Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group/2020
- Application or grant stage: submited
- Applicant or grantee: Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group
- Amount requested: 24,984.00 EUR ($27,232.74 USD)
- Amount granted: 24,984 EUR (28,431 USD)
- Funding period: 1 January 2020 to 31 December 2020
- Application created: 1 November 2019
- Recommended application date: 1 November 2019
- Midpoint report due: 15 July 2020
- Final report due: 30 January 2021
Application edit
Background edit
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- Link to your organization's staffing plan, for the upcoming funding period.
- Link to your annual plan, for the upcoming funding period.
- Link to your strategic plan, which includes the upcoming funding period.
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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.
Education
In 2019 our focus was to establish cooperation with education institutions, integrating Wikipedia into the teaching curriculum. Our aim is to fill the content gap in terms of quality and quantity in the Albanian Wikipedia, by integrating Wikipedia editing into an academic setting. We created collaborations with two universities in Kosovo and we are working on more.
In 2019 we have signed an MoU with Riinvest College and have worked with University of Prishtina's Faculty of Education, Rochester Institute of Technology Kosovo, University of Business and Technology, Third Millennium High School and Bonevet Makerspace, all based in Pristina.
Seeing the potential, we will continue extending our education program, setting partnerships, creating collaborations, delivering presentations, workshops & editathons, and assisting instructors and student editors on Wiki editing. In addition, we would still like to work on Wiki Clubs, preferably outside of the capital cities.
We want to continue our education program in creating collaboration with educational institutions such as high schools and universities by deepening these partnerships and supporting the teachers that will be involved. In Albania, we plan to work with University of Durrës and University of Tirana.
In Kosovo, teachers are required to fulfill an amount of training during the academic year as a tool to improve the quality of teaching and use modern and interactive approaches. Throughout the year we aim in working with a partner organization in developing an accredited training for teachers based on Wikipedia editing, as a teaching tool that will increase student’s academic writing skills, IT skills, critical thinking, research and more. Through this, we will push further our education program by increasing the number of teachers who use Wikipedia in the classroom. In 2019 we held two weekend trainings as a pilot with an high school that also does teachers' training. In 2020 we will continue to work in formalizing the course which will be recognized by the Ministry of Education for the required continued teacher's training credit.
Goals:
- Continue to establish partner relations with universities and high schools
- Increase the number of educators who use Wikipedia in their class and train them
- Increase the number of students involved in Wikimedia projects
- Establish several Wiki Clubs at high schools & universities
- Enhance content creation and improvement in Wikimedia projects (especially Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons) by editing in an academic setting
- Establish an accredited training for teachers.
Measures of success:
- Develop 4 collaborations with high-schools & universities
- Deliver 20 workshops with students
- Deliver 5 workshops with educators
- Produce 226 new articles
- Have 5 offline volunteers
- Have an accredited program for teachers by end of year
- 100 new Wikidata items.
GLAM
Despite our efforts, GLAM partnership goals have not been fully achieved in 2019. We managed to carry out one GLAM residency in the Museum of Kosovo with some success on the output produce while in 2020 we will try to seek other opportunities with other institutions. We also signed an MoU with the Authority for Information on the Documents of ex-Secret Service of Albania. Nevertheless, we believe that there is still large potential, especially in Albania. We believe that through these partnerships we will be able to source important material, as well as gain experience and create successful examples for expansion to future GLAM institutions, including gaining Ministry of Culture support.
Goals:
- Continue collaboration with 1 partner GLAM institutions and expand to another
- Organize residencies who will interface with the User Group and Wikimedian community and conduct wiki technical work within the partner institutions
- Organize editathons with partner institutions
- Increase content in Wikimedia Commons from partner institutions
- Document Museum artifacts in Wikidata
- Increase the number of articles in Wikipedia with material from partner institutions.
Measures of success:
- Develop further 2 collaboration with GLAM institutions
- Develop and support 1 residency with a GLAM institution
- 200 new materials uploaded in Wikimedia Commons from two GLAM institutions
- 200 new photos of monuments added to Wikimedia Commons
- 30 items added to Wikidata
- 30 new articles added to Wikipedia from GLAM material.
Outreach
We will continue with our outreach program, which has been quite successful in the first year, meeting and surpassing our targets of media present and visibility. Our social media channels are now established and also our group website established https://wikimediashqip.org as a single point of entry for group activities and tutorials for those uninitiated and perhaps fearful with the wiki. Towards these goal we have created demo videos and handouts to be handed to the public. In this pillar will continue making Wikimedia projects more visible to the general public using a variety of platforms and activities.
In 2019 we have presented or brought guest speakers in three conferences: at Software Freedom Kosova 2019 Conference we had a guest speaker, Andra Waagmeester from Belgium on Wikidata, and organized a workshop on Wiki editing. At FemArt Festival we organized a workshop and editathon to close the gender gap.
Our outreach program includes reaching out to media and organizations, hosting online and offline competitions and events that attract the public and continuously being active in social media and other channels, raising awareness on Wikimedia movement. Through this program, we will support active users and reach to new users, building a larger engaging community who will increase the quality & quantity of content.
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Goals:
- Reach the general public through media and online promotion and mass edit campaigns
- Develop a larger and more diverse community of volunteers through events and collaborations
- Produce tutorials and how-to's in video and written format
- Reach out to new audiences through conference sessions
- Reduce the barrier to entry through making sq.Wikipedia easier and more welcoming for newcomers
- Diminish the content gap in specific areas such as local knowledge or Articles every Wikipedia should have through thematic online campaigns & competitions, and offline events such as walkathons
- Promote the free knowledge concept and Wikimedia projects through guest speakers in conferences
- Establish a network of collaboration with different organizations, finding new editors who are passionate about niche topics.
Measures of success:
- Present at 3 conferences
- 5 new offline volunteers recruited through offline events
- 100 new editors registered
- 330 new articles in Wikipedia
- 100 new items in Wikidata
- 1500 new media files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons
- 3 guest speakers on Wikimedia projects/free knowledge topics.
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.
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.
- From August 2018, the User Group incorporated its first staff member based in Prishtina. The hired Project Manager led the program through planning, coordinating and executing tasks within budget and time prospect. The part-time position of our Project Manager has been supported by the local Ipko Foundation.
We would like to transition the Project Manager based in Prishtina to WMF grant funding in 2020 who will be engaged part-time in H1 and upgraded to full-time in H2. In addition, we want to add another full-time Project Manager based in Tirana.
To implement the program, the Project Managers' duties and responsibilities are:
- Identify and coordinate activities, timeline, and budget to execute within program’s grant application
- Network, research and reach out to public institutions, organizations and individuals to create further collaborations and partnerships
- Manage activities, allocate resources, coordinate and organize duties and tasks within the timeframe
- Organize events and other promotional activities
- Develop and implement a communication plan for the User Group
- Send press releases, reach out to media and manage social media marketing to promote events, user group and the free knowledge concept of Wikipedia
- Develop and monitor user group’s reports, proposals, presentations, and other documentation
- Administer the budget, by executing, monitoring and recording expenditures.
An additional Project Manager based in Tirana would support further out volunteers in Albania and ensure an efficient implementation of the program grant.
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.
Midpoint report edit
This is a brief report on the grantee's progress during the midpoint reporting period: 1 January 2020 - 31 June 2020.
Program story edit
Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.
Progress edit
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.
Education Program
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Group Photo after edit a thon natural monuments in Albania -
During edit a thon natural monuments in Albania -
During edit a thon natural monuments in Albania
| Metrics | Goal | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 workshops/editathons | Albania with REC - Host workshops with REC and Faculty of Science in Albania | Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group since 2019 is collaborating with REC Albania, an environmental NGO, to train their instructors and students on Wikimedia projects. Two main projects we're working on are Wikipedia in Albanian and Wikidata. In January and February 2020 we co-organized 2 editathons to improve the articles related to natural monuments of Albania. Students participating where from Faculty of Science in Tirana. Details: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/February_2020/WoALUG_and_REC_Albania_continue_their_collaboration_in_Wikimedia_Education | 100% |
| 56 articles edited, 54 new articles, 105 total Edits, 29 Total Editors | Workshops with CIT Tirana, Women in Tech | Wikimedians of Albanian Language UG in Tirana and Canadian Institute of Technology (CIT) hosted their first 3day edit a thon together.
As a part of the project, young girls currently enrolled in high-school or university were introduced to historically famous women in the field of computing. tad any. Then for 3 days we ran the edit a thon. To collect the results, we used Outreach Dashboard. Details: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/Drafts/WoALUG_and_Canadian_Institute_of_Technology_write_about_women_in_tech |
100% |
| 2 Workshops, 39 Editors, 482 Total Edits | Kosovo with KEC (Kosovo Education Center) | During the period of lockdown in Kosovo, we were in talks with KEC (a non-governmental and not-for-profit organization founded in 2000 with the idea of focusing on provision of in-service teacher training programs) to discuss the possibility of collaborating together to do an online training on WIKIDATA for teachers and students.
On the first training which took place on the 21st of April, we first hosted an info session demonstrating how WIKIDATA works and set the participants a task to edit a few items until the next session. In the next session, we reviewed the edited items together via screen sharing. KEC asked us to host another training in May, which had fewer participants than the first one but nevertheless was successful. Seeing that on the previous training some of the participants were reluctant to finish the tasks we asked them to, we decided that on this session to ask them to edit the items as we were demonstrating. |
100% |
| 50 new articles, 150 editors | Wiki Ponder Workshops in Prishtina, Gjilan and Lipjan. (Kosovo) | Members of Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group in Kosovo were invited by UNICEF Innovations Lab in Kosovo to collaborate for an online workshop Ponder hosted by them. Part of the workshop, precisely the final session of the workshop, participants (mainly high school students) were asked to create new articles on sq Wikipedia. Since the first workshop resulted in success, we helped host two more of the same form thematic workshops throughout May and June.
More on the workshops: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Education/News/June_2020/Participants_of_Wiki/Ponder_online_workshop_in_Kosovo_edit_Wikipedia |
100% |
| Collaboration with Faculty of Languages in Tirana and CIT | Collaboration with Faculty of Languages in Tirana and CIT | We are in contact with CIT and a couple of departments from the Faculty of Languages in Tirana to collaborate in Education. We think the translation tool its a very good tool to be used by language departments. They have expressed their interested but we will need a follow up in October to organize online/offline event(depending how covid situation will be then) | 20% |
Outreach
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Group Photo Wikigap 2020 in Albania -
During edit a thon Wikigap 2020 in Albania -
During edit a thon Wikigap 2020 in Albania
| Metrics | Goal | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diaspora Edits Wikipedia | Though initially planned to happen the previous year, after several discussions with NGO Germin with whom we collaborated for this campaign, it was decided Diaspora Edits Wikipedia will take place during 22 January - 31 March.
The Albanian diaspora is a large community, therefore we figured that their contribution in helping improve the coverage of articles about their homelands would be much welcome. To support us in finding our audience, we invited NGO Germin - an NGO based in Prishtina which aims to connect and engage Diaspora in advancing the development of their home countries. It was our first time hosting online sessions, so it was a bit of an experiment and we did not know what to expect. Although 20 participants signed up for the sessions, only 5 joined them and by the end we had only one of the participants sent us a finished article. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/March_2020/Contents/Kosovo_report |
100% | |
| 5 Editors, 3 New Articles, 2 Articles Edited | Wiki Potter workshop in Tirana | A collaboration between Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group and Harry Potter Fans in Albania, a Harry Potter fan club. One of the many thematic collaborations we had with the aim to learn new tools, specially the translation tool in Wikipedia. This was the second time we collaborated with HPFA and, just like the first time, the event was intended as a workshop to familiarize HPFA members with the wiki culture. With a small attendance, held at a local cafe on February 2, 3 new articles were created as a result of that meeting. | 100% |
| 9 Articles Created,, 20 Articles Edited, 134 Total Edits, 8 Editors. | WikiGap 2020 in Tirana | Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group has been collaborating with the Swedish Embassy in Tirana since 2018. Over the years, the focus has been on writing articles about women around the world.
This year the focus was on Swedish and Albanian Women, specifically sport women and ambassadors. Details: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/June_2020/Contents/Albania_report |
100% |
| - | Një Fshat, Një Artikull - One Village, One Article. | Një Fshat, Një Artikull - One Village, One Article was an online campaign we did throughout March.
The name of the campaign came from the idea to invite experienced and new Wikipedians to help each village in Albania and Kosovo have its article on sq Wikipedia. However, we found that the majority of these villages already had an article but there was plenty of room to improve them. Therefore, our expectations for the outcomes were to have as many articles on these villages improved and expanded by adding infoboxes, maps, files from Commons, missing information, statistics, etc. https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/April_2020/Contents/Kosovo_report |
100% |
|
112 Articles Created,
226 Total Articles
11 Editors
|
Wikimedia CEE Spring 2020 | On May 9-10, 2020, Wikimedias of Albanian Language UG, held online - Cee Spring 2020 - edit a thon, where Albania and Kosovo participated in the competition organized by the Wikimedians of Central and Eastern Europe. During the two days, the focus was on writing new articles about the culture and history of Central and Southern European countries on Albanian Wikipedia.
Details: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Newsletter/July_2020/Contents/Albania_report |
100% |
| 38 Editors
83 Articles Created 774 articles edited |
I Edit Wikipedia | The online campaign to edit Wikipedia open to all participants was held throughout April.
Since it was open to everyone, this campaign also served to promote editing in Wikipedia and our WoALUG which we did by promoting it on channels with wide audiences on social media and by making open calls via our social media channels to edit articles in sq Wikipedia which we identified that needed improvement. As a result 38 editors participated and 774 articles in total were edited of which 83 new ones. The editors who contributed the most, were rewarded. |
100% |
| In pocess | Ilustro Wikipedia-n (Illustrate Wikipedia) - Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos | When planning our 2020 activities, we had decided to repeat last year’s “Illustrate Wikipedia” and later on this year we were presented with the idea of participating in Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos international campaign - which in essence aimed the same thing so we decided to blend them together.
We are currently in the phase of promoting the campaign and plan on hosting several online edit-a-thons and writing blog posts to help beginners understand how they can participate and help improve sq Wikipedia with illustrations. |
50% |
GLAM
| Metrics | Goal | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| In process | National Gallery of Kosova | We arranged a meeting with the director of the National Gallery of Kosova, to discuss ideas and see their willingness to collaborate.
We were happy to see they were ready to collaborate with us and we have been in talks to host a thematic edit-a-thon on Art in Kosovo (ideally sometime in September) and Wikimedian in Residence. We also been helping them to collect information that would help create a database on visual artists in Kosovo - relevant information from the information collected could be used for relevant Wiki projects such as Wikipedia and Wikidata. |
50% |
| 48 pics
In process |
National Historic Museum of Albania |
As part of our collaboration with NHMT they donated 48 high quality images from National Albanian Treasure. We uploaded the pics on commons and started populating them with data, but unfortunately they were deleted because the OTRS was not sent on time. But once we send the OTRS the pics will be returned back. Right now we are pushing the museum to sign the OTRS as soon as possible. |
90% |
Spending edit
Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.
- 4325.4 EUR Spending report
Final report edit
This is the final report for your grant, describing your outcomes from the period 1 July 2020 - 30 December. See mid report for 1 January-30 June 2020.
Program story edit
Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.
- Historic Museum of Albania
- We have been in contact with the Historic Museum of Tirana for 2 years now, and we finally managed to move our collaboration to a different level. The museum donated 48 images from the Treasure of the Nation. The images are high quality and most of them are the only copy for a certain monument or sculpture that exist in a CC license.
We uploaded all the pictures online and filled them with all the data, creating a complete file for each one of them. Unfortunately, the images were deleted because the OTRS was not sent on time. With the help of the User:Ciell, we wrote the OTRS and sent it to the museum, they had to check with their lawyer and there were a couple of backs and forths for them to understand exactly what an OTRS was. We still haven’t got the OTRS back, signed by the director but we are hoping we will get it soon and post the link of the category here.
- Ilustrate Wikipedia
- Every year since 2014, we have been organizing Wiki Loves Monuments and Earth competitions and in the last 2 years Wiki Photowalks. We realized that Wiki Photowalk was a very successful way to actually motivate people to bring their camera and to travel somewhere to take good pictures to a certain location. But because of COVID-19, this year we couldn’t organize an offline event since traveling was not safe, so we organized Ilustrate Wikipedia instead, which is an online event to use pictures that contributors uploaded in the previews years from WLM, WLE and WIkiPhotowalks.
Learning story edit
Please link to one learning story that shows how your organization documents lessons learned and adapts its programs accordingly.
- A learning story this year has been adapting our program to COVID-19 restrictions. Our yearly program is dedicated mostly to offline events. When everything started closing down and the offline events were not possible anymore, we had to find a solution by transferring almost all the events online. Our first struggle was with newbies: it was not very easy to manage and engage them online when there were more than 5 people because they all have questions and you need to dedicate time each one of them separately and that creates a bit of confusion. Participants could easily lose interest. To resolve this “first step” we start recording videos on how to get started on Wikipedia and Wikidata, and send them to the participants, and they would send us back the questions if they had any, so during the event we would start explaining the questions and then the editing would start. This helped us to manage online events better.
Results edit
Please add text or a link to a page with details on your program results. You should report on each of the objectives you included in your Simple APG application.
Education
As in our previous year, we are continuously working to push forward collaborations with educational institutions who share our common goals, including that of bringing to the fore digital literacy in the classroom - thus using Wikipedia as a tool to achieve it. White our plans were interrupted due to disruptions because of COVID-19, in the second part of the year nevertheless some opportunities were opened with partners to work with high school students online, specifically on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons in Kosovo and Albania working with Kosovo Education Center and Canadian Institute of Technology in Tirana. While formal training of teachers was postponed once again, we have not given up on this goal. In the second part of the year the following activities in our Education program took place:
| Metrics | Goal | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 96 Items Created or edited
39 participants
|
Cooperation with school clubs online | As part of our cooperation with schools and teachers, we organized training on Wikipedia and Wikidata in Q4 2020 with our partner Kosovo Education Center (KEC). The participants were young so editing Wikidata was easier and hence more productive for them. This cooperation will continue into 2021 and should lead to creation of up to 16 Wiki Clubs. In this case we are using contacts and infrastructure already established by KEC although there are complaints of online fatigue. | 100% |
| 51 Articles created or edited
100 participants
|
Ponder Wiki Academy | Ponder is an activity our partner Ipko Foundation in conjunction with Unicef organizes in Kosovo. We joined them for this particular activity called Wiki Academy to write on sexual and mental health with high school students from 2 towns in Kosovo. Since topics are difficult and sensitive health topics, we used Content Translation tool to create articles. | 100% |
GLAM
For the second part of our grant, we have not been able to make as much progress as we were hoping to with our GLAM program, mainly due to the fact that institutions were not as cooperative and this was an obstacle in pushing our plans forward. Consequently, we have shifted our focus to other institutions so we can have better results this year. In the second part of the year the following activities in our GLAM program took place:
| Metrics | Goal | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Illustrate Articles
50 photos added on articles |
Ilustrate Wikipedia Campaign | Due to COVID-19, in 2020 we couldn’t organize an offline photothon event since traveling was not safe, so we organized Ilustrate Wikipedia instead, which is an online event to use pictures contributed throughout the years to place them in articles. Incidentally, while we had already planned this activity, the international campaign Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos was organized with the same mission which we joined in July. | 100% |
| Photo of the day | Promote Albanian and Kosovo culture throw Commons pictures | We started this initiative during 2020, to post a picture everyday about a known monument or place in Albanian and Kosovo, in order to promote our culture but also to promote our contributors of different events we have been organizing. | 100% |
Outreach
The offline and online campaigns organized within our Outreach program are proven to be quite effective in promoting and spreading the word Wikimedia projects and our user group, therefore engaging a wider audience for our activities and helping the community grow. We have continued to enrich our website wikimediashqip.org by publishing guidance in written and video tutorial form as a less intimidating portal to the world of Wikipedia. Instead of mass contributions campaigns as in previous years, in 2020 we had more concentrated contributors. In September we also launched our promotion plan which envisions regular postings about Wikimedia content and developments.
In the second part of the year the following activities in our Outreach program took place:
| Metrics | Goal | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 new cities added
30 pages edited 5 participants 45 commons upload |
WikiVoyage | In August we held our WikiVoyage editathon, this time online. We edited information of 30 existing cities in Albania and Kosovo and added 4 new ones. | 100% |
| 30 articles edited | Wikidata 8th Birthday 🎉 | At the end of October, in Albania and Kosovo it was safe to organize offline events for up to 10 people. So we joined the international celebration for the Wikidata Birthday and organized an event with 5 people offline in Tirana and in Prishtina. During the event, new items were added and existing items were translated into Albanian. | 100% |
| Outreach | Wikipedia Albania 17th Birthday🎉 | For the 17th birthday of Albania Wikipedia which is on 12 October, we also organized an offline gathering with 5 people in Tirana, to celebrate our birthday. | 100% |
| One international participant (Lucie Aimee Kaffee)
One local(Greta Doci) |
Participating at Software Freedom Kosova Conference | There were 2 workshops held at SFK, one about Wikidata by Lucie and one about Wikipedia by Greta | 100% |
Spending edit
Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.
Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period.
- €12,702.34