Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Wiki Loves Museums (ID: 21862170)/Final Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2023-03-02T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Rapid Fund, Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Final
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- Title of Proposal: Wiki Loves Museums
- Username of Applicant: Medhavigandhi
- Name of Organization: N/A
- Amount awarded: 4790.62
- Amount spent: 4796.86 USD, 373000 INR
Part 1 Understanding your work edit
1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented
This project was a great learning experience. We were supported by community members to implement : a) a pan-India photo contest and b) an open knowledge fellowship successfully. There were some hiccups from a timeline point of view and we had to extend the period of our execution for numerous reasons.
The Photo Contest was quite engaging and we got pictures from museums usually very underrepresented online and unexplored in general (Museum of Christian Art, Goa for example). However, our strategy for involving walk leaders did not work out well because of a lack of adequate time for communicating, and implementing the walk. Many already had walks scheduled (paid ones) and did not want to repeat a "free walk". Another problem was that many of the walk leaders are accustomed to hosting walks in open public spaces & not inside museums; we see this as a future opportunity to build capacity in "designing museum walks". In our current proposal, they did not find value in "creating / designing" a walk in the time period & fee we mentioned. So we instead pivoted to having our Fellows documenting museums / hosting walks.
Our fellowship received many applications, reflecting diversity in experience / interest; a dilemma was to find a host-museum in the fellow's region of residence. We collected many object-images for which we need to source citable information. This also indicated that we will need to involve experts in future to guide our research.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals? Please describe these strategies and approaches.
Having museums share on their social media pages about the photo contest was especially helpful. We had already circulated a proposal for museums to get involved, so we had a starting point for partnerships. The contest featured in publications like "Midday" and asked people to contribute photos. We also used Instagram to promote the contest, share "examples of good photos" so participants were aware of what we were looking for.
The Open Knowledge Fellowship had a lot of interest from within academia, university and art-history disciplines as we promoted it through newsletters, and our community. We also took advantage of the photo-contest promotion to ask people to "express interest" in the fellowship. Going forward we see this aspect of the project to be a stronger part to pursue.
For our Fellowship training too, we used the photos collected through the contest to identify suitable pages (example, Sufi Literature) to edit and find gaps in museum-representation. This helped Fellows go to the museums and click relevant images for building educational articles on collections that are currently on display. Another thing that was very helpful to guide new editors (fellows) was using a Trello Board to orient and streamline their tasks according to : "editing wikipedia", "adding photos to Commons", "Wiki-data training" and so on. Before working with a museum of their choice, they were therefore well-versed with Wiki tools.
3. Please use this space to upload media and other files that help tell your story and impact.
Field to type in URLs.
A reflection is created here : https://www.theheritagelab.in/open-knowledge-museums-india-2022/
Dashboard for the fellowship :
https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/The_Heritage_Lab/Wiki_Loves_Museums_India_2022/home
4. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Not applicable to your fund |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Neither agree nor disagree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Neither agree nor disagree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Agree |
5. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?
Even though we worked with English Wikipedia, and involving participants from any underrepresented communities was not part of our grant-focus, our participants were from the academic (art or history) space who do not participate in Wiki projects usually. In documenting museums like the Santhal Museum or the Museum of Christian Art or Hela Dangal (a folk form of theatre), we shared content that is under-represented and usually found at museums. India's Museum collections on Wiki itself are underrepresented as anybody searching for art usually finds material from Western museums and art institutions, which further promotes scholarship around those collections. In this regard, we feel we had the scope for working on improving representation of museums, communities and topics.
Our fellows also conducted outreach events, but going forward, we will focus on outreach events specifically related to Wiki projects. Having said this, we are very happy to see our Fellows eager to apply for their own rapid grants for similar future projects.
Part 2: Your main learning edit
6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?
We held a meeting & presentation for museums & libraries. The same was attended by Directors and program-management staff. Some of the main points that came to light :
a) as long as photos are clicked by individuals, it is not a problem as permissions are in place for the same. Museum Directors are regularly transferred from the position within the Ministry, and in the absence of a clear policy on public domain material, they are unable to grant a blanket permission for uploading digitized assets to WikiCommons since this is one of the main revenue streams for museums.
b) creating articles referring to museum collections is more desirable as an option. However, Curators have been reluctant to be recorded for audio-visual material uploaded on Wikimedia as they do not feel sure about the use of this material in the future.
c) For fellowships and WiR programs, museums & libraries feel ill-equipped as :
1. there is little knowledge about how Wikimedia grants work 2. limited understanding on how to approach Wiki user-groups in the city / region 3. limited scope and time for mentoring and administering a project such as this
d) Museums are also especially hesitant as they feel a Fellow / WiR may not have an understanding of museum practices, work, and prior background on their collections.
7. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?This can include both positive and negative situations. What did you learn from those experiences?
1. The Photo Contest
We feel that promotions for the contest were directed towards certain cities only and left out some smaller museums. We hope to improve this next year. The outreach through banners on Wiki helped immensely, though because of our contest's timing, we had limited exposure / time. We'd like to be mindful of scheduling next time.
Hosting photo-walks did not work out at all, even though one of the bigger museums made the effort; we however used the funds for the photo walks to recruit a fourth fellow. Going forward, we want to use our learning to develop capacity for designing photo walks at museums in particular.
2. The Fellowship
We had applicants with diverse profiles & research experience; it makes us think of streamlining our fellowship-intake accordingly, while making space for undergraduate / new researchers.
WikiData was of special value to the fellowship, and we find potential
Sharing the work of the fellows, we received a lot of positive feedback - we feel if we make a conscious effort to promote the work done, e.g, exhibit it prominently offline, it would help us grow the impact. Two articles created during the fellowship made it to the Did You Know section - further helping us widen the reach of the resource.
We felt we needed more bandwidth (people dedicated to this project) than we had planned for.
8. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?
We want to prioritise the fellowship in the coming year - this means we want to add in comparatively more effort than the photo contest, even though we recognise the value of the contest.
For the contest, we'd like to find a way to create a manual / host workshops in 1) photographing museum objects to ensure that the submissions are of decent quality. As museums in India have limited infrastructure, often poor lighting / display, the photo submissions quality suffers. 2) adding images to Commons with proper captions.
For the Fellowship, we'd like to institute an "editorial committee" comprising of eminent scholars and experienced / established researchers who can guide Fellows but also help us in identifying topics and resources. We hope to "mend the gap" on meta-data representation on Wikidata by partnering with some museums outside India with Indian collections & hosting data sprint workshops with selected Fellows. In the future, for Fellows' outreach activities, we plan to ask them to structure the same and organise Wiki-based activities (like editathons or datathons).
We would like to also seek 50% fellows (2/4) from cities where we already have museum-hosts. To this effect we have already asked host institutions and experts to express interest.
9. Documentation of resources: Use this space to upload any documents that would be useful to share with others (e.g. communications material, training material, presentations).
Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
N/A
Part 3: Metrics edit
10a. Open Metrics reporting
In your application, you defined some open metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with your metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in. Use the tables to report the result. Use the comments column to describe any aspects of this result that you find relevant. If the results were different from the initial target (goals) then you can explain why and what you learned from this. You can also provide any qualitative analysis regarding these results. In the last column please describe the tools and methodology used to collect this data and any difficulties you might have had.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discovering Cultural Heritage | Feedback from participants to understand the museum-visit culture, and their motivation to return if at all. What were the unexpected discoveries about museums?
Feedback from Fellows: the importance of Participatory initiatives such as this and the outcome (case study). |
5 | 5 | While we had felt that organising photo contests / the fellowship with big & popular museums would attract people, we contrarily found that photo-contest participants as well as Fellows gravitated towards smaller, lesser known museums & collections.
Fellows particularly felt that independent research (not in collaboration) worked out better for them as museums were often restrictive about the pictures / information being shared online. They also felt they had to work on building personal relationships within the museum to get any work done. For some fellows who did not have an academic background in art / art-history, the learning potential was immense; one of our fellows, a Professor, was eager to understand how to take this back to her classroom & is keen on developing her own project. |
Feedback questionnaire (participants)
Focused discussion (fellows) |
| GLAMs and Wiki Collaborations : an Analysis | How many GLAMs are willing to establish a relationship with Wiki projects and can commit to programs like Wikimedians in Residence, Editathons, Photowalks, etc. as part of their strategy? If not, what are the barriers - through interviews with GLAM leadership. | N/A | N/A | We spoke to
2 x private museums 1 x public-private museum 2 x Government museums 2 x Libraries 1 x cultural group The findings have been mentioned in the report above, however, a summary is below: 3 institutions would like to explore the WiR format, although short term. With the exception of 1 institution, nobody was clear on whether they can "receive grants from Wikimedia Foundation work on their own projects" Staff capacity and institutional infrastructure are two of the biggest barriers; while museums would love to have Residents working on their own, they feel they feel restricted in understanding the potential outcomes the residency can have. For example, many institutions have only recently started to think of social media reach as a metric to include in their annual report, but are unsure about views on WikiCommons, etc. 3 museums committed to partnering with us for the next Fellowship as a short-term pilot to test the outcomes for the museum. |
Focus Group discussions and Interviews |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
10b. Core Metrics reporting
In your application, you defined targets for some core metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with each core metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in. Use the tables to report the result. Use the comments column to describe any aspects of this result that you find relevant. If the results were different from the initial target (goals) then you can explain why and what you learned from this. You can also provide any qualitative analysis regarding these results. In the last column please describe the tools and methodology used to collect this data and any difficulties you might have had. Note: a table will appear for each Wikimedia project content contribution you defined in your proposal.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | The no. of participants we expect to participate in the curated photo-walks : 100-150
Other participants : 200 at least from other cities |
350 | |||
| Number of editors | |||||
| Number of organizers | No. of walk partners / museums who will host targeted walks. | 10 | 0 | A big problem around curated walks was the number of duplicate images of the same object that would be created. If the walks were not curated, it would result in copyright issues as museums did not feel they can limit photography to public domain material only. Walk partners were also not equipped to design curated walks at museums as opposed to public places. | Google Meet conversations |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia Commons | No. of new Museums featured (categories) : at least 15
No. of existing Museum-categories expanded : at least 10 (we definitely expect more, but these are museums that have expressed interest) |
25 | 25 | N/A | N/A |
| Wikipedia | No. of articles improved
No. of articles created |
100 | 124 | N/A | N/A |
| Wikidata | Number of Wikidated items created or improved. | 100 | 409 | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
12. Did you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results? This could include things like a lack of time or resources, or the expertise in your team to collect this data. It could also include difficulties with particular data collection tools.
No
12a. State what difficulties you had.
N/A
12b. How do you hope to overcome these challenges in the future? Do you have any recommendations for the Foundation to support you in addressing these challenges?
N/A
13. Use this space to upload any documents and provide links to any tools you have used that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, program and event dashboard link, project page on Meta).
Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
N/A
14. Have you shared these results with other Wikimedian communities (either affiliates, user groups, volunteers, etc., different to yours)? This can include things such as data and direct outcomes, lessons you have learned, or information on how to run or recreate your programs.
Partially
14a. If yes or partially, please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how.
Sharing on telegram groups, Facebook with Wiki community members.
Part 4: Financial reporting and compliance edit
15. & 14a. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
373000 INR
16. Please state the total amount spent in USD.
4796.86 USD
17. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
17a. Upload a financial report file.
17b. Please provide a link to your financial reporting document.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zWOYCwuWL1MF1PKwMCMely7oIVqvGzDkdgky7Mn2gOY/edit?usp=sharing
As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund 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.
17c. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.
We had budgeted for 45000 INR per fellow (3 fellows ) for a duration of 3 months. However, we extended this to 50,000 per fellow and 4 fellows. The duration also extended but our Fellows did not mind the extension.
We accommodated a 4th fellow and increased the stipend because of the unused funds budgeted for Walk Leaders (75000 INR) - a component of the contest that did not work out.
We used 20000 INR more (with permission from WMF) towards the Project Manager as the duration and intensity of their commitment was more than what we had imagined.
18. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
Yes
18a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
Even after adjusting 65000 INR out of 75000 INR for walk leaders towards stipends, we have 10000 INR remaining.
The 3rd prize remained unclaimed despite repeated efforts to get in touch with the winner via Wiki User Talk Page, as well as email (INR 5000)
We did not need to use the Communication / Promotional Material budget as museum-partners had posters printed themselves. (10,000)
We also used an amount of 3000 INR from the 10,000 INR budget towards courier / extra costs for Swag, so 7000/- INR is remaining.
18b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
B. Propose to use them to partially or fully fund a new/future grant request with PO approval
18c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
We have 12000 INR remaining. We'd like to use this towards our next grant request (submitted already).
19. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
20. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
21. 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 Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
22. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.
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