Grants:Simple/Applications/Amical Wikimedia/2020/Final report
- Application or grant stage: grant in progress
- Applicant or grantee: Amical Wikimedia
- Amount requested: 67.800,00 € (75.684,92 $)
- Amount granted: 67,800,00 EUR (77,154 USD)
- Funding period: 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020
- Application created: 20 October 2019
- Recommended application date: 1 November 2019
- Midpoint report due: 15 July 2020
- Final report due: 30 January 2021
Application edit
Background edit
Link to these documents, for the upcoming funding period, only if you have them.
- Link to your organization's staffing plan, for the upcoming funding period. Staffing Plan 2020
- Link to your annual plan, for the upcoming funding period. Activities Plan 2020
- Link to your strategic plan, which includes the upcoming funding period. Strategic Plan 2019-24
Please add your grants metrics to this sheet. Note that requirements for shared metrics have changed for grants starting 1 January 2017 or later. Please visit this worksheet to view global metrics targets and progress.
Programs edit
Please describe any changes to your programs for the upcoming funding period, including the addition of new programs or any programs you are no longer doing. Include your rationale for any major changes to your programs here.
Please use the templates provided to add information about each program you are planning for the upcoming funding period.
The organisation
Amical Wikimedia, also known as Amical, is one of the two thematic organisations in the Wikimedia movement. Instead of a territorial scope, ours is cultural: we promote Catalan language and culture. We are a community based, strategy-led organisation since we believe in the communities as the main force of the whole movement. Our main focus is to help people from our cultural scope but also from other groups, for example, we run our own writing challenges, but also try our best to help the other communities with translations or by being a test wiki (Flow, Visual editor, Content Translator...). We actively promote multilingualism as one of the key factors of our movement, that's why we've run several multilingual writing challenges (eg 288 challenge, CCC, Trace of Soul). Community, diversity and multilingualism will keep being some of the core values of our program this year.
The 2020 proposal
Community
- Progress of our objectives
- The Viquitrobada, our annual gathering, was held online as a one-day event in this 2020 occasion. More than 50 participants attended to the different sessions. The program included sessions dedicated to topics as different as the state of the Catalan language in the Internet (with youtubers and influencers), conflicts of interest in biographies, Wikimedia 2030 Strategy Process, a Workshop on creating videos, technical tools to improve translations, a talk on the need to implement Global templates in Wikipedia, and the State of the Organization. More than 50 people attended the event in two jitsi channels. Videos were uploaded to Commons.
- We did an internal survey to the members of Amical in order to obtain their opinion on matters as diverse as the goals of the organization both in serving Wikipedians and bringing value to society, the perception of the current capacities and assets, the role in the Movement, among others. The survey obtained a participation of 63 members and the results were published in our internal wiki (pdf) and presented during our annual gathering, the Viquitrobada.
- We organized three different debates in the period between September to November. These debates were useful to understand better the different perspectives on topics such as (1) the state of Amical in València, (2) the cost and value of the different activities we have been organizing over the years, (3) the composition of the Catalan Wikipedia community and the renewal of active members in Amical (pdf). These debates were public and open to all members of the organization and brought interesting points, facts and insights that are valuable to the organization.
- The "Youth Group" was implemented and became an active group in the Catalan Wikipedia community. During the year the group met several times and the group worked hard in the implementation of ViquiPAU (Access' Exams to the University Wikiproject: aimed to help students create content related with these exams) and also have done the initiative of designing anti-COVID masks for wikipedians and Amical associates.
- Many of the events that had been planned for the spring season were suspended or rescheduled due to the Covid-19 emergency. Nonetheless, we started a program of webinars (videoconferences) on Jitsi which had a great acceptance from both the general public and our own community.
- The monthly report does not seem to be useful enough, as a tool, to identify volunteers or groups of interest. This might be caused by the fact that it was not rolled out in a fully comprehensible manner, making it difficult to learn lessons from it in a straight forward way.
- We did a mapping of the geographic distribution of our members and a preliminary list of the interests of some our community members. This allowed us to identify a group of users highly involved in template optimization tasks. Another group was interested in the translation tool (translations in general) and a third one would be able to take part in the Small Wiki Toolkits initiative.
- We are in regular contact several departments of the Ministry of Culture of Andorra, but a visit scheduled for April had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We established contact with a group of Wikipedians from l'Alguer (Italy), who have an interest in the language and culture of Sardinia, with a view to organizing an event in autumn. In spite of the interest shown by the local officials and the local Wikipedia community, this plan did not come to fruition due to circumstances beyond our control.
- We are now approaching the last events in a series of workshops we have been offering to anyone wishing to drop in. Although they may soon come to an end, we could still keep the stable groups going stable, like ViquidonesUPF (WikiWomen at the UPF University). However, we need to rethink the format of the workshops. Likewise, Edit-a-thons must be overhauled in their format to make them more attractive and ensuring more effective results.
- We could not take part in the Global conversations in the Wikimedia 2030 Strategy process due to lack of capacity, since we were focused on holding internal debates and ensuring the continuity of the organization for the 2021 (there were elections in December). Participation in movement-wide events and debates remains pending.
- Highlighted activities
-
Social meet to sharing how to work during the quarantine. -
The training webinars stand out for the diversity of the speakers and for their public acceptance. -
Creation of the youth group and meet-ups.
- Community program against its targeted metrics
| Objective | Description | Final status | Final expected status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consolidate 12 very active members (leading more than 5 activities per year). | As priorities changed, the engagement of the provisional board, with new members on it, make us believe that there is a group of people who had a reasonable comitment with the organization. | 100% |
100% |
| Get 3 new members or existing ones under 30 years old to increase their activity in Amical Wikimedia and ensure a generational handover. | Users Townie and Sorenike joined. Also the creation of a youth group and Mikicat joining the new board in December. | 95% |
100% |
| Get at least 3 women members to join Amical Wikimedia. | User Unapeça | 33% |
33% |
| Bring together and provide basics insights to our members in the Balearic Islands and Andorra meeting face to face at least once; in order to create the nucleus of 2 active member hubs. | Contacts were made in both territories, some promising advances made in Menorca. A combination of Covid and the Internal Situation made impossible to achieve more. | 50% |
50% |
| Hold personal or phone meetings and conversations with at least >50% of Amical Wikimedia's cohort. | There has been an interaction between partners that covers more than 50% of the community. | 100% |
100% |
| Facilitate at least 2 events aimed at the youngest segment of the community (under 25s). | We held an online meeting with young people in April and a second one in May. | 100% |
100% |
| One specific workshop for newcomers of Amical Wikimedia (our team, our ethics, our discourse, our how-to). | We held it in the framework of the series of webinars and formative debates (e.g. Amical in valencia and territories, value of the activities, Community composition and renewal, among others.). From the feedback, we could see that this kind of calls were a useful space to exchange knowledge in the context of the COVID-19. More debates about the specifics of our know-how, goals, and ethics are prepared. | 100% |
100% |
Education
- Progress of our objectives
We started 2020 with various meetings with different educational centres, mainly with the University of Barcelona (UB), including one with a professor in charge of a biochemical Wikipedia project at UB, but also ESADE and the Centre of Studies of Catalan Sign Language. In February we hosted a workshop with the International University of Catalonia. Moreover, we signed a collaboration agreement with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and began meetings with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).
To achieve our first objective of bringing Wikipedia and their sister projects to secondary schools, we had a meeting with Associació Rosa Sensat, a teacher's association, and a workshop at a high school in the town of Lliçà de Vall. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, we organised an online edit-a-thon about the subjects of the university access exams in order to attract high school and college students to Wikipedia, which was well received and had 22 participants.
- A new edition of a course on digital strategy for cultural institutions was held at the UOC. A module of the course involved writing an article. Fifteen students, an overall feeling of satisfaction and good acquisition of the required knowledge and skills were the outcome of this event.
- The eduwiki projects that are already ongoing with no support (ESMUC, UB Biochemistry, UB counselling, UdL Art History, etc.)
- Took part in a conference on open educational resources (OER) at UAB, presenting several experiences and success stories, as well as offering the didactic and pedagogical advantages of using Wikipedia and its sister projects as an educational resource in the classroom.
- Wikiquote 2020
- There had been conversations with UB CRAI (Libraries) to offer training on Wikidata and to get the most out of his own catalogue of authorities.
- New contacts were made (ESADE, Blanquerna, Rosa Sensat Foundation, PAU Office, Open Institute of Catalonia, University of Lleida, etc.) to propose teaching wikiprojects, organize a wikimarathon, set up high-flying ViquiPAUs or offer training of teaching staff.
- We were in the early stages of doing a second phase of the project to introduce Catalan sign language content into the Wiktionary.
- A project for editing and improving content on local heritage was launched with the Lliçà de Vall institute.
- A new batch of teaching wikiproject had been scheduled in Andorra but was postponed due to the declaration of a pandemic.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, from March, our face-to-face activities were postponed or cancelled. This affected schools and colleges too, and for now (at the beginning of summer) it seems unrealistic to start or keep up communication with educational centres. Despite our current institutional situation, we should analyse what we should do in September.
- We have only a few new projects and not really diverse. It is necessary to have people willing to coach and do the follow-up, and they are not always there.
- It is necessary to persevere on the wikiprojects teaching in secondary education. At this educational level, it is even more vital to coach and mentor teachers before starting any work.
- All the education Wikiprojects carried out on Catalan Wikipedia are mapped and clear. So that future actions can be scheduled more easily, there should be more on the way.
- Highlighted activities
-
Open Education Week 2020 (5th of March). Fortunately it was right before the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic but also one of the last in-person activities. -
Round table in the Philosophy Faculty of the well-known Autonomous University of Barcelona. -
The Education Program is presented and duly explained to the professors. It includes talks about open sources for universities and much more.
- Education program against its targeted metrics
| Objective | Description | Final status | Final expected status |
|---|---|---|---|
| At least 3 educational collaborations (wikiprojects or another) with secondary schools (teenager-oriented) | A wikiproject was started in the town LLiçà de Vall; Activities planned with two Andorran institutes were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. | 50% |
50% |
| Mantain 75% of the wikiprojects started in 2019 as a stabilisation and long-term preparedness for teachers (33 registered as a partnership with Amical during the academic year 2019) | 20 out of the 35 teaching projects carried out this year (57%) are new editions of projects held last year | 60% |
60% |
| At least one new official agreement with an educational institution | Agreement signed with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). | 100% |
100% |
| At least 3 university educational collaborations outside the area of Barcelona (preferably outside Catalonia) | Andorra was not materialized. There was a very promising project outlined with the Blanquerna University (about how to fight hate speech) that didn't come to fruition. | 25% |
25% |
GLAM & Sister projects
- Progress of our objectives
The year started with the very successful Wikiproject "one librarian, one reference" in the middle of January, beating all previous expectations: 81 participants added more than 1,000 references and the Catalan version of this global event achieved the 5th position among all the language versions. A further highlight happened in March, with 3 parallel Edit-a-thons about women organised just before the International Women's Day on the 8th of March. These events took place in the Municipal Archives Building of Palafrugell, at the Technical University of Valencia in Alcoi, at the Valencian Library in Valencia, and also remotely (Women from L'Hospitalet edit-a-thon). More events with and about women were planned at the island of Menorca and the Valencian city of Alboraia on the 14th of March. However, this one had to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the mandatory confinement in Spain. From this point on, the GLAM activities became very limited and decreased a lot. Most of them, like both Edit-a-thons planned at the city museum in Manresa and at the public library in La Barceloneta, respectively, had to be cancelled.
Some of the activities since the start of the pandemic have been very successful (1Lib1ref, the Sant Jordi competition, the Quarantine wikiproject), others are activities that continue year after year thanks to the interest of the volunteers themselves (Cinema and Comics wikiprojects) or other driving forces (Night of the language in the digital world, the international day for girls and women in science). There have also been some projects that have been carried out without the direct participation of Amical (Edit-a-thon in the Ribera d'Ebre). We also took part in the remote working day "Intensiu digital" (17th June) organized by UB, where one of our volunteers presented the wikiproject on the Digital Memory of Catalonia.
Our biggest project this year was the VII iteration of the "Night of the Language", now renamed as Catalan language edit-a-thon. Instead of an in-person gathering, it became a full-week gathering, with an online workshop and daily office hours where our volunteers answered doubts about edition. We had satisfactory numbers and over 100 editors.
Unfortunately, the sudden resignation of our staff member at the end of 2018 caused a big internal turmoil. This situation led to a resignation of the Board, the election of a provisional board, and new elections in December. A lot of energies were put on the internal front, the lack of staff made that the board prefered not to spend energies creating new GLAM projects, and the pending debates are not yet finished and more internal debate is to be made.
Many activities or proposals that were outlined have been affected by the pandemic, which has led to their cancellation or rescheduling. This is the case of the edit-a-thons of Alboraia 2020, Women of Menorca, Barceloneta, ESMUC 2020, or LGTBI + terminology, the edit-a-thon on the heritage of Manresa at the Museum of Science and Technology of Manresa, the commemorative events of the year Carmelina Sánchez Cutillas organized together with the COBDCV and Wikimedia España, and the training session planned for the Jazz I Am festival. However, at the moment there are some events scheduled well in advance, such as the edit-a-thon on the occasion of the International Day of Cerebral Palsy.
The first phase of the "feminisms and identities" wikiproject has been carried out, which seeks to map the presence of women in the collections of art museums in Catalonia. All the women present in the catalogues of the participating museums are already on Wikidata. The edit-a-thon of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat is moving forward (with difficulties). However, it is unclear how the lockdown measures will affect it exactly.
Contacts were initiated with the Barcelona College of Nurses (free image bank), ICT points (offer training to technicians at ICT points and Omnia points), the ICAC (free content), and libraries of the prison services of the Generalitat de Catalunya (deploy Kiwix and Wikisource). The competitions La Càpsula del Temps (The Time Capsule) and Els tres dies d'or dels articles de qualitat (the three golden days of the featured articles) are underway and will last all year. They have been well received. The project "La veu és lliure" (voice is free) has been restarted.
It must also be noted the new situation of Amical. Esther Solé, who began working by Amical in July 2019, was recently dismissed. During that time, some GLAM agents contacted our organization, but didn't received an answer from our staff, losing opportunities for more projects. Now it is time for Amical to take its own time and think about the current situation and the future. Meanwhile, all the responsibility will completely lay on the hands of our volunteers.
Due to the previously described situation, the level of activities reduced to only those that volunteers were able to carry on.
The internal situation invisibilized the community needs in the Land of Valencia when it takes to GLAM.
- Highlighted activities
-
Right before the International Women's Day, an Edit-a-thon about women takes place at the Valencian Library to reduce the gender gap. -
1Lib1Ref was a huge success this year with unprecedented results. -
The Wiki Loves Dubbing, a full volunteer-driven effort, was an attempt to Innovate on Free Knowledge and appealed our younger editors. -
The Catalan language edit-a-thon had more than 100 new editors and comitted our community to remotely support them during the whole week.
- GLAM & Culture program against its targeted metrics
| Objective | Description | Final status | Final expected status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detect and quantify stable or transitional community growth in the Catalan sister projects (current active users in Wikisource: 3-4; Wikiquote: 1; Wiktionary: 2-3; Wikibooks: 0; Wikinews: 0-1) | No survey has been done. However, the figures may remain stable or have slightly changed. Priorities also changed, so surveys focused on Community Health were made. |
0% |
0% |
| At least three projects focused on three sister projects, and three activities or events to promote these projects | "The Time machine" Wikiproject (aimed to update/add references to articles about commemoration days, jubilees, anniversaries, etc.) and "The voice is free" Wikiproject (aimed to record the voice of people with biography in Wikipedia). | 66% |
66% |
| Updated state of #bibliowikis document | Not done. A census of GLAM agents was made by the transition board. | 0% |
0% |
| Updated document with renewed proposals for libraries and/or museums | It has not been done so far, as different priorities emerged. | 0% |
0% |
| At least 4 self-organised GLAMwiki projects or events | The first Edit-a-thon in Ribera d'Ebre (february) and the 3 parallel feminist Edit-a-thons: in Palafrugell, Alcoi and Valencia (all them quite self-organised). | 100% |
100% |
| At least 2 projects involving archives from the Catalan speaking area | There were the first contacts with Andorra in order to do a Wikpiproject similar to the "Digital memory" one (aimed to use to all the pictures and multimedia documents stored in Commons). Done if we count it and the Viquiprojecte:Arxius valencians. | 50% |
50% |
| At least 2 projects involving content (pictures) donation | "The voice is free" Wikiproject (aimed to record the voices of people with biography in Wikipedia) and first contact with the National Archives in Andorra. Also, Wiki Loves Dubbing. | 100% |
100% |
| Establish alliances with at least 2 institutions that are based outside Catalan-speaking territories and have a scope which is aligned with Amical's mission or projects | It has not been done as different priorities emerged. | 0% |
0% |
Communication & Outreach
- Progress of our objectives
- Although we currently find ourselves on a point where we have to reimagine ourselves again, our communications strategy has proven successful, both in social media as in media coverage.
Activity in social media has increased and new profiles have been created for Amical and for Viquipèdia (Instagram). We were selected as a finalist for the Martí Gasull Roig prize in defence of the Catalan language. We successfully started a working line of internal communications with our Jitsi sessions. We also took part in the remote working day "Intensiu digital" (17th June) organized by UB, where one of our volunteers presented the wikiproject on the Digital Memory of Catalonia. The biggest sucess has been that the internal situation since the board resignation did not afect the image that partners, readers and external agents have of us.
- We need to encourage more people to join our communication programme. The successes of the past will not be sustained in time if we're not able to maintain a healthy environment for everyone. The communications programme has been sustained by volunteers in a continued way. This has provided it with great resiliency to internal issues. With some volunteers having left their roles it will be a new challenge to maintain its successes, as some volunteers have abandoned some accounts to cover different ones.
Contacts have been made with institutions dedicated to the language and free knowledge both nationally and internationally (Office of the Generalitat de Catalunya in Alghero, Platforma per la Llengua, Gaming.cat, FemProcomuns, etc.) but this year we haven't been able to forge closer relationships.
- Amical website redesign was abandoned as different priorities emerged.
- We invested efforts in willing to engage a student as an intern during this year course but it has not been possible as we could not find an agreement with the university. Then we have another offer, but had to be dropped out as the organization wasn't in a good internal situation that would justify that a student would actually learn anything from us.
- Highlighted activities
-
During the quarantine, one of our members wrote three articles about multimedia content in wikiprojects in a youth-oriented digital media. It strengthens our line of work about community and youth in the Strategic planning of the entity. -
Do wikimedians dream about electric enciclopedias?. Àlex Hinojo wrote an article for the journal of language and law. -
Our twitter accounts have been receiving good feedback and increased their number of followers. -
The Valencian Library edit-a-thon received good media coverage.
- Communication & Outreach program against its targeted metrics
| Objective | Description | Final status | Final expected status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Publish at least 12 relevant blog posts in one year. This includes blog posts about Wikimedia events or activities where community members or staff participated | Done. | 100% |
100% |
| Increase our impact in Twitter up to 25K followers in @Viquipedia as one of the most relevant "influencer" accounts in Catalan | On January the 30k fronteer was surpassed. | 100% |
> 100% |
| Content and style redesign of Amical Wikimedia website | Other kind of activities were prioritized. | 0% |
50% |
| Definition and publication of a regular newsletter | It has been done, and a volunteer took the task during the last half of the year. | 60% |
> 100% |
| Evaluate the feasibility and establish a university student internship for some communication tasks | Community so far hasn't clearly agreed to do so, so it had to be cancelled as priorities changed. | 0% |
50% |
| Attendance and presentation of our projects in 5 national or international events about Wikimedia, tech, digital advocacy, or free knowledge during the whole year | Covid made it unrealistic, even despite participation of our members in virtual events, like the Celtic Knot. Also, a chapter for Laurie Bridges book was written. | 20% |
60% |
Staff and contractors edit
Please describe any changes to your staffing plan for the upcoming funding period. These should include increases in staff or contractor hours, new staff positions, or staff positions you are removing. Include your rationale for any staffing changes here.
- Esther Solé i Martí (user ESM) was the project coordinator for Amical from the second semester of 2019 onwards. During April 2020, the Staff Commission noticed several issues in her activity. After a month of internal debate, the Board decided (by 4 votes in favour and 2 against) to dismiss her at the beginning of May. The new provisional Board made an agreement with her.
For each new staff or contractor position, please use the template provided to add information about each new staff or contractor you are planning for the upcoming funding period (or to describe significant increases in hours or changes in job descriptions for existing staff). You are not required to provide this information for existing staff where no changes are required.
Budget and resource plan edit
Link to a detailed budget for the upcoming funding period. This budget should include all of your organizations expenses. Please specify which expenses will be covered from your APG.