Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/Building support communities to favor the mission of Wikimedia
- identify intellectual property controversies
- strengthen capacities in intellectual property, open science and free culture
- develop support resources
- promote incidence of issues related to open science and free culture in the region
Cinabrium Fgiandana Mebordone Mbutel
ahalvoThis is an automatically generated page based on the applicant's application on the Wikimedia Foundation's Grantee Portal on Fluxx.
Overview
What is the main objective of your proposal? Please state why you think partnering with Wikimedia Movement helps to achieve this objective?
- We want to form a community to support Wikimedia projects in intellectual property, free licenses and open science, with an impact on Wikipedia in Spanish, Commons and Wikidata. Working with communities is key to:
- identify intellectual property controversies
- strengthen capacities in intellectual property, open science and free culture
- develop support resources
- promote incidence of issues related to open science and free culture in the region
Describe your main strategies to achieve this objective?
- At Fundación Vía libre we have been working on access to knowledge, intellectual property and free culture for 21 years. Throughout this time we learned that the best strategies to achieve the objectives of our projects have to do with listening directly to the communities of practice.
Therefore, to achieve the objectives proposed in this work, we will integrate the pre-existing work that we have been developing, the institutions with which we already have a fluid relationship and we aspire to achieve broad integration with the Wikimedia communities involved.
1) Research and analysis of the main controversies and concerns of the Wikimedia community in aspects of intellectual property. We will conduct direct consultations with the community using various research methodologies, including in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, content analysis, and background research on legal doubts and uncertainties in the wikimedia community.
2) We will continue the work underway within the framework of www.derechodeautor.org.ar, a project based in Argentina, with a regional projection that will serve as a basis for the construction of specific materials for the wikimedia community. Within this framework, we will develop a series of specific resources for Wikipedia in Spanish, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata with a Latin American perspective.
3) We will hold a series of seminars aimed at strengthening the capacities of the wikimedia community on intellectual property issues: these seminars will include not only the technical aspects of the laws in force that impact on the projects, but also theoretical principles and strategic arguments for the promotion and defense of free culture in general.
4) The promotion of public incidence and visibility of community projects will be carried out through various strategies such as: work meetings and cooperation with scientific-technical institutions, integration with research teams in data science, promotion of the use of Wikidata as a dataset repository in Latin America, promotion of publications with free licenses appropriate to wikimedia projects by scientific and educational institutions, among other actions.
The project is based on three pillars:
Training: through the identification of needs, the creation of materials and work directly with the community Construction and maintenance of support communities: with the creation of a permanent space for consultation, assistance and accompaniment to doubts and uncertainties about intellectual property aspects in Wikimedia projects
Advocacy: to promote projects among other communities of free culture practises and open science, as well as to intervene in the public debate on the need to sustain and expand access and participation in projects.
What is the challenge or problem you are addressing and why is this important?
- Our proposal works on the intellectual property aspects linked to Wikimedia projects, copyright and related rights, as well as data regulations. Throughout the years of work linked to the Wikimedia community, we have detected the need to strengthen the community's knowledge of technical-legal aspects that impact on projects and limit their potential in the face of the uncertainty that the legal regime of the intellectual property and free licenses used in the projects.
The challenge is to offer the community legal support tools to consolidate capacities for the production of knowledge and free culture. We understand that it is essential to involve the communities of practice linked to access to knowledge, including sectors of Galleries, Museums, Archives and Libraries, as well as teachers, researchers and practitioners of open science in the region.
Over the years, we have observed a significant asymmetry in the resources available to Spanish-speaking communities in Latin America, for which we have identified the need to offer training spaces, form communities of permanent support, and consolidate links with the scientific-academic community. of our region.
From an open science point of view, we detected a problem related to the lack of diversity in the sustainability infrastructure for open data. To date, Github has become the standard. However, we understand that Wikidata could fulfill a strategic mission in alliance with the scientific-academic communities of open science practitioners to achieve a key equation: strengthen Wikidata and offer communities an alternative support infrastructure for the diversification of the repositories.
Data science involves problems of intellectual property, licensing and dissemination of datasets in Latin America. In recent research we also detected the need to establish exceptions in favor of scientific research, data mining and open publication of data in our region, another aspect that involves Wikidata.
Where will this proposal be implemented?
- Argentina
Organization details
Organization name
- Fundación para la Difusión del Conocimiento y el Desarrollo Sustentable Vía Libre
What is your organization or group's mission and how does it align with the Wikimedia movement?
- Fundación Vía libre works on free software, intellectual property and access to culture, promotes free culture, privacy, data protection, information security and ethics in algorithmic decisions.
Our mission is to promote and defend human rights in environments mediated by ICTs, with incidence on public policies, awareness, capacity building and promotion of debates on technologies that impact on Human Rights.
Please tell us how your organization is structured.
- Fundación Vía libre is a non-profit Foundation based in Córdoba Argentina. Established in 2000, it has a board of trustees made up of a president, a treasurer and a secretary, all with equal votes in the strategic decisions of the organization. This board of directors meets at least once a month, but acts permanently in cooperation to strategically direct the paths of the organization.
At the executive level, the organization has members hired full time, part time and by projects, as well as volunteer members who cooperate on an ad hoc basis according to the initiatives underway. In this sense, the work is structured according to various lines of work:
- Intellectual property, access to knowledge and free culture
- Surveillance and right to privacy, intimacy and protection of personal data
- Ethical aspects of artificial intelligence
- Security of the information
- Electoral systems, civil and political rights and technologies
- Freedom of Expression and Internet regulations
In each of these areas we have specific teams. At the same time, we have transversal lines of project execution: Executive Management, Administration and finance, Communication and visibility strategies, Education and training.
To carry out this project we have a team formed in 2020 to implement a project within the framework of Lacnic's FRIDA Program.
Do you have the team that is needed to implement this proposal?
- Beatriz Busaniche: Project Director. She has a degree in Communication, a Master in Intellectual Property. She designs and directs projects at FVL. She is a member of the Creative Commons Network and contributed to the founding of Wikimedia Argentina in 2007 and to the organization of Wikimania in 2009. Her role will be the strategic direction of the project, communication, public presentations and articulation with related institutions.
Franco Giandana: Lawyer specialized in Intellectual Property. He is a member of Fundación Vía Libre in the project www.derechodeautor.org.ar, and as a delegate in the ARCADIA regional coalition. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the Global Creative Commons Network until November 2021. He was the coordinator of public innovation for the Secretariat of Extension of the National University of Córdoba, a space from where he organized wikipedia edits in small towns in the interior of the Province From Cordoba. Alexia Halvorsen: Project and Communications Manager. She is in charge of communications for FVL and deals with operational project management. She is an advanced student of Communication Sciences and a member of the UBA Communication Sciences Career News Agency.
Alexia Halvorsen: Project and Communications Manager. She is in charge of communications for FVL and deals with operational project management. She is an advanced student of Communication Sciences and a member of the UBA Communication Sciences Career News Agency.
Matías Butelman: Head of GLAM Strategies and Institutional Relations. He studied Letters. He is a public leader for Creative Commons. He is part of the Vía Libre Foundation's access to culture team within the framework of the www.derechodeautor.org.ar project. He is part of the Bibliohack initiative. His role will be to strengthen relations with the community of cultural and scientific institutions.
Matías Bordone: In charge of pedagogical strategies and liaison with the free culture community. He has a degree in Computer Science and is dedicated to education and training. He is the pedagogical manager of Fundación Vía Libre and educational advisor of the project www.derechodeautor.org.ar. His role will be to articulate with the free culture, wikimedia and open science communities.
Please state if your organization or group has a Strategic Plan that can help us further understand your proposal. You can also upload it here.
- No
Have you received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation before?
- Did not apply previously
Have you received grants from any non-wiki organization before?
- Yes
- Which organization(s) did you receive grants from?
- Indela Fund (2021-2022)
- Fundación Karisma (2021)
- Ford Foundation (2017 - 2022)
- Luminate Group (2020-2021)
- Heinrich Böll Stiftung (Alemania - Oficina Cono Sur) (2004-2021)
- Fondo Frida - (2020-2021)
- Derechos Digitales de Chile (2021-2022)
- Fondo Arcadia - Cooperación con Karisma Foundation (2020-2023)
- AccessNow (2018)
- OSF (2015)
- Please state the size of these grants from the following options.
- Above 50,000 USD
- What type of organization (s) did you receive grants from?
- International NGO, Endowment funds, Other
- What percentage of your program budget do other funders contribute to?
- Not applicable
Project Proposal
Indicate if it is a local, international, or regional proposal and if it involves several countries?
- Regional
- We will work in cooperation with related organizations and wikimedia communities in Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.
Are there any specific sub-regions or areas where your proposal will be implemented? (optional)
Are you running any in-person events or activities?
- No
Please state if your proposal aims to work to bridge any of the identified content knowledge gaps?
- Geography, Language, Important Topics (topics considered to be of impact or important in the specific context)
Will your work focus on involving participants from any underrepresented communities? Select all categories that apply.
- Geographic, Linguistic / Language, Digital Access
Please state if your proposal includes any of these areas or thematic focus.
- Education, Culture, heritage or GLAM, Advocacy, Human Rights, Public Policy, Open Technology
Please tell us more about your target participants.
- The project proposes working with at least two specific groups of audiences and participants.
On the one hand, through cooperation with various chapters of Wikimedia in the Region, we will aim to involve members of the Wikimedia communities in the project, in a first stage diagnosing needs and later by integrating them in training seminars and the project support community. We can define this aspect as participants belonging to and already committed to Wikimedia projects. In this framework, we understand that this group of participants will be strengthened in their training and in their ability to expand their participation in projects and make them publicly visible.
On the other hand, the project also plans to integrate practitioners of free culture, open science and the world of cultural institutions to promote the appropriation of Wikimedia projects by groups that we consider strategic. Within this segment, we are going to work with:
- public and private cultural institutions, libraries, archives and museums,
- scientific and technical institutions in the region, data science research teams, AI and natural language systems development teams, in order to make visible the possibility of using wikimedia projects as a field of exploration and permanent contribution
- educational institutions of all levels.
- Institutions related to journalism, communication and press.
We do not have specific requirements for the participation of contributors to Wikimedia projects. However, since we plan to integrate participants new to Wikimedia projects into the project, we will emphasize the link and cooperation with strategic institutions, which is why priority will be given to the people who are members of those organizations with whom we are going to promote cooperation.
Do you have plans to work with other Wikimedia communities, groups or affiliates in your country, or in other countries, to implement this proposal?
- Yes
If yes, please tell us about these connections online and offline and how you have let Wikimedia communities know about this proposal.
- Those of us who form Fundación Vía libre have a long connection with Wikimedia. We contribute to the formation of Wikimedia Argentina and maintain ties with community contributors in the region. We are part of the Creative Commons network and other free culture organizations. Our members have personally participated in events and activities of the wikimedia community, among them, Wikimanía in Buenos Aires (2009), Poland (2010), Israel (2011), among others. In addition, we are part of initiatives such as WikiWomenCamp in Buenos Aires and on numerous occasions we have organized joint activities institutionally. Our team has people contributing Wikimedia projects from 2004 onwards, so we have experienced closely the growth and development of Spanish-speaking communities.
We regularly work and analyze these issues with Wikimedia Argentina, from whom we are going to ask for support in the dissemination of this initiative.
If no, please tell us the reasons why it has not been possible to make these connections.
Will you be working with other external, non-Wikimedian partners to implement this proposal?
- Yes
If yes, please describe these partnerships.
- One of the strengths of this project is that it continues a previous work, now in progress, and redirects it towards the Wikimedia community. In this context, from Vía Libre we have been working with other key actors of free culture and access to knowledge that we plan to involve in this initiative:
GLAM Institutions: we work with archives, museums, galleries and libraries (We developed a Knowledge Kit on IP for them), among which the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, the Pedagogical Libraries of the Province of Buenos Aires, the Association of Librarians of Córdoba, among others. We are going to continue the pedagogical and training work underway.
Educational institutions: We have a long history of cooperation with teacher unions, especially with CONADU, the Federation of University Teachers Unions of Argentina. CONADU is a member of Education International, with whom we work on intellectual property. With them we will strengthen the capacity in pedagogical and educational matters, and the link with the public scientific and technical system.
Journalistic and communication organizations: we maintain a fluid relationship with journalistic institutions such as the Buenos Aires Press Union (with whom we carried out various training activities in 2021) and with the Communication Agency of the Communication Sciences Career of the University of Buenos Aires Aires, with whom we articulate joint training strategies for students of Social Sciences. With this group we are going to work on communicating the initiative outside the wikimedia communities.
Red Global Creative Commons: We are part of the global network, with strong cooperation ties in Latin America. In the region we also work with related organizations such as Fundación Karisma from Colombia, DatySoc from Uruguay, Derechos Digitales from Chile, Tedyc Paraguay, InternetLab Brasil, AccessNow at a global level, among others. With these institutions we are going to consolidate support in the field of intellectual property at the regional level.
Scientific and technical public institutions: R&D Agency of the Ministry of Science, technology and productive innovation and Conicet. With them we will work on strategies related to science and open data.
Alianza A+ Feminist Algorithms: Starting in December 2021, we will work in cooperation with the Women at the Table f-A-I-r Feminist AI Research Network alliance. https://aplusalliance.org/pages/alliance
Proyecto Arcadia: We are part of the initiative led by American University at a global level and by Karisma at a regional level in research on intellectual property, data science and open data.
Learning, Sharing, and Evaluation
What do you hope to learn from your work in this fund proposal?
- In the implementation of this proposal we hope to learn more and better how the legal systems of intellectual property impact on Wikimedia projects, especially in the Spanish language. Based on this exploration, we plan to find a way to have a positive impact to offer more certainty to contributors in reference to common problems related to intellectual property systems and free licenses. On the other hand, we aspire to know more and better how Wikidata works in relation to open science communities and data science practitioners, to establish constructive links there that allow optimizing and improving the use of Wikidata as a common repository for researchers in LatAm.
We ask ourselves a series of strategic questions that we intend to investigate throughout the project: What are the recurring doubts and problems of the community regarding intellectual property issues? How to promote the use of Wikidata as a central tool for open science in the region? What are the main legal issues we need to address to improve and expand participation and contributions to projects? How to maintain a community of support in the face of recurring doubts about content regulations? What is the impact of the laws on personal data in the region?
Core Metrics
Enter a description of the metric and a number in the target field. If the metric does not apply to you, enter N/A for not applicable.
| Core metrics | Description | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Needs assessment - Preparation and publication of a report on the main limitations, problems and uncertainties in relation to intellectual property systems that impact on projects. We look forward to the participation of the wikimedia community in this quantitative-qualitative research. Cooperation and community development events with project participants and participants from related organizations. | 100 |
| Number of editors | We will develop pedagogical materials, courses, seminars and training strategies, in particular to consolidate a community of support for the projects, integrating participants from wikimedia editors and participants from outside the projects. | 50 |
| Number of organizers | We hope to integrate the participation of organizations that share the mission of wikimedia into the projects, with cooperation strategies for the coordination of events, seminars, and the production and distribution of materials. | 10 |
| Wikipedia | We will focus the work on the Spanish-speaking community, that is, on Spanish-language wikipedia. We will try to strengthen the articles on intellectual property regulations in countries of the region, promote awareness of flexibilities and improve content on these topics. | 10 |
| Wikidata | We aspire to strengthen the presence of Wikidata as a strategic resource for the communities of open science practice in the region, through the strengthening of capacities in the field of data regulation, dataset integration, and dialogue with scientific and technical institutions in the region. | 10 |
| Wikimedia Commons | We will integrate all text and audiovisual materials into wikimedia commons, including infographics, animations, videos and any other element that contributes to strengthening the mission of facilitating access to free culture and knowledge. | 10 |
If for some reason your proposal will not measure these core metrics please provide an explanation.
What other information will you be collecting to learn about the impacts of your activities? (optional)
What tools would you use to measure each metric selected?
- We will carry out qualitative research through feedback questionnaires and focus groups with participants of the activities.
We will ask Wikimedia for help in adjusting quantitative metrics on project contributions.
How do you hope to share these results so that others can learn from them?
- Create a video of our experience, Make a short presentation of the experience, Create a training workshop to show others what we learned, Share results on social media, Develop learning material for other users, I would like to receive support from the Foundation to discover how I can share my learning
Financial Proposal
What is the amount you are requesting from WMF? Please provide this amount in your local currency.
- 9066000 ARS
What is this amount in US Currency (to the best of your knowledge)?
- 86000 USD
Please share your budget for this proposal.
- Our budget has a strong component in salary fees, since the project is based almost exclusively on the work of those who make up the team. We also have a budget for technical infrastructure, services, consultancies, production of audiovisual materials (design, animation, audiovisual, etc.), as well as costs related to administration, taxes and bank charges. We integrate both an emergency budget and support of the organization's mission (Overhead).
What do you do to make sure there is a good management of funds?
- In our organization we have 20 years of experience in project management, we have a record of compliance with cooperation projects that we carry out on a regular basis. At the same time, the Argentine authorities audit our balance sheets on a regular basis, so we have the capacity to financially manage these initiatives.
How will you contribute towards creating a supportive environment for participants using the UCOC and Friendly Space Policy?
- At Vía Libre we work within a framework of cooperation and equal opportunities, with care to avoid any form of violence against women, minorities or disadvantaged groups. Our institutional policies integrate the gender perspective from the moment of project design, so we understand that this approach will be a constitutive part of this initiative.
By submitting your proposal/funding request you agree that you are in agreement with the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friendly Space Policy and the Universal Code of Conduct.
I have read the Application Privacy Statement, WMF Friend Space Policy and Universal Code of Conduct.
- Yes