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Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 1/Wikimedia Argentina/Progress report form

< Grants:APG | Proposals | 2017-2018 round 1 | Wikimedia Argentina

Purpose of the report

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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 grant 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.

Metrics and results overview - all programs

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Total metrics

Total metrics Participants Newly registered Content pages Diversity Quality Comments
Education Program1013 217 603 80% of girls/women feel confortable as Wikipedia editors. 68% quality content Surveys conducted after all our activities.
Culture & Open Knowledge Program 1403 328 10,893 content pages

170 books (+37284 pages in Commons)

3 new cultural topics addressed*. 75% understand and incorporate free culture Surveys conducted after all our activities.
Community Building Program 962 66 2552 13 new women and as of collective LGTBI involved as part of our community 85% define the Wikimedia Argentina's community as healthy and inclusive Surveys conducted after all our activities.

*The 3 new cultural topics addressed by the program will be: Fact Checking, Science & Topical issues

Education Program

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  • Wikipedia in the University
    Wikipedia in the University
  • Editing Clubs
    Editing Clubs
  • Wiki Human Rights
    Wiki Human Rights

Summary

During the first semester of 2018, WMAR’s Education Program has focused on the following objectives:

  • Promoting and consolidating the presence of Wikipedia as an educational tool in the classroom.
  • Organizing a community of educators that promotes our program on a national scale.
  • Scaling and supporting the implementation of new educational programs in the region.

Side effect: Challenges in the Argentinean context

As we established in the grant, during the first six months of the year (remember that in Argentina, the school year begins by the end of March), we faced the following challenges:

  • Dissatisfaction of Argentinean educators with the governments’ wages adjustment. This resulted in numerous strikes which delayed the beginning of our activities in schools and universities.
  • The Ministries of Education of the provinces were literally left without a budget, due to the economic adjustment imposed by the national government. This led to a drastic reduction of resources and staff with which we were working.
  • Public schools have less resources than ever, so internet access is still a challenge to face.


The Education Program in Argentina

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Success: Wikipedia in the classroom

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A) Editing clubs and Wikipedia in the University

During 2018, we have continued fostering our two educational proposals for the Argentinean classrooms: Editing Clubs and Wikipedia in the University. Both proposals have a similar objective: getting educators and students involved in the construction of locally relevant quality knowledge.
How have we organized the activities in 2018?
Context has been essential when deciding how and in which way we were to implement both projects in 2018. Unlike the situation in 2017, the Editing Clubs project -originally promoted by the Ministries of Education of the provinces- has been affected by the budget reduction, which resulted in the following significant changes:

2018 Editing Clubs proposal Changes in the proposal
Working in three regions of the country: North, Center and South
  • Due to layoff and budget complications, we promoted the project in the region of the province of Buenos Aires
Call made by the Ministries of the provinces
  • Promoting an open call, directly aimed at the schools.
Provinces covered mobility expenses
  • Wikimedia Argentina covers mobility and accommodation expenses

Regarding the Wikipedia in the University project, less affected by budget reductions, we have worked on:

  • Fostering work during online activities with educators, so that the in-person activities are more fruitful and we can edit quality articles.
  • Mentoring educators who have already been leaders in other occasions, in order to consolidate their work.


Where did we carry out the projects in 2018?

Wikipedia in the University

We worked with 5 universities from different regions:


Which have been the most important results?

Qualitative results

  • 80% of the educators with which we worked in schools were women, while in universities they were 37%.
  • Regarding students, 42% of high school students were women, while in universities the number reached 54%.
  • 80% of women who participated felt comfortable during the activities.
  • Increase of students’ participation: by carrying out the activity in the school, all students could attend the editing workshop.
  • Quality content: we improved specific fields such as journalism, colonial history and medicine, incorporating quality information.
  • New partners: 70% of the schools and universities with which we worked during this first half of the year were new partners.

Quantitative results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
400 students 600 310 On target We expect to work with 3 new universities
450 teachers 650 168 On target n/a
500 articles 424 203 On target without adding Wikipuentes results
70% quality articles 80% 80% Not yet available n/a
70% of women and girls feeling confortable n/a 80% On target n/a

Challenges?

The institutions with which we work wish to repeat the experience. Our challenge is:

  • to make educators project leaders, mentoring new educators in each institution.
  • to continue generating online follow-up strategies to support institutions that participate in the projects.


B) Building a community of educators


One of the great objectives of the Education Program is still building a community of educators that can lead projects and proposals in the classroom.

Why do we believe this is important?

  • It provides our educational projects with a long-term projection and continuity
  • It consolidates the Education Program inside educational institutions

How did we work on this during the first semester of the year?

  • We fostered two open calls for the Editing Clubs project and for the Wikipedia in your University project.
  • We improved remote and in-person follow-up.
  • We used new channels of communication, such as a Telegram group

What kind of results did we achieve?

  • We established networks with educators from new regions. So far: 15 teachers were involved from North, Center and South region in the country.
  • Encounters with educators allow them to get to know each other  in person and make it easier to share experiences, results and difficulties.

Challenges?

  • To generate new strategies to be able to mentor and support every educator who is interested in taking Wikipedia to the classroom.



Gating factors: Editing Club's difficulties

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As we continue strengthening the Editing Clubs project as a proposal focused on high schools, we have encountered some difficulties that made us re-evaluate our work strategies. These can be summarized as follows:

  • Educators face many bureaucratic and work obstacles to be able to attend training sessions outside of their schools.
  • Internet access in high school is still a problem.
  • The project requires a lot of in-person follow-up by the Education Program.

How are we facing these problems?

  • Relaunching the call for the training workshop for educators, including new institutions
  • Strengthening online and in-person contact with institutions that could not participate
  • Offering different online training options so educators do not have to leave the school during working hours



What have we learnt?
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  • Generating online and in-person follow-up strategies for educators strengthens their work with Wikipedia in the classroom.
  • Fostering interdisciplinary work inside the institutions helps more educators carry out projects.
  • Launching our own calls allows us to measure the outreach of the Education Program in educational circles.
  • Having universities and research educators as partners helps us guarantee the quality of articles related to different subjects.



What's next
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  • In-person encounter of the community of educators in Wikimedia Argentina’s offices to evaluate and share results of the first four-month period of the year.
  • Organizing a second training course for educators of the Editing Clubs in Buenos Aires.
  • Continuing developing the Editing Clubs project in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Corrientes.
  • Developing the annual contest with UNESCO for high schools of the entire country.
  • Carrying out the “Wikipedia in the University” project together with 3 universities from Buenos Aires and Cordoba.
  • Launching the 8th edition of Wikipuentes (Wikibridges) for educators of the entire country.



The Education Program outside Argentina

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Success: Human Rights & Paraguay

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A) Wiki Derechos Humanos (Wiki Human Rights)

During this first part of 2018, we carried out the Wiki Derechos Humanos project about violations of Human Rights in the Latin American region. The project is supported by the Open Society Foundations. We have been present in three other countries of the region: Mexico, Chile and Uruguay.

Local precedent:

Between 2016 and 2017, we carried out 7 Wikilesa edit-a-thons in Argentina. For these edit-a-thons, we had the support of Human Rights organizations, journalists, researchers and university students. During 2017, we applied for international funding to expand the proposal to Latin America.

WikiDDHH 2018 objectives:

  • Addressing Wikipedia as a digital space for the promotion and defense of Human Rights in internet.
  • Fostering a regional network to expand the project to other countries of Latin America.
  • Creating a website that represents the project and spreads the experiences and activities that are carried out.

How are we working?:

  • We have articulated with Wikimedia chapters in each country so they can put the project into practice locally.
  • Identify the subjects that need to be improved or updated in advance.
  • To forge alliances with local Human Rights organizations.

Which have been the most important results?

Qualitative results

  • 80% of participants were Human Rights activists in their countries and they supported the proposal in their own organizations.
  • 70% of participants did not know Wikipedia’s editing tool.
  • 70% of the edited and created content is quality content.
  • 80% of participants believe that Wikipedia’s edition about Human Rights helps give them visibility and spread their contexts and realities.  
  • During the four months in which we carried out WikiDDHH, 160 articles in Wikipedia in Spanish were updated.
  • 58 new articles related to current Human Rights issues of each country were created.

Quantitative results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
6 wikiDDHH edit-a-thons n/a 4 On target Next: Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia
200 articles improved n/a 160 On target n/a
300 participants n/a 200 On target n/a
Women involved n/a 75% On target n/a

Side Effect: WikiDDHH’s impact

WikiDDHH not only led editing workshops in each country we visited. The project unites three core ideas that make it appealing to different fields: Human Rights, education and digital culture.  During these first months, we visited educational, academic and social spaces. We offered lectures in national research conferences; we participated in conferences at regional universities such as the UNAM in Mexico and the Playa Ancha University in Chile; we were selected to publish the experience of Human Rights editions in an academic journal in Uruguay. We articulated work with benchmark organizations of the field, like Amnesty International, in order to expand the work method to educational spaces. Finally, we were invited to the XI International Seminar on Memory-related Public Policies, which will be held next October in Buenos Aires.


B) Wikipuentes Paraguay

During 2017, we forged an alliance with Paraguay Educa Foundation. In the signed agreement, we established as objectives two projects led by WMAR’s Education Program:

  • Training educators from Asuncion and Caacupe (November 2017)
  • Developing a pilot project using Wikipuentes’ Online Course in Paraguay for educators and educational referents (May-June 2018).

Why Paraguay?

  • We responded to a local demand of content creation related to Paraguay’s history.
  • We could articulate with benchmark educational institutions in Paraguay.
  • We counted with the support of institutions that provided free internet access.
  • There was already a teacher's network built with whom expand the program locally.

What have we done in #Wikipuentes Paraguay?

  • We carried out the MOOC Wikipuentes to develop a pilot project aimed at the community of educators of Paraguay.
  • We offered WMAR online campus for the MOOC course during 6 weeks.
  • Unlike the experiences in Argentina, the traditional course was redesigned to work on the editing tool exclusively.
  • For the first time, we proposed a semi-in-person MOOC activity that implied organizing two in-person workshops in Paraguay.
  • Editions were done in Wikipedia in Guarani and in Spanish Wikipedia. A tutor was hired to provide support to the editions in Guarani.

Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Comments
60 participants n/a 70 Pilot project developed in Paraguay
articles improved n/a 230 30 articles edited in Guaraní.
Participant dropout n/a 45% Around 40%-50% is considered normal dropout
Volunteers involved n/a 2 n/a
Tutorials designed n/a 4 n/a
% of satisfaction n/a 100% 100% of the participants was satisfied with the training and learning.

Side effect: keeping the culture and the language alive

In Paraguay, both Spanish and Guarani are official languages. Guarani is taught in schools, spoken by families and villages, it is a way of keeping the language and the culture alive. Wikipedia in Guarani has a total of 3563 articles. During the MOOC, we promoted editions in both languages. Many educators were surprised to see that Wikipedia in Avañe'ẽ had very little information and decided to create and improve articles. They were worried to see that Paraguayan cuisine was underrepresented in their own language, so they created and improved 30 articles in Guarani about food and culture. We believe that, apart from the institutional alliances that made #WikipuentesParaguay possible, we obtained great results for a pilot project, because what was at stake was the strengthening and spreading of their culture in their own language.



What have we learnt?
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  • Editing on subjects that represent local social causes strengthens the participation of the civil society.
  • Articulating with university spaces and researchers allows us to scale the experience to academic circles.
  • Implementing the semi-in-person method in #WikipuentesParaguay offered better results in the subsequent editions done by the educators.
  • Encouraging edition in native languages strengthens the educators’ commitment in their local contexts .



What's next
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  • Developing 2 WikiDDHH edit-a-thons in Venezuela and Colombia.
  • Developing 2 WikiDDHH edit-a-thons in Argentina.
  • Participating in the International Seminar on Memory-related Public Policies in October 2018.
  • Supporting Paraguay Educa in the implementation of Wiki projects in the classroom. Support online course to be developed by Wikimedia Chile and Wikimedia Venezuela.



Culture and Open Knowledge Program

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  • Open GLAM
    Open GLAM
  • Edith-a-ton Women in Science
    Edith-a-ton Women in Science
  • Campaigh 1bib1ref
    Campaigh 1bib1ref

Summary

Los objetivos que trabajamos durante la primera mitad del año en el programa de Cultura y Conocimiento Abierto son:

  • To increase the diversity and bridge the gaps regarding content within the Wikimedia projects.
  • To consolidate Wikipedia as a reliable source of information in Argentine society..
  • To build diverse cultural communities.

New topics & Cultural Communities

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Success: Addressing new cultural topics

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One of the main objectives of WMAR is to continue improving and creating content in Wikimedia projects. While we have continued to promote editing contests or other classic activities, the paradigm's shift of the program has also allowed us to broaden our focus to address new topics:

a) Content gaps: Local culture & current issues and Science

One of our main objectives is to create and improve content specifically those locally relevant, currently missing and that are of interest to Argentinean society. To achieve these goals during the first semester of 2018 we have worked to improve 3 main topics because:

  • Local culture: improving the missing content related to the cultural heritage of Argentina adds value to the Wikimedia projects.
  • TopicaI Issues: the public agenda impacts directly in how culture is built within the Argentinean society and so in how we organize and define our work.
  • Science: one of the biggest content gaps in the Spanish Wikipedia is about science and gender.

Who have we partnered with?

Partner Topics Activities, so far
Ministerio de Desarrollo Urbano y Transporte de CABA Local culture 1 Training
1 Edit-a-thon
Quality content released
Open House Rosario Local culture Photo contest
National Institute of Technology for Agriculture and Livestock (INTA) Science Quality content released
Red Argentina de Ciencia, género y tecnología Science Quality content released
Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Science Quality content released

2 Trainings 2 Edit-a-thons

Ministerio de Justicia y Derechos Humanos Current issues 1 Trainings
Satellogic Current issues Quality content released
Defensoría del Pueblo Current issues Quality content released
Crisalida NGO Current issues 2 Trainings
Amnistía Internacional Argentina Current issues Quality content released

How did we worked with them?

  • Training: we have trainned 258 experts in 4 institutions and 103 new editors in specific edit-a-thons
  • Tailor-made activities: we defined tailor-made activities with each institution according to their heritage, possibilities and capabilities.
  • Promoting free culture: 75% understand what free culture means and 6 institutions have started to release local content.

Highlight: Science and gender

During 2018 we based our gender-related work on the public demand regarding one of the most important gender movements today that deals with the role of women and girls in the STEAM disciplines, with two objectives:

  • Reaching very active communities in this topic and so engaging new women as editors.
  • Represent in the Spanish Wikipedia one of the most invisible group: women scientists.

What have been our activities and our results, so far?

  • Quality content: 100 articles regarding argentinean scientists created and improved, 80% by new participants.
  • Release databases: focusing on Science and Technology has allowed us to release the database of Aves Argentina (Argentinean Birds) and the Dr. Grierson’s Scientific Directory (Argentinean scientists) meaning +1300 items created in Wikidata.
  • Build community: in partnership with our community program we have generated bi-monthly editing spaces for women on gender, science and technology to continue strengthening a new community of editors.
  • Partners: we have partnered with the greatest STEAM institutions and communities in Argentina: Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, Argentinean Network of Gender, Science & Technology, EconomiaFeminita, LasdeSistemas, GeoChicas, among others.
  • Federalization: we have promoted the activities in Buenos Aires, Rio Negro (south of the country) and Tucumán (in October, north of the country)
  • Recognition: the project has been recognized as of provincial interest by the Province of Rio Negro

What have been our results?

  • Reduce content gaps: we uploaded missing content regarding Argentinean cultural heritage, current issues as national strikes, human rights documents and images and databases of women scientists.
  • Source of information: share new and updated information regarding current issues with the society.
  • Positioning WMAR as the organization to build knowledge regarding current issues, minority and underepresented groups and popular and local culture.

Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Promote the free culture in 10 institutions 6 10 Above target n/a
200 cultural leaders trained 660 258 Above target n/a
4 institutions publish their heritage in free licence 11 6 Above target n/a
70% understand the importance of open culture New objective 75% Above target n/a
Articles created (science, current issues, local culture) 3059 3348 On target 1946 in Wikipedia+ 1402 images
Number of editors involved (500) 251 328 On target Women editors: 90

b) Wikipedia as a reliable source of information

One of the greatest objectives of the Culture and Open Knowledge Program during the first half of the year has been to consolidate Wikipedia as a reliable source of information in Argentinean society. This is due to the following facts:

  • Argentinean society increasingly demands more reliable sources of information.
  • Traditional media are in crisis.

With this in mind, WMAR has launched a new pilot projects that is having very good reception in the local community:

Wikipedia in the public debate

In WMAR we consider that Wikipedia is a project to democratize the Argentinean society as it promotes the construction of an informed society .

During 2018, we have launched a new pilot project: #Wikipediaendebate (Wikipediaondebate) where we use Wikipedia as a fact-checking tool. The first implementation was within the framework of the debate about the Abortion Act that lasted 27 hours and in which we used Wikipedia to:

  • Analyze the concepts of the representatives’ speeches (+190)
  • Analyze which concepts used during the debate were missing in Wikipedia.

How did we do this?

  • We worked in alliance with other fact-checking organizations
  • We watched the debate live and analyzed it through twitter using the hasthtag #Wikipediaendebate.
  • We analyzed the traffic of visits during the after the debate (+250.000)
  • We organized editing activities to improve/create articles.



Gating factors: Sources & Community

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When in WMAR we decided to work on current issues on the public agenda, we found great allies willing to work in the creation of new content, but we also found several challenges:

  • Finding reliable sources: some themes, specially those focused on gender and science, don’t have reliable sources in Spanish to back the content of the encyclopedia. Thus, we often have to resort to articles or research material where they don’t mention the progress made in Ibero America on certain subjects.
  • Local community: our community is still reluctant to accept certain subjects as relevant for the encyclopedia. Many of those subjects are part of local agendas but are difficult to explain as relevant for the Wikipedia until they have been picked up by international media.  

Thus, our challenge is to continue redefining the concepts of culture to promote the importance of these new topics as part of our program. According to this, our alliance with expert civil organizations and associations is essential to provide reliability to the content added to Wikipedia. 




Success: Strengthening cultural communities

Another of WMAR’s great objectives is to build, strengthen and support the development of traditional and emerging cultural communities to continue expanding and consolidating our program.

For that purpose, we are working in the following way:

Large cultural institutions

We continued to work with our long-term partners; the Argentinean Academy of Letters, the Fine Arts National Museum, the Library of the Legislature of the Province of Buenos Aires and we partnered with one new institution, The Circe Library.

Through our WIR we have digitized 170 books - meaning +30,000 pages in Commons- and 198 new articles in Wikidata and Wikipedia (see results here).

However we still face some challenges:

a) Material released: the cultural heritage we have access to are mainly historical books. Unlike images, their use is more restricted. Therefore, we measure the impact on the number of visualizations. During the first semester, the new books reached +50,000 visits.

b) Resources: cultural institutions face certain challenges, specially regarding economic resources, that have an impact on our work. In this sense, during the first half of 2018, we have introduced changes in our work to be able to face and cover the lack of resources in the institutions and be able to speed up our objectives:

How did we work on this?

1. Fundraising for cultural organizations

We began to forge alliances to obtain financial resources. We made an alliance with the Book’s General Administration to have access to private funding for a digitizing project in the Cirse Library. The project has been approved for 170.000 Argentinean pesos (+7000USD), which is allowing us to:

  • Supply the Library with equipment and technical resources
  • Desing a long-term digitizing plan: 54 books so far.
  • Mentoring and training the work team regularly

What results are we obtaining?

  • Greater institutionalization of the project: being a state-funded project, it is subject to certain objectives and results
  • Greater exposition for our digitization project in the cultural circles of the City of Buenos Aires.

2. Human Resources

Another big restriction inside cultural institutions are human resources.

In light of this situation, and within the framework of our training program for librarians, we began to incorporate new volunteers to an internship program, with the aim of activating the digitizing project inside cultural institutions.

The pilot project is being carried out at the Fine Arts Museum in the following way:

  • We trained, mentored and supported a new volunteer as a leader of the digitizing project at the Museum.
  • We worked together with the Museum on the material to be released.
  • We institutionalized the project in the long-term inside the institutions

Librarians community

A way to prevent the projects with great cultural institutions from becoming obsolete was to diversify our actions by getting the community of librarians actively involved.

In 2018 we have consolidated and expanded our relationship and work in the following ways:

  • Training & partnerships: we have trained 247 librarians and we have partnered with 4 new strategic alliances; Aprender3C, Superior Institute of Technical Training # 13, System of Libraries and Information, General Administration of Books and Reading of the City of Buenos Aires.
  • Promoting projects together: we have carried out 2 specific Webinars with regional scope, 1 regional campaign and 4 workshops.

Highlight: #1bib1ref at a regional scale


During May 2018, we promoted the #1bib1ref campaign. Even though the global campaign is carried out in January, it is impossible for libraries in the Southern hemisphere to implement it in that month because most libraries are closed.

The campaign lasted three weeks and obtained the following results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Comments
Participants 9 70 n/a
Editions n/a 522 n/a
Articles improved 26 371 729 counting #1lib1ref. The campaign was re-activated
Countries involved 1 5 Spanish speaking countries 14 countries world-wide
Libraries involved 4 12 7 are from Argentina. 4 offline actvities

After a pilot test in 2017, the project was a great success thanks to the following:

  • We adapted the contents to our local and regional reality; even the tutorial videos were edited with different linguistic idioms.
  • We worked together through Iberocoop and the project was led by different chapters in each context.
  • We fostered webinars on the campaign for librarians who helped us take the project to a regional scale.
  • We offered in-person training courses at local libraries.

Side effect: the campaign was reactivated in 14 countries, mostly in the southern hemisphere, with +700 articles improved.


New cultural communities: #OpenGlam & new cultural influencers

Since 2017 we have been working to improve the reach and diversity of the program to meet the following needs:

  • Build a national network to promote free culture in Argentina.
  • Involve new cultural influencers at the national scale.

To achive these goals we have carried out two new pilot projects:

OpenGLAM community

We have started to organize the 1st #OpenGlam community:

What have we done so far?

  • Meetings: we held two meetings involving +200 cultural leaders from Buenos Aires and beyond.
  • Discussions: we positioned the discussion regarding Open Glam and the Argentinean cultural policies and their impact in the cultural scene.
  • Network: we started to build a national network of organization advocating for free culture. So far, 4 great institutions are actively involved.

Main results:

  • We have partnered with three of the most important museums in Argentina (MNBA, Museum of Modern Art, MALBA)
  • We are positioning Wikimedia Argentina as a leader organization regarding free culture and open GLAM policies.

Challenges?

  • Consolidate the network with an own agenda.

Webinars: online training to reach new cultural profiles

We have fostered new online training sessions to reach and diversify our program.

What have we done?

  • 5 webinars about free culture, Wikipedia as a reliable source and its impact within cultural institutions.

Results so far:

  • Engagement: 172 participants and + 1200 subsequent views. The participation grew in each webinar.
  • Outreach: we managed to take the proposal to a national scale. Even local libraries broadcasted the webinars, the Public Library of Misiones and the University of Cuyo among them. Abroad, benchmark institutions from Ecuador, Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Chile participate.

Challenges?

  • Impact: we found it complicated to measure the change of opinion/impact of participants as it is an online proposal.
  • Build a network: build a network beyond these trainings.

Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
A national OpenGlam - 5 institutions involved n/a 4 On target n/a
8 leaders involved n/a 5 On target n/a
Involving 200 new cultural in online trainings n/a 172 Above target n/a
60% modify their perception on Wikipedia as a reliable source n/a n/a n/a Re-defining this metric.


What have we learnt?
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  • Working on current issues allows us to generate new strategic alliances and to position WMAR in new cultural spaces.
  • Defining our activities according to social demands improves participation and engagement.
  • Wikipedia is a great ally as a source of reliable and quality information in Argentina, especially in the presence of a credibility crisis in traditional media.
  • Consolidating alliances with great cultural institutions with the aim of improving their resources generates long-term alliances and helps defines our work inside the organizations.
  • Remote trainings have allowed us not only to take the program outside Buenos Aires but also to approach new cultural profiles in the region, expanding the outreach and diversity of our proposal.



What´s next?
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  • Continue promoting #Wikipediaendebate in alliance with other fact-checking organizations in Argentina.
  • We’ll begin to establish relations with the National Council of Technical and Scientific Research (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas|CONICET) to continue working on science-related subjects.
  • We’ll continue organizing webinars related to other subjects: checking information, gender and diversity.
  • We’ll organize LGTB+-related activities
  • We’ll continue working to incorporate wiki culture in the public agenda by organizing activities in different governmental offices and civil organizations.
  • We’ll organize a second Open Glam encounter in which different cultural organizations can submit their projects and challenges inside their work spaces.



Free Knowledge Awareness

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Sucess: Advocacy & Movement strategy

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One of the greatest objectives of the Culture & Open Knowledge Program is to begin to work on advocacy, specially on those that have an impact on Wikimedia’s projects such as changes in copyright legislation or bills that regulate access to public information. Our objectives on this matter are the following:

  • Promoting and guaranteeing that Argentinean society knows and understands the impact of public policies on internet..
  • Establishing an Advocacy regional network.
  • Positioning WMAR globally as a benchmark organization of culture and open knowledge.

In order to achieve this, during 2018 we have promoted the following strategies:

a) Local level: Laws about Copyright in Argentina

For the last few years there has been a debate over a possible change of the Copyright Act, which would be very harmful for free culture in Argentina. In order to help prevent that new bill from progressing, we have:

  • Get organized with other organizations that specialize on copyright
  • We designed and participate in 2 debate spaces to discuss issues related to copyright with law experts and representatives of the most important museums of the country.

What have we achieved?

  • We have generated a united front of organizations on free culture against a restrictive bill.
  • We have identified allies for advocating for free knowledge in Argentina.

b) Regional level: Iberocoop & strategy

Iberocoop actively participated in the Phase I of the Wikimedia movement’s strategy. For the first time, we worked beyond the projects to consolidate new ideas, demands and recommendations for the process. With the purpose of continuing working on this line, WMAR along with Wikimedia Chile and Wikimedia Mexico led the initial implementation of Phase II inside Iberocoop, which consisted on:

  • Organizing regular meetings-4 so far- to present and discuss the process
  • Identifying Iberocoop's expertise and how can it be used to strenghtening the Wikimedia movement's strategic process
  • Identifying the needs to make sure that anyone interested can participate.

What have we achieved?

  • Defining the methodology of work to involve the network as a whole.
  • Encouraging the participation: 13 people applied.
  • Generating engagement of the different chapters, user groups and volunteers with the process.

c) Global level: Wikimedia Argentina & Women20

Argentina will be President of the G20 in 2018. With the aim of establishing guidelines for the politicians involved, different work commissions have been set up. In one of them, Women20, WMAR has had a relevant role. In alliance with Mujeres en Igualdad and the Argentinean Network of Science, Gender and Technology, we were invited as Knowledge Partner for the Digital Inclusion line of work. Together we organized a network of +30 organizations to design recommendations that have been the matter of international discussions.

This opportunity has also allowed us to:

  • Position ourselves as a benchmark organization regarding digital inclusion in the country.
  • Position the voice of the Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia Argentina internationally.



Gating factors: The thin line between Advocacy and Activism

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Strengthening Wikimedia Argentina’s profile in relation to public policies is a chance not only to position ourselves at a local level but also to deal with issues that have a direct impact on the work we do. We still had to face certain challenges that could be summarized in the following way:

  • Definition of neutrality: we can’t deny there is certain tension and disagreement within the Wikimedia movement regarding the meaning of neutrality. While our community agrees that Wikipedia content is and should be neutral, we are still defining if the Wikimedia projects -that seek to guarantee rights- are indeed neutral and how the chapters should work on them.
  • Definition of “support”: working on public policies implies taking a stance on a specific subject. It is essential to be able to define our vision without “doing activism” for a cause, so we can maintain an open view on different subjects, specially in an extremely politicized country like Argentina.

In this sense, we have worked and will continue working to defend our mission, guaranteeing and respecting the different opinions of our community regarding our decisions. It is essential to work together with Iberocoop to create a united front on subjects that affect us all.



What have we learnt?
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  • By consolidating appropriate alliances, Wikimedia Argentina can and will continue working to have an impact on the defense of digital rights in internet at a loca, regional and global scale.



What´s next?
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  • To continue promoting the work of Iberocoop in Phase II of the strategy.
  • Through the #OpenGlam community, we will generate two new debate spaces on the Copyright and Access to Public Information Bill, at a local level.



Building community

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Summary

During the first six months of 2018, the Community Building Program has focused on strengthening the existing community and generating new strategic communities. In this sense, the activities we carried out reinforce our objectives for 2018:

  • Supporting and promoting the emergence of new themed communities organized around the objective of editing with purpose.
  • Strengthening and expanding the WMAR community, working to help it reflect the local community.
  • Helping the emergence of new communities in the region and within the movement.



Thematics communities

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Success: Building and consolidating communities

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As we stated in previous reports, the community of editors in Argentina works better if they feel supported by people who share its interests. In this sense, since 2017 we have worked on themed communities that function as a space for the generation of new projects and collective work. During the first semester of 2018, we worked on the consolidation of two existing thematic communities and promoted the creation of two new ones.

A) Consolidating communities

Gender community
The debate on gender in the national agenda, together with women’s need to gain visibility, generated the emergence of different initiatives that aim to make Wikimedia a space for the construction of the history of the struggle of the feminist movement. In this sense, and with the aim of incorporating more women to the WMAR community, during 2018 we have carried out the following activities to strengthening the gender's community:

  • Mentoring Program: we have organized 4 mentoring encounters, involving long-term women editors that mentor newcomers. So far, +30 women have participated.
  • Organization in digital spaces: we have organized the 1st feminist Telegram group with regional scope- “Wikifeminista”- as an answer to the need of generating a safe and reliable space for meeting, collaborating and debating, for women volunteers at a regional level. Today 49 participants from 6 countries are part of it.
  • Work on new themes: as an answer to our community’s demand, we carried out activities to edit articles on issues that are currently on the national agenda, such women and science, women’s human rights, LGTB, women in soccer, etc. helping reduce the current content gaps in Wikipedia.

Community of photographers
We consolidated two initiatives that the community drafted in 2017:

a) Ningún municipio argentino sin fotografía

b) Nuevas formas de narrarnos

Both aim to get images to build the historical memory and improve the local culture in the Wikimedia projects. To support and mentor theses initiatives, we carried out the following:

  • Follow-up encounters for the projects: we carried out 3 online encounters to discuss and design strategies for the dissemination of the work done.
  • Technical support: we developed dissemination material to invite people to participate in the initiatives led by the group of photographers. So far, we reached 61 participants, and update 1621 new images, 746 Wikidata items.

B) Emerging communities

Communities beyond Buenos Aires
One of the obstacles detailed in our impact report was the lack of federalization. To face this problem, during the first half of 2018, we fostered initiatives in the inland of the country. The 1st community is located in the litoral region of Argentina due to the presence of active local volunteers with projects and interests aligned with WMAR’s strategic lines.

In order to mentor and support the emergence of this new community, we have provided:

  • Encounters: we organized in-person and online encounters to get the community organized involving 40 active participants.
  • Technical and financial support: we have provided grants and mentorship for designing the community and projects.
  • Positioning WMAR: participation of WMAR’s in 4 events in the litoral region.

Community of Journalists
One of the greatest obstacles when writing in the encyclopedia is the lack of sources, especially about women. The journalists’ work is an essential pillar for the encyclopedia and, in this sense, it is strategic for WMAR to generate a community network with journalists across the country. A network designed to collaborate in the construction of quality knowledge. With this purpose, we are promoting:

  • Meetings: we have organized two meetings involving 7 journalists as a starting point to build a new thematic community.
  • Partners: we have started to partnered with tradicional media to design new projects
  • Advocacy: positioning WMAR as an ally within the traditional media.

This translated into the following results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress End of year (projected or actual) Comments
3 new thematic communities 2 2 On target n/a
Number of project supported (5) n/a 7 Above target n/a
Thematic meetings n/a 11 On target n/a
Articles created/ improved -800 n/a 2541 Above target
  • 755 Wikidata items.
  • 164 Wikipedia articles.
  • 1622 new photos.
30 active/new members involved n/a 64 Above target Number of women 37.

Side effect: New leaderships
As a result of the mobilization and organization of the women’s movement in Argentina, new leaders with non-traditional profiles appeared in the WMAR projects, who showed interest in working on the Wikimedia’s projects basing on their own objectives as activists. These new leaders are journalists, photographers, leaders in collaborative projects such as OSM, that found in Wikimedia a space where they could collaboratively construct a new perspective on the women’s movement, either by building a visual archive, improving articles with a gender perspective or articulating projects. This new leadership has grown thanks to the mentoring and support, not only provided by WMAR but also by the very same network of volunteers that they promoted themselves.

These new profiles allowed us to:

  • Position women volunteers in new spaces: 3 volunteers in 4 differents spaces
  • Forging new alliances with groups with which we had never worked before: Geochicas, Whose Knowledge, Redacción.
  • Taking WMAR’s outreach to a national scale


What’s next?
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  • De-virtualize ourselves: The gender community has grown and continues growing year by year. Particularly during the first half of 2018, our new online spaces helped communities bond in a supportive way, connecting different Spanish-speaking countries and a variety of projects that are working on reducing the gender gap. This has been an important first step that faces its first obstacle: the need to meet face-to-face, to physically share a space of debate in which we can leave user names behind.
  • Continue supporting and strengthening the work of the different thematic communities as needed, to guarantee their growth and sustainability.


What have we learnt in 2018?
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  • Organizing activities around the particular interests of the community generate greater commitment and participation.
  • The support of WMAR not only financial but face-to-face is fundamental to accompany the emergence of new communities.
  • Thematic communities are a useful way to expand our community with a broader range of volunteer's profiles and opportunities.



Diversifying the community

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Success: Supporting and diversifying the WMAR community

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One of WMAR’s strategic objectives aims at generating a diverse community. To achieve this, during the first half of 2018 we continued supporting our long-standing community while working on expanding our community beyond the editors’ limits, incorporating new profiles that complement and nourish Wikimedia’s projects.

At a local level

a) Long-stading community's support

We continued mentoring initiatives and taking care of the demands of our long-standing community by:

  • Mobility Grants: These grants aim at improving and encouraging the participation of our community in WMAR’s activities to strengthening bonds within the local community. we gave 9 local mobility grants.
  • Projects support: we worked with our volunteers designing and mentoring 12 projects/activities.
  • Offline meetings: we organized 6 offline encounters, which allowed us to strengthen the bond with our volunteers while integrating new members to our long-standing community. So far, 53 historial participants have participated, 25 new.

Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress End of year (projected or actual) Comments
35 members granted/mentored n/a 21 On target n/a
80% feels supported by WMAR n/a 80% On target n/a

b) New profiles

One of our objectives is to incorporate new profiles to WMAR in order to diversify our community. For that to happen it is necessary to generate new networks beyond our traditional community spaces. In this sense we have organized two new pilot projects with great acceptance:

1) Barra Libre: networking meetings

We organized thematic encounters involving people and organizations that work on the construction and dissemination of knowledge, with the aim of building a more diverse community with new active members. Particulary, we promote these encounters to attract a new audience with interests aligned to WMAR’s. So far, we have achieved:

  • Partners: we allianced with 3 new counterparts
  • Participants: 45 participants in the event, 98% new.
  • Satisfaction: 100% satisfaction with the initiative
  • Interest: 70% of participants are interested in WMAR’s projects.

2) Connectiva

We co-organice a network of organizations that work with women and technology in order to share initiatives, problems and create projects.

The group arises from the local need to strengthen the work that is already being done by these group of organizations.

So far, we have achieved:

  • the creation of a Telegram group with 12 organizations
  • the organization of an offline encounter to get to know each other in person
  • the design of a plan of action

Main results:

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress End of year (projected or actual) Comments
20 new active volunteers (retained) 22 15 On target Number of women/LGBTIQ+: 13 women
80% feels WMAR is an inclusive organization n/a 90% On target Surveys conducted after our community meetings

c) Retention of new members

Retention of new members:

Initiatives that allow us to attract a new audience have a great impact in the dissemination of our work. The challenge is then to retain new participants and turn them into volunteers. For that purpose, during the first half of 2018, we developed a new follow-up method for our activities in the following way:

  • Realization of surveys in paper during the activities
  • Identification of profiles of people interested in participating in the training sessions
  • Direct communication with people interested
  • Integration of activities and projects led by WMAR.

So far, we reached 15 new active volunteers (13 women/LGBTIQ+)

Beyond local scale

We have continued working to put together a network of regional and global support as follows:

  • Support to emerging communities: through 4 online training, we have mentored different organizations in Peru, Paraguay and El Salvador to help them organize local activities in their contexts. However, for reasons that go far beyond our capacities - internal reasons- these activities have not translated into specific content results.
  • Strenghtening communities within the Wikimedia movement: we have continued working to strengthen two communities within the Wikimedia movement: Education and Diversity. We leD meetings in the Wikimedia Conference with the following objectives:
    • Strengthening the Education communty within the movementIn 2018 we focused our work on the need to establish new evaluation parameters for educational programs. More information can be found here.
    • Diversity: we analyzed the work that has been done in terms of diversity within the movement; what our demands and needs are and how and in what way we can work together. The main results can be found here.

Challenges?: it is still difficult to set up a proper post-conference follow up on specific results.



Gating factor: long-term volunteers

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To face these challenges we expect to promote, in the following months, a common agenda to organize activities that might awaken the common interest of new and current members.

Many new volunteers come to Wikimedia Argentina to participate in specific activities. One of our great challenges is to be able to sustain a long-term commitment and keep their interest in participating in our activities.

However, we face different difficulties such as:

  • It is difficult to attract volunteers unless we are working with current topics.
  • Being able to address the plurality of interest of our community without losing focus of our goals.
  • Dealing with the local economic and political context that do not leave people much time for volunteering.

These situations mean that we must:

  • Define activities with very little room for manoeuvre, which generates stress within the work team
  • Carry out many activities simultaneously

To face these challenges we expect to promote, in the following months, a common agenda to organize activities that might awaken the common interest of the new and current members.



What’s next?
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  • We will continue supporting and streghtening our historical community as needed.
  • We will continue working along with the Iberocoop to mentor emerging communities.


What have we learnt?
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  • Our counterparts and alliances are an essential part of our projects and they are the ones who attract new volunteers.
  • Generating regional spaces to exchange expertise fosters a sense of belonging in the movement beyond local initiatives, positioning our volunteers at an international level.



Revenues received during this six-month period

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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
FDC grant ARS ARS 4.598.379 USD 140.411 - - - USD 140.411 USD 240.704 USD 140.411 *Since august 2017 we are keeping FDC Grant in USD. The exchange to ARS is made every week if needed
Membership fees USD USD 600 ARS 1.669 ARS 3.469 - - ARS 5.137 USD 600 USD 231 -
Open Society Foundation USD USD 25.000 USD 25.000 - - - USD 25.000 USD 25.000 USD 25.000 *Received on november 2017
Ministry of culture- City of Buenos Aires ARS ARS 170.000 - - - - ARS 0 USD 8.995 USD 0 * Income agreed in ARS- At actual Exchange rate equal to USD 6071. Funds will be available on Q3
Fixed-term bank deposit income ARS - - ARS 2.774 - - ARS 2.774 - USD 125 -
In-kind donations ARS ARS 117.500 ARS 18.300 ARS 41.000 - - ARS 59.300 USD 6.217 USD 2.671 -

The average exchange rate for 1st semester of 2018 was 1 USD= 22,2 ARS

The In Kind donations detail could be find here

Spending during this six-month period

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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
Staff Expenses ARS ARS 2.612.650 ARS 472.877 ARS 1.044.997 - - ARS 1.517.874 USD 137.508 USD 68.373 50%
General Administration ARS ARS 673.360 ARS 210.374 ARS 159.267 - - ARS 369.642 USD 35.440 USD 16.651 47%
Education program ARS ARS 889.069 ARS 175.994 ARS 233.613 - - ARS 409.607 USD 45.477 USD 18.451 41%
GLAM program ARS ARS 503.500 ARS 214.505 ARS 144.516 - - ARS 359.021 USD 26.548 USD 16.172 61%
Community Support program ARS ARS 576.200 ARS 215.436 ARS 249.940 - - ARS 465.376 USD 30.326 USD 20.963 69%
In-kind donations ARS ARS 117.500 ARS 18.300 ARS 41.000 - - ARS 59.300 USD 6.217 USD 2.671 43%
TOTAL ARS ARS 5.372.279 ARS 1.307.487 ARS 1.873.333 - - ARS 3.180.820 USD 281.516 USD 143.280 51%

The average exchange rate for 1st semester of 2018 was 1 USD= 22,2 ARS

Compliance

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

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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? 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? Yes.

Signature

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

Resources

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Resources to plan for measurement

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Resources for storytelling

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