Grants talk:Simple/Applications/Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska/2018-2019

Questions from SAPG members

From Philip Kopetzky

Hi Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska, thanks for your application! It's amazing to see how many projects you are planning to do and how willing the local community seems to be to partcipate in these projects.

Here are a few questions:

• Educational program
  • Is there any intention or goal to recruit new Wikimedians from that pool of students? Or is this program more focused on educating young people on how Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in general?
  • Your measures of success indicate that on average there will be 12 students per planned activity. Is that a normal size for a class room for your courses?
• GLAM
  • One of your measures of success is "2 new very important GLAM institutions involved in cooperation" - how do you measure that, i.e. how can you tell that a GLAM institution is "very important"?
  • Trace of Soul: It's interesting to see how more and more communities are mixing WLM and WLE to make the contest more interesting or appealing to more users. Is this contest aimed at experienced users or new users?
  • Trace of Soul measures of success: I assume "<10% photos will be used in Wikipedia in first 7 weeks after the competition" should mean "around 10%"? How do you measure "community will be stronger than now"?
• Community activities
  • Local conference
    • Since most of your work is done on Serbian Wikipedia, I assume that Wikimedia Serbia is also invited in some way?
• General questions
  • I've been keen on knowing more about your relationship with other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Is there any intention of strengthening your relationship with those Wikimedians, for example by inviting them to your local conference?

Feel free to answer the questions in-line, please don't hesitate to ask for clarification if one of my questions is confusing! Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 10:12, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Hi Philip Kopetzky! Thank you for your questions and suggestions. You will find answers below. I hope that our response will be able to clarify any dilemmas you might have.

• Educational program
  • Is there any intention or goal to recruit new Wikimedians from that pool of students? Or is this program more focused on educating young people on how Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in general?

The program will include students who have passed training and new students who are interested in work. There will be room for new students to join because it is important for us. We noticed that some students come to the workshops even though they are not beginners. Teaching is then individualized, and on that occasion, more advanced techniques of editing are explained and more complex articles are created with these students, while the basics of the editing and work on Wikipedia is explained to the beginners. We try to respect everyone and get the maximum out of organized activities.

• • Your measures of success indicate that on average there will be 12 students per planned activity. Is that a normal size for a class room for your courses?

That's right. Approximate median is taken - 12 students per workshop. Due to the spatial limitation and limited scope of technical equipment of the faculty, this is the only solution. Informatics cabinets of faculties with which we have so far cooperated are equipped with a maximum of 15 computers. Renting additional computers is very expensive and our budget does not allow the planning of massive workshops. In addition, there are occasional problems with internet connection, and the issue of retaining group attentiveness and being able to dedicate certain amount of time to every participant is also very important, so a group of 10 to 15 students is currently the most suitable for working under the specified conditions.

• GLAM
  • One of your measures of success is "2 new very important GLAM institutions involved in cooperation" - how do you measure that, i.e. how can you tell that a GLAM institution is "very important"?

Under very important institutions, we mean institutions of importance for the state, such as the Museum of the Republic of Srpska, the Museum of Herzegovina and the like. These are institutions that have a tradition and a certain reputation in the state. They are very attractive partners and their cooperation with us is a positive reference for future projects and future cooperation. Maybe we did not express ourselves well. Without the intention of neglecting the significance of some institutions, we wanted to highlight the difference between, for example, a small town library and the state museum. Everyone has a domain of its functioning, but the differences can not be denied.

• • Trace of Soul: It's interesting to see how more and more communities are mixing WLM and WLE to make the contest more interesting or appealing to more users. Is this contest aimed at experienced users or new users?

The Trace of Soul is for everyone. Both new and old users. Both amateurs and professional photographers. Anyone who wants to contribute to the preservation of cultural and natural heritage in this way. We had occurrences where new users became interested in our work through this project and become active on other projects as well. They become more actively involved in the work of the community and in working on Wikipedia itself. This is very important for us. Also, thanks to this project, some professional photographers discovered Wikimedia Commons, and after the competition they continued to post their photos. It is important to note that these are high-quality photographs, which is again important for Wikimedia Commons, and other projects in terms of quality improvement. The answer, therefore, would be that the competition was intended for both new and existing users. The goal is to attract new users and maintain connection and activate existing users and editors.

• • Trace of Soul measures of success: I assume "<10% photos will be used in Wikipedia in first 7 weeks after the competition" should mean "around 10%"? How do you measure "community will be stronger than now"?

In order to reduce the risk, we took the lowest value and predicted that 10% of the photos will be used in the first 7 weeks. It turned out that the number was too high, but we did not want to risk it by predicting greater utilization. Work on this project is complex. It involves the primary engagement of our working team, and then the engagement of partner institutions, as well as the inclusion of new members of the community in work. As a result, the community becomes stronger in several ways. First, by strengthening positive relationships within the work team in the implementation of joint tasks, by engaging new members and putting them into an active position in the implementation of project activities. Also, the support of partner institutions is very important and affects the reputation of the community within the country.

• Community activities
  • Local conference
    • Since most of your work is done on Serbian Wikipedia, I assume that Wikimedia Serbia is also invited in some way?

As before, in the initial phase of the preparation for the conference, we practice inviting users of Serbian Wikipedia, on Serbia Wikipedia village pump, to engage in the event in accordance with their interests and wishes. They can apply as teachers if they want to. We do the same on the neighborhood Wikipedia village pumps(Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian-Croatian). We are open to cooperation and everyone is welcome! Until now, we did not have any cooperation with the Wikimedia of Serbia when organizing an event of this type. We had guests who are members of Wikimedia Serbia and editors of Serbian Wikipedia who live in Serbia.

• General questions
  • I've been keen on knowing more about your relationship with other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Is there any intention of strengthening your relationship with those Wikimedians, for example by inviting them to your local conference?

As we stated in the previous answer, we always do it. Not only during the organization of the conference, but also when working on other projects. We invite all neighbors to cooperate.

If you have other questions - we are at your disposal. Best, --Bojana Wiki PG (talk) 20:21, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies, Bojana Wiki PG! :-) They helped me understand your goals and projects a lot better. I don't think we will resolve the questions around metrics right now, but I look forward to talking to you about this in the future :-) Best, Philip Kopetzky (talk) 11:50, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Questions from Siarus1074 / Kai

It was a pleasure to meet you in person at the Wikimedia Conference. I was delighted to hear about all the wonderful programming you are doing especially WikiWomen, the competitions, education programming and local conference. I was hoping you might have a moment to answer a few questions.

Educational Program

• It looks like you are doing well in this area. You mention you edit-a-thons with thematic focused topics that have little to no representation on Wikipedia. Can you expand upon this?
  • Are you referring to the gender gap or something else?
• You mention onew of your goals is to partner with new educational institutions and I see you wrote that you will work on the education of teachers and professor. Can you share more details of your plan for this?
  • For example, do you plan to do workshops? Educate teachers at each individual institution? Create videos?

I look forward to hearing from you. Siarus1074 (talk) 01:13, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Hello Siarus1074! The pleasure is ours. Thank you for your questions. Below you can find our answers. If you have any other questions, please feel free to write to us.

Educational Program

• It looks like you are doing well in this area. You mention you edit-a-thons with thematic focused topics that have little to no representation on Wikipedia. Can you expand upon this?

We try to prepare proposals for new articles in each workshop and to process topics that are not adequate or at all present on Wikipedia. In addition, we can enable self-initiative students to work on the topic they want to write about and which they choose for themselves. We do not want to force themes and make the work boring in that way. Most often, they are interested in the topics we propose and we are happy to work on them. In this way, we achieve two goals - we get an article on a topic that is not represented, and students learn something new on that occasion. In the future, we will definitely strive to make a correlation between the contents and contribute to overcoming the gap with regard to the underprivileged topics.

• • Are you referring to the gender gap or something else?

We also think of the gender gap, but also the gap in view of the topics that are not represented. For example, in Serbian Wikipedia there are many good articles in the category of film, while the category of medical articles is almost empty. It's the same thing with other areas: religions, psychology, mathematics and the like. We are trying to contribute to overcoming this gap.

• You mention onew of your goals is to partner with new educational institutions and I see you wrote that you will work on the education of teachers and professor. Can you share more details of your plan for this?

In addition to the students, in each workshop a couple of their teachers would take part. On one hand, as our partners helping in the realization of the workshop, and on the other hand, as participants who also receive training. So far, we have had positive experiences because we repeated several workshops in the same institutions. Each time a new teacher and professor would join. Some have also been involved in more active community work. In the future, we want to work with this target group through planned seminars that would be accredited and supported by the Ministry of Education in our country. Only in that case would we be sure that the teachers would respond and get involved. Such a project would require higher financial expenditures, which we are not currently in a position to provide.

• • For example, do you plan to do workshops? Educate teachers at each individual institution? Create videos?

As for the sharing of our experience in the Edu sphere, we keep records in the form of individual case studies. We regularly report to the community about activities through the site, blogs and social networks. Also, we regularly update Outreach page. On Commons there is a video that was made last year. It presents the Educational System of the Republic of Srpska and the possibilities of improving the teaching process through Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia primarily). We will work hard in the future to keep our reporting on a regular basis.

Best, --Bojana Wiki PG (talk) 20:32, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

Simple APG committee recommendations

Committee recommendations

Funding recommendations: Wikimedia Community of Republic of Srpska (WCRS) is a returning applicant requesting 13,400 EUR for 12 months. We recommend funding Wikimedians of Republic of Srpska in the amount of 13,400 EUR + a 10% contingency for unforeseen risks and opportunities, or in the amount of 14,740 EUR total for 12 months. WCRS has been engaged in activities in their region for a couple of years now and has established itself as a trustworthy and reliable partner in their part of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as demonstrated by their partnerships and media attention in the past year, highlighted by the Wiki Ambassador program. WCRS’ many projects around competitions (Wiki Loves Monuments, Wiki Women, etc.) are promising increasing results. It will be interesting to see the outcomes of this plan and what WCRS will have learned along the way, especially in the fields of creating more awareness for free knowledge and attracting new volunteers through these contests. In order to ensure the long-term success of WCRS, we think it critical to also take care of the volunteers’ emotions and capacity to volunteer for the organisation. Having a healthy community is the foundation of a strong and prosperous organization, as outlined by the strategic direction. WCRS’s goal of establishing two new GLAM partnerships on the national level seems ambitious, but given their track record so far it doesn’t seem unrealistic. We look forward to seeing the results of these partnerships in the future reports. WCRS’s education program seems manageable. We think it is great that they are focused on training teachers and have long term plans to organize seminars that would be supported by the Ministry of Education. We think WCRS should track activity with teachers they train and build more partnerships with them. A big part of WCRS’s budget is for planning a local conference, which makes sense in their current stage of development, especially in order to establish basic communication with a large part of the community. Though we do recognise the need for face-to-face meetings, when establishing or improving good working practices in the community we think it is also important to include volunteers online in order to make this process as transparent as possible. Furthermore, this conference should also be seen as an opportunity to connect local volunteers with the wider Wikiverse around them, especially other groups or volunteers in Bosnia-Herzegovina but also the other groups of the Balkans around them.

Strengths identified by the committee: See recommendations above.

Concerns identified by the committee: See recommendations above.

On behalf of the committee. Philip Kopetzky (talk) 08:37, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

WMF decision

Approved. 13,400 EUR + a 10% contingency for unforeseen risks and opportunities, or 14,740 EUR total for 12 months. Congratulations! Winifred Olliff (WMF Program Officer) talk 18:30, 25 May 2018 (UTC)