been realized within the GLAM project. Seeing as the increase of activities was largely foreseen, Wikimedia Serbia had decided to open two new job positions (part-time): Manager of Communications and Office Manager. Manager of Communications will be resposible for GLAM activities, in addition to public relations, forging partnerships and new cooperations. You can read more on hiring two new employees in the separate section in the report. From January to July, three edit-a-thons were organized, a total of 100 QR codes were set (in cooperation with the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia and Organization 3225), 43 articles were written, 238 photos were released by 6 libraries and 1 museum in Serbia, and negotiations were started about the intern program implementation (Wikipedian In Residence). Global metrics are applicable on the edit-a-thons and can be seen in the table below. Metrics and explanations for other models of the GLAM project (QR codes, Digital Belgrade, released content) will be presented in the second part of the report (Storytelling).

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 51 Usernames can be found on Wiki pages:Museum of mining and metallurgy, Salon Oto Bihalji-Merin, Institute for Nature conservation of Serbia
2. # of new editors 45
3. # of individuals involved 3 Volunteers who were in the organization team and participated in following activities.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 125 Museum of mining and metallurgy, Salon Oto Bihalji-Merin, Institute for Nature conservation of Serbia
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 45 Topics can be seen on Wiki pages:Museum of mining and metallurgy, Salon Oto Bihalji-Merin, Institute for Nature conservation of Serbia
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 395607 Museum of mining and metallurgy: 86025; Salon Oto Bihalji-Merin: 234526; Institute for Nature conservation of Serbia: 75056


Wiki-librarian edit

Planned objectives:

  • Establishing cooperation with at least 5 cities in Serbia and at least 10 institutions.
  • Organization of 5-8 three-hour lectures at the University Library “Svetozar Markovic” and other cultural-educational institutions in Serbia about Wikimedia Serbia and Wikipedia, as well as editing Wikipedia pages.
  • Organization of 5-8 six-hour workshops in electronic classrooms (up to 12 participants per workshop) at the University Library and other institutions outside of Belgrade that possess the technical equipment and internet access.
  • Organization of 2-4 edit-a-thons to help the interested colleagues upload content on Wikipedia.

Realized objectives:

  • Cooperation has been established with 11 cities in Serbia and 32 institutions (13 high school libraries, 9 public libraries, Faculty of Geography in Belgrade, 8 cultural institutions and 1 archive (Archive of Serbia)). Ergo, the first goal was fulfilled (5 cities, 10 institutions).
  • 4 lectures were organized (National Library in Uzice, Central Library of University of Novi Sad, Vrujci Spa (libraries of the Kolubara district and Belgrade City Library), and Ethnographic Museum Belgrade). The plan is to conduct at least two more lectures in the fall.
  • 5 workshops were held. The plan is to conduct one more workshop in Belgrade with new participants and more workshops for the participants who had already gone through the basic training for editing Wikipedia articles.
  • 2 Wiki-marathons were organized that have had media coverage on RTS (Wiki-marathon Open Science, Wiki-marathon Jovan Cvijic). One more marathon is planned: librarians together on Wikipedia (in November).
Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 15 Librarians have to be additionally trained for individual work on Wikipedia, so in the following period we expect a greater number of active editors. The evidence of the workshops, lectures and editors was recorder on a Wikipedia page.
2. # of new editors 82 A great number of new inactive editors.
3. # of individuals involved 3
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 248 248 media (in Wiki librarian category and 11 subcategories)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 157 New or edited: 14 new articles on the topic of libraries, 3 faculties, 1 college, 2 institutions of culture and 1 primary school
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 1282303 Metrics were calculated for the period since the start of the project.


Competitions on Wikipedia edit

The primary goal of this program is to increase free knowledge through creating new or improving existing articles on Wikipedia for which there is a small possibility to be written. The experience of organizing contests on Wikipedia in the previous years has shown that this is a good way to motivate the community. This year, we are planning 3 contests with the following results:

  • minimum 300 created articles
  • minimum 150 improved articles
  • minimum 15 included members of the community

Wikimedia Serbia has organized two contests. The first one lasted from December 21st, 2014 to January 21st, 2015, and its results are shown in the annual report. The second contest was organized on the topic of the Central and Eastern European countries. Two more contests are planned for September and November.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 8 List of participants can be found here.
2. # of new editors 0
3. # of individuals involved 2
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 0
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 79 63 new articles and 16 improved.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 261522


Wiktionary edit

According to the annual plan, the idea was to start two new dictionaries, but after contacting the assistants and professors at the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, we have realized the initiative on their part to start a project with their students. We then started developing dictionaries in another 5 languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Ukranian, Slovakian, and Chinese). The Swedish and Chinese language departments have already included 3rd year students into the program of enriching Wikipedia during the last year’s course.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 9 5 members of 1001 Arabic Words 4 members od the Slovakian dictionary
2. # of new editors 67 12 members of the Swedish dictionary, 8 members of the Norwegian dictionary, 9 members of the Ukranian dictionary, 30 members of the Chinese dictionary, 8 members of 1001 Arabic Words
3. # of individuals involved 68 Total number od editors on 6 active projects.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 978 586 photos, 392 audio records
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects (1) 899 (2) 4 (1) number of new articles on 6 active projects (2) number of new articles on Wikipedia
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 1307318 Metrics from January 1 to June 30: ar - 546,505; sk - 75,561; no - 57,610; sv - 132,430; zh - 168,070; uk - 327,142


Regional cooperation edit

Wiki-camp edit

The first Wiki-camp was held in 2014 in cooperation with Wikimedia Hungary. We have come to a conclusion that this is a good stimulus for the community, seeing as the online and offline activities are being integrated. Members of the community get to meet members of other branches, their projects, but also contribute to the Wiki projects (Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons above all) during the Wiki-camp. The community grows stronger and the participants continue editing Wikipedia or participate in other Wikimedia projects. For these reasons, the organization of the Wiki-camp is being planned now, but will be realized in the second half of the year. The expected measures of success are: 20 participants, 2 topics, 2 days.

Negotiations have been started with the user group from Bulgaria. We are currently designing a program, creating a general budget and timeframe. Global metrics will be shown in the annual report.

Spreading the idea of Wikimedia in Republic of Srpska edit

The main goal of the project was to get the students and professors in Republic of Srpska acquainted with the free licenses and Wikimedia projects, as well as the idea of an equal approach to knowledge. We planned to conduct workshops/lectures in 4 regional centers in Republic of Srpska with a goal to increase visibility of the organization. Besides, the goal was to “feel the pulse” of the young people in the four main centers in Republic of Srpska in order to eventually set a network of activists who would one day make the core of an individual branch of Wikimedia Republic of Srpska.

The criteria we used to evaluate the success of goal realization were the number of interested people, the level of activity during the workshops, as well as the communication after the completion of a workshop.

When it comes to the results, we can point out that the “pulse” of interest was on a pretty high level. The number of attendants varied between 10 and 20, which is, in our opinion, fairly satisfactory turnout. Besides, we need to point out that the promo material was sent out during the third workshop due to technical difficulties, which probably affected the level of interest. Also, there was always a group of attendants during the workshops that was more interested than the others. We are still in contact with some of the attendants regarding the future activities and eventual projects, which certainly proves that the project was a success. The records can be seen at the Wiki page.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 2 Active editors were teachers who promoted the work of Wikimedia Serbia. They’ve also created new articles along with the participants, complemented the already existing ones and uploaded new photos on Wikimedia Commons.
2. # of new editors 16 In each of the four cities where the workshops were held, interested students had the opportunity to learn how to open new account, which we have sought to increase the number of new editors. This number is not entirely accurate since there is a possibility that some students on their own initiative opened accounts after the workshop.
3. # of individuals involved 2
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 24 24 new media has been uploaded
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 9 Within the one-day workshops, 7 new articles were created and 2 were improved.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 40182


Workshops in Višegrad edit

As we have already mentioned in the last year’s reports, Wikimedia Serbia was providing support to the volunteers from Republic of Srpska who were willing to start new projects and gather interested people who would participate in them. The idea was for the members of WMRS to provide a training for everyone interested and show how the branch works, what kind of projects we have and what is eligible for implementation in Republic of Srpska. The workshop was held in January this year. On that occasion, a meeting was held with the leaders of the Spreading the idea of Wikimedia in Republic of Srpska project. Usernames and written articles can be seen on this page. Global metrics can be seen in the continuation.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 3
2. # of new editors 9
3. # of individuals involved 3
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 16 Out of the 161 uploaded photos, 16 were used on Wiki pages (category 1, category 2).
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 8 6 new articles and 2 improved
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 18034


Community support edit

WikiLive 2015 edit

WikiLive represents a local Wikimania, i.e. the first local conference of Wikipedians. Seeing as the event was envisioned as a conference, the global metrics chart is no longer applicable. More on the results of the conference and the organization itself can be found in the second part of the report (Storytelling).

Motivating the community edit

Motivating the community does not represent a standard project, but is comprised of a number of activities with a purpose to strengthen communication an the inner and outer community of Wikipedians, in other Wikimedia projects, and in the wider Wikimedia movement. One of the goals is to inform the public about the events in the Wikimedia movement through writing and translating blog posts, as well as publishing them on social media. Global metrics have already been presented through concrete projects and activities the volunteers participated in.

Diversity edit

FemWiki edit

FemWiki is a continuation of a project that started in 2014. The main objectives have remained the same: (1) increasing the number of women editors and LGBT editors of any age group on Wikipedia in Serbian language; (2) increasing quality and diversity of the content on Wikipedia through increasing the number of articles about feminist and LGBT topics (history, terminology, biographies of women and LGBT persons). We have learned from our experience that it is necessary to conduct more workshops that would increase the odds for creating good articles. This year we planned to conduct 4 workshops for feminist and LGBT organizations, 4 workshops for female high school students, 5 thematic edit-a-thons.

We are expecting:

  • 25 good quality articles (5 per edit-a-thon)
  • 25 women and LGBT activists educated in editing Wikipedia (5 per workshop)
  • 48 educated female high schools students (12 per workshop)

Two workshops have been conducted so far. One was at the Rex Cultural Center, and the other was at the Women’s Studies Center.

Wiki women camp edit

The idea of a female Wiki-Camp was to establish a good cooperation with the Albanian Wikipedians and Wikimedians through organization af a female wiki camp in Pristina. The camp has a goal to overcome the gender gap on Wikipedia in Serbian and Albanian language, and strengthening the connections with the region. The project has similar objectives like FemWiki regarding women’s topics on Wikipedia content increase, as well as increasing the number of female editors.

  • Main objectives of the Female Wiki-Camp were:
  • establishing a good cooperation with the Albanian volunteers
  • organization of a three-day camp in Pristina
  • educating women on the Wikipedia gender gap and the importance of addressing this issue

Specific goals were:

  • 24 female participants
  • all the participants would be introduced with the gender gap on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Community
  • all the participants would go through a training program about editing Wikipedia in their own language
  • 20 new articles (10 in Serbian, 10 in Albanian language)
  • 150 photos on Commons

In addition to editing Wikipedia, we have had a lot of offline activities. We have organized discussions during which we talked about what is the reason why such a small percentage of women edit Wikipedia, as well as conversations during which we were looking for the best ways to improve these statistics together. When it comes to the ways to motivate and empower women to edit, the general conclusion was that the events like the Camp itself, that were thematically focused on women, are a very important motivation and encouragement to enter the world of editing Wikipedia.


Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 6 Serbian Wikipedia. Usernames of active editors are: Bianka Terra, Milaberanova, Nataliesrb, Kuvarica, Trans Goat, Vitez Hirald
2. # of new editors 2 Serbian Wikipedia
3. # of individuals involved 1 Serbian Wikipedia
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 0 Unfortunately, there were not time for photo tour and photo upload on Commons.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 16 7 on Serbian Wikipedia and 9 on Albanian Wikipedia. Participants from Kosovo and Albania edited in pairs and everyone was writing articles on Albanian Wikipedia. Participants from Serbia were editing individually.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 17256


Creative Commons edit

The original objective of the Creative Commons project was translating the Creative Commons 4.0 and Creative Commons Zero license in Serbian language. Through the establishment of a public process, we planned to motivate volunteers for translation, which would be later adopted by the Creative Commons community during the 2015.

Also, this project includes the maintenance of a permanent website, which is considered a year-round process. Translation of the licenses consists of the translation itself, presenting translations in the public discussions, participation in it, and as a result, the publication of new licenses on the website and their integration into Wiki projects.

This is a specific project that can not be present through global metrics. For now there was no activity in this field.

Microgrants edit

Microgrants are the way for the community to arouse interest but also to motivate new people with fresh ideas that may evolve later to projects for the annual plan. Through the new cycle of funding projects that support ideas of Wikimedia movement we wanted to motivate enthusiasts with similar ideas but also to establish cooperation in the future. The open call is designed as an incubator of good ideas devoted to smaller projects (upper limit is 500€ per project), which can evolve into long-term projects with a bigger budget.

This year a call for proposals was released in early March. We’ve got 27 proposals of which 4 were accepted. Contracts were signed with some of the project leaders and some of the projects have already started with the implementation. We supported several proposals throughout our regular activities, such as launching the education project in Gymnasium in Subotica.

New wave edit

The aim of the project is the education on social components of the musical genre - New Wave to the widest possible audiences through editing articles on Wikipedia and the creation of the interviews with the musicians from that genre. All media will be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. After creating and uploading media, we’ll organized special event for promotion of the project and other projects of Wikimedia Serbia. Quantitative measures:

  • Minimum one article on Wikipedia about New Wave
  • Minimum 5 released photos
  • Mounted material - minimum one video clip of 15 minutes
  • Unmounted material - at least 30 minutes
  • Minimum 5 relevant written sources (books, websites)
  • Minimum 100 participants on special event

Qualitative measures: The qualitative contribution of the project is reflected in explaining social component (in addition to the musical one which will also be discussed) of the role of the New Wave to the wider audience, as well as through a contribution in understanding the phenomenon from the perspective of the younger generation.

Kurgans in Serbia edit

The aim of the project is to identify, categorize, locate and document (photograph) old earth mounds (Kurgans) in Serbia and to publish that information via Wikipedia. This process initially improves Serbian Wikipedia as an archeological resource. It is planned that within the set deadline a minimum of 30 articles be created, and as many as possible photographs uploaded to Wikimedia (for a number of absolute minimum 150 was suggested).


Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 1 Username: Jozefsu
2. # of new editors 1
3. # of individuals involved 1 Other users provided their help too.
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 11 From 29 in total.
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 9 Out of that one existing article was improved, and also a number of important redirects.
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 34462


Field-trips:

  • 2015-04-06 Hajdukovo, Subotica
  • 2015-05-17 Mali Horgoš-Selevenj
  • 2015-05-24 Sanad, Crna Bara
  • 2015-05-31 Horgoš
  • 2015-06-13 Male Pijace-Mali Pesak
  • 2015-06-14 Mišićevo-Skenderevo, Subotica
  • 2015-06-17 Ljutovo-Tavankut, Subotica
  • 2015-06-25 Zrenjanin-Mužlja
  • 2015-06-28 Vršac surrounding

For future to know who we are, walk the free knowledge to the past edit

The main goal of the project is to spread free knowledge and increased awareness of the cultural heritage of Jablanica districts, through realization of the following activities:

  • organizing a workshop on Wikipedia and free knowledge,
  • researching and gathering new information about historical figures and landmarks of the Jablanica districts, and using those information for creating articles on Wikipedia,
  • organizing photo exhibit with historical motifs from Jablanica districts.

Ten active volunteers were involved in the project.

One workshop on editing Wikipedia was organized and 9 participants were present. Some of the preparation activities were realized for the activity #2 (research and gathering new information). The plan is to start working on a photo shooting, gathering information about the cultural heritage of Jablanica district, and placing them on Wikipedia.

A call for participants who can see at this link.

Wiki biodiversity edit

The project is a continuation of the last year’s microgrant, whose main objectives are collecting and geo-referencing photographs of the flora and fauna of the southeast Serbia, regions with extremely high biodiversity, and uploading photos to Commons. The primary animal groups that would be collected and photographed are small mammals and larvae of aquatic invertebrates, and of flora and fungi the most important plants and fungi in ecosystems would be mainly photographed. Additional objectives of the project are photographing a) ecosystems; b) settlements; c) relief; d) natural and cultural resources in the municipalities of Targovishte, Babušnica and Dimitrovgrad. Experience from last year tells us that the increase of the content on Commons instigated improving articles on Wikipedia (especially articles on settlements, rivers, animal and plant species). Photos from areas in Serbia that are distant from Belgrade contribute to the promotion of these settlements, as well as natural and cultural attractions, and photos of organisms on Commons are used in numerous other projects related to biodiversity of Serbia and the Balkans.

Quantitative measures would be:

  • number of photos on Commons - 500
  • number of photos used on other Wikimedia projects - more than 20
  • the number of new articles on other Wikipedias - greater than 10

Activities on this project start from July.

Telling your program stories - all programs edit

Please tell the story of each of your programs included in your proposal. This is your chance to tell your story by using any additional metrics (beyond global metrics) that are relevant to your context, beyond the global metrics above. You should be reporting against the targets you set at the beginning of the year throughout the year. We have provided a template here below for you to report against your targets, but you are welcome to include this information in another way. Also, if you decided not to do a program that was included in your proposal or added a program not in the proposal, please explain this change. More resources for storytelling are at the end of this form. Here are some ways to tell your story.

  • We encourage you to share your successes and failures and what you are learning. Please also share why are these successes, failures, or learnings are important in your context. Reference learning patterns or other documentation.
  • Make clear connections between your offline activities and online results, as applicable. For example, explain how your education program activities is leading to quality content on Wikipedia.
  • We encourage you to tell your story in different ways by using videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g.), compelling quotes, and by linking directly to work you produce. You may highlight outcomes, learning, or metrics this way.
  • We encourage you to continue using dashboards, progress bars, and scorecards that you have used to illustrate your progress in the past, and to report consistently over time.
  • You are welcome to use the table below to report on any metrics or measures relevant to your program. These may or may not include the global metrics you put in the overview section above. You can also share your progress in another way if you do not find a table like this useful.

Education program edit

Seminars and training edit

During the first half of the year, the program included five new institutions. Over 10 staff members (teachers/professors) from these institutions were trained to work on Wikipedia, and had support for monitoring and evaluating the entries. What we are particularly proud of are the trainings at the Teachers’ Faculty in Vranje, where we provided resources for teaching (presentations, brochures, pages for entries ...) to the professors/assistants and transfered the experience so they conducted trainings on their own. We have tried to provide them with support for all their problems. The aim of the project is to educate as many associates as we can so they can eventually be able to independently conduct the trainings.

Professional development edit

The context in which this project occurred represents a small victory of Wikimedia Serbia and its representatives. After many years of effort and work on education programs, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia recognized the work in a wiki environment as useful and important and added it to the curriculum of Informatics for the second year of Gymnasiums. Furthermore, in cooperation with WMRS board members, Professor Filip Marić compiled a textbook for the second year of Gymnasiums, in which a number of lessons are devoted to working with wiki tools. The inclusion in the curriculum itself does not provide the quality education of students, and the next step was to support teachers to understand and master the work in a wiki setting, so they could transfer this knowledge more easily to students. Wikimedia Serbia was, on this occasion, in cooperation with Prosvetni pregled, accredited for the program of professional development for teachers.

The first two scheduled seminars were to be held in December 2014, but were canceled by the Assembly of Prosvetni pregled with the explanation that they were taking austerity measures. Over the past six months, we tried to find a way to realize these seminars, for which we have funding, venue and registered participants. Political background and personal interests concerning the management of that institution itself prevented us to achieve success.

A few weeks ago, Prosvetni pregled has changed management and should meet at the end of July, in order to reach an agreement about the seminar. The first is planned for September.

Wikipedia in schools edit

Beside the new position, Education Program Manager, this year there are a number of other pioneering activities/projects. In fact, we chose the first Wiki-ambassadors among student Wikipedians. From the beginning of the 2014/2015 school year we’ve got the Ambassador of the University of Belgrade, ambassadors of Faculty of Mathematics, Faculty of Philology and Faculty of Security Studies. Engaging these types of volunteers proved to be a great idea. Contribution in their own faculties was quite noticeable, where the ambassadors with minimal support arranged and carried out trainings and workshops. They were engaged in trainings in other schools and faculties. Cooperation with Eighth Belgrade Gymnasium was established at the initiative of one of the ambassadors. In addition to organizing and implementing trainings, one of the ambassador’s tasks was to lead a Wiki-corner, or series of offline activities for the students of their faculties. The idea was to motivate students interested in editing, whether they are already involved in writing seminal papers on Wikipedia or not. This should solve the problem of retention (which is small) of editors who are involved in the education program. The implementation of these activities highly depends on the creativity of ambassadors and resources that faculty can provide. However, for now this idea was not realized. Ambassadors have a great potential for the development of education programs at faculties. We expect greater results by the end of the year and we will try to motivate students who have shown interest in working on Wikipedia, to join the group of Wiki-ambassadors. In late January, we created Wiki-Thursday, one day a week when the office is open for volunteers, students etc. This option, beside new volunteers, was most helpful for students who needed additional support for editing Wikipedia and uploading files on Wikimedia Commons.

Edu-team of volunteers was formed. They have joined the trainings at the Faculty of Agriculture and Pharmacy-Physiotherapy Faculty. Volunteers are a great resource for the education program, but it is necessary to invest some time in their training and coordination. In the next semester, we plan to set a group of about 10 volunteers who will be able to support the trainings, to conduct trainings with our support, and they would, eventually, be able to independently conduct training (in pairs). In addition they would be contacts for faculties and secondary schools which don’t have Wiki-ambassadors.

During the semester, we held 48 workshops in 18 partner institutions. The workshops usually included series of lectures and an interactive part (exercises), where participants practiced editing. Unlike the previous years, when the project was developed voluntary (with fewer human resources), the groups have had two terms of workshops, which resulted in a larger number of articles per participant.

The quality of a large number of articles was solid. However, we noticed that students are repeating the same mistakes, and we plan for the next semester to provide brochures, which will serve to prevent these errors and avoid mistakes.

In principle, communication with students worked well, with appropriate adjustments for the individual institutions. We had communication with students via e-mails and they received comments regarding theirs articles on their talk pages. When it turns out that they are not following their talk pages, they would be contacted directly (e.g. assistents would contact them via Moodle platform). In secondary schools pupils were mostly contacted by their teachers, as it proved to be more efficient. The exception was the Seventh Belgrade Gymnasium, where the project included the same group of pupils as last year (at one pupil’s request), and they were skilled in the use of wiki syntax and to communicate on Wikipedia.

This semester we had large groups and therefore large number of entries. The problem with large input is that students had the same deadline (and they worked everything usually at the last minute), and the problem appears when you have a huge number of articles in just a few days. That leaves no time to follow the quality of the articles and send suggestions to the students. The community does not favor the large number of articles of questionable quality at once. Experienced Wikipedians also criticized the poor quality of some articles, as well as beginner's articles. In fact, articles that students write as their seminal papers are usually their first articles on Wikipedia.

We tried to ovecome the problem with large entries by moving the deadlines within a single institution. In addition, we have increased the number of workshops by groups of students/pupils, to ensure better quality of work. In some places we organized "mid-term consultations" with students to make an overview.

Gymnasiums and secondary schools in Serbia suffered a months-long strike of teachers, which meant shortening class duration from 45 to 30 minutes. This shortening of time disrupted regular classes, and there was not much time left for additional activities. To solve this problem, we organized edit-a-thons in some schools, where in the same day we conducted training and articles were written. For these events it is necessary to pre-arrange the details with teachers (topics, literature, students to make accounts, to give instructions for the preparation of texts for articles...). Students mostly came with prepared texts. This is an excellent model of cooperation for secondary schools because they can consult us for all doubts before saving their article. Thus the resulting articles can be shorter, but the quality is higher.

In order to better follow the work of the education program, we practiced communication and reporting through Trello ​​application.

The semester had series of successes, but also a number of obstacles, challenges and anecdotes:

  • During the year, we were contacted by several teachers and professors which found out about our education program on EduWiki conference 2014. This speaks of the importance and outreach of this event. Some of the teachers heard about education program from their colleagues or they learned about our work on other projects such as GLAM. The impression is that the collaborators, who started cooperation on their own initiative are more motivated and more committed to the project in which they are engaged.
  • One of the great successes of the education program is the fact that this year the Seventh Belgrade High School cooperation continued on the initiative of one pupil - Lazar. Lazar has contacted us in January with a request to organize WikiGymnasium in his school again. He had already discussed that with the principal (who led the education project in this school last year). The news of Lazar and his commitment to the project WikiGymnasium can be found in the February education newsletter.
  • At the Faculty of Geography, University of Belgrade - students don’t have computers at all, and the training was used for showing the numerous examples of articles and editing. After the workshop, several students approached the professor and asked if they could change the course (optional course) because editing seemed so hard and they didn’t have a few hours each week to do that. They understood they should write one article per week, and not one in the whole semester. It was a relief for them when they learned the right expectations.
  • This year, in addition to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, Wikibooks were also included in the framework of the education program. Students of Mining and Geology wrote the manual on how to work in AutoCAD. This kind of cooperation is a major contribution to the Wikibooks project, but we have encountered a lot of challenges and difficulties during the work. The biggest problem was the upload of illustrations (images and video animation) that students independently created, due to limitations in sending files and linking directly to Wikimedia Commons (which is not obvious for those who have no experience in working on Commons). Students have put together a manual on how to use basic functions of AutoCAD, but their illustrations were removed from Commons due to copyright protection. When they turned to us for support, convinced that the images were uploaded to Wikibooks, we found the problem was in the fact that the upload link in the side menu linked to upload on Commons. Deletion of the files was demotivating for the partners and students. So we contacted one of the administrators on Commons and we expect files soon. Some of the Wikibooks administrators will upload them to Wikibooks directly.
  • One of the challenging situations occurred in a training session in the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium. For the organization of the first part (lectures), teachers we work with have reserved a library (only the library has a projector). Since this room has no computers, we had to move to another classroom for conducting the practical part. For the purposes of this training, the presentation is uploaded to Google Drive and sent to the teachers of Informatics. The first obstacle occured when another group of students came to the library with their history teacher to see the pictures of old Belgrade (he also scheduled for the same timeslot, but the librarian had forgotten). We spent around 15 minutes on this. Furthermore, for unknown reasons, the Internet was not working. We tried to transfer presentations from Google Drive to USB but we failed due to incompatible software and outdated version of browser. Somehow, we held a workshop and showed the pupils the basics. The students didn’t have enough time, but somehow they managed to do the task. The next training we held in the cabinet we used the projector from the WMRS office and there were no problems.
  • The first workshop in Užice was organized in an informal atmosphere of the Youth Club. Working in an environment such as this, different from the school, acted positively on the participants. High school pupils from Užice were more free and comfortable to ask us about any concerns during the workshop and, later, diligent in their work. Part of the atmosphere can be seen here.
  • As the year 2015 was declared the year of Jovan Cvijić (in honor of the 150th anniversary of birth of Jovan Cvijić), in cooperation with the Faculty of Geography we planned to celebrate this anniversary, in many different ways. The first in a series of activities (edit-a-thon) was carried out in late June, and University Library "Svetozar Marković" joined in the organization of the event. The edit-a-thon is an example of excellent cooperation with partners on various projects (Wiki Librarian and education program). The marathon was attended by 11 students (6 of them were included in the education program, and 5 were new ones) and 3 librarians (they were involved in Wiki Librarian). Eight articles were written and six were improved and 13 images were uploaded on Commons. This is the first edit-a-thon that was competitive (only students participated in the competition). The Faculty has awarded students with research summer school (camp) as a first prize, while second and third place were one-day hiking trip and a yearly subscription to the National Geographic magazine, which were awarded by Wikimedia Serbia. Much more important than awards was the fact that the students came prepared and motivated. The work was pleasant and in a lively atmosphere. After the edit-a-thon, professor Stevan Stanković, emeritus of the faculty, has done us a great pleasure and gave a lecture on Jovan Cvijić. More information can be found on the page, and the images are in the following category.

Wiki school - our school edit

Schools were invited to join this project during Winter meetings of teachers in Jagodina. Besides, all schools on territory of Jagodina, Svilajnac, Despotovac and Rekovac were contacted by email. During March and April, we were collecting applications from school coordinators. Applications arrived from 11 institutions (elementary schools) from all over the region. Some more schools announced their participation, but official application never came.

Implementation of activities in schools was scheduled for April and May. Due to certain misunderstandings regarding the signing of the contract and doubts concerning the possibility of realizing the profesional development training, there has been a delay in the schedule of activities. Project schedule was revised and we have designed a new action plan for the implementation of the project moving the main part of the activities for a period September - December 2015.

As an alternative acitivity and an addition, the original design included the activities proposed for micro-grant entitled "Pomoravlje, Resava and Levac in the lens". Activities under this work program will include Dorm of secondary school students and the Faculty of Pedagogy in Jagodina. Due to the summer holidays, implementation of activities within the project is planned to start in September.

Basic problems in the implementation of the activities envisioned by the project were undefined status of professional development programs that had to be done and a large territorial dispersion of schools participating in the project. The problem of implementation of professional training programs will hopefully be resolved soon, and we expect these seminars to take place during September. Regarding the diversity of schools (long-distance schools from Jagodina, and up to 40 km) will try to overcome the problem by covering travel expenses to coordinators of school teams who attend joint activities in Jagodina.

One active Wikipedian, who participated in Wiki-camp, Wiki conference and who is one of the administrators of Serbian Wikipedia, joined this project. In this way, wider community gets involved with our project and performs dissemination of activities on the territory of Serbia.

Wiki adventure edit

The period of realization of this project is in the second half of the year. Translation of the Adventure through Wikipedia in Serbian language and assembling evaluation forms have started. Technical implementation of the Adventure through Wikipedia is expected in September.

Free photo-content edit

Photo-safari edit

There were no photo-safaris in the first half of the year. The volunteers who participated in these wiki-expeditions so far were mostly board members. Seeing as the board has invested a lot of time and effort in restructuring the workplace, they were unable to devote themselves to this project as well. This type of activity was being promoted in the wider community in this part of the year. That is how high school pupils from Subotica have become active participants; they will photograph their environment (monuments, nature, landmarks…) and then the files will be uploaded within the education project that has been planned for the beginning of September. The interesting thing is that the high school pupils, along with their professor, have submitted the proposal to get the microgrant. Photo-safari was also promoted at the Wiki photo-school in Petnica, which prompted a few volunteers to join.

Wiki Loves Earth edit

This year’s Wiki Loves Earth contest lasted from June 1st to June 30th. The cooperation with the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia continues - this year we were again provided with an updated list of natural heritage sites, and the first edit-a-thon, for which they provided the literature, was held in their offices. Before the competition started, the work on the project required creating the necessary pages on Wikimedia Commons, updating the official webpage, designating the awards, appointing members of the jury, updating the lists of natural heritage sites, contacting the institutions which would provide us with the venues for the exhibitions, writing announcements, blog posts, and updating social network profiles. 3 volunteers participated in the project, and the result are 831 photographs (32% project use) by 51 participants.

During the course of the competition, Wikimedia Serbia had already had a Manager of Communications, so a media campaign had been started, which resulted in 12 appearances on radio and TV shows, and 21 media had reported the news about the beginning of the contest. The announcement was posted on Wikimedia Serbia blog, as well as our website. A sitenotice on Wikipedia was set and a Facebook event was created. Even with all these announcements, we had received many questions about how to upload and tag photos. Communication with the participants and photo upload training (online) were the main challenges. In order to ease the approach to the participants, we had created a manual on how to properly upload and tag photos.

In order to animate the community and include as many participants as possible, we had organized a photo-edit-a-thon at the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia - a two-day event which was comprised of a Belgrade photo-tour and uploading of photos and writing articles about natural heritage. The event was announced on the blog, Village pump, website, mailing list, Facebook. The results are the following:


Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Number of uploaded photos 797 831 2000
Number of participants 40 51 50
Usage on Wiki pages 40 266 / It wasn't projected in the annual plan for 2015.
Number of exhibits 4 / 3 Organization of the exhibits is in progress. Three partners were contacted and they were interested for collaboration.
Number of photo-tours 1 1 2
Number of edit-a-thons / 1 1

The table shows the results from 2014 and 2015, as well as the projected goals for the end of the year. Even though the number of photos did not fulfill our expectations, we have noticed a slight step ahead compared to last year. Also, the number of participants has increased. Exhibition organization is in progress. Winner announcement will be held on July 29th at the National Tourism Organisation of Serbia. We found three partners that are interested in cooperation and we expect to find another one.

Wikicopter edit

The assemblage of the wikicopter began in the first half of the year. The project was unsuccessful last year and had certain setbacks. This year, the main challenge for its successful continuation was a lack of volunteers who would dedicate themselves to the technical aspects and assembling the quadricopter. The first phase of assembling the copter was done at the Hacklab, and the documentation can be found in this category. Due to the uncertainty of the human resources who would lead this project, there are options for the copter to be ceded to the project applicants within the Microgrants.

Wiki photo-school in Petnica edit

Petnica Science Center (PSC) is an autonomous and independent organization engaged in the development of scientific culture, scientific literacy, education and culture. During the year, PSC organizes various workshops and trainings which attract large numbers of high-school students. We believe these workshop participants have developed awareness about volunteering, considering they attend workshops voluntarily and mostly paying a fee. This target group, as we think, can make a huge contribution to Wiki projects and it would be important to organize some Wiki activities (like Wiki school), and promotion of WMRS projects.

The project leader has been active in PSC for years now and that was an important resource once event was announced. After designing the call and application form for participation in the Wiki photo school in Petnica, there was an open call. By the end of May, we organized Foto school workshops and lectures in PSC. Afterwards, the project was evaluated by participants.

In the evaluation sheet, 100% of subjects/participants stated that the concept of free licences is more understandable now, ~88% of participants found workshops very useful for learning basics of photography (framing, adjusting the aperture value, sensitivity and focus). They all found the experiments and photography of the experiments interesting and were interested in similar projects. All participants who had to pay the fee, stated that its amount isn’t too high.

One participant was very active after the project, as she took part in WLE, uploading some of her photos.

The whole workshop in the chemical laboratory was interesting. Experiments have attracted the attention of participants and therefore long stories of framing, installation and configuration of photo equipment were not hard to handle. All designed experiments were performed and photographed / documented. All planned lectures were completed successfully and well evaluated. The only thing that has not been fully carried out is the motivation of participants for continued work on Wikimedia projects (Commons, Wikipedia...).

Having in mind that this is the first time we run such kind of project, we have no past data to compare to. Suggested table is not applicable.

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Number of photos N/A 59 15
Number of participants N/A 15 15
File usage on Wiki pages N/A 19 / Not projected in yearly plan.
Number of participants who continued to contribute to Wiki pages N/A 2 0

Zapis - Sacred Trees edit

At the time of litany in 11 villages, for 10 days on the field, various happenings were recorded using the professional photo camera. Five-day stay in City of Despotovac is planned to happen in August and its goal is photographing of sacred trees in surrounding villages. Also, we have planned completing of photo expedition which is going to cover whole territory of City of Kragujevac, as well as increasing the number of completed maps. Likewise, editing articles on Wikipedia is also on to-do list (which includes adding chapter ‘Sacred Tree’ on every page about settlements – example.)

Created test maps at: http://mapjam.com:

http://mapjam.com/zapis_0149 http://mapjam.com/zapis_0150 http://mapjam.com/ranilovic Beside global metrics, we have been collecting some other ones also and they are shown in the table below:

Number of ... Amount
Number of days spent on field Q1 21
Number of days spent on field Q2 24
Number of days spent on field total 45
Mileage in km - using transport Q1 1645
Mileage in km - using transport Q2 1647
Mileage in km - using transport total 3292
Mileage in km - walking/cycling Q1 188
Mileage in km - walking/cycling Q2 208
Mileage in km - walking/cycling total 396
Number of sacred trees with defined location Q1 143
Number of sacred trees with defined location Q2 201
Number of sacred trees with defined location total 344
Number of settlement visits Q1 60
Number of settlement visits Q2 91
Number of settlement visits total 151
Number of ... Amount
Number of sacred trees whose photos has been uploaded to Wiki Commons Q1 77
Number of sacred trees whose photos has been uploaded to Wiki Commons Q2 90
Number of sacred trees whose photos has been uploaded total 167
Number of taken photos total 4259
Number of photos uploaded to Wiki Commons Q1 633
Number of photos uploaded to Wiki Commons Q2 1107
Number of photos uploaded to Wiki Commons: 1740
Category:Sacred Trees Serbia 1779
Category:Zapisi in Serbia 1645
Category:Projects of Wikimedia Serbia 919

The main challenge was photo uploading, which sometimes was too slow or even impossible, despite fixing or switching computers which were used. Thanks to the comments of administrators and Wiki Commons users, some inconsistencies related to first-entered files have been removed.

Some things did not go as planned:

  • Teams of museums from Čačak and Kragujevac haven’t participated in lithany recording.
  • In Prnjavor, the act of linden christening which becomes a sacred tree, hasn't been recorded.

According to that that this project is being realized for the first time this year, we do not have results from last year which could be comparable to this. The proposed table is not applicable.

Discovering Pešter edit

First phase

Field trips:

First phase: Monday, 3/16/2015: 60 km, Medar, Zajecice, Krce, Vrsenice, Kijevci, Citluk, Cetanoviće, Rasno, Tuzinje, Karajukića Wells, Ugao, Karajukića Wells, Bioc, Budjevo, Razdaginja, Zajecice, Giljeva, Medar, Sjenica Tuesday, 3/17/2015: 85 km, Meanders of Vapa, Gradac, the well of Vapa, Stavalj, Brnjica, road of Goljak, Sarski krs, Duga Poljana, Pester, Drazevice, Kamesnica, field of Pester, Rasno, Tudinje, Karajukica Wells, Buđevo, mountain Diljeva, Buđevo, Sjenica Wednesday, 3/18/2015: 75 km, Vrela, the wells of Grabovica, Ski center Zari, Prijesek, Trijebine, Prijevorac, Krajinovic, Visnjeva, Bare, Visocka, Kumanica Monastery, Vrdnicka Lanista, Zahumsko, Bare, Osjecenik, Sjenica Thursday, 3/19/2015: 21 km, Ski Center Zari, Grills Ski Centre, wells of Grabovica, Sjenica Friday, 3/20/2015: 10 km Sjenica and surroundings

Second phase

Second phase: Travelling down to the Sjenica and back: Belgrade - Smederevo - Cacak - Pozega - Arilje Ivanjica - Sjenica: 337km x 2 = 674 km Sjenica - Piskavice - Budjevo - Karajukica Wells - Tutin - Ribarice - Gazivoda Lake - Black River - monastery Black River (182 km) Sjenica - Donja Vapa - Sjenica - Gornja Vapa (24 km) Sjenica - Stavalj - Duga Poljana - Novi Pazar (112 km) Sjenica - Uvac canyon (56 km)

The organization of the project activities worked as planned. The extraordinary help was provided by our partners from the tourism organizations of Sjenica and Tutin.

Bad weather conditions was a serious problem: three days it was overcast, with occasional rain. These weather conditions made it impossible to do the planned number of photos. The plan was to record approximately 3,500 photos, and we recorded 2,260 photos.

GLAM and Digital Belgrade edit

GLAM edit

Edit-a-thons edit

Edit-a-thons are events which have two different target groups. Firstly, there are representatives of GLAM institutions, where this event might be just the first step in long-term cooperation, secondly the participants. Depending on the chosen subject and institution where edit-a-thon will take place, participants might be (high-school/university) students and/or employees of the institution. This year we’ve started to organize combined events. For instance, we’ve connected photo tours with edit-a-tons with the same subject and participants would upload files and use them in the articles. Thus. we’d have more quality articles and more satisfied participants, who had a chance to find out more about Wikimedia Commos, which they can use in future. Workshops and lectures on edit-a-thons always passed in a pleasant working atmosphere. At the end of each edit-a-thon, participants would fill in the evaluation form. From their statements, we can conclude that they are interested in future participation in a similar activity.

Some of the participants already took part in other projects of WMRS, such as WLE and WikiLive 2015. Museum of Metallurgy and Mining in Bor offered us gallery space for one of WLE exibitions. Interesting event in this museum was named “Behind the scene”. We’ve had a chance to make a short photo tour through museum depots, and catch a glance on where artistic, archaeological and ethnological collection of the museum is being kept (not opened for public). The event was covered by media (news 1, news 2).

Beside contributing to the quality of content on Wikipedia, edit-a-thons are valuable to attract new partners and volunteers.

All edit-a-thons were announced on the blog (Museum of Metallurgy and Mining Bor, Oto Bihali- Merin Showroom, Institute for nature conservation of Serbia), sent to mailing lists, displayed on our Facebook page (Museum of Metallurgy and Mining Bor, Oto Bihali- Merin Showroom, Institute for nature conservation of Serbia), and Wikipedia Village Pump. Likewise, new Wikipedia pages were created with program, topics and participants for each event (Museum of Metallurgy and Mining Bor, Oto Bihali- Merin Showroom, Institute for nature conservation of Serbia).

Edit-a-thon in Museum of mining and metallurgy Bor

Though we strive to act proactively and explore new institutions interested in cooperation, we’ve noticed that much better outcome occurs once the institution contacts us with some sugestions for mutual project/activity.

Main challanges were:

  • getting to know CC licences and explaining terms of usage
  • geting consent for releasing files under CC licence also sometimes took a lot of time
  • mostly there are many new editors participating and it could happen that aditional edits must be made on articles, so that they don’t get deleted
  • on some occasions, internet couldn’t support large number of editors and file upload could be a great challenge. Then it’s really hard to keep participants motivated to upload files from home.

QR codes

For OR code placement, global metrics are not the best way to present the project, so we’ll use different criteria to measure this project’s success. The first setting of QR codes was in February this year. The Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia last year organized a monthly photo-competition on subject Nature of Serbia. Each month they have announced the winners and for this year they've planed to make traveling exhibitions in Serbia. For this exhibitions purpose, WMRS volunteers and employees created 32 new articles. On 80 photos QR codes were placed. Six volunteers have participated in creating articles. You can check how it looked like on website of the Institute for nature conservation Serbia.

Other placement was product of cooperation with organization 3225 from Ivanjica, who organize the Museum Night in this town. This year the subject of the Museum Night was Famous persons from Ivanjica. Two volunteers were dedicated to creation of 11 articles. During this event we placed 20 QR codes.

Released content

The table below is an outline of the institutions, the number of liberated photos as well as their utilization on Wiki projects. National Library of Serbia helped in communication with the aforementioned libraries and so once again helped the projects of Wikimedia Serbia. With representatives of the Museum of Naïve and Marginal Art in Jagodina we got in contact during the organization of the editorial marathon at the Salon Otto Bihalji-Merin.

Institution Number of photos Link to category on Wikimedia Commons Usage on Wiki projects
Library in Kruševac 4 Category:Library Kruševac Usage on Wiki projects
Library Srboljub Matić- Malo Crniće 5 Category:Library Srboljub Mitić - Malo Crniće Usage on Wiki projects
Public Library in Jagodina 4 Category:National Library in Jagodina Usage on Wiki projects
Library Dušan Matić. Ćuprija 5 Category:Public Library Dušan Matić, Ćuprija Usage on Wiki projects
Public Library of Serbia 145 Category:National Library of Serbia /
Museum of Naive and Marginal Art in Jagodina 75 Category:Edit-a-thon in Museum of Naive and Marginal Art, Serbia Usage on Wiki projects

Digital Beograde edit

This is the project in which Wikimedia Serbia was involved for the purpose of providing technical support to Faculty of Organizational Sciences (FON) and the Institute for Cultural Heritage protection. They have included the Faculty of Philology (due to the need of texts translation). During the year several meetings were held and we agreed on the dynamics of work and tasks of the participants. The training for students of FON was held. However, there were several problems and the main one was the absence of translated texts. After not getting texts until the specified deadline, the Institute considered finding means to pay for the translations.

After considering the development of the project, in which we had already invested a lot of time and effort, we agreed not to try to continue pushing the project, but we will provide support if they need it.

Wiki-librarian edit

During this period we held 5 workshops, 4 lectures and 2 edit-a-thons (Open Science, Jovan Cvijić) whose results can be seen on this link (user names, written and improved articles). Photos from workshops and presentations can be seen in this category.

Đorđe Stakić held an introductory lecture Users and editing Wikipedia on February 12. There were 10 participants present, mainly from the University Library "Svetozar Marković". There were other colleagues from the Library of the Faculty of Mathematics, Institute of Technical Sciences SASA and Polytechnics Belgrade.

Wiki Librarian was presented at the Assembly of the library community of universities in Serbia on February 20, 2015. Aleksandra Popović gave a brief lecture in which she explained the main goals of the project and accredited seminar Wiki Librarian at the National Library of Serbia. It was attended by 34 participants from different towns in Serbia (Kragujevac, Leskovac, Niš, Novi Sad). Assembly was a good occasion for creating a plan for the workshop in Central Library of the University of Novi Sad, which later was held in their library.

A virtual exhibition was set Ivan Đaja: The life and work where one segment is used for describing the activity of Wikimedia Serbia and Wikipedia. Also virtual exhibition was translated into English - Ivan Đaja on Wikipedia. Article about Ivan Đaja was improved on Serbian Wikipedia.

In April the project was presented on the seminar Adjusting needs and possibilities in contemporary librarianship, Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, April 16-17, 2015. The seminar was organized by the Librarian Association of the Republic of Srpska. More about the topics discussed on this gathering can be found on the following link Expert Seminar, Trebinje. The paper written by Aleksandra Popović, Oja Krinulović and Đorđe Stakić was presented to more than 100 librarians from Republic of Srpska and Serbia. It is titled Importance of libraries and Wikipedia in education dissemination.

The paper written by Oja Krinulović, Mile Stijepović and Đorđe Stakić titled Librarian Contribution to “Serbian Wikipedia” is in publication in Glas biblioteke, a journal published by the City Library “Vladislav Petković Dis” from Čačak (in press).

The paper was accepted at the 14th International scientific conference Digital Humanities organized by the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade which will be held on September 25-27, 2015 in Belgrade. The paper was written by Aleksandra Popović, Milica Ševkušić and Đorđe Stakić and it is titled “Libraries and Wikipedia Together on the Web: Open Knowledge for Everyone”.

Currently we are preparing a lecture for primary and secondary schools pupils and also for students who are members of the Scouts Association of Serbia (beginning of July)

Project Wiki Librarian is very successful in the librarian community. Librarians are very interested in attending courses. Unfortunately, the time provided for workshops is not enough for acquiring all skills for individual creation of articles on Wikipedia. The level of informatics literacy is different with all participants. Additional workshops are necessary for librarians to master all the steps on Wikipedia. Some have even suggested that special time should be determined when all participants could ask questions about their work on Wikipedia. Some colleagues have already attended several workshops and now they are fully trained for individual work in Wikipedia. Librarians usually have problems with discussion pages because that is a specific thing for Wikipedia. As they do not have enough knowledge, they easily give up. We plan to organize additional workshops for all participants who already attended introductory lectures, trainings and initial creation of articles on Wikipedia. During the courses, lectures and organizers have better acquired and mastered steps in creating articles. They modified lectures and provided additional explanations to the participants.

In the first and the second workshop, users created their accounts in the very workshops which took up a lot of time. Later we made a tutorial on how to create an account which we sent to the participants so that now the majority of them comes with their accounts created. Project activities have been executed according to the plan. The interest of librarians in various towns in Serbia has surpassed the planned budget and goals.

Project Wiki Librarian is also an accredited seminar at the National Library of Serbia. According to the regulations on continuous training of employees in library and informatics field all librarians must have at least 6 hours per year of education on accredited seminars.


Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Number of workshops N/A 5 5 The plan is to organize another workshop in Belgrade with new participants and several workshops for colleagues who have already passed the basic training for editing.
Number of lectures N/A 4 5 We plan to organize two lectures in the Fall.
Number of edit-a-thons N/A 2 2 We plan to organize one more edit-a-thon (in November): Librarians together on Wikipedia
Number of institutions we cooperated with N/A 32 10 13 higher education institutions: 9 public libraries, 1 faculty, 8 cultural institutions, 1 archive
Number of written and improved articles N/A 157 / Not projected in yearly plan.
Number of participants on workshops N/A 100 / Not projected in yearly plan. Out of 100 participants, 15 are active, 82 opened new accounts and 3 volunteers worked on organisation of workshops and participated in training sessions.
Number of towns where we have established cooperation N/A 11 5

Competitions on Wikipedia edit

Competitions on Wikipedia are a good way to motivate the community, whether it comes to experienced Wikipedians or new volunteers. The number of participants depends on topics and interesting prizes, which are not easy things to choose. The annual plan projected goals were: minimum 300 articles created, minimum 150 improved article, at least 15 involved members of the community. Competition CEE Spring didn't awake interest among the community (although it was announced via blog, mailing list, Village Pump and social networks) and resulted in a slightly smaller number of articles than expected (79). The list of articles and participants can be seen on this page. We also made the project page on Wikipedia and on Meta. Тwo more competitions are in plan until the end of the year so we think we will reach the target goal.

Although the CEE spring 2015 had weaker results than expected, Wikimedia Serbia was satisfied with the cooperation between countries of the Central and Eastern Europe that had the common goal of strengthening relations between the countries in the region. WMRS representatives attended the Skype meeting and several preparatory meetings were held before we started the implementation of the project. Members of the jury were selected. Some of them were not included in WMRS projects but were experienced Wikipedians. The jury was very willing to cooperate and they were very effective. They are also willing to participate in future WMRS projects. The winner of the competition was one of the WikiLive participants, who continued to actively edit Wikipedia after the conference. We believe that Wiki camp in Macedonia is an interesting way to retain active editors and members of the community and to make them learn about other chapters and engage in WMRS projects. After the end of the completion a blog post with announced winners was published.

Community members sometimes were not friendly when it comes to competitions. We believe that this barrier can be overcome through their participation in competitions or other activities related to WMRS projects.

Number of written articles about CEE countries:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Number of competitions 3 1 3 Competition on astronomy was held from December 21 until January 21, and was counted in last year's projects.
Number of participants 42 8 15
Number of new and improved articles 953 79 450

Wiktionary edit

In accordance with the annual plan, we've reached the goal of 1,000 new articles on Serbian Wiktionary. Some of the projects are still in the progress. In agreement with the mentors and students, Wikimedia Serbia volunteers (team members of 1001 Arabic Words) held an introductory lecture at the university, as well as editing Wiktionary training at Wikimedia Serbia office, and other workshops. At university, workshops were held during regular lectures.

When necessary, workshops have been held for all further questions, to which students are given feedback, suggestions and comments by the experienced Wiktionary editors. At any time, students had a contact person available for their concerns and questions. "1001 Arabic Words" team workshops were held at Wikimedia Serbia office, as planned.

We recognized that the situation with new vocabulary was slightly better in terms of effectiveness mainly due to the implementation of Wiktionary project in the course, giving the students an opportunity to collect extra points for the exam. The motivation of the participants on Wiktionary whose activities couldn’t bring extra credits was slightly lower, but they have shown the initiative to extend the project in order to reach the same level as the other dictionaries.

Regional cooperation edit

Wiki Camp edit

First Wiki Camp was held in 2014. in colaboration with Wikimedia Hungary. We recognized that this is a good community incentive, and a way to integrate online and offline activities. Community members meet members of other chapters, get to know about their projects, but also they contribute to Wiki projects (mainly Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons) during Wiki Camp. This way, the community becomes stronger and participants continue to edit Wikipedia, or participate in other Wikimedia projects. For these reasons, we plan to organize another Wiki Camp with the period of implementation in the second half of the year. Expected success rates are 20 participants, 2 subjects and 2 days.

Negotiations started with the user group from Bulgaria. Currently we are working on the design of the program, creating the framework budget and time frame. Global metrics will be shown in the annual report.

Spreading the Wiki word in Republic of Srpska edit

In the period April - June 2015, we organized four workshops in the main centers of the Republic of Srpska in the following order:

East Sarajevo Banja Luka Trebinje Bijeljina

Workshops consisted of two parts. In the first part, we had the opportunity to present current projects of Wikimedia Serbia, within which we promoted the work of this organization in Republic of Srpska. The second part of the workshop was devoted to practical work. Specifically, students were shown how to edit articles on Wikipedia and upload photos on Wikimedia Commons.

Wikipedian Saša Stanivuk (participant in WikiLive conference) joined the lecture in Banja Luka and shared his experiences on editing articles on Wikipedia. This is actually an indication that workshops made sense, considering that the participants had the opportunity to meet Wikipedians during the workshops and create a stronger network that could be useful in the future.

As far as the participation of the project Spreading Wikimedia ideas in Republic of Srpska is concerned, we agreed that activities were more than successful. The project involved the higher education institutions in the four main centers in Republic of Srpska, which certainly represents a significant step in increasing the visibility and adoption of new projects of Wikimedia Serbia.

Higher education institutions certainly represent very desirable partners in projects that include the promotion of free knowledge, which is really the essence of activities of Wikmedia Serbia - that knowledge is free and accessible to us all. In addition, we believe that the promotion made sense in terms of creating a network of new Wikimedians who could organize similar projects independently in the future.

Basically everything was functioning as it was planned. Still, the biggest problems were the faculties which didn’t have sufficient computer equipment. In these situations, all participants weren’t able to edit articles independently. They worked in groups using two-three private laptop.

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Number of regional centers N/A 4 4 East Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Trebinje, Bijeljina
Number of participants N/A 48 / Not projected in yearly plan.
Number of new and improved articles N/A 11 / Not projected in yearly plan.

Workshops in Višegrad edit

These activities began last year when several meetings (offline or online) of WMRS representatives and interested volunteers from Republic of Srpska were held. The original idea was to provide support to the volunteers from Republic of Srpska in order to launch new projects and form a community that will participate in these activities and eventually establish a user group/chapter. Lecture and workshop were held in Višegrad in January this year and the results are shown in the table with global metrics. The workshop was used not just to promote WMRS projects, but also to conduct the training in the purpose of editing Wikipedia and organizing the photo tour. On this occasion we held a meeting with the leaders of the project Spreading Wikimedia ideas in Republic of Srpska and introduced them with volunteers from Višegrad. These activities were fruitful and volunteers in Republic of Srpska stayed motivated and organized another workshop and submitted the project Trace of a soul for a grant but in these activities WMRS representatives didn't participate.

Community support edit

WikiLive 2015 edit

“Local Wikimania” or WikiLive 2015 was conceived as a gathering of Wikipedians and their mutual acquaintance. Conference was planed mostly in order to activate the community and get them familiar with Wikimedia projects, so they can take active role in their realization. Conference was organized aiming to strenghten the capacities of Wikimedia Serbia. It was planed to take place in Belgrade, as a two day event with at least 30 participants, of which 20 can have all travel and accommodation expenses covered. During those two days, Wikimedians/Wikipedians from Serbia, other chapters and partners planed to moderate at least 10 sessions (about Wikimedia projects, interesting facts on Serbian Wikipedia etc).

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Number of stipends N/A 18 20 From 29 application.
Number of participants N/A ~70 30 45 registered.
Number of sessions N/A 15 10
Number of volunteers -logistic N/A 10 / Not projected in annual plan

Organization of the conference began with gathering of the organizing team. Firstly, we published a call for volunteers in cooperation with the Voluntary Service of Serbia and volunteers were divided into several teams (program team, logistics, promo team and the team to communicate with the participants). About 10 volunteers participated in the organization. When creating the program, the program team had to get in contact with the community in order to recognize which subjects are most interesting for Wikipedians. A new Wikipedia page was created and new information about the program and events were placed in a timely manner on the WMRS website and this page. 15 topics have been covered. The lecturers were experienced Wikipedians from Serbia and we’ve had a guest speaker from Macedonia (Kiril Simeonovski).

Student Cultural Center provided the support of the project by giving WMRS the conference space for free. Bearing in mind that many Wikipedians are not from Belgrade and WMRS through its activities promotes decentralization, we announced a call for applications for scholarships for participation in the conference. Out of 29 applicants, 18 received a scholarship (scholarship recipients were from Serbia, Republic of Srpska and Macedonia) which covered the cost of accommodation, travel and meals during the conference. We also set up the form for registration and had 45 registered participants. The announcement was posted on the WMRS website, blog, Village Pump, social networks and mailing lists. Facebook event was also created. Around 10 media has transferred the news of the beginning of Wiki Conference (Belgradian, RTS, UrbanBug, RTV, etc), and we had radio and TV appearances.

The conference went great. Logisticly, everything went according to plan. We took this opportunity to organize community meetings before the start of WikiLive. The gathering was organized at WMRS office where we shared promo material that has been created specially for the conference (hand bags, notebooks, promotional materials and brochures). Some of the participants had already edited Wikipedia while some were interested in the projects but were not yet editors. Therefore, the program was modified so that it had a session dedicated to editing of Wikipedia, WMRS projects and those that concerned bots, Wikidata, free licenses etc. (the entire program is available here). Despite the fact that sessions were very live and interactive, with frequent involvement of the participants, the timetable was respected. At the end of the program, participants received certificates and completed the evaluation. Evaluation results tell us that the participants were very pleased with the conference and have the desire to participate again in such an event. They had ideas for projects in their hometowns. They suggested that the program includes more discussions, workshops that would leave space for the presentation of new ideas and questions. We concluded that the conference should certainly be organized next year as well. One of the participants expressed a desire to share his suggestions and advice on how to write good articles about medicine. He got 15 minutes for his presentation. After the conference, one of the participants joined the project in Republic of Srpska, other has won the article writing contest on Wikipedia and will participate in the Wiki Camp in Macedonia. He also expressed a desire to participate in the education project in the Youth center, which received one of the microgrants.

After the conference, a written report was distributed to the community blog, Village Pump, mailing lists and social networks. Photos from the conference can be found here, as well as presentations.

When it comes to conferences, there are still some challenges that we face. In this case, sometimes it was a lack of activity and responsiveness of new volunteers who were in the organizational team. Also, because of administration in Serbia, we had problems to refund travel costs to participants who are not from Serbia.

Motivating the community edit

Motivating the community is not a standard project. It consists of a set of activities aimed to strengthen the communication within the wider Wikipedian community, on other Wikimedia projects, but also in the wider Wikimedia movement. One of the goals is to inform the public about developments in the Wikimedia movement through writing and translating blog posts and publishing them on social networks. Participation in local and international conferences belongs to these activities. The funds are used to cover travel costs (or similar ones) of community members who are not from Belgrade but want to participate in events (conferences, edit-a-thon, photo tours, workshops, etc.).

It is planned to write 50 blog posts, several dozen new articles on sites as well as 200 posts on social networks. We plan to involve at least 10 new volunteers. Through workshops and lectures we will promote the work of Wikimedia Serbia and existing projects. The community will be informed of the activities via blog posts, websites, mailing list and social networks so everyone could join and participate in current projects.

Earlier this year, we achieved the cooperation with Volunteer Service of Serbia. On the official website of the Young Researchers of Serbia (Volunteer Service is one sector of it) they have published the open call for volunteers. We received over 50 applications for the first 6 months and some of the applicants came to regular meetings (Wiki-Thursdays). Volunteers were engaged in education programs, organization of the local conference and in other activities (edit-a-thons, workshops).

In the first half of the year, we put a lot of effort into localization of the brochures and printing the promotional materials. Brochures were first translated, passed through several checks that were followed by creating a design and sending them to the printing office. All brochures are placed in this category. This was useful in case of workshops where we didn't have printed materials. The brochures were put on Wiki pages related to education program or sent via e-mail if needed. Beside brochures we've also procured bags, badges, notebooks, planners, pens and such. Materials were sent to project leaders so they can use them during the promotion of WMRS and project activities.

Achieved results:

  • 24 blog posts
  • 4 organized events - community meetings (meet-up 1, meet-up 2, meet-up before WikiLive conference, meet-up 4). We created Facebook events (1, 2, 3) and blog posts (1, 3), announced it on WMRS site, Village Pump, mailing list. We have also put these announcements within events on out website.
  • 117 posts in the profile Wikimedia Serbia, 178 on the profile Wikipedia in Serbian, 12 events

Wikimedia Serbia had representatives on international conferences and meetings - GLAM Coordinators meeting and Wikimedia Conference 2015. After each conference, representatives wrote reports about topics that were covered by program, and other chapters and their projects. Reports were presented to the community via mailing list. In addition conferences have been used to present the work of WMRS and thus projects and other activities were promoted in the wider community.

Diversity edit

FemWiki edit

In this period, there were two FemWiki workshops at the Cultural Center Rex and the Center for Women's Studies. Some of the articles written are: Women in science, The Center for Women's Studies, Women's Fund “Reconstruction”. Articles Discrimination and Violence were improved. Additionally, several biographies of women were created.

Besides, the list of feminist and LGBT organizations was created and to some of them we sent an invitation for cooperation. More activities are expected in the second half of the year when we will actively seek for volunteers for conducting workshops and organizing edit-a-thons.

Wiki Women Camp edit

We created a call for participation and application form for participants in cooperation with Wikipedians from Albania and Kosovo. This was followed by publishing an open call which lasted 10 days. Based on applications, participant selection was made. After that, we communicated with participants regarding time of departure and we thanked to those who were not given the opportunity to attend the camp. We had some logistic things to handle such as taking the promo materials and brochures for the camp; paying the accommodation for the participants and other finance things. The camp was held from April 24 to 26. All participants filled out the evaluation form at the end of the camp.

We would like to mention the good coordination with Greta from Albania and Blerta from Kosovo, who significantly contributed to creating a draft of the call for participating and selecting participants, but also for logistics and technical matters.

What turned out to be a problem, despite the best intentions of our colleagues from Priština is the venue where the camp was held, specifically problems with electricity. On Saturday we lost 2 hours fixing extension cords that didn't have enough power for all the chargers for laptops. On Sunday we didn't have electricity at all until 12 pm due to the construction works in that street. This significantly influenced the outcomes of the camp in terms of quantity of written articles. We improvised, so we went to a nearby cafe and organized an offline workshop (we split participants into two groups; first group talked about why the number of female editors on Wikipedia is so small, and other was thinking about the solutions for overcoming this gap; the participants presented what they’ve discussed about, and after that we talked about the results). Also, beside the problems with electricity, we had another one with appropriate transport for women from Albania. They had to leave the conference earlier, (on Sunday around 2:30 pm), which also significantly influenced the time that we have been provided for editing articles and for uploading photos.

What appears to be a very positive thing is successfully implemented evaluation in which none of the participants have given negative marks. The main impression was that it was very productive and pleasant to work in women environment which supports you, helps you and from whom you have the ability to learn a lot through editing. Negative comments, which were very rare, were mainly related to the lack of time to edit Wikipedia (which is not surprising because we only had Saturday (with a lack of electricity) and half of Sunday to dedicate to editing.


Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Number of participants N/A 24 24
Number of articles N/A 16 20
Number of photos N/A / 150
Number of volunteers who participated in organizing the camp N/A 3 1

After the end of the camp we published a blog post that summarized the results of the camp. We shared that post with community via standard communication channels (mailing lists, VillagePump, social networks).

Creative Commons edit

In the first half of the year there were no activities on this project.

Microgrants edit

Since last year we had a great turnout for microgrants, by organizations and individuals, this year we've planed to allocate 7 grants. Although the budget is not large, these projects were first conceived as incubators of new ideas and a way to attract new people to organization. If the aim of the project is in accordance with the objectives of Wikimedia movement, project can grow and result in long-term cooperation with volunteers as individuals or associations with similar activities. We could not project specific metrics into the annual plan due to inability to assume types of projects which will pass the selection. Our focus was on creativity and innovative ideas.

There has been a lot of effort in preparatory activities. WMRS formed a committee that has received proposals and evaluated them. The committee was made up of two board members and one employee. The dynamics and timelines were determined, and they were incorporared in the call for participation on WMRS site. The call was placed on WMRS blog and forwarded to the community through mailing lists and social networks, and Village Pump. In addition to regular communication channels, we used contacts and other non-governmental organizations and the invitation was given to 44 associations. To better meet potential project leaders with our mission, we organized information days so that all interested parties were able to come during these three days to our office, talk to the employees and volunteers about their ideas and to look at possible models of cooperation. Info days were quite well attended and visitors were able to formulate their projects in better ways and to coordinate them with our goals.

Criteria for evaluation that are consistent with the strategic goals of WMRS were:

  • free knowledge
  • level of representation
  • long term
  • innovation
  • visibility
  • scope of the activities
  • human and material resources
  • financial means
  • measurability of outcomes
  • experience
  • potential for cooperation

From the 27 proposals received, some were immediately rejected because they were not matching our goals, some will be implemented through existing projects and activities, and 4 proposals were accepted. Proposers were given feedback and projects were processed (changes were made in some activities or budgets). Following this, agreements were signed and activities on some projects are already underway. The leaders of two projects (New Wave and For future to know who we are, walk the free knowledge to the past) had attended the info days. Leader of project Kurgan Serbia had an opportunity to attend the WikiLive conference and to talk with WMRS representatives about his ideas. It should also be emphasized that Wiki Biodiversity project is the continuation of the last year’s cooperation. The project proved to be very successful because of the number of photographs and their utilization in Wikipedia articles.

Selection itself was challenging and the committee has invested a lot of effort to choose projects of good quality. Sometimes it took a lot of volunteer time and the time frame was a bit misplaced, but it did not affect the implementation of projects.

Although we planned to support 7 projects, we’ve selected 4 for which financial resources were necessary. Some projects we’ve joined to Education program or Photo Safari, so that they did not require additional budget.

These are micro-projects whose implementation has just started and proposed table is not applicable. The following will describe the activities, successes and challenges with which the project leaders met.

New wave edit

Youth Center ‘Novi Talas’ is a non-governmental organization dealing with young people, their rights, position and education in areas which are important for the community, such as environmental protection, human rights and tolerance, democracy and security. Special attention was paid to the marginalized youth groups. The project has shown the potential not only for the materials which will be available on Commons but also for networking opportunities with other organizations. It is interesting that this organization cooperates with the Office for Youth Čukarica (Čukarica is one of Belgrade’s larger urban municipalities) so we can think about and obtaining new partners as a result of the project. The project has the potential to increase the visibility of WMRS considering that after the collecting of video material and its editing there is a plan about organizing a promotion where the results of this project are going to be presented.

So far, meetings with representatives of Wikimedia Serbia have been held, an agreement on cooperation between the Serbian Wikimedia and Youth Center ‘Novi Talas’ was signed and funding for the project is granted. WMRS logo is placed on their official website.

And when we are talking about activities, it is notewhorty that the project leader was also active in this field before submitting the proposal. Contact was established with Mrs. Branka Glavonjić, author and host of TV rock show called ‘Bunt’, which will provide contacts with musicians who are scheduled for interviews. For now, everything is going according to plan.

Kurgans of Serbia edit

The idea for the project stemmed from a personal interest in local history and for parts of nature that the old landscape facilities protect - dams, ditches, granges, pastures, mounds ... Although mounds (Kurgans) are universal heritage, little information of these is publicly available. And here lies the innovation and originality of the idea of this Wiki project: this information was not available anywhere by default, not even from state institutions. Only the Vojvodina Museum claimed that "they have identified about 600" and that "their research in progress" (1997).

Of course Wikipedia is not intended to be a substitute source for them (as the opposite is expected), but until the state establishes its information system, this can serve. So, we start with the idea that ranges from scratch.

The bad thing is that the condition of mounds is disastrous, as anticipated. The idea was to process and display only the representative ones, and it turns out that the "representative" are any which survived at all. Texts for many articles are already done, and the volunteer waited after some more extensive field trips to complement them with photographs.

Work is progressing very slowly. It turned out that the majority of time is spent in researching for and reading references that are needed for a good article. (Just to talk around the correction of a basic article the volunteer spent a week!). From interesting events the volunteer would highlight his sudden confrontation with the Border Police jeep interceptor when he had to explain his moving around and photographing.

With the help of a WMRS board member, the needed media categories were added (separate for maps, Banat, Srem etc.).

The material can be seen in this category.

For future to know who we are, walk the free knowledge to the past edit

This project was also submitted by the NGO with which we share common goals and interests. In fact, it is the Youth club Ančiki (abv. OKAn), whose objectives are:

  • promotion and implementation of active participation of youth in social life;
  • promotion and implementation of tolerance, democracy and protection of human rights;
  • raising level of awareness and education of young people in the local community;
  • promotion and implementation of creative development and creativity of young people;
  • raising level of awareness about the preservation and promotion of health of Youth and healthy environment.

They had been rewarded for participating in project ‘Small Free Library’, and the aim of this project was collecting literary works that will be available to young people for free, but also organization of literary evenings, debates, movie watching nights and etc.

This project is primarily related to research of forgotten monuments of culture, finding data, photographing, and the free publication on Wikipedia, to make it accessible to everyone on the basis of free access.

A workshop about editing of Wikipedia was held, where call for participants was announced, as you may see here. A pre-preparation for the successful implementation of other activities on the project was held. The plan is to start work on a painting, gathering information about the cultural heritage of Jablanica district, and their uploading on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.


Wiki biodiversity edit

The project is a continuation of a WMRS microgrant from last year. Its main objective is geo-referenced photographs of the flora and fauna of the southeast Serbia, region with extremely high biodiversity. Photos are uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Primary animal groups that would be collected and photographed are small mammals and larvae of aquatic invertebrates. Of flora and fungi, the most important plants and fungi in ecosystems would be mainly photographed

Additional objectives of the project are photographing a) ecosystems; b) settlements; c) relief; d) natural and cultural resources in the municipalities of Targovishte, Babušnica and Dimitrovgrad.

Activities on this project starting from July. The first expedition will be from Svrljig - Pirot - Babušnica - Dimitrovgrad.

Additional information edit

Reorganizations of job positions in Wikimedia Serbia edit

During this 6 month period, we concluded that we had mismatched expectations from our Executive Director, so we decided to part ways. That left us with an opportunity to go through another search. After long discussions within WMRS board, having conducted some sort of needs assessment, we concluded that it’s best for the time being to split the position into two part-time positions: Communications Manager and Office Manager. We immediately announed the two job openings. There were 335 and 350 applicants respectively, and after long processes, especially in the latter case, we hired Ivana Guslarević as our Communications Manager in May, and Bojan Cvetanović, as our Office Manager, starting from July 1.

With this reorganization, most of the duties of the former ED will be kept within two new positions, except notably for staff management, which will be handled by a subcommittee of the board.

Strategy edit

After extending our previous strategy two times, last time back in September 2014, when we were preparing for this year’s APG, we gave ourselves a deadline that we would create a new strategy by April 1. After having spent a lot of time researching several layers of stakeholders in our movement, the board has finally created and published the new strategy document, which was published on April 1, and will cover the period between that date and end of 2017.

During the creation of the strategy document, we conducted a small informal research about women participation and readership on Serbian Wikipedia. The findings of the research can be found here.

Site visit WMF edit

Wikimedia Serbia had an opportunity to host the representatives ofWikimedia Foundation on June 4 and 5 this year. During these two days, Garfield Byrd, Winifred Olliff and Katy Love met the community of Wikimedia Serbia, employees, board, as well as the partners we work with. Also, some time was used for better understanding of projects and future plans of the chapter but also for exchange of experiences and giving advice on how we could improve our activities. International conferences allows us a brief overview of our projects in converstations and meetings with WMF representatives (and representatives from other chapters) but site visit is an easy way for fully understanding the local context and community. As the Wikimedia movement abounds with different cultures and languages, for them it was important to understand our way of functioning in order to better understand the annual plan and approve it. During the visit, we organized community meet-up in the WMRS office. All photos can be seen in this category.

Revenues received during this six-month period edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Revenues from donations RSD 7,064,822.22 20,090.00 7,084,912.22 66,920.04
Membership fees RSD 2,400.00 0 2,400.00 22.4
Refunds RSD 17,444.68 0 17,444.68 166.01 This is the refund from last year's microgrants.
Revenues from positive exchange rate differences RSD 206,969.63 1,921.18 By the official record of our accountant, calculated on a monthly basis. It was mostly created as a result of US dollar strengthening in a first half of the year.

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this six-month period edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)
Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Office RSD 1,229,200.63 339,527.97 526,962.22 866,490.19 11,409.97 7,999.86 70.11% Hygiene budget is not very well planned.
Staff RSD 2,587,424.58 734,413.49 1,223,875.51 1,958,289.00 24,017.59 17,967.98 74.81% Splitting the position of the Executive Director on two positions causes the growth of this expense.
Services RSD 183,885.02 62,214.92 76,996.32 139,211.24 1,706.90 1,285.26 75.30% Bank commisions are higher than we expected. It is over the budget as a result of the increased use of courier services.
Reserves and Board RSD 707,250.08 192,306.18 74,980.00 267,286.18 6,565.00 2,444.49 37.24%
Participation in Events RSD 891,135.10 307,695.80 133,000.17 440,695.97 8,271.90 4,098.44 49,55%
Educational Program RSD 622,380.07 30,233.04 253,180.44 283,413.48 5,777.20 2,571.55 44.51
Free Photo Content RSD 1,226,371.63 357,460.87 368,935.00 726,395.87 11,383.71 6,706.69 58.91%
Free Content RSD 725,638.58 127,935.25 182,448.39 311,383.64 6,735.69 2,833.12 42.06%
Wikipedia Competitions RSD 183,885.02 56,069.31 6,639.17 62,708.48 1,706.9 581.85 34.09%
Wiktionary RSD 127,305.01 0 1,218.00 1,218.00 1,181.70 11.37 0.96%
Supporting Regional Cooperation RSD 480,930.05 0 178,364.53 178,364.53 4,464.20 1,621.73 36.33%
Community Support RSD 523,365.06 31,434.00 391,018.60 422,452.60 4,858.10 3,797.17 78.16%
Diversity RSD 369,060.04 3,245.00 212,888.00 216,133.00 3,676.40 1,930.68 52.52%
Creative Commons RSD 28,290.00 0 0 0 262.60 0%
Microgrants RSD 495,075.05 0 60,245.48 60,245.48 4,595.50 566.90 12.34
Losses from negative exchange rate differences RSD 232342,24 2156,7 By the official record of our accountant, calculated on a monthly basis. It was mostly created as a result of weakening of the euro.
TOTAL RSD 6,166,629.90 56,573.00

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Translated report edit

Report in Serbian language

This report is also available in Serbian language on this link.


Compliance edit

Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement? edit

As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • Yes

Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • Yes

Signature edit

Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.

Resources edit

Resources to plan for measurement edit

Resources for storytelling edit