Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round 2/Wikimedia Armenia/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.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 196 This is the approximate sum of all projects active editors
2. # of new editors 122
3. # of individuals involved 505 This is the approximate sum of individuals involved in any WM AM project (including conferences, meetings etc.)
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages Not known
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 9349 articles created on Armenian Wikipedia (number of improved ones are not known), 23,532 new entries on Armenian Wiktionary, 1,282 pages proofread on Armenian Wikisource
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 27,070,859 This is the sum of absolute bytes of WLS Weekends, Wikipedia Education Program, Western Armenian program. The absolute sum of articles added during Editing Contests is not known.


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.
Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Example Example Example Example Example

Education Program edit

SMART objectives
  • WM AM has worked to increase the reach of wiki movement and educational projects in the regions of Armenia.
  • The number of schools involved in educational projects are increased from 20 to 21 by January 1.
  • 20 schools out of 20 are maintained who participate in Wikimedia Armenia Education Programs by January 1.
  • 4720 articles out of 10116 are created in Armenian Wikipedia January 1.
  • 23532 entries out of 15906 created in Armenian Wiktionary by January 1.
  • Monthly 145 participants participate in Wikipedia Education program by January 1.
  • 139 participants survived in Wikipedia 6 months after the registration (i.e. made 1 edit each month).
  • 88 participants editing in Wikipedia 6 months after the registration (i.e. made 5 edits each month).
  • 80 participants survived in Wiktionary 6 months after the registration (i.e. made 1 edit each month).
  • 57 participants editing in Wiktionary 6 months after the registration (i.e. made 5 edits each month).
  • 8 participants out of 9 organized local events in their communitiesby January 1.
  • 26 teachers participated in 1 wiki seminar
  • 20 teachers survived 6 months after the registration (i.e. made 5 edits, November seminar participants aren't included in this metrics)․

Working with schools and universities edit

Since 2016 July Wikimedia Armenia has continued to involve more students to the Education program as well as to retain already active ones. WM AM Education program participants work on 3 wikimedia projects: Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikisource.

After the Summer WikiCamp 2016 Wikipedia Education team decided to include Wikisource in its program as well. Wikisource is an interesting and rather easy project to work on for secondary school students. Besides, we thought that it would be better to offer something new to the students in order they had a wide variety of projects to choose to edit. To carry out the project the Education team applied to the Digitization team for providing new scanned free books which could be uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons and later proofread with the help of students. Thus we have 8 proofread books.

A part of the secondary school students continue editing Armenian Wiktionary. We have finished creating and improving main and most used Armenian words. About 114 188 words have been created and more than 8000 improved. And now (since December) the students are working on enriching Armenian Wiktionary with Armenian dialect words.

Օn November 23 Wikimedia Armenia staff conducted a workshop for the students of American University of Armenia who were going to create or improve articles about high power electric stations of Armenia on English Wikipedia. The lecturer divided the students into a groups of four and gave a topic to each group. They were given a task to find as many references as they can, read them carefully, and try to learn about their topic as much as possible, after which they would start editing the articles. As a result the students created and improved 5 articles.

Workshops conducted within Wikipedia Education program since July:

  • July 14 - workshop for the students of “Instigate Educational Center” .
  • September 3 - workshop for the scouts of Armenian General Benevolent Union.
  • September 20 - workshop for the students of Charentsavan school after Mesrop Mashtots
  • October 4 - workshop for the students of Charentsavan school after Mesrop Mashtots
  • October 8 - workshop for the students of Armenian State Pedagogical University, Faculty of Preschool Education
  • October 12 - workshop for the students of Charentsavan school after Mesrop Mashtots
  • October 14 - workshop for the students of Yerevan State Academy of Fine Arts
  • October 15 - workshop for the students of Yerevan N190 school after G. Gulbenkian
  • October 18 - workshop for the students of Charentsavan school after Mesrop Mashtots
  • October 19 - workshop for the students of Mrgavan secondary school (2-3 times a week workshops are conducted in this school by the teacher of informatics)
  • October 22 - workshop for the students of Yerevan N190 school after G. Gulbenkian
  • November 23 - workshop for the students of American University of Armenia
  • December 22 - workshop for the students of Yerevan State University, Faculty of Physics

Teacher seminars edit

On November 2-6, during school Autumn holidays Wikimedia Armenia again gathered together the teachers from different regions of Armenia to held a seminar dedicated to wikiediting. During such seminars we choose active teachers from previous seminars as well as choose new motivated ones who has expressed wish to join Wikipedia Education program. For November seminar 95 teachers have registered and WM AM chose only 26 to participate.

During these days the teachers got familiar with wikimovement, Wikimedia Armenia, Wikimedia Foundation and its projects, learned editing tools, policies and guidelines․ After learning editing tools the newbies began creating new articles or improving already existing ones.

Involving already active teachers in the seminar has several reasons: first of all they stay motivated and continue editing after the seminar, secondly they get acquainted with new editors, make friends and motivate newbies. Many teachers continue editing after the seminar, conduct workshops in their schools involving their students to Wikipedia Education program. On the basis of such teachers Wikimedia Armenia opens WikiClubs throughout Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.

Teacher seminar (November 2-6)
Participants 26
Edits 1102
Bytes (positive and negative sum) 1,049,967 (-35346)
Articles created 134


WikiCamps edit

Wikimedia Armenia organized 2 term Winter WikiCamps. First camp which took place on January 5-10 was organized for secondary and high school students. The second camp (January 26 - February 2) was aimed at involving more University students to the Wikipedia Education program.

As this report includes WM AM activities from July-December, 2016, WikiCamps activities will be included in APG 2015-2016 Impact report.

WikiClubs edit

SMART objectives
  • 1 new WikiClub was established by January 1, 2017
  • 7 WikiClubs were maintained by January 1, 2017

Wikimedia Armenia continues to establish WikiClubs in the regions of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh where there are interested people in Wikipedia who want to have their contribution in the development of wikimovement and wikiprojects in Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.

WikiClubs gather together wikienthusiasts who enrich wikiprojects. The editors are guided by the coordinators of the clubs who are almost always teachers who have previously participated in the Teacher seminar. Newbies are also welcome in the WikiClubs where the coordinators teach them wikiediting tools. The coordinators cooperate with different schools and other educational institutions to involve more students in the activities of the clubs.

To evaluate the work of WikiClubs WM AM team makes their metrics of Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikisource contributions each month. We also provide the clubs with different sources based on which they make most of their contributions.

In December 2016 Wikimedia Armenia opened a new WikiClub in Togh village, NKR. The club now has its editors who actively contribute in different wikiprojects.

Western Armenian program edit

SMART objectives
  • Organize a WikiCamp in Portugal in August (done)
  • Open at least one Western Armenian WikiClub (done)
  • Involve 10 new active Western Armenian students by July 2017 (done)
  • 699 out of 1000 new Western Armenian articles created

We continue to work on getting a separate ISO code for the Western Armenian language. It is of our high priorities in this project because without having an ISO code for Western we can not request to open a separate Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Right now, Western Armenian editors edit on the originally Eastern Armenian Wikipedia which makes many inconveniences for both Western and Eastern editor communities. Wikimedia Armenia in collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation will probably apply for a new ISO code this August.

WM AM Western Armenian team continues its collaboration with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. We have previously applied and received two grants from this foundation. This year too, we successfully worked on a new grant proposal. It was almost completely confirmed by the Gulbenkian Foundation with minor changes. Like last year, we will have two staff members and different kind of projects which aim at the preservation and development of Western Armenian language in the Armenian Diaspora mostly through Wikimedia projects.

The Western Armenian team promoted the project in different conferences and events in Armenia thus increasing public awareness and outreach of the project among Western Armenians living in Armenia. One of this conferences was the “Western Armenian language in Armenia: Challenges, Prospects” conference. The conference was organized by the Youth Council of the Aleppo Compatriotic Charitable Organization with the support from the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia and the Armenian General Benevolent Union. The conference aimed at finding solutions for preservation and development issues of the Western Armenian language in Armenia.

We also carried on with the recruiting new volunteers in the Diaspora. After the Summer WikiCamp 2016 in Portugal, Turkish-Armenian participants tried to establish a new WikiClub in Istanbul. On the 6th of October, 2016, participants began their first workshop at Istanbul National Central College encouraging the students and teaching how to edit Western Armenian articles. We also founded another WikiClub in Beirut. On the 9th of November, 2016, Alicia Ishkhanian, a Wikipedia camp participant, presented to her Armenian Evangelical Central High School's, 7th till the 12th graders, the Western Armenian Wikipedia. Mentioning that the idea of the Western Armenian Wikipedia was introduced in 2014, Alicia talked about the several camps that took place to encourage the Western Armenian Wikipedia, starting from the one in Lebanon in which many Armenian Lebanese schools participated in, in order to develop the Western Armenian. Some of the minor editing rules of Wikipedia was also mentioned in the presentation, explaining the important details while writing or translating an article. Encouraged by this presentation, 10 students requested a WikiClub in the school so they could learn and improve furthermore the Western Armenian Wikipedia.

WikiCamp in Portugal edit

This year Western Armenian team in cooperation with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation organized the second Western Armenian WikiCamp. It took place in Portugal at the Tempo de Aventura youth camp in Cadaval, from the 17th to 26th of August 2016. It had 57 participants, coming from Athens (2), Beirut (8), Istanbul (19), Lyon (4), Marseille (2), Paris (12) and Yerevan (10), including 7 facilitators. Throughout the week, participants wrote and edited articles for Wikipedia, related to a large variety of topics․ The WikiCamp in Portugal was not based on a competitive approach aiming to write as many articles as possible. Rather, it emphasized language acquisition, writing skills development, self-confidence and participative group work.

Digitization edit

Digitization process at Wikimedia Armenia office
SMART objectives
  • 40 out of 30 proposed Armenian books digitized
  • Maintain 40 active editors of Armenian Wikisource (done)
  • 8 books out of proposed 10 were proofread

Stressing the importance of open and accessible sources on Wikisource, Wikimedia Armenia continued working on the digitization of free content. The digitization project of Wikimedia Armenia was launched with the chapter establishment and became a separate project in 2014. It is one of the earliest WM AM projects, needs very few resources but provides access to vast amounts of free data which can be later used on other Wikimedia projects. On the other hand, the digitization program is also important for other WM AM projects and we continuously try to better the quality of both - digitized content and support.

Wikimedia Armenia continues its collaboration with the National Library of Armenia. We always exchange digitized contents so having it both on Wikisource and on the website of the National Library.

During these 6 months, 40 books were digitized - 10,992 pages in total. Out of these and other books of Wikisource 8 books were proofread completely and many others - partly, in total 1,282 pages. Considering the bad quality of Armenian OCR and the painfulness of proofread process for many books this is a very good result for us. Completing the foregoing, ~12% of digitized content was proofread by more than 100 active editors.

So the goal for this year was to digitize at least 30 Armenian books by July 1, 2017, by maintaining 40 active editors of Armenian Wikisource and proofreading at least 10 books. We are very much happy that we have already reached our goal but at the same time, the digitization team goes ahead.

Sources:

Community Support edit

SMART objectives
  • Increase the reach of wikiprojects in Armenia and its regions.
  • Have at least 12 participants in Saturday workshops. (done)
  • 3 out of 5 different workshops in different educational and scientific institutions were implemented.
  • 2 out of 6 edit-a-thons for WLS participants were organized.
  • Have 100 participants in Wikipedia Day in 2017 (done)
Saturday workshops

In order to provide offline meetings Armenian Wikipedians we continued our best practice of organizing Saturday Workshops. There are actually edit-a-thons for experienced editors, where they can sit together, edit and communicate. In addition, Saturday Workshops are editing workshops for newcomers, for those who want to learn how to edit on Wikimedia projects. During these 6 months, we had 23 this kind of workshop and we had approximately 10-30 participants in each.

WLS

To support active community better and involve new editors in the community we continued to organize WLS Weekends. There were 2 this kind of edit-a-thons organized.

WLS (November 4-6)
Participants 34
Edits 819
Bytes (positive and negative sum) 887,077 (-74,018)
Articles created 108
WLS (December 9-11)
Participants 21
Edits 954
Bytes (positive and negative sum) 859,792 (-35,592)
Articles created 149
Renovation of the office space

Renovation of the new received office space was postponed to spring do to strict winter in Armenia.

Spoken Wikipedia

The idea of the spoken Wikipedia was taken from the same project of English Wikipedia. The main goal of this project is to record articles in Armenian thus making articles more accessible for readers. Audio recordings are made in the recording studio of Wikimedia Armenia. Each month 4-5 recordings of different article synopsis are made. These articles are mainly featured/good articles of Armenian Wikipedia or have good quality. Speakers are different volunteer actors whom we invite to come and record articles on behalf of Wikimedia Armenia and free knowledge. 26 audio articles are recorded so far. Source:

Category of Armenian Wikipedia with spoken articles

Microgrants edit

In the grant proposal of 2015-2016 round 2 we stated our wish to have the Microgrants project which would aim at assisting Armenian wiki-community groups and individuals in their micro-projects or activities, so having an impact on Wikimedia projects.

However, in this period we did not fund any microgrant because we didn't have a trustful and actually working proposal. Before funding the suggested project we talked with the one who proposed the microgrant project and suggested to run a pilot program with our help. These were mainly projects based on creating and maintaining a partnership and the partner’s actions and attitude, of course, were very important. Unfortunately, all proposed projects failed because of the partner refusal and/or inefficiency which was very painful for us because we put a lot of efforts to make the microgrants projects happen.

International Involvement edit

Among the international conferences WM AM representatives attended this year is Wiki-conference 2016 Saint Petersburg in Russia. In addition, another international conference - WM CEE Meeting 2016 was organized in Dilijan, Armenia.

WM CEE Meeting 2016 edit

Group photo of the WM CEE Meeting 2016

This year Wikimedia Armenia’s efforts were mainly concentrated on the organizing of the WM CEE Meeting 2017. The original idea of organizing the conference in Armenia was approved at the WM CEE Meeting 2015 in Voore, Estonia. The preparations of the Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2016 began long before the conference. At the end of 2015, at the beginning of 2016 Wikimedia Armenia got an agreement with UWC Dilijan College to host the WM CEE Meeting 2016 there.

The conference hosted 102 participants from Central and Eastern European Wikimedian’s community. Among these participants there were also many local Armenian community members. The conference was the fifth annual meeting of Wikimedians from Central and Eastern Europe centered on the Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia and similar projects) in countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It took place in Dilijan, Armenia between 27-29 August 2016. It was hosted and co-organized by Wikimedia Armenia.

Wikimedia CEE Meeting featured presentations and workshops on Wikimedia projects, GLAM, Wikicamps/Wikiclubs, CEE Spring, Education Extension, best practices for editing workshops and social media/PR/Media, Wikidata, Content Translation, conflict management, communication, surveys WMF grant system and changes, WikiMed and gender gap, free knowledge and free content, and the social and technical aspects which relate to these topics.

You can find more information about the WM CEE Meeting 2016 here:

Writing contests edit

During the reporting period collaborating with chapters and user groups from other countries, Wikimedia Armenia organized four writing contests - Norwegian-Armenian collaboration, Castles challenge, CEE Spring 2016 and "Hungarian Revolution 1956" month.

Norway-Armenian collaboration
Armenian winner of Norway-Armenian collaboration

Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia Norge came up with the idea to organize a writing contest on both Armenian and Norwegian Wikipedias after a Board member of Wikimedia Norge - Tove Eivindsen visited Armenia and the Armenian chapter in 2015. The decision along with the communities confirmation was made in early 2016, the challenge took place on November 14 - December 5.

Initially, this writing contest was aimed at the improvement and edit of Armenian and Norway related topics on Armenian and Norwegian Wikipedias. This on one hand improved the content about these countries on Wikipedia, on the other hand highly impacted on the cooperation between the wiki communities of Armenia and Norway, as well as, two affiliates.

From the side of the Armenian community, there were 34 participants, who created and edited more than 765 articles on Armenian Wikipedia. The winner was offered a chance to go to Norway and get closer to their culture and life. This will be organized later, probably in spring of 2017.

Finally, Wikimedia Norge and Wikimedia Armenia decided on writing a blogpost and a learning pattern about the challenge which will be done in late February.

Sources:


Castles challenge

At the 2016 Wikimedia Conference, held in Berlin earlier in 2016, representatives from Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia Spain began planning for a joint project. The initial conversation was focused on increasing Wikipedia content, so finally we decided to work on castles and fortifications of both countries, with the aim of improving the cultural and historical knowledge between the two countries and strengthen ties of communication between both Wikimedia communities.

We agreed to organize a September online contest with prizes for the top participants. The community in Armenia could win by editing articles on Spanish castles, and the one in Spain would do the same with Armenian castles. We worked together to create the contest pages, along with rules and a list of proposed articles.

A total of 283 articles were edited in 7 languages, of which 276 were new, by 21 editors—12 from Armenia and 9 from Spain.

After the contest, Armenian and Spanish organizers wrote a blogpost.

Sources:

CEE Spring 2016

Following the best experience with the CEE Spring writing contest, Wikimedia Armenia team decided to take the responsibility of organizing the international contest on Armenian Wikipedia.

Wikimedia CEE Spring 2016 is an event organized by Wikimedians and Wikipedians from the region of Central and Eastern Europe with an aim to support article creation about every country in the region on every Wikipedia in the region.

During the CEE Spring 2016 contest, there were 27 participants from Armenian Wikipedia, who created and edited 847 articles.

Sources:

Hungarian Revolution of 1956

By the request of the Hungarian community Armenian community joined the article writing contest on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. 12 participants edited 139 articles on the Hungarian Revolution on October 1-31.

Sources: Page of the contest and category of created articles

Revenues received during this six-month period edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation USD 22784.5 22784.5 22784.5 22784.5 22784.5 Calouste Gulbenkian grant, sum of three seprate installements, two in July, one in September
Wikimedia Foundation USD 49135.5 49135.5 49135.5 49135.5 49135.5 WM CEE 2016 PEG
Wikimedia Foundation USD 104978.5 104978.5 104978.5 104978.5 104978.5 APG installement

Spending during this six-month period edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Operations AMD 11,090,200.0 0.0 0.0 5,594,987.0 3,191,908.0 8,786,895.0 22,624.0 17,925.3 79.2
Staff expences AMD 24,180,864.0 0.0 0.0 6,472,764.0 6,776,832.0 13,249,596.0 49,329.0 27,029.2 54.8
Education program AMD 6,553,000.0 0.0 0.0 4,100,000.0 0.0 4,100,000.0 13,368.1 8,364.0 62.6
WikiCamps AMD 40,244,500.0 0.0 0.0 5,441,330.0 5,821,480.0 11,262,810.0 82,098.8 22,976.1 28.0
WikiClubs AMD 440,000.0 0.0 0.0 40,449.0 0.0 40,449.0 898.0 82.5 9.2
Western Armenian AMD 28,847,686.0 0.0 0.0 6,548,771.0 1,424,134.0 7,972,905.0 58,849.3 16,264.7 27.6
Digitization AMD 200,000.0 0.0 0.0 143,210.0 3,000.0 146,210.0 408.0 298.3 73.1
Community Support AMD 15,654,000.0 0.0 0.0 2,749,864.0 755,373.0 3,505,237.0 31,934.2 7,150.7 22.4
Microgrants AMD 900,000.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 1,836.0 0.0 0.0
International Involvement AMD 6,090,000.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 12,424.0 0.0 0.0
TOTAL 134,200,250.0 0.0 0.0 31,091,375.0 17,972,727.0 49,064,102.0 273,769.3 100,090.8 356.9

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


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