Grants:Simple/Applications/WikiJournal User Group/2021/Final report

Grant stage: {{{status}}}

Grantee: applicant

Amount granted: US$40,000

Funding period: 1 July 2021 – 31 December 2021

Midpoint report due: 15 October 2021

Final report due: Jan 31 2022 (YEAR + 30 days)

Activity and financial report

Together with the Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2021 (Jan-June)/Report, this page outlines the activity and financials of WikiJournal User Group from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2021.

Background

These two requests are required of first-time applicants. In future years, you can use reports to substitute for these requirements.

Link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements in the past year.
Every article is generally a multinational collaboration between authors, peer reviewers and editors. An example showcase of such collaboration is that several academics & Wikipedians within the Ukrainian community are interested in testing the WikiJournal system in Ukraine, since it offers a solution to several problems. For example, there is a language barrier to publish in international academic journals, and Ukrainian language journals can have a bad reputation for non-thorough peer review. This community has been offered to do a special issue of WikiJSci for Ukrainian research as a test. It would include Ukrainian language articles with English abstract translations. It enables interested editors to see how the process works. Similarly, progress have been made to engage lower income countries in scholarly publishing in initial meetings with AfricArxiv. Such collaborations are intended to attract contributors to WikiJournal, introducing wiki editing to the academia from all over the world, with potential content and contributors to other Wikimedia projects as well.
Link to one learning story you have created or contributed to, that demonstrates how your organization documents and applies learning.
A major recent achievement is the hiring of 5 technical editors to handle repetitive technical tasks, allowing authors, peer reviewers and board members to focus on the academic processes of the WikiJournals. It has been a learning process to set up the administrative systems, but once in place these will definitely help making article processing smoother.

Link to these documents only if you have them.

Link to your organization's staffing plan: Staffing plan 2021
Link to your annual plan: Annual plan 2021
Link to your strategic plan:

The WikiJournal User Group is in the process of potentially becoming a Sister Project within the Wikimedia Foundation, as a platform to host journal content as one of its strategic goals:

Programs

Content contribution and community growth

Summary & Relevance

A core activity of the User Group is the publication of articles in the academic journal format. This includes original research and case studies, as well as review articles. Review articles include from-scratch contributions and material submitted across from other Wikimedia projects.

In these activities, accuracy and thorough auditing of information through a formal process is prioritised over number of separate articles. Each new article is therefore typically quite long and highly audited compared to the average new page on a Wikimedia project.

For organisational strategy, this ensures that increased contribution from authors (typically first-time-users) is matched by growth in editors with Wikimedia experience to shepherd them and organise robust peer review. Constant growth in peer-reviewed content raises the profile of the user group and helps reach additional key thresholds for recognition (e.g. PubMed Central indexing).

For movement strategy, this strengthens the WMF's reputation for caring about quality and pushing new models of knowledge equity.

Attraction of content contribution

Objectives

Generate unique content from the academic and scholarly communities
Generate high-quality content of use to Wikimedia projects
Attract content input from contributors (usually one-off: authors and peer reviewers)
Attract engagement from repeat interactors (usually ongoing/repeat: editors, members, followers, readers)

Program metrics and targets

New article submissions: 29
Submissions accepted: 5
Number of content pages created and improved: 30
- Of which, those having content integrated into WP: 15
Number of new contributors (author role): 60
Number of new contributors (reviewer role): 60
Number of new contributors (editor role): 10
- Of those, outside of N. America + Europe: 8
Number of new contributors (technical editors): 5
Number of new contributors (administrative board: 1
Number of new members (mailing list subscribers): 100
Number of new followers (soc. media): 100

Community support and administrative growth

There are number of essential and time-critical tasks that need to occur during article processing (e.g. DOI assignment, version-of record typesetting, data preparation, outside communications). Many of these are currently time consuming or fiddly, but ensuring consistent and reproducible handling is of high importance and ensures volunteer time isn't undermined by technical limitations.

For organisational strategy, this ensures a smooth and seamless experience, minimising unnecessary wait times for contributors. This will also build a reputation for timeliness which is particularly important for original research outputs.

For movement strategy, our metadata records on wikidata can act as templates for best practice in open metadata. The practice of writing scholarly articles directly online, and the building of technical tools to link front-end wiki drafting to a back-end editorial management interface has the potential to see wider uptake in the scholarly publishing community (especially academic societies, and journals in lower-middine income countries).

Objectives

Smooth processing and technical handling
Updated automation and technology
Exemplar Wikidata records and monitoring

Program metrics and targets

Technical tasks able to be fully performed by technical editor(s)
- Recruitment of 1-6 people, corresponding to 1.0 FTE^{[notes 1]} distributed among them.
- Training (production of materials, and ability for existing tech editor(s) to train new)
Have Wikidata store all WJ article-level metadata
Have Wikidata sufficiently complete to autogenerate dashboard/reports on:
- Countries of editors, authors and reviewers
- Article processing times and stages (per-journal and per-editor?)
- Content themes
Back end editorial management integration of mediawiki↔wikidata↔OJS via APIs

Outreach, awareness and partnerships

The WikiJournal User Group needs to be highly visible outside of the Wikimedia community, since a key aim is to build bridges with international expert communities. It additionally needs to both learn from and share with the Wikimedia community, given its unique capabilities and perspectives.

For organisational strategy, continuously reaching additional potential participants is particularly important, as we rely on a large proportion of first time (and often one-off) Wikimedia contribution from people in author and peer reviewer roles.

For movement strategy, this forwards our shared goals in raising engagement amongst expert contributor communities, which are highly valuable to engage and brining into the movement.

Objectives

Awareness within the Wikimedia movement of group's activities
Awareness outside of Wikimedia movement of group's activities

Program metrics and targets

For non-wikimedia expert communities
- Presentation at conferences, symposia,
- Indexing inclusion
- Professional memberships
Wikimedia affiliate connections (user groups, chapters and thematics orgs), either:
- have member of affiliate attend a WJ meeting
- have WJ member attend affiliate meeting
- Coverage of all affiliates: 50%
Wikimedia events, ensure presentation(s) at:
- Wikidata con
- Wikicite
- Wikimania

Organization and Staff

WikiJournal User Group consists of an editorial board for each journal (32 people for WikiJournal of Science, 25 people for WikiJournal of Humanities and 17 people for WikiJournal of Medicine). Overall administrative tasks are handled by an administrative board (10 people). Technical editors have the responsibility of many repetitive tasks including additional processing and indexing of articles that are accepted.

Further information: Wikiversity:WikiJournal User Group/Editors

Budget and resource plan

Link to a detailed budget (that also includes a plan for raising the resources you need).

Budget plan 2021

Midpoint report

See Grants:Simple/Applications/WikiJournal User Group/2021/Midpoint report.

Program story

Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

Multiple meetings to identify and find solutions to project-related issues:

For example, a need has been identified to re-group within the Journals to put priority to next steps, including:

Working groups- longer term, example of Communications/Social media/Video creation group (this group also needs to regroup and revitalize)
Task groups- short term tasks that once are done the group disbands (e.g. seeking funding for certain ongoing tasks in the Wiki Journals)
A “HR, finance, grants, reports” group may discuss the possibility of appointing a paid CEO (after the onboarding of technical editors is complete), to basically deal with more tedious administrative tasks, giving more time for editorial board members and volunteer editors to deal with their scholarly activities. Tasks of a CEO may include drafting grant applications and reports, and coordinating tech editors.

Progress

Please add text or a link to a page with details on your program progress. This should including reporting against each of the SMART objectives form your proposal.

In addition to the administrative growth as mentioned above, the project attained insurance in order to ensure continued operation. This has been a necessary first step before the hiring of technical editors.

Spending

Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.

Grant funds at beginning of grant period (July 1, 2021):

$ 1,959.27 remaining from previous Rapid Grant (see Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2021 (Jan-June)/Report)
$ 40,000.00 Simple Grant (see Application)

Grant money spent July 1 - Dec 31, 2021:

$270.00 lawyer consultation fee
$17,448.75 in coverage from Hudson Insurance Group

$30.00 Wells Fargo wire transfer fee

$3 in checks
$12 WikiJournal of Science domain fee

Remaining funds from grant

$24,195.52

The funds set out for the staffing category of the budget plan was instead started on the 2022 budget as separately applied for in Fluxx.

The insurance fee for January 1 to June 30, 2022, as separately applied for in Fluxx, amounting to $14,923.68 was paid December 30, 2021, with $9,271.84 remaining in the bank account by December 31, 2021.

Notes

↑ In WikiJournal, 1 FTE corresponds to 48 hours per week

[FTE-1] In WikiJournal, 1 FTE corresponds to 48 hours per week

[notes 1]