Grants:APG/Proposals/2019-2020 round 1/Wikimedia UK/Impact report form


Summary edit

2020 was an extraordinary year for everyone, and Wikimedia UK was no exception. However, as a chapter we have a lot to be proud of over the past year, both in terms of how we responded to the pandemic - supporting our staff, volunteers and partners in the sudden pivot to online working - and in the innovative and impactful programme we have been able to deliver.

This impact report for the financial year 2020/21 (which ended on 31st January 2021) provides a comprehensive overview of our work within each of our four programmes; including metrics and results, highlights of programme activity, key learning and an indication of how the programme resonates with strategic movement priorities. Some of the highlights of our varied programme across the year include:

  • Working with the London College of Communication’s Student Changemakers programme to design and launch a new Decolonising Wikipedia Network
  • Exploring the theme of threatened heritage, bearing in mind our new programmatic commitment to climate issues and drawing on our internal expertise in archaeology
  • Building on the successful partnership model of content generation between Llên Natur (the nature website for Wales), Welsh Wikipedia and Wikidata to scale up this work into six other Celtic languages
  • Working with Wikimedia Ireland to deliver Celtic Knot 2020 online, which had over 100 registered participants and offered a valuable mix of talks to inspire and inform attendees, and workshops/troubleshooting spaces to help attendees work through barriers they experience on their language wikis
  • Organising and facilitating a movement strategy workshop focused on minority language communities
  • Supporting and growing the Scots wiki editing community through a series of events and other interventions, following significant international media interest in the actions of a single editor
  • Supporting the Wikimedian in Residence at the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, who has extensively reviewed the work of the Society and produced a report detailing potential policy changes and a wide range of project ideas to engage with Wikimedia and embed open practices
  • Designing and delivering an online version of our well regarded Train the Trainers programme, which was key to supporting the skills and resilience of our volunteer training community
  • Supporting the ongoing collaboration between the Welsh Government, National Library of Wales and language enterprise MenterMon in the delivery of a Wikipedia-based education programme in Welsh secondary schools
  • Supporting the high impact, innovative work developed and delivered by the Wikimedian at the University of Edinburgh, and launching a new booklet of case studies of Wikimedia in UK education in partnership with the University
  • Persuading the Welsh and Scottish Governments to move significant elements of their content onto open licences
  • Working closely with the British Library to develop the internal case and secure funding for a second Wikimedian in Residence, who will be working within the Digital Scholarship Department but with a broad remit across the Library
  • Presenting at a wide range of online events and conferences, including the Creative Commons Global Summit and two prestigious Westminster Media Forum policy seminars
  • Joining the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Licensing Review Advisory Group and helping to ensure a change of policy that means all digital outputs from NLHF funded projects are now required to be released under an open licence
  • Supporting the UN's misinformation campaign, and helping to amplify key messages through the participation of our partners and allies

Finally, it’s worth noting that Wikimedia UK ended the year with its largest surplus (of just over £52,000) in over six years. Whilst this was partly due to cost savings during the year, it also reflects a very robust year in terms of fundraising, with increased support from individual donors.

Wikimedia UK’s strategic context edit

Strategic Framework for 2019–2022 Wikimedia UK works in partnership with organisations from the cultural and education sectors and beyond in order to unlock content, remove barriers to knowledge, develop new ways of engaging with the public and enable learners to benefit fully from the educational potential of the Wikimedia projects. The work of the UK chapter is informed by and supports the strategic direction of the global Wikimedia movement, and focuses on the knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege.

Our vision is of a more tolerant, informed and democratic society.

Our mission is to be the platform which enables the long-term sustainable development and use of open knowledge in the UK.

We are currently delivering activities across four interconnected programme strands, as follows, which are aligned with our strategic aims:

  • Increasing Knowledge Equity (Aim 1, Increase the representation of marginalised people and subjects on Wikimedia)
  • Developing Digital Literacy (Aim 2, Work with partners to develop digital, data and information literacy through Wikimedia)
  • Changing Policy and Practice (Aim 3, Create changes in policy and practice that enable open knowledge to flourish)
  • Growing Wikimedia UK’s Profile and Capacity (Aim 4, Develop our capacity and profile as a leading organisation for open knowledge)

Organisational Theory of Change:

Wikimedia UK believes that to achieve our vision of a more tolerant, informed and democratic society we need to improve the representation of diverse people in the knowledge ecosystem, increase civic engagement by building digital literacy, and secure policy changes which increase access to open information for all. To effectively achieve these goals we must also work on strengthening our voice and sector recognition.

Without access to knowledge, we can’t build understanding. Without diversity of content, this understanding is limited.

Our current three year strategy covers the period February 2019 to January 2022 ( WMUK’s Strategic Framework for 2019–2022). Given the significant impact of Covid-19 on our partners, supporters, contributors and ourselves, we decided to revisit the assumptions underpinning our current programme at our board awayday in September 2020. In particular, we took a fresh look at our external environment, and updated this section of our strategic framework here. At this meeting - and in further conversations with the staff team - we also explored a number of emerging programmatic themes, detailed below under ‘Emerging themes and priorities’.

Here are a number of reports, articles and research papers relating to some key issues for the cultural, education and civil society sector in the UK, that underpin our own organisational priorities. This is not an exhaustive list but gives a flavour of the current context and external environment that informs the chapter’s work.

Resonance with Wikimedia 2030 edit

Wikimedia UK has been involved in the development of the Wikimedia 2030 movement strategy since its inception, and remains committed to its successful delivery. During September and October 2020 we held discussions with staff and trustees to identify global priorities for implementation and to explore the recommendations and initiatives through the lens of our own organisational priorities, as well as the skills and expertise that the UK chapter and community could bring to the wider movement. We had further meetings in November with the Celtic Knot community and (separately) contributors to English Wikipedia, to explore these questions with editors and community organisers.

The clearest overlap between the movement strategy and Wikimedia UK’s own strategy is Recommendation 8: Identify topics for impact. In particular, our work to develop diverse content and contributors and increase the engagement and representation of marginalised people and subjects, resonates closely with initiatives 8.37 Bridging content gaps and 8.38 Content initiatives in underrepresented communities. Our partnership work has for a few years now focused primarily on underrepresented communities and knowledge, and now increasingly on decolonisation. This work brings with it international connections, and we would be excited to connect with other affiliates to drive these initiatives forward. Depending on how the movement structures its global knowledge sharing and programme coordination, we see ourselves able to lead on or support thematic hubs set up around Recommendation 8 (through our expertise in Wikimedians in Residence, underrepresented content, and digital literacy).


Global metrics overview edit

Overall edit

Metric Targets Results Explanation and/or examples of activities
Participants GM1 7,000 8,729 People attending our events: Wikipedia in classroom courses, conferences, workshops, training, editathons, and community meetups. The rising number of online events and volunteering opportunities attracted a bigger audience.
Newly registered editors GM2 1,500 797 New editors were engaged mostly via our editathons and education courses, larger contests as Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM), and our volunteer programmes in Wales.

The pandemic affected this metric heavily, which is why we were quite far from reaching the target. Newcomers prefer in person training to learn editing, which was limited  this year.  The lower number also reflects fewer students at Wikimedia in the classrooms - several of which were paused or cancelled.

Articles added/improved GM3 250,000 761,672 Wikidata: 42K new Wikidata items were created during  WLM images adding the images also to WD, a volunteer using PiBot to edit Commons and Wikidata, and the National Library of Wales’ resident and WD scholar adding items from NLW collections to WD, e.g.on Welsh chapels.

About 645K WD items were improved/edited by the Welsh WD scholar at NLW improving datasets from the NLW collection, by other  volunteer projects e.g. (Wikiquote project, Welsh bird name project). Furthermore, WLM in the UK and the Code the City in Scotland also resulted in large WD edits, while others improved WD via bots (Pi Bot,  University of Coventry resident). Due to limitations of Event Metrics of measuring Wikidata edits only up to 50K, we judge that the number of edited items is higher in reality.

Wikipedia: more than 25K articles were created, out of which 21K by a bot to Welsh wiki on USA cities (a pilot consulted with the community), and 1.5K on fungi. The rest of the articles were created during editathons and educational courses. About 50K WP articles were edited,  in larger numbers through different  Welsh volunteer programs (27.5K), during ScotsWiki editing events (6.5K), and by the University of Coventry resident (3K). Remaining content comes from the rest of our programme activity, e.g. education courses and workshops and editathons.

Volunteer hours 25,000 31,696 6,300 hours come from Wikipedia in Classroom courses. 2,730 hours was spent by lead volunteers organising events and interacting with WMUK partner institutions. The rest (22.6K hours) are made up of wiki training, workshops, editathons, the AGM, meetups and other events.
Total audience and reach 75,000 104,266 Includes 95,030 social media subscribers, 8,729 event participants plus 507 leading volunteers. This high result reflects the extra work we were able to put into general communications activities, including on social media, thanks to additional capacity; plus our increased profile and visibility around Wikipedia’s 20th birthday.
Achieved Target has been achieved or exceeded
Opportunity for improvement Some progress has been made towards achieving the target, but the target is not on track
Attention required Little or no progress has been made towards achieving the target

All metrics totals for all programmes edit

For metrics disaggregated by programmes, see individual sections per programme below.

Metric 2020-21 result
1 Total audience and reach (direct engagement) (grant metric) 104,266
2 Digital media reach 95,030
3 Total participants  (grant metric) 8,729
4 Number of newly registered users (grant metric) 797
5 Number of leading volunteers 507
6 % of leading volunteers who are women 263 (51.87%)
7 Estimated number of volunteer hours (grant metric) 31,695
8 Volunteers would recommend WMUK (annual) 94.59%
9 Volunteers feel valued by WMUK (annual) 100%
10 Volunteers have developed new skills (annual) 86.61%
11 Images/media added to WM Commons 14,743
12 Images/media added to WM article pages (and %) 8,057 (54.64%)
13 Content pages created or improved, across all WM projects excl. Commons (grant metric) 761,672
14 Number of articles created 67,504
15 Reach of content - image/article views Articles: 14,909,938,

Images: 1,425,460,086

16 Content diversity - % of events where the focus is on underrepresented content 129 out of 257 (50.2%)
17 Language diversity - how many languages have we worked across (annual) Articles created: 17 (eventmetrics)

Articles edited:

80 (eventmetrics)

Common uploads 2020-21 re-used: 57 (PetScan)

All Commons uploads re-used: 355, incl. 74 wikipedia (GLAMorgen)

18 Geographical reach - % of events outside of London 185 out of 257 (71.98%)
19 # education courses we work with (annual) 9
20 Digital skills - Improved skills and confidence (annual) 3.521
21 New inclusion in courses and curricula (annual) 2
22 Responses touchpoints 28
23 Policy change 8

Further explanations for metrics:

  • Reach of content: we primarily considered image views in Wikipedia articles of the content released with support from Wikimedia UK (Commons category). Note re our very high result of article views in 2020 - note - one of our residents was editing COVID article within the COVID volunteer taskforce, which received very high views.
  • Programme content diversity: interpreted as the % of events where the focus is on underrepresented content:  
  • Language diversity: interpreted as the number of languages we have worked across: this could be expressed in different ways, each showing the multilinguality of our work.

Articles were created in 17 languages during our events in this past year, including CY, EN, GA, BR, ZH, SCO, and other smaller edits in AR, DE, ES, GD, KW, LA, HR, MT, PL, TR and Simplewiki.

Articles were edited in 80 different language wikipedias. Top languages over 100 article edits were CY, EN, SCO, GA, BR, simple, DE wiki. From the rest of Wikipedias, 46 received multiple edits, and 27 had one edit (use of bot).

Our images uploaded to Commons, category “Supported by Wikimedia UK” during this year were re-used on Wikidata, Wikivoyage (DE, EN, HE, PL), Wikisource (EN), Outreach & Simple Wiki, Wikiquote (AR), Wikibooks (EN), Wikiversity (EN), Wiktionary (PL) and 57 wikipedia. Most re-use occurred on EN, CY, FR, ARZ, CA, De, ES, IT, EU and RU Wikipedia.

Baglama2 measures how many views those articles having images (ever) added to Commons in category “Supported by Wikimedia UK” received during the past periods. Using the last month of the year, 355 wikimedia sites had views to articles having our images, out of which 74 were different language Wikipedias. EN, followed by top 5 as FR, DE, SP, IT, RU.

Geographical reach: interpreted as the  % of events outside of London - if COVID-19 pandemic would have allowed it: 71.98% (1850 out of 257 events).

Programme 1: Increasing Knowledge Equity edit

Strategic goal: Increase engagement with and representation of marginalised people and subjects

Background and Theory of Change
Long term outcome:

Wikimedia reflects our diverse society and is free from systemic bias

Assumptions
  • There are content gaps on Wikimedia projects which makes it biased and not-representative of our society
Theory of change:

Wikimedia UK is helping to create more complete information online; by supporting marginalised people to become contributors and community leaders, and by uncovering and sharing knowledge created by and about underrepresented people and subjects.

Where is our intervention
  • We facilitate the transfer of underrepresented knowledge from content holders to diverse audiences. This usually takes place through the Wikimedia projects but could be through other accessible platforms where appropriate.
  • We develop targeted projects and programmes to recruit, train, support and develop volunteer contributors and leaders from all backgrounds.
Strategic objectives:
  • Develop partnerships that address inequality and bias on the Wikimedia projects
  • Deliver projects that increase access to underrepresented cultural heritage
  • Support the development of minority and indigenous language Wikipedias
  • Engage with volunteers and partners across the UK, widening the charity’s geographic reach
  • Diversify content producers by recruiting new editors from under-represented communities
  • Support the development of a more inclusive culture across the Wikimedia projects
  • Ensure that Wikimedia UK’s own policies and practices support diversity and inclusion
Why us
  • We have connections to the existing editor community, experience in running programmes and training sessions, and strong links with UK content holders.
Activities:

Partnerships, projects and campaigns focused on

  • Underrepresented cultural heritage
  • Minority languages (with a focus on the “Celtic Knot”)
  • Gender Gap
  • Diverse contributors
Evidence that it’s working + Who are we reaching (Metrics)
  • Content pages created or improved across all Wikimedia projects
  • Images/media added to Wikimedia Commons
  • Number of articles created
  • Newly registered editors
  • Volunteer hours
  • Total number of participants
  • Number of leading volunteers
  • Reach of content - image/article views
  • Content diversity - % of events where the focus is on underrepresented content
  • Language diversity - how many languages have we worked across (annual)
  • Geographical reach - % of events outside of London (annual)

Wikimedia UK has been focused on underrepresented knowledge for the past five years, with this work coalescing around the key themes of underrepresented cultural heritage, minority languages, the gender gap and diverse contributors. The movement for equality and civil rights is facing significant challenges worldwide and we believe that open knowledge and knowledge equity have a central role to play in securing social justice.

Over the past two years, we have also been developing a particular thematic focus on decolonisation, both as this affects cultural institutions (decolonising collections) and the education sector (decolonising curricula). In Autumn 2020, we commissioned a piece of research into the way in which non-western visual arts are covered on Wikimedia, to test our assumptions about how certain types of content are represented.

Resonance with the global 2030 strategy

This programme strand relates to our long term outcome of ensuring that the Wikimedia projects reflect our diverse society and are free from systemic bias, as well as our strategic aim for the period 2019 to 2022 to increase the engagement and representation of marginalised people and subjects on Wikimedia. This programme feeds directly into the movement priority of knowledge equity, and our work in this area maps across to the initiatives under Recommendation 8: Topics for Impact. We are keen to share our developing expertise in this area with the movement globally.

Metrics edit

Indicator 2019/20 end year results 2020/21 end year results
3. Participants 1,709 3,879
4. Newly registered editors 553 515
13. Articles added/improved 394,911 758,787
7. Volunteer hours 9,257 16,172
1. Total audience and reach 1,952 4,235
5. Leading volunteers 243 356
11. Images/media added to Commons 15,280 14,743
12. Images/media added to Wikimedia pages 2,853 8,057 files re-used
12. % uploaded media used in content pages 18.67% 54.64%
14. New articles added 120,334 (112k Wikidata) 65,376
15. Reach of content - image/article views 1,227,127,546.00 Articles: 14,909,938,

Images: 1,425,460,086

16. Content diversity - # and % of events where the focus is on underrepresented content 106 (34.86%) 129 out of 257 (50.2%)
17. Language diversity - how many languages have we worked across (annual) Articles created: 13 (eventmetrics)

Articles edited: 55 (eventmetrics)

Common uploads 2019/2020 re-used: 53 (PetScan)

All Commons uploads re-used: 321 (GLAMorgen

Articles created: 17 (eventmetrics)

Articles edited:

80 (eventmetrics)

Common uploads 2020-21 re-used: 57 (PetScan)

All Commons uploads re-used: 355, incl. 74 wikipedia (GLAMorgen)

18. Geographical reach - % of events outside of London (annual) 80.92%

(246 out of 305 events)

71.98%

(185 out of 257)

Highlights of programme activity edit

We are pleased to have delivered a well balanced programme of activities within this programme, including projects focused on the Celtic Knot languages, underrepresented heritage, gender gap, and technology for underrepresented knowledge.

 
The National Museum of Scotland shared images of the Galloway Hoard, "the richest collection of rare and unique Viking-age objects ever found in Britain or Ireland", on Commons for the first time.

We continued to develop our relationship and programme delivery with our major partners (including working with the British Library, Science Museum, and others on the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Towards a National Collection programme). At the same time, we were able to engage with smaller, nimble organisations who have been responding dynamically to the lockdown context. For example, both Society of Antiquaries Scotland and Humanists UK were able to set up new Wikimedia projects last year, perhaps partly because they host Wikimedians in Residence who can direct them to innovative solutions.

Underrepresented heritage (with a growing focus on decolonisation)

Across this programme area we have been putting an increasing emphasis on decolonisation, focusing on content and communities that have not only been underrepresented on Wikimedia, but also historically deprioritised and misrepresented. The team is building connections with key organisations already active in the field, such as Horniman Museum and Pitt Rivers Museum. We are also deepening existing partnerships to deliver meaningful knowledge equity projects. For example at Edinburgh University we are supporting their engagement with the History Society, who ran a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Scotland, Slavery and Black History. The University will also host a ‘Open Data and Knowledge Equity’ internship in 2021.

Some of our work with universities fits under this strategic goal, instead or as well as our second programme - which is more explicitly focused on education - as we are increasingly engaging with initiatives to decolonise curricula. As a highlight of this work, in 2020 we worked with the London College of Communication’s Student Changemakers programme to design and launch a new Decolonising Wikipedia Network. The group is improving and creating articles about practitioners and artists within their fields, working across the university to teach others about Wikipedia and identify areas for improvement.

With an increasing focus on decolonisation in the context of our external partnerships, we are mindful of the need to develop our own understanding of the complexities of this work. Our staff are encouraged to attend relevant training and conferences, and we are building relationships with thought leaders and critical friends in this area.

  Innovation: Within this strand of work, drawing on our internal expertise in archaeology, we have also been exploring the theme of threatened heritage. This often intersects with environmental issues, which is an angle we aim to build on in our upcoming strategy. We recently ran a session to teach researchers about editing Wikipedia within a SXNCH event (a symposium for knowledge exchange and networking on the conservation, management, and future prospects of heritage sites at the intersection of nature and culture). We also delivered a talk to Digital Classics students at University College London as a part of the international consortium SunoikisisDC event.

Minority and indigenous languages (with a focus on the Celtic Knot)

Within Celtic Knot work we have been expanding our work on how Wikdata can feed into Welsh Wikipedia to other language projects, for example Cornish. It struck us that there is a significant appetite for this knowledge and skills exchange during the 2030 strategic discussion for Celtic Knot; something we will work on further in 2021. In a significant development, we also zoomed in on supporting Scots Wiki community - case study below.

  Innovation: Building on the successful partnership model of content generation between Llen Natur, Welsh Wikipedia and Wikidata, we are scaling up into six other Celtic languages. This is being discussed with editors of each community, particularly as it involves some automated content generation, so it’s important that editors know what is happening and support the initiative. These new collaborations created the basis for the Wikimedia 2030 strategy Celtic Knot gathering, organised and facilitated by Wikimedia UK. Nominally, editors gathered to discuss the implementation of the global strategy, however the real energy was in exchanging knowledge and ideas to support each other's wiki projects. There is a lot of potential for WMUK to provide space for these - and possibly other - language communities to connect, learn from each other, and collaborate, and we will be exploring this further during 2021.

Gender gap, diverse contributors

This programme continued, remaining one of the key focuses of our partnership work. One innovation to highlight is our partnership with the Fruitmarket Gallery. They developed an event where WMUK supported pre-editathon research with a project grant; this "A Presence in History" event focused on improving coverage of contemporary artists of colour in Scotland on Wikipedia. We don’t normally fund people’s time to enable activities like this to take place, but felt that this is an important area to explore as we work more with knowledge equity; recognising that free time, as well as reference materials, are not equally distributed.

Changes, Challenges and Learning edit

Changes - Challenges of the pandemic context

Compare to our proposal

Following the initial wave of cancellations in March and April, we started to notice an uptick in partners’ interest in holding online events and exploring new projects and collaborations. This is something that by that point we were also better placed to deliver. Reflecting on the past year, it’s gratifying to note that we have been able to continue to deliver a full programme of (online) activity, with few cancellations. However, we think this is partly because we are now working with a self-selecting cohort of organisations who have been able to remain engaged with open knowledge. Reading interim reports from the current Towards a National Collection Foundation projects, for example, gives a mixed picture, with some organisations being able to continue without disruption (e.g. Science Museum), while others suffering 6+ months of delays because of staff furlough (paid leave) and other uncertainties (e.g. V&A). We are also aware that a few of our residencies in Wales may be affected in 2021.

The financial situation for many organisations continues to be precarious, and content holding organisations are looking to digital content online for models of monetisation. This may mean that they will be less inclined to open content for free. On the other hand we are noticing that organisations across the UK are thinking more about their digital audience, and how this differs from their physical visitors. This reflection on the motivations and needs of a digital audience provides an opportunity to make a case for engaging with Wikimedia, and making collections more accessible and relevant to a wider, online audience. Digital art is increasing in importance, together with digital preservation of that content.

Learning - adapting to the new world

The pandemic continues to be challenging, particularly for organisations without secure longer-term funding and those who rely on earned income. This includes many smaller content-holding organisations who we would ideally like to work with. Increasing inequalities and disparities across the cultural sector has brought more attention to broader questions of inclusion and access, which connects well to our strategic goals. At the same time, we are aware of - and deeply concerned by - the potentially chilling effect of the current ‘culture wars’, with the UK government’s department for culture urging museums to stick to government approved history. Our commitment to knowledge equity remains paramount however, and we will continue to explore with partners how working with Wikimedia UK can support the decolonisation of knowledge.

Future

See our next activity plan

A focus on underrepresented content remains central to our programme, but in 2021 we want to go deeper, working even harder towards knowledge equity. Whilst decolonisation has been a growing theme of our work in the past few years, we are mindful that there is a need to unpack the language and actions around decolonisation, ensuring that we are facilitating participatory and inclusive approaches, and rebalancing whose stories are told. This work will be underpinned by the introduction in 2021 of an equity, diversity and inclusion framework and action plan for the whole organisation, which will cut across our staff, board, volunteers, partners, processes and programme delivery - ensuring that we ourselves reflect the full diversity of our society.

Case studies edit

 Celtic Knot 2020 and its communities
 
The conference sessions are available on YouTube: Day 1, Day 2, pre-recorded talks

Celtic Knot conference is an annual conference supporting Wikimedia communities' work with diverse languages. We support it and run the conference in partnership with a partner host at a different location every year, making it accessible to different communities. The first conference was held in Scotland, with subsequent events in Wales and Cornwall, and the intention was to host the 2020 edition in Limerick, Ireland, in July 2020, for the first time in collaboration with another affiliate (Wikimedia Community Ireland). Due to the Covid-19 global health crisis and travel restrictions, an in-person event would have been impractical and unsafe, so we decided early on to keep the date and turn the conference into an online event. Over 100 people registered for the conference, and most of the live streamed talks over the two days of the event had 50 - 60 live participants (in addition to people watching the recordings at a later point). We offered a mix of information/overview talks to inspire and update attendees, and workshops/troubleshooting spaces to help attendees work through barriers they experience on their language wikis. This latter element was key for us to maintain the spirit of the conference, which has always been a capacity building, solutions-oriented space.

As an illustration of the community building force of the conference, in Spring this year we were able to build activities within the Cornish Wikipedia. The Cornish Language Lead from the Cornwall Government, with whom we organised the 2019 conference, got in touch with us with a Wiki training plan in early Q2. This was somewhat inspired by the lockdown and the opportunity it gave for people to develop their Cornish language skills. It also took advantage of the Speak Cornish Week 20 -28 June. We run a series of workshops helping people to get editing on the Cornish Wikipedia, while also facilitating a community discussion around planning a way forward. Celtic Knot 2020 created an opportunity for the Cornish contributors to connect further and continue their wiki efforts; some people learned about the conference via the training we delivered. Further, the statistics of Content Translation usage in Cornish went from almost zero published translations per month for quite some time, to 13 in July - we believe this is linked to Celtic Knot.

In running this event, we involved a member of the Cornish Wikipedia community who shared their experiences of editing and how they got involved. We discovered that Wikipedia had played a role in making Minecraft available in Cornish. The Minecraft community can submit translations of the playing interface; this volunteer took part in the process and when stuck on how to translate a word would look up the English version on Wikipedia and seek out its Cornish counterpart. This shows how having an active Wikipedia can be beneficial to the larger language community in making other resources more accessible.

There’s a lot more that could be said about the Celtic Knot conference 2020, and we welcome people to explore our documentation page which captures our learning - we would be delighted to talk to anyone about this if they want to learn more.


 Scots Wiki community

Up until recently, there were only a relatively small number of regular, active editors of sco.wiki. However, as of the end of August, that has most definitely changed. And that’s the best thing that we could have hoped for. We really hope that these new editors will feel moved to stick around, because their long-term support would be transformational for the wiki, and would hopefully have benefits for the wider Scots language community too.

With all the press coverage, a certain amount of immediate interest was inevitable. And the community has worked hard to increase their capacity to help deal with this; nominating and onboarding new Scots-speaking admins, improving on-wiki tools, organising review of articles, discussing spelling and dialect, deflecting vandalism, writing a new notability policy, deleting spam.

We’ve been heartened by the energy and proactive attitude of the existing Scots wiki editing community in dealing with the increased attention and participation in their project. At the same time, it was disappointing to see some of that attention being underpinned by a widespread criticism, and lack of assuming good faith, of the editor upon whom attention fell. That’s not a behaviour we would support, and what we want to focus on here is the positive impact of the story on Scots wiki.

With any minority language Wikipedia, community building is incredibly important; one of the ways this happens is through events like the Celtic Knot conference which Wikimedia UK have organised since 2017. Calls for content to be parachuted into the Wiki are ultimately not the most helpful, not least because a Wiki relies on its community; it needs the ongoing support and oversight of that community to survive. It needs those volunteers who look out for vandalism, who fix spelling mistakes, who create new articles, who review articles, who work on tech infrastructure - all of those kinds of things which it’s easy to take for granted if you spend most of your time on en:wiki. If you want paid editing, and an encyclopedia which remains fixed in one point in time, there are options for that. But that is not Wikipedia.

The relationship between a chapter and a language Wikipedia is one of support, not of dictatorship. In practice, what that’s meant is a whole load of activity if not behind the scenes, then in the wings. User:Cobra3000 set up a two-day editathon at the end of August, for which we ran online training sessions (we’ve been doing a lot of that recently), set up a Dashboard to track activity, helped to set up an on-wiki event page, and created and uploaded some sco.wiki specific how-to videos to Commons, which was shared during training, and in the off-wiki locations where activity was being organised - Cobra3000’s Scots Language Discord server, and the new Scots Wikipedia Editors Facebook group, which is now at over 100 members. We’ve been active in both of the latter, answering questions, promoting the training, and answering wiki-specific questions where possible. For the editathon, we also were sure to include a range of activities for non- or lower-proficiency Scots speakers, of whom there were many who were interested in helping out. Michael Dempster of the Scots Language Centre has been very involved, including making an 8-hour introduction to Scots course available for free on YouTube. The editathon produced some quite incredible stats; they include high-volume AWB tasks, but even so, I was excited to see the enthusiasm and care that the community has for the Wiki.

We’ve also been talking to the Scots Language Centre about how we might engage the wider Scots community with Wikimedia in the future, and this will hopefully build on some existing projects which had to be shelved due to COVID.

The second editathon was held at the end of September, focussing on places, and we hope that they become a regular event - the next is planned for November. Now that we’ve done with the initial firefighting period, and we are encouraged by what’s happening on wiki, it’s time to dig in for the long term.

Programme 2: Developing Digital Literacy edit

Strategic goal: Work with partners to develop digital, data and information literacy through Wikimedia

Background and Theory of Change (TOC)

Long term outcome:

People in the UK are able to understand and effectively engage with open knowledge, creating high levels of information literacy which underpins civil society and democratic processes.

Assumptions:
  • Information literacy is a key prerequisite for democratic participation
  • People aren’t able to successfully engage with open knowledge without support; effort is needed to build the UK society’s digital literacy
  • Data literacy will be key to future successful democratic participation
Theory of change:

Access to high quality, neutral information based on reliable sources helps to create a shared understanding of the world, and is important to the creation of a tolerant and democratic society. However, this is being undermined by increasingly widespread misinformation and disinformation. To counter this, Wikimedia UK works with educators and other partners to develop digital literacy skills, with a focus on information, media and data literacy.

Where is our intervention:
  • Wikipedia is a rich example of how knowledge is captured, and how it should be consumed responsibly. It’s an excellent tool for building a range of digital literacies.
Strategic objectives:
  • Develop and deliver Wikimedia-based activities that develop digital literacy in schools
  • Support the higher education sector’s engagement with Wikimedia as a digital literacy tool
  • Facilitate Wikimedia-based digital, data and information literacy projects with other partners
  • Create content and resources for learners and educators focused on digital literacies
  • Advocate for the inclusion of Wikimedia in curriculum, syllabus and course development
  • Collaborate with the civil society sector and other partners to combat misinformation
Why us
  • We are taking advantage of the education sector’s ‘suspicion’ towards Wikipedia to open a key conversation about information integrity, and digital literacy
  • ‘Wikipedia in the classroom’ model offers a solid, tested model of engagement in this field
Activities:
  • Data and information literacy projects in collaboration with formal education sector partners such as schools and universities
  • Advocating to government and relevant bodies for the inclusion of Wikimedia in curriculum and syllabus development
  • Case studies with key partners
Evidence that it’s working + Who are we reaching (Metrics)
  • Content pages created or improved across all Wikimedia projects
  • Number of articles created
  • Newly registered editors
  • Volunteer hours
  • Total number of participants
  • Number of leading volunteers
  • Number of courses we work with (annual)
  • Improved skills and confidence (annual)
  • Inclusion in courses and curricula (annual)

In the UK, as in other parts of the world, societal fragmentation is increasing, driven by media and political polarisation, and fuelled by misinformation and disinformation. Wikimedia can play an important role in combatting these issues, and in developing the information and media literacy skills that are fundamental to a well functioning civil society. Wikimedia UK believes that engaging with the Wikimedia projects – particularly through becoming a contributor – enables learners to understand, navigate and critically evaluate information as well as develop an appreciation for the role and importance of open education. Using Wikimedia in the curriculum can teach students key skills in information literacy, collaboration, writing, editing, information synthesis, source evaluation and data science.

Resonance with the global strategy

This programme strand also maps broadly to Recommendation 8: Topics for Impact, however the movement strategy initiative regarding misinformation (8.36) is focused on the threat to our projects, rather than on equipping young people with the skills and knowledge to recognise misinformation.

Metrics edit

Indicator 2019/20 end

year results

2020/21 end

year results

3. Participants 3,620 3,250
4. Newly registered editors 448 282
13. Articles added/improved 2,273 2,885
7. Volunteer hours 12,033.5 11,326
1. Total audience and reach 3,753 3,335
5. Leading volunteers 133 85
14. Articles added 312 2,128
19. Number of courses we work with (annual) 21 9
20. Improved digital skills 3.927 3.521
21. Inclusion in courses and curricula 4 2 (Islamic Art at Edinburgh, Art and Law at Exeter)

Highlights of programme activity edit

Higher education's engagement with Wikimedia as a digital literacy tool

Wikimedia UK has connections to around 25 Wikimedia in the classroom courses which we provide some level of support for. In a typical year most (if not all - 21 were active in 2019/20) of these would be active however this year the delivery picture has been mixed. There has been a sharp drop-off in the number of courses using Wikipedia editing as a teaching tool. The courses at the University of Edinburgh, where there is a permanently embedded Wikimedian, have been resilient and successfully transitioned to online teaching. Beyond Edinburgh, many planned modules in 2020 were postponed or cancelled as classrooms were closed, teaching plans changed, and course leaders redeployed to cover key areas.

Despite the upheaval, there has been considerable interest from the higher education sector in engaging with Wikipedia. Some of this has been outside the context of Wikimedia in the classroom - such as workshops for academics, and the London College of Communications’ Decolonising Wikipedia Network - but there were several events throughout the year showcasing Wikimedia in the classroom. In late 2020 and early 2021, we saw some new interest coming through. This led to courses with wiki-editing beginning at the universities of Derby and Exeter (both are excluded from the list below as students only began making edits in February 2021).

2020 began with great promise, with the Education Summit at the University of Coventry in February acting as a forum for exchanging current ideas and good practice, and advocating for more engagement with Wikimedia. While the lockdown has resulted in many modules being mothballed, the intention of course leaders to revive them at a later date, and continued interest in higher education in engaging with Wikimedia, indicates that we are in a good position to recover.

Number of courses we work with which have edited in the 2020-21 activity year (annual):

  1. UCL wikibooks
  2. ICL Science Communication
  3. Middlesex Digital Culture
  4. Middlesex Science Communication
  5. Edinburgh Digital Education
  6. Edinburgh Islamic Art
  7. Edinburgh Reproductive Biology
  8. Edinburgh Translation Studies
  9. Edinburgh Global Health

  Innovation: At St Andrews University we are supporting development of a ‘Justice Equality Diversity & Inclusion Network’ community of practice. Long term this could lead to deeper and wider engagement across the University, and help to build a case for a WIR.

In the 2019-20 activity year, we surveyed students who edited Wikipedia during classroom courses to assess whether their digital skills had changed as a result of learning about and actively engaging with Wikimedia. Under normal circumstances. This would take the form of a series of self-assessment questions, asking students’ confidence in different areas, issued before and after the course. In 2020-21, the disruption to courses meant that surveying was generally left behind. Course leaders have typically been very helpful and supportive in sharing the surveys with students, but this year understandably prioritised other areas to ensure student wellbeing and delivery of high-quality teaching in unprecedented circumstances (see Wikipedia for general UK context). In early 2021, with universities dealing with online teaching, we changed our methodology to assess students who learnt about Wikipedia in the last activity year by issuing a single post-course survey. We had 20 responses; for context, last year the two surveys had 40 and 36 responses. The lower rate is due to distributing the survey after the courses had finished, and as some students had graduated. As with the previous survey, the students were asked to assess their confidence in:

We had one question each to assess students’ confidence in:

  • Find information online
  • Creating online content
  • Collaborating online
  • Identifying reliable information
  • Understanding and using data
  • Understanding open knowledge
  • Understanding open data
  • Understanding copyright and the public domain

Students gave their answers as a score out of ten, with 0 meaning they strongly disagree that their understanding of the above improved, 10 meaning they strongly agreed that it improved, and 5 meaning they were neutral. On average, across all 8 areas, students gave a score of 7.041. The previous year used a score out of 5, so this score was equivalent to 3.521 on the previous scale scale. This is a lower score than the previous year, though still indicates students' digital skills improved through Wikipedia in the classroom. It is unclear whether this is because of the different survey methodology, smaller sample size, because students had other concerns over the past year, or a combination.

Wikimedia in schools

We are continuing with the Welsh Government/National Library of Wales/MenterMon collaboration. The education work in Wales led by MenterMon and the National Library of Wales with support and input from Wikimedia UK is being facilitated by a series of short term grants from the Welsh Government. We are also exploring ways of scaling up and extending digital literacy work in schools in Wales. Our case for support is strong, with several potential delivery partners interested; however the funding environment is challenging.

Changes, Challenges and Learning edit

Change - Challenges of the pandemic context

Compare to our proposal

In a typical year, late Spring and Summer would be a quieter period within higher education, with courses having concluded teaching and assignments. This year, the period was characterised by a focus on exams but also the continuing shift towards teaching online bringing new challenges. For courses already using Wikimedia in the classroom the transition has been smoother as there was already a strong digital element to teaching - though it has not been without challenges.

Early Autumn and easing of lockdown restrictions coincided with the start of the academic year. Blended learning was common and many universities were resuming in-person teaching for the first time since March. The national context was of great uncertainty about how universities would cope with outbreaks and how practical in-person teaching would be. With the courses we support, the teaching was done remotely, with synchronous and asynchronous activities. The disruption included some wiki modules being paused for this year.

Most of the courses we support usually take place in Q1, so the rest of the academic year remains uncertain, with sector-wide discussions about remote learning continuing. In January, further disruptions were caused by a new lockdown in the UK. However, our work within the Wikimedia in the Classroom has stabilised, and in fact we were able to explore new opportunities, and are preparing several new courses (e.g. at Derby and Sussex, both with decolonial considerations in mind).

Learning - adapting to the new world

Our programme learning and adaptation in this area is closely tied with what’s happening in the education sector in the UK, which as described above we are monitoring closely. Looking ahead, we may expect a return of interest in using Wikimedia in education. ALT’s annual research (https://www.alt.ac.uk/about-alt/what-we-do/annual-survey) showed that ‘Collaborative Tools’ are ranked as most important by 81% of Members; they are also marked as the top priority for 2021. Perhaps collaborative online work by students on Wikimedia projects could address this need and interest.

Future

See our next activity plan

With repeated lockdowns in the UK over the past year, schools have been closed and there has been increased awareness of homeschooling and the importance of access to free, accurate online information. At the same time, this year has seen higher than ever levels of misinformation - with Ofcom (the UK communications regulator) reporting that young people are the most affected - and a further decline in trust in the news media, according to Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Within this context, working with school-age students is becoming an increasing priority. Planned activities in this area for 2021 include a joint information and media literacy project for 16 - 18 year olds with social enterprise Shout Out UK (subject to external funding), as well as a continuation of the groundbreaking education work being delivered in Wales.

Case study edit

 Edinburgh University - scaling up and continuous improvement of the programme

The Wikimedian at the University of Edinburgh is continually reviewing the programme and finding ways to scale and amplify his activities. After the Women in Red paid internship ended, the next position that he pitched for internally was a ‘Wikimedia Trainer Intern’ - a 12 week full-time position over the summer, with the aim of developing professional looking and scaffolded training resources that can take someone from beginner to advanced in Wikipedia and Wikidata. This work started in July, and the intern has already started creating new screencapture videos.

 
The Wikimedia in Education booklet was produced by the University of Edinburgh and Wikimedia UK.

Furthermore, the resident responded to people’s increased capacity to attend online webinars during the lockdown by designing new 'how to teach with Wikipedia' workshops, which proved to be incredibly popular. The resident has been running a variety of “getting started with Wikipedia editing”, “Train the Trainer sessions” and “getting started with Wikipedia assignment” sessions over the years but there was a noticeable falloff in signups for these intro sessions. The theory was that changing “Introduction to Wikipedia editing” to the more empowering and purposeful “Teaching with Wikipedia” might generate more engagement at the university - particularly given that we had worked with over a dozen course programmes and built up enough best practice over the years, as well as a new booklet of case studies of Wikimedia in UK education, to make such sessions really scaffolded, meaningful and motivating for any attendee.

The catalyst for running these sessions was the launch of the case studies booklet in early April coinciding with the coronavirus lockdowns around the world. Wikipedia was clearly experiencing a surge of readership and an important source of information as more people worked from home and home schooled while the need for universities and schools to deliver more innovative online education assignments had never had greater impetus.

The sessions have all been well attended (oversubscribed, in fact) and well received. Originally intended for Edinburgh University audience, they were designed to be open and so there have been attendees from universities throughout the UK (lecturers, learning technologists, librarians), the British Library and other GLAM institutions, universities abroad in Singapore and beyond, digital VLE providers and more.

The University will continue to run more of these sessions over the course of the new academic semester and look to provide more forums for designing and implementing such assignments and pointing interested colleagues towards the online resources and people that will help them support such assignments. We are supportive of this great outreach activity and are in contact to see how the potential new contacts could feed into our own partnership pipeline.

Programme 3: Changing Policy and Practice edit

Strategic goal: Create changes in policy and practice that enable open knowledge to flourish

Background and Theory of Change (TOC)

Long term outcome:

Our work has significantly increased free, online access to knowledge and information

Assumptions:
  • Access to information is being restricted
  • Content holding organisations can have a negative attitude towards opening up their collections under an open licence
  • Policy context in the UK restricts sharing of open knowledge
Theory of change:

Open access to information is a fundamental right and a prerequisite to building understanding, but political and market forces in the UK can strive to keep information closed and inaccessible. Wikimedia UK advocates for change at an institutional, sector and policy level, making the case for open access to knowledge.

Where is our intervention:
  • Access to knowledge is being restricted for a variety of reasons. A key one can be a lack of understanding of the benefits (and risks) of sharing knowledge openly. We have the arguments and successful examples to change minds and practice on this.
Strategic objectives:
  • Support and enable individual organisations to adopt more open policies and practice
  • Promote and facilitate sector-level change towards open knowledge
  • Work with national and international partners to build the case for free knowledge
  • Advocate for open knowledge within the UK’s public policy and legislative arena
  • Contribute to international advocacy activities and programmes as appropriate
Why us
  • We have the network, thought leadership, and experience of working through policy resistance towards open knowledge.
Activities:
  • In-depth work with selected organisations in the UK to change their policies and practice. Generating case studies and business cases
  • Advocacy within specific sectors (e.g. GLAM), using specific arguments for open knowledge adoption
  • Policy work with UK decision makers
Evidence that it’s working + Who are we reaching (Metrics)
  • Volunteer hours
  • Number of leading volunteers
  • Number of touch points/interactions with policymakers (including consultations)
  • Evidence of cultural/attitudinal shift within partner organisations (through benchmarking and exit interviews)
  • Organisations adopting open licensing practices/policies
  • Recognition of our policy agenda in Government policy
  • The Government policy agenda is visibly enacted through regulation, investment or direct action

This programme is about the changes that we are working towards at an institutional, sectoral and public policy level to enable open knowledge to flourish. It involves a wide range of activities and local, national and international partnerships across a range of sectors, with a particular focus on culture, education, the open movement and civil society. Our Wikimedians in Residence are particularly crucial in helping us to achieve institutional change, advocating for open policies and practice and working to develop and embed these to ensure sustainability.

Resonance with the global strategy

Advocacy for open knowledge is distributed across the 2030 strategy, with two focus areas:

  • 1.3 Increased awareness about the Wikimedia movement
  • 3.20 Advocacy - local capacity development

Our work strongly resonates with ‘1.3 Increased awareness about the Wikimedia movement’, where promoting open knowledge and Wikimedia is seen as being key to movement sustainability. As identified by our theory of change for advocacy, access to knowledge can be restricted for a variety of reasons. A key barrier can be a lack of understanding of the benefits (and risks) of sharing knowledge openly. Through a combination of delivery, evaluation and research, Wikimedia UK now has the arguments and successful case studies to change minds and practice on this.

Through our Wikimedians in Residence, Wikimedia UK is also helping to deliver  ‘3.20 Advocacy - local capacity development’, and would be happy to share our learning with the movement.

Metrics edit

Metric 2019/20

end year results

2020/21

end year results

3. Participants 2,146 2,040
7. Volunteer hours 2,934 3,426
5. Leading volunteers 75 90
22. Policy touchpoints 2 28
23. Policy change 3 8

Please note that we changed what we measure under metric 22 (policy touchpoints), which partly explains the discrepancy in the 2019 and 2020 figures. However, our results for 2020/21 point to our growing ability to influence policy and practice within our focus areas.

Highlights of programme activity edit

With the majority of the 2020/21 financial year coinciding with the pandemic, and a sudden cessation of in person events, conferences, and other networking opportunities, it’s gratifying that our metrics under this programme strand have remained so robust. Indeed, our results in terms of policy touchpoints have far exceeded previous years, even taking into account the change in the way in which we are now measuring this type of engagement. Some highlights of our activity in terms of institutional, sector level and public policy advocacy are included below.

Organisational change towards openness

Despite the move to online working over the past year, we have been able to deepen engagement with some of our existing partners, bringing incremental changes to their policy and practice. Across the year, the changes that we have facilitated include the following:

  • S4C, a Welsh language public service television broadcaster in Wales, is now keen to change their photograph and press release licences to open, and work more closely with Wikimedia on disseminating their content.
  • At Coventry University, hosting the Education summit in February 2020 had a positive effect on internal advocacy. Not having had Wikipedia in Classroom courses in place thus far, after the summit the Resident’s proposal for an ‘Add+Vantage’ module about Wikipedia was accepted. Later in the year, agreement was reached with the University’s “Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience” to re-licence their videos under a CC-BY-3.0 licence.
  • The board of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland has agreed to move the Society to Open Access publishing.
  • Welsh Government (government-produced videos) and Scottish Government (historically relevant photos) both decided to move their content onto open licences following our advocacy work. We think this is because of interest in connecting with more audiences and making content more accessible online.
  • Signing a partnership agreement with the British Library, marking the second time the institution is hosting a Wikimedian in Residence


Sector-wide advocacy

Our work to influence change at a sector wide level often happens through events and conferences, all of which were either cancelled or moved online as a result of the pandemic. We measure the reach of this work both in terms of the number of attendees at these events, but also as specific ‘policy touchpoints’ - some examples of which are shared below:  

  • Participation in Open GLAM and Open Education Tweetchat focused on the intersection of open education and culture
  • Responding to the National Library of Wales consultation on their draft five year strategy for 2021 - 2026
  • Contribution to a webinar about the Science Museum's Heritage Connector project
  • Participation in a webinar for potential contributors to the Arts and Humanities Research Council's 'Towards a National Collection' programme; which generated robust opportunities to promote Wikimedia UK’s crucial role in supporting organisations to work with Wikidata.
  • Response to Museum Galleries Scotland consultation on Scotland’s colonial and slavery history in museum collections
  • A meeting with Molly Morgan-Jones, Director of Policy at the British Academy, regarding a potential new UK-US policy network on misinformation.
  • Presentation at the Creative Commons Global Summit on our work in partnership with the cultural sector to open up access to heritage content and to increase the representation of marginalised people and subjects on Wikimedia.
  • Attending Ofcom's Making Sense of Media Network virtual event, 'News: consumption, engagement, and misinformation'
  • Signing of the Open Covid for Education pledge, and attended a meeting with partners from the open and education sectors to explore how this could be best extended and the benefits maximised
  • Participating in Scotland’s ‘Make your mark’ consultation and campaign about digital volunteering for heritage.

Influencing public policy and legislation

2020-21 year has been unexpectedly fruitful in terms of policy and advocacy activities, in spite of the lack of in person events and conferences. Some of these relate directly to the pandemic - for example, meetings with Health Education England regarding access to information about Covid-19 - while others relate to our ongoing priorities such as copyright policy and combatting misinformation. Examples of policy touchpoints through the year include:

  • Liaison with the UK Government Cabinet Office regarding our work to combat online misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19
  • Liaison with Health Education England regarding our work to combat online misinformation and disinformation about Covid-19
  • Responding to OSCR (the Scottish charity regulator) survey on the impact of Covid-19 on charities operating in Scotland
  • Presentation and panel discussion at a Westminster Media Forum policy seminar on arts and culture, particularly in the light of Covid-19.
  • Presentation at a Westminster Media Forum policy seminar on the future of copyright regulation in the UK.
  • A call with an MP (and Member of the Speaker's Advisory Committee on Works of Art) to talk about the experience of smaller cultural organisations during Covid-19, discuss the government's response, and brainstorm ideas for how to support the sector.
  • Responding to the National Data strategy consultation run by the UK Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
  • Joining an informal alliance of stakeholders - convened by social enterprise InformAll - interested in working to make information literacy one of the key pillars of the UK education systems, through seeking to influence public policy.

Cross-cutting advocacy initiatives and successes

The nature of our advocacy work means that our actions might have an impact at a number of different levels. For example, working with one institution to change their licensing policy may well go on to encourage another institution to do likewise; or a presentation by one of our staff at a public policy seminar may lead an individual attendee to make changes within their own organisation. Sometimes, the cross-cutting nature of our advocacy work is even clearer, as in the examples below.

In June, our Chief Executive was invited to join the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s  Licensing Review Advisory Group. This resulted in a change of policy, with all digital outputs from NLHF funded projects now required to be released under an open licence. As a statutory funder, this represents a public policy win; however the significance of this change is likely to be felt at a sector level as well, as other public bodies consider their own licensing requirements.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) brings together the seven Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England, with a combined budget of more than £8 billion. In May 2020, Wikimedia UK responded to UKRI’s detailed consultation on a new open access policy, which is due to be launched in 2021. The impact of this change is likely to be similarly cross cutting, as it will impact on individual grant recipients as well as the broader sector and public policy context across the UK.

Working on misinformation remained one of our key focus areas in 2020. Cross-sector interest in information literacy continues, and we’re actively engaging with the relevant conversations; including a multi-partner initiative led by InformAll to encourage the recognition of information literacy as a key pillar of school education.

In May 2020, the UN launched the VERIFIED campaign to tackle misinformation during the pandemic, particularly relating to vaccines. As part of this wider campaign, we worked with social impact agency Purpose to help promote the UN's PAUSE campaign on 30th June; using our relationships and influence to bring on board other organisations working in the field of media and information literacy. In addition to our own support for the campaign, these allies amplified the key messages of PAUSE as follows:

  • The Information Literacy Group created a blog post about the campaign https://infolit.org.uk/united-nations-campaign-to-combat-misinformation/ and mentioned the campaign in a keynote speech to 300 librarians.
  • Mozilla supporting the campaign through its social media channels, and also live streamed a panel on misinformation that day: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/protests-pandemic-and-misinformation-june-30-virtual-panel/
  • Ofcom (the UK’s communications regulator) created a social media plan specifically for the PAUSE campaign, drawing on their own research and statistics regarding misinformation about the pandemic and linking to their fact checking/resource guide

Changes, Challenges and Learning edit

Change - Challenges of the pandemic context

Compare to our proposal

The pandemic seems to be influencing organisations’ approaches in different ways - we have been very successful, for example, in getting open content from Welsh Government. On the other hand, we are concerned that other potential partners will decide to monetise their digital content and be more resistant to open knowledge.

We have been successful in delivering sector awareness work, presenting at numerous online conferences. The Towards a National Collection project connected us to several high profile organisations. And, in a significant win, the National Lottery Heritage Fund launched their new open licensing policy for grant recipients (following our involvement in their licensing advisory group).

Learning - adapting to the new world

An unprecedented move to remote working and online programmes, with pressure on digital skills and new workflows, was one of the key themes we needed to adapt to initially. A global report from UNESCO, ‘Museums around the world in the face of Covid-19’, states that ‘the implementation of a more balanced digital policy requires an overall reflection, focusing on the digitisation of collections, an up-to-date inventory of collections, minimum IT infrastructure, sufficiently stable Internet access and adequate staff skills.’ While many organisations increased their online presence, digital skills across the sector remain mixed. We can expect more focus both on digital skills development, and updating policies around digital content. This fits well with NLHF’s focus on the sector's digital skills, and so there could be opportunities for us to be involved in this trend in the near future.

Future

See our next activity plan

Looking ahead, analysing trends and pressures in the relevant sectors will be important in our future advocacy activities. We need to be aware of emerging levers (and barriers) in advocating for open knowledge. As an example, in response to the pandemic many arts and cultural organisations are rethinking their relationships with their audiences and workers, the role they play within communities, and their existing business and funding models. All of these will be relevant in planning and adapting our advocacy work.

In general we will continue to build relationships across relevant sectors in the UK; participating in collaborative advocacy initiatives as appropriate, and lending our voice to our allies where their public policy and campaigning activities overlap with our policy agenda. We will also strengthen our work by providing network support and community building for partners and communities (e.g. Wikimedians in Residence, GLAMs in Scotland). One exciting opportunity includes Scotland’s Community Heritage Volunteer Recruitment Campaign ‘Make your Mark’ - a heritage sector-led campaign to increase the number and diversity of heritage volunteers in Scotland. The working group includes representatives from existing WMUK Scottish partner organisations, and there has been some interest and discussion of developing engagement with the Wikimedia Projects as a form of digital volunteering.

Case study edit

 In-depth look at organisation-wide engagement with Wikimedia projects via a Wikimedian in Residence

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland has hosted a 1-day/week Wikimedian in Residence for the past year. The WIR considered all areas of work of the Society, and scoped out how these could be boosted/delivered by Wikimedia projects engagement. In the first year of the residency, 10 policies and 26 potential projects ideas were put forward for the Society to consider. What follows is the progress on these overall: The ten recommended policies are:

  1. One Grant, One Edit - Require grant recipients to contribute to Open Resources, in a non-burdensome manner - accepted by the board, now want to see details of working in practice.
  2. One Grant, One Post - Require grant recipients to promote Open Resources, in a non-burdensome manner - accepted by the board, now want to see details of working in practice.
  3. Change Licencing - Change the publications licences from a highly limiting one to CC BY-SA which is more Open but still protects the Society - working on it
  4. Open Data for Publishing - Require Open Data from all authors, where appropriate, to safeguard against potential issues e.g. not posting find spot locations of certain artefacts to guard against illegal nighthawking - - The board has agreed to move the Society to Open Access publishing
  5. Open Data for the Society - Make the Society’s data Open - This is being slowly rolled out in various projects. The society's Proceedings metadata is being created and being made accessible.
  6. Open and Secure Video Catalogue - Change the licencing on its video content to CC BY-SA so it can be hosted in more repositories - This is being trialed in the prestigious Rhind Lectures (which are now filmed and ready to be added to Commons).
  7. LOCKSS Approach to Continued Access - Start hosting its publications in multiple repositories, such as Wikisource, to guard against loss and allow 24 hour access - Not addressed yet.
  8. Encouraging Openness in Projects and Programmes - Have the Societies’ projects encourage Openness - Dig It! is trying to incorporate more Openness into their projects. Brainstorming more ideas for implementation.
  9. Encourage Openness by Fellows - Add Openness to the pledge Fellows make when joining the society - the idea has been floated but not as enthusiastically taken up. Will be floating this around to more members of the Society to gather feedback.
  10. Society Outcomes - Open goals should be added to the Societies operating plan - Openness has been added to the Society's values document.

The 26 project suggestions are:

  1. Highlighting the Societies Collections and Connections with QRpedia - Work with museums and heritage centres to post links/QRcodes next to items relating to the Society leading people to more info about the item in Wikimedia projects - discussions for a pilot happened, but activity put on hold due to covid.
  2. Data the Society - Upload the Society’s data to WikiData e.g. publication records - discussed but capacity an issue.
  3. Data Visualisation Events/Competitions - With project idea 2 – have visualisation competitions or events to convert the Society’s WikiData into interesting and informative visualisations - for the future
  4. Newsletter - Header Photo - Request members submit newsletter photos (as CC BY-SA), which are also added to WikiCommons - Done. Used the submission from the Society to Wiki Loves Monuments as the images for the newsletter in November. This is now an ongoing project.
  5. Newsletter - Meet A Fellow, Meet A Resource - Have a featured article in every newsletter where a Fellow discusses a favourite Open resource - for the future
  6. Scots Musical Museum - Recreate old Scottish songs and upload them to Wikicommons from an old music book, Scot Musical Museum, that was dedicated to the Society by one of its Fellows - delayed by COVID i.e. museums closed, staff on furlough, etc.
  7. 2022 Year of Storytelling project - Work with the Storytelling Centre in 2022 to record and upload audio of folklore stories to Wikicommons - future work
  8. Local Archaeology in Local Languages - Upload publications to Wikisource and then translate them into the local languages of the areas they cover e.g. Scots and Gaelic - Dig It! has secured funding to produce some Gaelic materials in 2021
  9. Wikimedia and Dig It! TV - Create some Dig It! TV videos to highlight Wikimedia projects and how to contribute - future work
  10. Tool Tips on the Society’s Websites - Add ‘learn more’ tool tips with links to Wiki articles/definition for certain terms/locations/people - future work
  11. Rhind Lectures + - Convert some of the Rhind Lectures into learning resources on Wikiversity - currently experimenting with this
  12. The Fellows Book - Work with Fellows to create a book on Wikibooks - future work
  13. Society Editathons - Run more Editathons with Fellows - done, planning more
  14. How Do You Say It?/Howfur dae ye say it?/Ciamar a chanas tu e? - Create audio files of how to pronounce place names in Scotland and upload them to Wikicommons - future work
  15. Run a MOOC - Use the MOOC facilities of Wikiveristy to run a MOOC - future work
  16. Testing Open Peer Review - Test Open Peer Review on Wiki Journals to see if it is something the Society might want to use in the future - had discussions, future work
  17. A Society Wikirace - Create a Wikirace as an ice break for events. - future work
  18. Photo/Media Competition - Run a photo competition like Wiki Loves Monuments but focus on the Society's remit e.g. Scottish History and Archaeology, etc - had an intern to lead this, but covid has disrupted the plans
  19. Wikinews Article(s) Experiment - Have Dig It! experiment with creating news articles for Wikinews to see if it is a viable method for promoting archaeology - currently piloting, creating a few articles
  20. The Society in Your Pocket – Kiwix - Upload publications and resources to Wikicommons, Wikisource, etc and then provide non-internet access versions with Kiwix for members with poor internet connections - future work
  21. WikiVoyage and Dig It! TV - For Dig It! TV videos work to also update WikiVoyage articles to drive more people to visit the Hidden Gems - Open Past has received a grant from HES to make some promotional videos of sites around Scotland, and there’s a possibility to connect with that project to tackle this aim
  22. Wikipedia Club/Wikimedia Club - Have regular meetups of members to edit Wikipedia, upload images to Wikicommons etc - future work
  23. Wikimedia Interns - Look to bring in some students, using matched funding from sources such as the Santander internship funding, to work on some of these ideas - the society was contacted by Arcadia University about hosting students as placements in December 2020. This is now in progress and students will start tasks along their expressed areas of interest in 2021
  24. Photo safaris/field trips - Run tours and ask participants to upload their photos to WikiCommons - future work
  25. Programs & Events Dashboard - Use the dashboard to track participation numbers in these other events/activities- the Society has been using it for editathons and it’s been very useful
  26. What’s New in Wikimedia - Short training sessions for staff and Fellows to keep them up to date on all the possibilities of Wikimedia projects and resources - held one and will do more

Programme 4: Growing Wikimedia UK’s Profile and Capacity edit

Strategic goal: Develop our capacity and profile as a leading organisation for open knowledge

Background and Theory of Change (TOC)

Long term outcome:

Wikimedia UK is recognised as a leading organisation for open knowledge

Assumptions:
  • WMUK is best placed to deliver the three strategic aims above (rather than other open knowledge organisations in the UK)
Theory of change:

To deliver our ambitious strategy as a small organisation we need be able to leverage our reputation within the UK and the wider open knowledge movement, and to be seen as a credible and effective organisation. This must be underpinned by volunteer capacity and financial sustainability to be able to plan impactful long term programmes.

Where is our intervention:
  • We are positioning ourselves as a thought leader and an essential player in the open knowledge movement in the UK
Strategic objectives:
  • Increase awareness and understanding of open knowledge and Wikimedia UK
  • Develop Wikimedia UK’s community of contributors, volunteers and members
  • Actively support technical innovation that helps to deliver on our strategic aims
  • Develop our role as a key player and ally within the UK’s openness movement
  • Make a significant contribution to the global work of the Wikimedia movement
  • Establish a sustainable business model underpinned by diverse and stable funding
Why us:
  • We have the Wikimedia brand in the UK, plus a growing body of high profile, successful open knowledge collaborations with UK institutions.
Activities:
  • Broad external relations activities
  • Comms strategy. Public awareness campaigns. Collaboration with open knowledge movement
  • Volunteer strategy
  • Programme innovation
  • International Wikimedia movement engagement
  • Fundraising, income generation
  • Organisational development
Evidence that it’s working + Who are we reaching (Metrics):
  • Volunteer hours
  • Number of leading volunteers
  • Total number of participants
  • Digital media engagement
  • Total audience and reach
  • Gender of lead volunteers (quarterly)
  • In-depth diversity stats for lead volunteers (annual)
  • Volunteers would recommend Wikimedia UK (annual)
  • Volunteers feel valued by Wikimedia UK (annual)
  • Volunteers have developed new skills (annual)
  • Press coverage
  • Speaking engagement
  • Global movement participation
  • Staff retention, as a measure of organisational health
  • Financial health metrics (tbc)
  • Net promoter score for key stakeholders and audiences (possibly through a reputational audit - subject to costs)

Our fourth strategic aim is focused on developing Wikimedia UK’s capacity and profile, as this underpins the success of all of our other work. Some of the activities that fall under this programme strand are largely externally focused - such as volunteer development and international working - while others are more internal, such as fundraising and organisational development. As highlighted above, in the context of the pandemic we have been particularly focused on our own organisational resilience and capacity, and supporting that of our partners. We have also been placing more of an emphasis on documenting and communicating our work, particularly regarding our learning around online delivery and new models of engagement.

The cultural and education sectors, with whom Wikimedia UK works most closely, have arguably been the most profoundly affected by the pandemic and accompanying shutdown in the UK (with the obvious exception of the medical profession and other frontline workers). We were already concerned about the impact of Brexit on both of these sectors, but now the pandemic has brought existential challenges to many cultural organisations and higher education institutions which will take some years to play out fully. Within this context, and given the extent to which our programme delivery is supported and largely funded by our partners, the need to establish a sustainable business model underpinned by diverse and stable funding becomes even more imperative. To this end, we are very pleased and grateful to have been awarded additional funding from the Wikimedia Foundation towards the development of our fundraising capacity over the next few years. This has led to an internal restructure and the creation of a new Development and Communications team, with staff costs partly funded by this grant.

Resonance with the global strategy

A lot of our work in this area is about internal capacities (developing skills, investing in skills and knowledge of our communities, facilitating networking and peer learning), and working on the sustainability of our organisation through our communications and fundraising activities. We feel we have growing expertise relating to several movement strategy initiatives, which we are keen to share as relevant. In particular, this programme strand resonates with:

  • 6.31 Global approach for local skill development (in particular our Train the Trainer programme, which we usually make open for the global community)
  • 1.4 Global revenue generation policy and fundraising strategy

Metrics edit

Metric 2019/20 end year results 2020/21  end year results
1. Total audience and reach 64,294 104,266
2. Digital media reach 56,584 95,030
6. Female % of lead volunteers 44.68% 51.87%
8-10:

8. Volunteers would recommend WMUK

9. Volunteers feel valued by WMUK

10. Volunteers have developed new skills

8.- 88.37%

9. -83.87%

10.-81.82%

8 - 94.59%

9 - 100%

86.61%

In-depth diversity stats for lead volunteers (annual) (narrative)
In narrative of community leaders report 2020-21

Highlights of programme activity edit

General outreach (increasing awareness and understanding of open knowledge and Wikimedia UK)

We have been very active on social media, engaging with current events through tweets about Wikipedia content, for example regarding the Black Lives Matter protests. Tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn posts about the AGM and Celtic Knot were posted, along with coverage of our programmes and partners activity. This included helping to amplify the launch of the UN’s Verified campaign to tackle misinformation about Covid-19. At the end of Autumn we started to undertake a review of our existing communication tools, channels and successes. Our communications work is gaining momentum; Wikipedia’s birthday celebrations showed the potential of our work now that we have more capacity in the team. More is being planned for 2021, with a focus on the continuing birthday celebrations, and an emphasis on highlighting stories and successes from our delivery programme.

Contributing to the global Wikimedia movement

Initially, the global pandemic pulled the chapter to be more inwardly focused, working out our response to the crisis. Since then we have strived to engage more with the movement.

  Innovation: A crucial contribution to the global movement from us was running the Celtic Knot conference. Because of the movement-wide in-person events ‘ban’, many of the usual international gathering spaces disappeared and were not replaced by online events. This made Celtic Knot conference both poignant and important, offering a gathering space for languages and Wikidata enthusiasts to connect and support each other online. Further, moving this conference online allowed us to extend the reach of the event.

End of year saw a strong focus on global 2030 strategy transition events. Wikimedia UK made sure to participate, and where appropriate host discussion events aimed at paving a way forward for implementation. This is complex, with not all parameters explicit; however, the benefit for us is that this process is providing a structured way to have broad conversations with a range of movement leaders. For example we are discussing how our interest in knowledge gaps (via decolonising collections) could be driven in partnership with the Foundation and other players. We’re also exploring the question of a ‘Minority Language Hub’ pitched by Wikimedia Norway.

Also within a strategy and collaboration context, we kicked off a round of conversations with Wikimedia Community Ireland. They have just published a new strategic plan which indicates their interest in Celtic Knot work and a broader collaboration with partners in Northern Ireland.

We've also been active within the area of knowledge sharing with the movement, having attended Volunteer Supporters Network in November, and presented at a global GLAM hub meeting.

Developing volunteer community

Investing in resilience of our volunteer community has been a strong focus in 2020. Within the challenging context, we wanted to maintain the connection with our community leaders, while also helping them build skills necessary to adapt to the lockdown reality. Some examples of this work include:

  • Delivering online Train the Trainer, with trainer co-design - case study below
  • We made four project grants across the year, supporting activities from article writing to running bots. Our financial support provided prizes for the Summer Destubathon organised by User:Encyclopædius; provided books for article writing for Billy DavisUser:BillyDee; supported the Wikipedia Collaboration of Dental Schools in their editing activities; and provided new hardware for Mike Peel’s Pi bot that it runs more reliably.
  • Putting focus on supporting volunteers in editing, especially in the context of Celtic Knot communities. We have been providing individual training on Wikidata (and Quick Statements) with a view on increasing the number of articles on cywiki. He’s also provided technical support for Cornish wiki - created a Wikidata Infobox (semi-automated) on kw-wiki, and delivered training on how to use and translate the infobox. We also created the first Cornish Wikiproject - Wikiproject birds. Further, we organised a second meetup for some of the minority language folks for knowledge sharing and discussing common problems that these wiki communities face.
  • After this year’s edition, remote participants from Cornwall began a 30-day editing challenge in which they created a new article every day. The activity was coordinated through Facebook - showing the value of a social space around Wikipedia - and resulted in the creation of articles.
  • Annual community leaders survey

Changes, Challenges and Learning edit

Change - Challenges of the pandemic context

Compare to our proposal

This year’s shift to delivering editathons exclusively online has led to reflections on practice and structure of our events. Online training sessions are now shorter than in-person events, and may take place in segments over an extended period. Throughout the year we have experimented with different formats, and pared down the amount of information being presented to suit the online format.

  Innovation: For example at the London College of Communications, one such editing event in late May and early June inspired those involved to plan a longer programme of work around decolonising Wikipedia’s content. By empowering people in the first event, they were motivated to build on the success and help others get involved. Other events, such as working with the Women’s Engineering Society, have helped other organisations deliver outreach events at a time when options for interacting with the public have been curtailed by lockdown.

The ongoing lockdown has affected almost every activity we do, and while we have been able to adapt by shifting activities online, it was unclear how this would affect Wiki Loves Monuments. Photowalks and in-person activities can help groups engage with the competition, but were not possible this year. We were very mindful in our promotional messaging not to inadvertently encourage risky activities. For example, previously we have had special prizes for interiors of buildings which we dropped this year so that we were encouraging participants to remain socially distanced. We would like to thank the international team for their support and flexibility with deadlines, and all the volunteers who helped with preparing the images for the judging panel.

Speaking of the international movement, in 2020 it has been harder to remain connected to the global Wikimedia community in an informal way, so we put effort into contributing to official events, including the 2030 strategy global conversations. We have been able to capitalise on our existing connections with the Wikimedia Foundation; e.g. their GLAM staff invited us to their well-attended office hours event, based on the connections we’ve made previously.

Learning - adapting to the new world

Organisational resilience has been a key theme in 2020, after an initial period of rapid adaptation and navigation. We have trialled new approaches, invested in supporting our community, and shared extensively with the Wikimedia movement. We continued to learn from delivering online events, experimenting with design, tools, and approaches. This meant clearer and better planned events for partner organisations, and a lot of skills learning for the team. We coupled that with a range of training opportunities for the team, as with things being online webinars and conferences have been more accessible. We’ve been developing our skills in Wikidata, and putting time into understanding our partners’ sectors better.

We’ve been supporting our communities by creating online meeting spaces for them, e.g. for the Wikimedians in Residence, and our volunteer editing community (and in fact noted that meetups are better attended, perhaps being more accessible online). Designing and delivering online Train the Trainers was a key step in developing the skills and resilience of our volunteer training community, which now feels more confident to deliver editathons online (something we’d have rarely done in the past!).

It has also been important for us to maintain reflective practice as we keep working in a changing context, and so we take time to reflect on what’s happening and how we could adapt - e.g. we’ve been discussing how we’d feel about running events in-person and what things should we be taking into consideration, so that we’re ready when the time is right to start delivering such events.

Future

See our next activity plan

As well as these emerging programmatic themes, 2020 has also been a year for experimenting with new models of delivery, as a result of the shutdown. As an organisation we have done well in adapting to remote delivery (with notable successes including the online Celtic Knot Conference, in partnership with Wikimedia Ireland, and our AGM; as well as board meetings, meetups and regular editing events) and plan to continue developing our online training delivery. In particular, having got past the initial period of adjustment, we would like to ensure that we are working as inclusively and innovatively as possible, and maximising the opportunities presented by remote working to extend our reach.

Office management, paperwork and commuting five days a week have obviously been less of a feature of everyone’s working lives since March. Whilst there are some issues with remote working, all staff feel that they have benefited from the increased flexibility and we do not plan to return to our former way of working, even when we re-open the office.

We will be supporting and developing our volunteer community, in particular through the delivery of our highly regarded Train the Trainer programme.

Finally, as 2021 marks 20 years since the launch of the English Wikipedia, we are developing plans for a year-long birthday celebration, incorporating fundraising, communications and programme activities.

Case studies edit

 Online Training for Online Trainers: a response to COVID lockdown

At the beginning of the lockdown period in the UK, as has been documented elsewhere, WMUK did a great deal of work in liaising with partners to explore how we could continue to support their work. Part of our initial assessment was that engagement with the Wikimedia projects could be a viable alternative to on-site work for some partners, and that even in the event of a swift end to the crisis, that remote working would be an increasing part of everyday life. Connected to this was - and still is - our belief that online training provision, as either a replacement for or supplement to in-person training, will likely become a more widespread practice. And although the shift to the provision of online training frees up some staff to be able to provide training at distances they would otherwise not be able to cover, the fact remains that requests for trainers far outstrips staff capacity. To that end, and in line with our existing programme of engagement with volunteer trainers, we decided to examine the appetite for and feasibility of training our existing volunteer training pool to deliver training online.

Back in November we had engaged a new trainer, Bhav Patel, to deliver our Train the Trainer course in Glasgow, Scotland. In light of the success of this training, we decided to speak to him again and held a scoping meeting. We held two brainstorming sessions, inviting all of our existing trainers to attend. Turnout for these was encouraging, and we were happy to see some familiar faces as well as some individuals whom we had not seen for a while - the lockdown inspired some people to reengage with Wikimedia volunteering. These sessions were intended to capture both appetite for training, and training needs. We anticipated that as we were approaching existing trainers that there may be less demand for content which pertained to design, however this was not wholly the case. We were also conscious that the high standard of Bhav’s training in the past concerning training design might be beneficial for our existing volunteers. There was significant interest in how to convert existing training methods to the online format, the “tips & tricks” of using specific tools, and liaison with partners in advance to properly assess training needs. There was also some trepidation around approaching giving individual support, and adapting to feedback in-session in the context of no physical feedback in the room.

Following these sessions, and further discussions with Bhav, we held two sets of three sessions, delivered at varying times of day to accommodate the existing commitments of volunteers. The first of these sessions was titled “Going Online”, and focussed on the move from onsite to online design and delivery of events, in a platform-agnostic way. This session was led by Bhav Patel. The second was “Tools, Tech & Event Management”, focussing on tips, tricks & a variety of online conferencing and supporting tools, as well as overall event management. This was led by Dr Sara Thomas, and drew on all the online events experience that WMUK developed to date. The third session was a practice session, offered to all participants as a way to test out particular sections of training. In total, 14 trainers attended across the six sessions, with positive feedback. The two training sessions were recorded for future use, and a pool of accompanying resources created. These were sent to all participants, to the wider volunteer trainer pool (including some who could not attend the training courses), and are being kept as a resource for partner organisations, Wikimedians in Residence, and future volunteers.

Reflecting on this process, we noted a few things. Firstly, that just because we deal with an online resource does not mean that we are automatically prepared to deliver online. Secondly, that the online space opens up opportunities as well as presenting barriers - trainers’ geographic location matters less, for example. Thirdly, that we were able to engage volunteers with a variety of time commitments, from a wider demographic, and that the pressures on their time likely reflect those of our various audiences. Lastly, that ongoing investment in existing volunteers helps to reignite engagement.

Feedback from training available.

Finances edit

Revenues received during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report) edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

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

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Annual Plan Grant GBP 83,750 83,750 83,750 83,750 335,000 435,068 N/A
WMF Fundraising Grant GBP 0 0 120,000 0 120,000 155,845 N/A
Donations GBP 48,919 50,807 51,586 81,451 232,764 302,293 See below
Gift Aid claims GBP 4,374 4,249 4,963 6,399 19,985 25,955 See below
Gifts in kind and other income GBP 36,821 35,856 41,961 45,053 159,691 207,392 See below
TOTAL GBP 173,864 174,662 302,261 216,653 867,440 1,126,553 See below

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report) edit

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

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

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)
Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
SG1 GBP 60,385 17,951 16,256 18,843 23,434 76,483 78,423 99,330 126.66%
SG2 GBP 54,245 15,966 14,484 16,825 21,174 68,449 70,449 88,895 126.18%
SG3 GBP 22,525 6,047 5,592 6,592 9,200 27,431 29,253 35,625 121.78%
SG4 GBP 11,395 504 1,437 1,304 5,501 8,746 14,799 11,358 76.75%
Fundraising GBP 15,500 3,193 3,135 3,218 3,442 12,988 20,130 16,867 83.79%
Staf GBP 420,844 94,191 90,210 96,287 113,643 394,331 546,555 512,121 93.70%
Overheads GBP 110,426 28,992 25,074 26,913 24,856 105,835 143,411 137,449 95.84%
TOTAL GBP 695,320 166,843 156,187 169,982 201,250 694,262 903,020 901,645 99.85% N/A

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

INCOME Q2 cumulative Q1 Q2 alone Q3 cumulative Q3 alone Q4 cumulative Q4 alone
Annual Plan Grant               167,500                 83,750 83,750 83,750 83,750 251250 83750 83750 335000 83750 83750
Donations Received                 93,227                 47,419 45,807 142813 49586 205873 63060
Major Donors                   6,500                   1,500 48,919 5,000 50,807 8500 2000 51,586 26891 18391 81,451
Gift Aid Claims                   8,623                   4,374 4,374 4,249 4,249 13586 4963 4963 19985 6399 6399
FDC other grant                         -                           -   0 120000 120000 120000 0
Gifts in Kind                 71,601                 36,257 35,344 113048 41447 154412 41364
0 0
Partnership project funding 3200 3200
Bank Interest Received                         74                         74 0 0 138 64 227 89
Earned Income 1250 1250
Other Miscellaneous Income                   1,002                     490 36,821 512 35,856 1452 450 161,961 602 -850 45,053
0
348,526 173,864 173,864 174,662 174,662 650,787 302,261 302,261 867,440 216,653 216,653

Overall position edit

2020/21 was an unprecedented year for everyone. With the chapter’s financial and delivery year already underway at the point that the UK went into its first national lockdown, the Board of Trustees asked the senior management team to plan for different eventualities and reforecast the budget for the year based on the most likely/medium case scenario. The variances reported in our progress report and also within this report are therefore based on actuals vs. our reforecast budget, rather than the original figures presented within our Annual Plan Grant proposal in Autumn 2019.

The result at the 2020/21 year end is a surplus of just over £52,000. This is a significantly better position than the reforecast budget and is made up largely of higher levels of income than forecast, rather than significant underspends during the year - as savings related to the pandemic had already been incorporated into our reforecast budget.

Wikimedia UK’s financial year ends on 31st January and the figures presented above are subject to post-audit adjustment.

Income variances edit

At £232,764, total donations were significantly above our projected figure of £195,000. This was made up of better than expected performance in both major donations (including an anonymous donation of £10,000 in January 2021, which we believe to be connected to our birthday celebrations), and small donations (anything under £1000).

Despite the bleak outlook which pervaded the fundraising landscape from March 2020, Wikimedia UK had its strongest year in terms of individual donations since 2016 - 17. Of this, committed regular donations accounted for 78% of the small donations income. This was reasonably stable with just a 1% attrition rate - the slowest year on year decline in six years. However, we saw an increase of 49% (£15k) compared to 2019 - 20 in our digital and online relationships. Gift Aid claims were correspondingly higher than forecast due to this increase in voluntary income.

Gifts in Kind income (and matched expenditure) was around £38k over our forecast position. This was mainly due to salary increases for Wikimedians in Residence and higher associated programme costs committed by host organisations, as well as some unbudgeted gifts in kind such as the use of the Disruptive Media Lab at Coventry University for our Education Summit.

Expenditure variances edit

As highlighted above, our income from Gifts in Kind - at £159,691 - were around £38k over our budgeted position. As these Gifts in Kind are also included in our accounts as expenditure, this explains the apparent overspends across our strategic programmes. It’s worth noting that in terms of direct ‘cash’ expenditure, there were only very minor variances between our reforecast and the actual year end position within our programme related budgets. There were some underspends within our external relations and fundraising budgets related to cost savings in the year, and some planned expenditure that did not go ahead due to ongoing Covid-related restrictions.

Compliance edit

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

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

  • Not apart from what's highlighted within each programme in 'Changes, Challenges and Learning'. Changes in delivery were still in line strategically.

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

  • yes

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

  • yes

Signature edit

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