Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

Grants:Project/WM BE/Public facing activities 2017/Final

< Grants:Project‎ | WM BE‎ | Public facing activities 2017


Report accepted
This report for a Project Grant approved in FY 2016-17 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/WM BE/Public facing activities 2017.
  • You may still review or add to the discussion about this report on its talk page.
  • You are welcome to email projectgrants(_AT_)wikimedia.org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.



Welcome to this project's final report! This report shares the outcomes, impact and learnings from the grantee's project.

Part 1: The Project edit

Summary edit

In the past period (January 2017-February 2018) we organised 39 open edit-a-thons, 11 workshops for closed public, had 2 education collaborations, gave 46 presentations about Wikipedia/Wikimedia, organised/participated in 39 other open events, organised 2 wikimeets, had 1 general assembly, 4 board meetings, 81 organisational meetings with external partners or internal meetings as part of a project, published 1 newsletter (in 3 languages), published 14 reports, 16 other publications (press releases, announcements, official letters), 39 people participated in/presented at 15 conferences or conference like events, organised 1 photo contest, had 3 photography sessions, and 1 double writing week.

Project Goals edit

We would like to provide a growth in community support and initiatives, more activities being organised, growth in GLAM support and activities, growth in activities with educational institutions, and more professional support towards our community and partner organisations.

More community members have found us and asked for support. We organised a large number of activities during the year and support various collaborations with Belgian institutions. We have grown as chapter and stabilised our organisation.

Project Impact edit

Metrics edit

In grant period we recorded the following metrics. As we depend on the time of local volunteers, the core of activities is providing a good introduction and providing support to participants, due limited time for a lot of activities no or incomplete metrics have been recorded.

Participants Newly registered Content pages Number of edit-a-thons and workshops Number of other activities
1560 242 20760 53 43

Targets edit

Planned measure of success
(include numeric target, if applicable) 		Actual result Explanation
2 writing weeks organised, with each more than 300 articles written. 1 writing week organised 1 not organised due personal circumstances
having processed the 10,000 images from the image donation in a proper way. the image donation has been delayed, still waiting, but 1401 images from other donation have been processed situation at institution
having a follow up activity with each of the participating museums. only follow-up activity with some museums lack of grant resources
5 or more content donations 3 content donations processed, others still in preparation with museums bureaucracy at institutions
10 or more edit-a-thons / workshops / trainings in Wikipedia, Wikidata, Commons 50 edit-a-thons/workshops accomplished
10 or more volunteers to conference 39 volunteers to conference accomplished
2 or more courses in education supported 2 supported accomplished
having set up study days (seminars) to promote Wikipedia in education not organised lack of resources
3x WMBE community newsletter published 1x publish lack of grant resources + 1 not published due personal circumstances


Methods and activities edit

Volunteers and members of Wikimedia Belgium give/organise during the year various workshops, edit-a-thons and presentations about Wikipedia, (uploading photos to) Wikimedia Commons, editing and using Wikidata, and more. As well as how to edit Wikipedia and write an article.

A series of sessions were for a limited public only, mostly for GLAMs and our partners.

During Wiki Loves Public Space an open lecture was organised.

During the Brussels writing weeks another six open writing sessions were organised in the various libraries and theater of Brussels. To prepare these sessions a closed sessions for library staff was organised to provide them a basic training in editing Wikipedia.

Besides the workshops and sessions we had many meetings and activities, for a full overview see: WMBE:Activities/2017.

Further we also built partnerships with GLAMs, of which three already had output in the grants period.

Brussels Writing Weeks edit

 
Wiki Loves Brussels

The writing weeks about the Brussels Capital Region was held from 22 April to 6 May 2017. There is a long tradition of writing weeks in the Dutch language Wikipedia, but also on other Wikipedias. This year it is the second edition of the writing weeks around Brussels, the first edition was in 2016. The writing weeks are organised by local users, supported by Wikimedia Belgium and the Flemish Community Commission and coordinated on the Dutch language Wikipedia and Meta a call for volunteers was placed on the general forum of de.-, en.-, fr.- and nl.wikipedia. Over 34 contributors were found to write and expand articles. During the event 125 new articles related to the Brussels-Capital Region were created, over 44 already existing articles were majorly expanded.

The Brussels Network of Public Libraries and the Flemish Community Commission helped to organise 6 wikimeets, where staff of the libraries in Brussels learned how Wikipedia works, what they need to think of when writing an article, and an understanding of what Wikipedia and Wikimedia are about. The Wikimeets were held in the Royal Flemish Theatre, and the libaries of Anderlecht, Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, Koekelberg, and Muntpunt. A part of the meetings was dedicated to dance.

Photo contest Wiki Loves Public Space edit

In July and August we organised the photo contest Wiki Loves Public Space around modern buildings, public artworks, memorials and monuments. We organised this contest to use the momentum as this was in Belgium the first full summer in what we had Freedom of Panorama. Freedom of Panorama came into force on 15 July 2016 thanks to our efforts and the parliament members who took it up. To celebrate Freedom of Panorama, we organised this photo contest in what we finally could depict Belgium as it is seen every day.

On 20 July we also gave a lecture about Wikipedia and uploading in the public library of Ternat.

Due to personal circumstances the award ceremony was delayed to February 2018. The winning photos of the photo contest were announced at the new year's event 2018 in Brussels.

See also:

Sharing is Caring edit

 
Starting presentation
 
Totebags for all participants

On 20 June we organised the closing event of the project Wiki Loves Art 2016 and GLAM seminar Sharing is Caring - Brussels Extension - 2017 together with our partner PACKED vzw. In July-August 2016, anyone interested could go to the participating museums and heritage libraries and take photos for on Wikipedia and beyond. We organised the project to get better Wikipedia articles and more online visibility for the participating institutions, and to have extra attention for the Belgian cultural heritage on Wikipedia. Wiki Loves Art also has been organised to show cultural institutions how easy it is to work together with Wikipedia and Wikimedia, and that collaboration is possible.

Sharing is Caring is a conference platform focused on collaboration and sharing in the cultural heritage sector, bringing together practitioners, researchers, and users of culture. In analogy to the TED conferences and local TEDx extensions, the format is spreading from the core-event in Denmark to other countries, where local extensions address the topics that are close to their heart and their community. After the first extension in Hamburg, Wikimedia Belgium and PACKED vzw framed their closing event for the Wiki Loves Art 2016 within this platform as ‘Sharing is Caring – Brussels Extension: Opening up with Wikimedia’.

The ’Sharing is Caring – Brussels extension’ conference introduced the Belgian heritage sector to the possible applications of the various Wikimedia platforms for opening up digital collections. The conference showcased examples from museums, libraries and archives from Belgium and abroad. Besides showcasing Wiki-GLAM cooperations, the goal of the conference was to find motivated individuals and institutions with whom to organise content donations, promote reuse and remix.

At the seminar we had speakers from multiple fields in the GLAM world sharing their experiences and best practises with Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Visitors at the seminar came from various parts of Belgium and from the various GLAM fields. More information about the seminar can be found at the page WMBE: Sharing is Caring Brussels 2017 and the website. (photos)

  •  
    Presentation about Open Data Formats
  •  
    Presentation about collaboration, inclusing Wikipedian in Residence
  •  
    GLAM-WIKI 2015
  •  
    Catch 22

Civic Lab Brussels & Ghent edit

In April 2017 we started together with Open Knowledge Belgium with the Civic Lab Brussels meetings. Free knowledge thrives the best when free knowledge enthusiasts have an open space where they can present initiatives and work together on projects. During this grant's period we organised 23 meetings for the presentation of projects and working group sessions to work on projects. In October a spin-off of the Brussels edition started in Ghent: Civic Lab Ghent. In the period Civic Lab Ghent organised five meetings.

Project resources edit

Please provide links to all public, online documents and other artifacts that you created during the course of this project. Even if you have linked to them elsewhere in this report, this section serves as a centralized archive for everything you created during your project. Examples include: meeting notes, participant lists, photos or graphics uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, template messages sent to participants, wiki pages, social media (Facebook groups, Twitter accounts), datasets, surveys, questionnaires, code repositories... If possible, include a brief summary with each link.

Learning edit

The best thing about trying something new is that you learn from it. We want to follow in your footsteps and learn along with you, and we want to know that you took enough risks in your project to have learned something really interesting! Think about what recommendations you have for others who may follow in your footsteps, and use the below sections to describe what worked and what didn’t.

What worked well edit

  • We manage to create a growing interest from partner institutions in collaborating with Wikipedia/Wikimedia. A large part of the knowledge in the world is stored in these kind of organisations, knowledge that is often not available on Wikipedia/etc yet.
  • Our chapter was stable during the whole year, even while there where some personal circumstances that delayed some work.
  • The number of people that help out in the organisation of activities and presenting the vision of Wikimedia is growing.

What didn’t work edit

  • As we had foreseen, we need translation support which was not provided (read: rejected) through this grant.
  • Even while we had over 30 people active in an organising role, due their often very specific focus (only), we are looking for a growing number of volunteers to help in the organisation of projects and activities. This became clear in the Autumn when multiple people in organising role had a personal situation that temporarily disabled them from taking up such role.
  • In the grant's period we organised a series of Civic Lab meetings. We had good hopes for the meetings, but the results are lower than expected. The groups easily focus on just a single topic, a relative high turnout as the meetings are open but the variety of topics is limited, requires a lot of organising work, and the output for Wikimedia platforms is insecure.
  • In general, many organisations have indicated to be willing to collaborate and had specific ideas what they want(ed). In practice it has to been seen how many of them become reality. On forehand such is difficult to estimate, but our investment of explaining what is possible and what can be done, slowly pays off as it takes time to grow in organisations and more and more organiations start with projects.


Next steps and opportunities edit

 
Sharing is Caring

Are there opportunities for future growth of this project, or new areas you have uncovered in the course of this grant that could be fruitful for more exploration (either by yourself, or others)? What ideas or suggestions do you have for future projects based on the work you’ve completed? Please list these as short bullet points.

  • Our project grant was (and is) a continuation of the strategy developed in 2014, on what Wiki Loves Art has been grounded. In 2014 this strategy started to deal with the complex and bureaucratic Belgian knowledge institutions with their rich cultural heritage they manage. Through Wiki Loves Art in 2016 we created awareness. In 2017 we organised a seminar for GLAm professionals to inform them about the wide range of possibilities in collaborating with Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Since Wiki Loves Art, within these knowledge institutions slowly awareness is starting to come and collaborations have started to grow. This will certainly continue in coming years.

Part 2: The Grant edit

Finances edit

Actual spending edit

Expense Approved amount Actual funds spent Difference
Writing weeks - Brussels € 660 € 484.27 € 175.73
Writing weeks - Brabant € 660 € 272.46 € 387.54
GLAM Partnerships (1, 2 & 3) € 1450 € 1467.52 - € 17.52
Edit-a-thons € 350 € 307.40 € 42.60
Education program (total) € 560 € 121.73 € 438.27
Website € 100 € 72.07 € 27.93
Support for volunteer translators (reallocated) € 1000 € 1050.00 - € 50.00
Wikimeets and general assembly € 300 € 313.89 - € 13.89
Management costs € 700 € 241.16 € 458.84
Total € 5780 € 4330.50 € 1449.50


Remaining funds edit

Do you have any unspent funds from the grant?

Please answer yes or no. If yes, list the amount you did not use and explain why.

  • YES, € 1449.50, because:
    • Personal circumstances of multiple people led to delays and cancallation of certain parts of the annual programs.
    • Partner organisations need more time for internal preparation and processing, hopefully to be expected in 2018.

If you have unspent funds, they must be returned to WMF. Please see the instructions for returning unspent funds and indicate here if this is still in progress, or if this is already completed:

Documentation edit

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grantsadmin wikimedia.org, according to the guidelines here?

Please answer yes or no. If no, include an explanation.

  • YES

Confirmation of project status edit

Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?

  • YES

Is your project completed?

Please answer yes or no.

  • YES

Grantee reflection edit

We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on what this project has meant to you, or how the experience of being a grantee has gone overall. Is there something that surprised you, or that you particularly enjoyed, or that you’ll do differently going forward as a result of the Project Grant experience? Please share it here!


Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants:Project/WM_BE/Public_facing_activities_2017/Final&oldid=23682941"