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Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 2/Wikimedia Armenia/Progress report form

< Grants:APG | Proposals | 2017-2018 round 2 | Wikimedia Armenia

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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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 Grant Metrics. We understand not all Grant or grantee-defined 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/results 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 Grant Metrics.

Program Participants Newly registered Content pages A B Explanations of Grantee-defined metrics
Quality Content - - - - -
Thematic councils and Wiki Loves Science 84 (out of 115) 62 (out of 81) 69 (out of 100) 0 1 A - 2 thematic councils formed which revises the created content at Wiki Loves Science trainings and later in the respective field. B - 3 Wiki Loves Science trainings
Partnership with GLAM 29 (instead of 20) 11 (instead of 3) 114 (instead of 50) 2 1 A - 3 GLAM institutions which regularly provide resources for the quality content creation B - 1 public event organized with GLAM institutions on the progress of GLAM program
Digitization of content 98 (instead of 50) 0 (out of 0) 2499 (instead of 2410) 71389 147 A - 40,000 pages scanned B - 100 books serve as resources for quality content (at least 10 references from each book)
Research and analysis of articles 0 (out of 20) 0 (out of 0) 0 (out of 40) 1 n/a A - 1 online collaboration dedicated to the improvement of most view articles of 2017-2018
International collaborations 82 (out of 100) 0 (out of 0) 1499 (instead of 180) 0 1 A - 4 international collaborations organized within Wikimedia Movement B - 1 international project about Yerevan organized by WMAM
Equal access to wiki 8 (out of 10) 0 (out of 0) 13661 (out of 31060) 2 n/a A - 3 projects aimed at increasing the accessibility of Wikimedia projects
Preservation of culture 1 (out of 41) 0 (out of 20) 0 (out of 50) 0 20 A - 30 residences have improved data on Wikimedia projects B - 20 national and folk songs recorded
Total for the program 302 (out of 356) 73 (out of 104) 17842 (out of 33890) 71394 (instead of 40043) 170 (out of 125)
Community Program - - - - -
Community editathons and meetups 342 (out of 1085) 25 (out of 80) 189 (out of 645) 27 2 A - 49 organized editathons, meetups and other community events B - 3 community initiatives, projects organized by community members
Capacity building 35 (out of 190) 0 (out of 0) 0 (out of 100) 2 3 A - 9 capacity building trainings, workshops, meetings with experts B - Help 10 community members with technical and printed resources
Total for the program 377 (out of 1275) 25 (out of 80) 189 (out of 745) 29 (out of 58) 5 (out of 13)
Education Program - - - - -
Wikiseminar for teachers/lecturers from regions and Yerevan 44 (out of 80) 29 (out of 50) 220 (instead of 160) 1 33 A - 2 organized seminar for teachers, including teachers from Yerevan B - 70 schools are present at the seminar
Universities 15 (out of 55) 15 (out of 50) 15 (out of 55) 2 0 A - 3 university faculties collaborate with us B - 1 seminar for professors
Non formal education 65 (out of 30) 39 (intead of 30) 0 (out of 30) 3 n/a A - 3 non formal education organizations collaborate with us
WikiCamps 53 (out of 250) 0 (out of 70) 732 (out of 3802) 1 0 A - 4 organized WikiCamps B - 1 designed guide for Wikicamp
WikiClubs 611 (instead of 356) 342 (instead of 156) 31827 (out of 33000) 0 1 A - 5 new donors for WikiClubs B - 2 meetings with WikiClub coordinators
Total for the program 788 (instead of 771) 425 (instead of 356) 32794 (instead of 37047) 7 (instead of 17) 34 (instead of 74)
Western Armenian Program - - - - -
Creation of Separate Western Armenian Wikipedia 2 (out of 3) 0 (out of 0) 0 (out of 20) 2 n/a A - 3 editors assist translation and technical improvement of Western Armenian Wikipedia
Trainings for experts 49 (out of 70) 18 (out of 35) 97 (out of 60) 5 3 A - 5 communities of different countries are presented at the training B - 10 follow-up events organized by the participants in their home countries
Summer WikiSchool in Aleppo and other activities 25 (out of 67) 24 (out of 40) 41 (out of 134) 7 0 A - 12 individuals from Diaspora attend WMAM events in Armenia B - 1 collarotion with Syrian-Armenian school
Total for the program 76 (out of 140) 42 (out of 75) 138 (out of 214) 14 (out of 20) 3 (out of 11)
TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 1543 (out of 2547) 565 (out of 615) 50963 (out of 71896) 71444 (instead of 40138) 212 (out of 223)

Telling your program stories - all programs

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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

  Quality Content

Assist development of quality content of Wikimedia Projects in Armenian aimed at making those a powerful learning and information source.

In the Quality Content program, we have been focusing on a broad range of activities related to the production, access, and usage of the quality content. This program is not just about quality content, however. It’s also about the ways we engage quality content editors, resources we create to support the editing process, and more. The editors, GLAM partnerships, and digitization we work with are all engaged in this program.

In this reporting period, we have accomplished the Wiki Loves Yerevan project. This project was quite different from other GLAM projects that have been previously set out by Wikimedia Armenia. With 17 institutions involved and lots of practical learnings behind it, it was the major and ambitious GLAM project in its kind. We also have worked in close and independent GLAM partnerships, such as Yerevan Drama theatre, state libraries of different regions, regional museums and others. The experience and outreach we gained during the Wiki Loves Yerevan project has made it easier than ever to approach and collaborate with these institutions.

While GLAM projects resulted in creation of content related to culture, the Wiki Loves Science project provided opportunities to improve popular scientific articles. The excitement and motivation from “I create a vital article” campaign and the huge need for high-quality medical content in Armenian, brought us to the idea to focus on the most important medical articles for this year.

Having the goal to make free knowledge available for everyone means that we should adjust the content in ways that will improve accessibility while ensuring its integrity and reliability. This was done with the help of various discrete projects, such as Surdowiki and Pronunciation of words. For instance, through the Surdowiki project, we have recorded and documented the core vocabulary of Armenian Sign Language (ArSL) in order to create an open, online ArSL dictionary on Wiktionary.

We analyzed the most viewed articles and launched an on-wiki contest to improve those. Being viewed a lot, these articles, however, lack quality in many aspects․ For each article, we have found online and published reliable sources, suggested the Wikipedians to improve articles using the provided sources. The Digitization project assisted us in having the online copies of the published material when needed.

Finally, we worked towards international integration through different international collaborations. Some collaborations were based on one project. For example, Armenian-Spanish collaboration targeted content about Armenia and Spain in corresponding languages and was based on an editing contest. On the other hand, the Armenian-Norwegian cross-chapter collaboration is multi-layered consisting of different projects which is a long term, affects a better Wikimedia partnership.


  Lessons learned
  • The quality and effectiveness of a GLAM partnership increase when having a staff member responsible for GLAM only. We have hired a contractor for the Wiki Loves Yerevan project to manage the project. Our experience with Wiki Loves Yerevan project indicates that having a person responsible for GLAM partnerships, content, and communication, highly increases the quality of the partnership. The GLAM institutions get convinced and trusted Wikimedia Armenia more easily when they saw someone representing the GLAM project and managing the partnership. This also impacted on the quality of received content. Being a Wikimedian, the staff member was able to distinguish between content types, identify the useful content and find the best way to present it on Wikimedia Projects.
  • GLAM partnership can diversify WikiClub activities. At Goris WikiClub we have a best practice on how the coordinator can connect local GLAM institution to the WikiClub, thus making a beneficial collaboration for both parties. The collaboration was established between Axel Bakunts home-museum located in the same city as Goris WikiClub. The coordinator of Goris WikiClub, Ararat Trvants, received free licensed content from the museum and channeled it to clubbers explaining and helping them to use it on Wikimedia Projects. To motivate the club members and organize the wiki editing in different atmosphere, sometimes the WikiClub worked in the garden of the Museum.
  • Improving the most viewed articles takes longer than planned. We have initially agreed with the community to hold the on-wiki project of improving most viewed articles for a month. However, as our experience with this project showed, the improvement of such pages takes much longer. After several discussions with the community, we decided to make it a long-term on-wiki project with no final date.


I create a medical article campaign

Participants are editing medical articles, December 2018

At the end of 2017, we have launched a campaign called “I create a vital article”, targeting the 1000 vital articles that every Wikipedia should have. We began the project intending to improve those 1000 articles and to explore how having a more specific goal in projects affects its results. This led us to the idea that having a specific target for the event increases the accomplishment rates.

One of the most essential topic of the articles on Wikipedia is medical topic that has a wide public interest and requires specific knowledge to edit. We have decided to organize another project, similar to “I create a vital article”, focused on the most important medical articles. We have integrated the same logic behind the previous campaign and the same procedures of assigning and checking articles to this new campaign. This was launched in May 2018, in the scope of Wiki Loves Science thematic trainings. To reach out medical students and doctors more easily, an agreement between Wikimedia Armenia and Medical University of Yerevan was made. According to this agreement Medical University of Yerevan shares news about our events using internal communication channels.

Throughout the project we realized that focusing on a specific topic is also beneficial for us as it narrows our scope allowing us to manage the produced content better. Therefore, we have decided to dedicate all WLS trainings of current year to the development of medical articles.

Wiki Loves Yerevan

Participants received certificates of appreciation for their active contribution and efforts, November 2018

In October-November Wikimedia Armenia finalized the results of “Wiki Loves Yerevan” GLAM project aimed at improving Wikimedia projects with relevant information about Yerevan. The project, dedicated to the 2800th anniversary of Yerevan, was held during April-September, 2018 and involved an active collaboration with 17 GLAM institutions, including 14 museums, 1 gallery, 1 personal fund, and 1 architectural and design organization.

Since April, Wikimedia Armenia has initiated a number of edit-a-thons to promote the project and involved a great number of editors, both local and worldwide. As a result of those edit-a-thons and collaboration with GLAM Institutions, 233 articles were written in Armenian Wikipedia and 1165 articles in 45 languages.

On November 29, 2018, a meeting was organized in Wikimedia Armenia office with the representatives from GLAM institutions. Khazhak Drampyan, the Coordinator of Wiki Loves Yerevan project, briefly presented the entire work done since the start of the project. The representatives were issued certificates of appreciation for their active contribution and efforts. After that, a discussion started on further collaboration opportunities and perspective projects.

Representative of Yervand Kochar Museum happily mentioned that the number of their visitors growed recently and that is thanks to Wikipedia articles about the museum and the works of Kochar. This feedback shows how GLAM institutions of Armenia are finally perceiving the Wikimedia projects as something that might affect the visibility of the institution. We consider this feedback as one of the great achievements of this project. There was also a suggestion to hold wikiseminars for the whole staff of each GLAM institution to have more people to contribute in Wikimedia projects. They also expressed interest in having a Wikipedia resident in their museums and help them with editing in Wikimedia projects.

Armenian Sign Language dictionary on Wiktionary

Recording Armenian Sign Language words, December 2018

Armenian Sign Language (ArSL) is a language isolate, unique sign language used by Armenians with hearing loss. Little research has been done on this language, very few online resources are available. The few online resources for ArSL are copyrighted, some are not available for free.

We were committed to cover this gap through Wikimedia Projects. This would impact on the preservation of ArSL, serve as a free education resource as there are no courses available for people, who want to learn ArSL. With a field specialist, we researched, analyzed the current vocabulary of ArSL and created a list with the most used words and phrases. After the list was ready, we initiated the recording process and with the help of an interpreter shot videos with word translations in ArSL.

The total of 1123 ArSL words are now ready to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Meanwhile, we analyze use cases of sign language videos, words on Wikimedia projects to better integrate and present it to the target audience. We plan to use the videos and create an online dictionary on Wiktionary.

Bodil Biørn project and collaboration between Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia Norway

Bodil Biørn with some of Armenian sick kids, 1905-1917

The cross-chapter collaboration between Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia Norway is our best highlight on how Wikimedia chapters can initiate and strengthen a multi-layered partnership. The partnership was set out when organizing an editing contest and went on when Bodil Biorn photos were digitized by the National Archives of Norway. The feedback from volunteers in Norway and Armenia, academics in the humanities in both countries and the interest from the general public in social media and press was that Biørn’s photo collection gives new important reflections on a part of Armenian history that is not that well documented.

The feedback and social significance supported our wish to collaborate in new projects. Wikimedia Norge applied and successfully received a new grant from the Arts Council of Norway to digitise, transcribe in Norwegian and translate into English and Armenian extracts of the letters Biørn wrote for publication in Women Missionary Workers member journal, and also an unpublished 10 page recap Biørn wrote in 1944 about her experiences․ This project will be implemented in March 2019.

Meanwhile, at Wikimedia Armenia, we worked on the photo book of Bodil Biørn photographs. This book will include almost all photos Biørn took when carrying out humanitarian work in Armenia and Syria, through the association Kvinnelige Misjonsarbeidere. It will also give insights into the successful collaboration of Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia Norge. We see this photo book as a way to speak about our collaborations and GLAM projects to the general public and a way to express our gratitude to GLAM institutions and contributors involved in the projects. The book will be published in the beginning of 2019.


  Community

Grow and empower the community to collaboratively assist the development of quality content and contribute to the expansion of Wikimedia Movement.

Wikimedia Armenia always structures and plans its projects in a way that allows the community to build and develop their capacities. We also empower the community to come up with new interesting initiatives and support them with requested resources. For this reporting period, we had two projects initiated and coordinated by active Wikipedians. Both projects are editing on-wiki projects related to editing of different thematic pages of Armenian Wikipedia.

Based on the learnings from the last year, we continued our practice of organizing community capacity building trainings. In order to reveal the interests of the audience, we conducted a series of polls on social media and Wikipedia. The top results were then analyzed and a set of capacity building events was planned. The most interested topic from this list was photography. We had two trainings on photography.

The first one from this trainings was mainly focused on the Wikimedia Commons. The participants were presented the quality and legal requirements of images used on Wikimedia projects, the copyright terms and usage. Using examples, participants were presented how to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons and fill in the required details. According to the audience the event was very effective and useful. The second training, titled “Photography as a Documentary Tool”, presented by photography tutor, RA Deputy Minister of Culture Vahe Budumyan, who first introduced technical aspects of photography, the structure and function of the camera parts, how to take correct documentary photos and what to avoid. Since the subject was extensive, and the participants were eager to ask questions, Vahe Budumyan agreed to hold another practical session where participants will learn how to take and edit photos.

Wikimedia Armenia always tries to build its activities upon community needs and requirements. In order to identify their need better, get feedback on current projects of Wikimedia Armenia and collect their ideas about the future ones, we organize discussions at community edit-a-thons and meetups. For instance, at the Teachers’ training week, we successfully collected use cases and new ideas about the relation of Wikipedia and Education. At a community meetup, we were able to talk about the ideas of the community on the future projects of Wikimedia Armenia.

At 2 community edit-a-thons outside of Yerevan, active Wikipedians gathered together to also enrich Wikipedia with quality content. The majority of the participants have edited from the list of 1000 vital articles that each Wikipedia should have and from the 1000 vital medical articles. As discussed below, we have also continued hosting Saturday workshop-edit-a-thons at WMAM office.


  Lessons learned
  • While at some events defining specific editing topics are increase the interest of community, at Saturday workshops we had an opposite effect. We always experiment with Saturday workshops and community meetups in order to understand how the productivity of these events and the interest of the community can be increased. In March 2019, we tried to define specific editing topics for the Saturday workshops, hoping that this may increase the interest and amount of contributions. However, as the results showed, we got less contributions and engagement. We undid the change, learning that limitations in the editing topic was not a good idea.


  Education

Educators and students acknowledge and use wiki as a tool to support learning.

Previous 6 months in Education program were marked by their productivity full of collaborations with a number of educational institutions. Wikimedia Armenia has both initiated and received offers to start new projects with different establishments. Among major collaborations are those with Yerevan State University of Languages and Social Sciences after V. Brusov, Armenian Educational Foundation and Yerevan State Medical University.

One of the major events of WMAM Education program still remains the Teachers’ Training which opens new opportunities for Wikimedia Armenia to reach more schools and involve more teachers and students in wikimedia projects editing process. One of the main components of the training is the discussion with teachers on how we can integrate wiki editing in the education process. On the basis of two such discussions we have formed and shared with teachers a guide which will be replenished during next seminars.

Wikimedia Armenia coordinated work with educational institutions, laid foundation for productive and long term collaborations. Of course, this is a new impulse for our program. Schools are main targets of our WikiClubs, which successfully cooperate with their local schools disseminating Wikimedia Movement in their communities. With new direction in our work WMAM concentrates its attention mostly on collaboration with major higher educational institutions mainly situated in the capital city. Thanks to this new direction, the number of university student editors has increased during this reporting period.

This reporting period was also marked with initiatives which came not from Wikimedia Armenia but other organizations, like Armenian Educational Foundation (AEF) and World Vision Armenia (WVA). Such collaboration offers demonstrate the effective outreach work of Wikimedia Armenia. With the first organization - AEF - we developed a tangible cooperation, the other gave us an opportunity to have talks in front of their regional youth coordinators. After the talk WMAM hosted World Vision affiliated "Youth for Development" foundation’s and WVA’s “LAMP” school’s participants for presentations on Wikimedia Movement and editing in Wikimedia projects.

WikiClubs’ coordinated and productive work allowed WMAM to increase its representation in the regions of Armenia, find new collaborations and involve new editors. Edit-a-thons are periodically organized to diversify the daily routine of the WikiClubs. The coordinators of the WikiClubs state that clubbers (who are mostly secondary and high school students) feel very motivated when they all together work on the same topic. In order to establish a connection between WikiClubs and experienced wiki editors we have arranged visits to the clubs. Such visits are empowering in the sense that clubbers meet various editors who share their rich experience with them. For WMAM these visits are opportunities to get acquainted with WikiClubs’ activities, to explore more opportunities for their work and learn their problems in a real time mode.


  Lessons learned
  • Young teachers are the key to the successful training. During Teachers’ Training it is more effective to work with young teachers as they are more tech friendly and learn more in the same period of time. Therefore, for next seminars we will target young teachers.
  • New communication channels provide new audience flow. We seek and set up new communication channels due to which we can reach new target audience and involve them in our programmes. In this sense, we work closely with Yerevan State Medical University which shares our Medical Wiki Loves Science events in their mailing list, thus encouraging the students and lecturers to join the program.
  • Periodic visits to WikiClubs are inspiring and empowering for both WikiClubbers and experienced editors, aiming at increasing the clubbers skills. Prior to each visit WMAM helds a discussion with the club coordinator to find out the needs of the clubbers, which topics are advisable to have a workshop on or discussion which would have positive impact on their editing skills in future. For WMAM staff these visits are good opportunities to be closer and to study the everyday life of the club.
  • Edit-a-thons promote the retention of the WikiClub editors. WMAM organizes edit-a-thons for WikiClubs on various themes which keep the editors motivated and active. Such edit-a-thons are helpful especially to those editors who have problems with choosing topics for the articles.


Collaboration with YSLU

Workshop with YSLU student-interns, November 2018

WMAM has initiated a collaboration with Yerevan State University of Languages and Social Sciences. During the meeting with the Head of the University Career Center - Levon Babamyan, the parties agreed on collaborating in several ways: include Wikipedia editing in the education process of the University, to create an opportunity for students to get an internship at WMAM and to pass their working practice at WMAM, as well as to participate in the events of the Career Center organized in different regions of Armenia introducing Wikimedia Movement to different ages school students.

The partners also saw a need to sign a Memorandum which would allow to have an official, documented and more productive collaboration. The draft Memorandum was sent to Levon Babamyan for the University lawyers’ approval. Meanwhile the Career Center announced the Internship opportunity at WMAM and as a result of the Internship announcement we now have 3 interns who help WMAM in the translation of different blog posts and communication materials. The interns also participate in the “I create a vital article” campaign translating articles from English and Spanish Wikipedias.

Thanks to the Internship announcement via University mailing list, the practice coordinator of the University contacted WMAM for further collaboration. As a result of the meeting with the Dean of the Faculty of Translation and Intercultural Communication, 35 students will pass their working practice at WMAM in February-March, 2019. The students will translate articles from English and Russian Wikipedias. As a next step of the collaboration we will work closely with the Faculty to include wikiediting in the education process as well.

Collaboration with Armenian Educational Foundation

Workshop with Armenian Educational Foundation students, December 2018

Wikimedia Armenia received a collaboration offer from Armenian Educational Foundation (AEF) which is a a non-profit organization based in Glendale, California with a branch in Armenia. Founded in 1950, it renders financial assistance to Armenian educational institutions, and award scholarships to students of Armenian parentage to study in Armenian Higher Education Institutions.

The scholarship recipient students have an obligation to do a volunteer work during a year and for diversifying the students choice the organization has decided to apply for a volunteer opportunity where the students can invest their intellectual abilities. The parties agreed to involve students in editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Therefore AEF announced about the volunteering opportunity in WMAM, which interested around 70 students. In December Wikimedia Armenia organized 2 workshops for AEF 39 students with further agreement to begin editing process in January. As a result, Wikipedia editing attracted 15 students so far who are actively editing under the coordination of Wikimedia Armenia Education program coordinator.

There is an agreement to continue conducting workshops for other AEF students in January, 2019.

Wikisource as an educational content

Armenian Wikisource have become a cornerstone of Schools → WikiClubs → Readers triangle. To make Wikisource work useful for school students WMAM began digitizing those free licenced books which are included in the school curriculum. Thus, students are getting ready for Literature lessons while proofreading the works. Besides fiction books, there are also documentary books proofreading of which also contribute to the school learning process. For instance, this year Armenia celebrated the 100th anniversary of the First Republic of Armenia. In the frames of the article writing project in Armenian Wikipedia, WMAM digitized a number of sources and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. As a result, Vanashen WikiClub proofread letters of Armenian revolutionary, statesman and the founder of the First Republic of Armenia - Aram Manukian’s letters. Learning about this initiative, the teacher of the Armenian History from Vanashen school expressed wish to meet those students. The arranged discussion gave the students an opportunity to ask questions and hold an informative discussion with the teacher. Another example of such event was organized in Hatsik WikiClub, the students of which edit articles about plants. The biology teacher of Hatsik school again met the students and had an informative discussion based on the articles they have edited.

In order to have an overall picture of Armenian public domain books, as well as to know authors entering the public domain in upcoming years, WMAM initiated a collection of related information. The online catalogue of the National Library of Armenia (NLA), shared under CC license, came to help us. Though the website is well structured, however, it has been always difficult for us to find public domain authors. On the basis of website information LetterBot created more than 7000 author pages on Wikisource with their birth and death dates. Public domain authors include 1423 names.

WikiClubs coordinators Meeting

Discussion at WikiClubs' coordinators meeting, October 2018

In October Wikimedia Armenia hosted the second meeting of WikiClub coordinators with 14 WikiClub coordinators and staff members of Wikimedia Armenia. After having another meeting in March, 2018 we agreed with the coordinators that it would be great to meet with them at least twice a year and discuss various issues and questions relating to the activity of WikiClubs.

The organization of this event was fully participatory: the agenda of the meeting was based on the topics proposed by coordinators, as well as on the analysis of coordinators reports and WikiClub stats.

The main goal of the meeting was to introduce new coordinators to the experienced ones, support sharing of experience and ideas, develop solutions for existing problems, assist coordinators in capacity building, develop new skills and address coordinators concerns about retaining and involving new participants.

Since the clubbers also contribute to Wikisource and Wiktionary, Wikimedia Armenia pays great importance to the quality content in these Wikimedia projects. The coordinators of 2 WikiClubs presented to their colleagues the most common editing tools and mistakes on these projects. The coordinators were very interested in the topic and had lots of questions to address.

With the development of WikiClubs, the coordinators are requested to do more collaborative work. We noticed though, that some of them lack of using online collaborative tools. In order to fill this gap Community Program Coordinator Davit Saroyan presented to the coordinators how to work with online collaboration tools, especially with Google Drive, how to create documents, share with each others, comment, and more.

In a special session, the Social Media and Communication Coordinator introduced the basics of writing a blog-post. We expect that with the knowledge and skills gained at this session, the coordinators will then use storytelling methods and tools more effectively, sharing more success stories and interesting cases with the community.

The WikiClubs are attended by different age groups each of them requiring unique approaches. The coordinator of Alaverdi WikiClub who is a psychologist, introduced the periods in a person’s development and challenges the coordinators may face when working with them. She also presented the common communication and teaching strategies professionals use when working with various age groups.

The coordinators were also presented the main principles of working with different copyright sources, the encyclopedic style and how to transform texts into it.

After this event the work with WikiClub coordinators become easier. Now we understand each other better, feel part of one team and cooperate more openly. The events organized by the coordinators in their Clubs and communities are better structured now, better linked to Wikimedia Projects and well presented to us and their colleagues. But what is more important, the Clubbers’ work on articles became more quality and with less mistakes, which is very important for increasing the overall quality of Wikimedia projects in Armenian.

  Western Armenian

Western Armenian Wikipedia is in place and has a quality content contributed by community members from different countries.

Wikimedia Armenia continued its efforts in development of Western Armenian content in Wikipedia and creation of the Western Armenian Wikipedia. The new action plan was developed based on the lessons learned of the previous years and applied some new approaches to engage more editors worldwide.

In the beginning of 2018, Western Armenian obtained a ISO 639-3 language code, which enabled us to work towards creation of separate language Wikipedia. In the end of the December, the language committee accomplished its work and the technical team started its work on creation of the Western Armenian Wikipedia.

To promote the development of Western Armenian content on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Armenia initiated a series of online and offline events. Based on last years’ experience, WMAM revised the teachers wiki week and invited not only teachers but also interested experts from the diaspora, who were eager to learn to edit in Wikimedia projects and contribute to the development of free knowledge on Western Armenian. A total of 18 participants (all Western Armenian users) from Armenia, Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, Turkey, and the United States participated in 5 day long event in June 2018, which was held together with local Teachers’ training this time. The event was more interesting for the participants this time as they got an opportunity to exchange experience with Armenians with different backgrounds, learn from their experience and feel the spirit of a larger community.

The first-ever Wiki Summer-School took place in Aleppo from August 27 to September 1, 2018. The event was organized in close collaboration with the local chapter of Hamazkayin Armenian Educational and Cultural Association and with the active support of the local participants of Wiki Workshop for experts held in Armenia. The purpose of the Wiki Summer School was to increase the number of involved editors from Aleppo and to encourage their regular participation in writing and improving Western Armenian Wikipedia entries. Over six days, a total number of 25 participants - students and other active members of the local Armenian community - learned about Wikipedia editing and Wikisource. It is worth mentioning that most participants of this training is actively taking part in Western Armenian online edit-a-thons organized by WMAM on monthly basis.

Overall 4 online edit-a-thons focusing on the Armenian traditional costumes Cuisine (Armenian and international), Charles Aznavour and his legacy, Armenian and international theater and stage, health and medicine, were organized by WMAM since September 2018. All four edit-a-thons were a success in terms of active participation of experienced and new editors of Western Armenian Wikipedia. Online events brought together editors from Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, France, Greece, and Armenia in a round-the-day pursuit of creating new Western-Armenian Wikipedia pages and improving the existing ones.

WMAM active presentation of its work towards the creation of Western Armenian content gave its result. “Spyurk” Scientific-Educational Center invited Western Armenian Wikipedia project coordinator to join the annual Diasporan Teachers’ Training in Armenia from July 2 to July 27, 2018. During the three weeks of the event, our coordinator carried out workshops on editing in the Western Armenian Wikipedia and Wikisource for the diasporan 30 teachers attending the training. Participants were enthusiastic about the knowledge gained and evaluated the course with high marks, but unfortunately, none of them continued editing on Wikipedia.


  Lessons learned
  • WMAM puts lots of efforts in training people for editing in Western Armenian Wikimedia but the retention is very low due to not having Western Armenian as a separate language on Wikipedia.
  • As the new Western Armenian editors’ retention is too low, WMAM will hold one offline event in 2019 for only experienced editors.


Wiki Workshop for Experts in Aleppo

Closing ceremony of Wiki Summer School, September 2018

One of the participants of the Wiki Workshop for Experts from Aleppo actively engaged in the wiki editing and later on played an active role in establishing a Western Armenian WikiClub in Aleppo together with “Hamazkayin” Armenian educational and cultural society. The Aleppo WikiClub, in partnership with Hamazkayin, organized a series of workshops and a Wiki Editing Contest in November-December, 2018 aimed at spreading the Wiki spirit throughout the community and increase the number of newly created Western Armenian articles.

Experience in Istanbul

Editors from Istanbul actively participated in the training sessions in Armenia, during the last few months they were unable to edit Western Armenian Wikipedia articles due to the fact that Wikipedia is blocked in Turkey. The Western Armenian program linked the editors to the Turkish Wikipedia user group, which trained them in overcoming the technical obstacles and regaining access to editing in the portal.

  Organizational development

Acknowledging the importance of having a strong and sustainable organization to reach our mission, WMAM focused on organizational development. In some aspects, we have managed to reach some progress, but in some areas, we are still in the initial phase.


Capacity enhancement

WMAM didn’t manage to do much on this direction. We still work on the amendment of our Bylaw.

We are happy our staff member of AGBU funded project Armen Mirzoyan was awarded an opportunity to attend the “CSOs management” certificate course by AGBU and the American University of Armenia, where he learns about different aspect of CSO management and CSO work in general. He usually shares the information and resources gained during the course with his colleagues.

WMAM pays attention on knowledge sharing among its staff and coordinators and thus pays a big attention to development of various toolkits and manuals. During the reporting period our staff has developed the following information materials, which are aimed at capacity building of our employees, WikiClub coordinators, and the community: WikiData; Wikimedia Commons; Collaboration tools and Google Drive; How to tell our WikiClubs’ stories; The work with Armenian sources; Unfinished articles and their improvement; Specifics of Working in Sandboxes.

Outreach

Wikimedia Armenia was mostly perceived as an organization working with school children due to active promotion of WikiClubs and WikiCamps. We have decided that we need to change our public image and put more stress to the work that is done with adults thus also to increase the trust towards the Armenian Wikipedia content. WMAM revised its communication approaches, made it more strategic and mostly aimed at covering “I create a vital article”, “I create a medical article” campaigns and our GLAM initiatives. We have diversified our communication channels and these shifts already gave their positive results. We have received two-three times more applications for our Wiki Loves Science edit-a-thons and for youth Wiki Camp recently. Several organizations applied to WMAM for cooperation. Armenian Educational Foundation find Wikimedia Armenia as a good partner for hosting their student volunteers. The United States Embassy to Armenia contacted Wikimedia Armenia to join their annual two - day workshop with regional librarians to talk to them about the open knowledge and teach them the Wikipedia editing tools. As a result of this partnership 17 regional libraries created articles about their institutions on Armenian Wikipedia. Yerevan Drama Theater after Hrachya Ghaplanyan contacted us and expressed its willingness to cooperate, according to which the theater will issue free licensed content to Wikimedia Armenia to use on Wikimedia projects. Ayb school invited us to participate in Ayb annual conference and talk about the Wikimedia Education program and encourage their teachers to join the movement.

Financial sustainability

Ensuring organizations’ financial sustainability is one of our strategic directions․ As one of the important steps in this direction was the development of a donate.wikimedia.am platform, which will become a great tool for us to engage more people to contribute to our work. The platform is very flexible and we can change the priority programs for fundraising on our own. We expect to present the donation website to public on February, 2019.

WMAM staff members present the organization’s work to different private sector representatives with the aim to recruit them as individual sponsors for our WikiClubs.

Revenues received during this six-month period

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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
Wikimedia Foudation AMD 133,727,000.0 75,298,786.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 75,298,786.0 267,454.0 150,597.6
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation AMD 18,154,000.0 0.0 10,290,297.1 0.0 0.0 10,290,297.1 36,308.0 20,580.6
AGBU Bridge for CSOs (EU supported program) AMD 10,852,721.0 0.0 2,596,892.0 0.0 0.0 2,596,892.0 21,705.4 5,193.8 The major part of this fund was received in the previous fiscal year
Donations for Wikiclubs AMD 0.0 420,000.0 678,000.0 0.0 0.0 1,098,000.0 0.0 2,196.0
Yerevan Foundation AMD 8,600,086.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 This fund was received in the previous fiscal year
TOTAL AMD 171,333,807.0 75,718,786.0 13,565,189.1 0.0 0.0 89,283,975.1 17,200.2 178,568.0

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this six-month period

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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
Operations AMD 18,380,000.0 2,772,197.1 2,990,059.5 0.0 0.0 5,762,256.6 36,760.0 11,524.5 31.35%
Quality Content AMD 20,970,086.0 3,947,987.1 8,250,590.1 0.0 0.0 12,198,577.2 41,940.2 24,397.2 58.17%
Community AMD 15,670,000.0 2,664,798.0 1,032,162.0 0.0 0.0 3,696,960.0 31,340.0 7,393.9 23.59%
Education AMD 47,012,721.0 12,437,979.5 7,850,452.4 0.0 0.0 20,288,431.9 94,025.4 40,576.9 43.16%
Western Armenian AMD 12,442,000.0 5,768,479.0 178,710.0 0.0 0.0 5,947,189.0 24,884.0 11,894.4 47.80%
Organizational development AMD 5,030,000.0 449,082.0 737,470.0 0.0 0.0 1,186,552.0 10,060.0 2,373.1 23.59%
Staff expanses AMD 51,829,000.0 13,772,543.0 14,994,211.0 0.0 0.0 28,766,754.0 103,658.0 57,533.5 55.50%
TOTAL AMD 171,333,807.0 41,813,065.7 36,033,654.9 0.0 0.0 77,846,720.6 342,667.6 155,693.4 45.44%

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


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.

  • Yes

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

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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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