Wikimedia CH/Grant apply/Classroom to the Amazon: Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi GLAM

Infodata

Name of the project:Classroom to the Amazon: Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi GLAM
Amount requested: CHF 39.800,00
Type of grantee: Organization
Name of the contact: EAzzellini (WMB); CCosta (WMB)
Contact: erica wmnobrasil.org; celio wmnobrasil.org

In case of questions, please write to grant wikimedia.ch

The problem and the context

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Ex libris by Emílio Goeldi

The Museum Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG) is the largest research and museum institution of the Brazilian state of Pará, in the Amazon region. It is located in the urban center of Belém, capital of the state of Pará, and it is considered a “classroom to the Amazon” for its pioneer scientific studies and the on-site educational activities on the natural and sociocultural systems of the Amazon, receiving more than 400 thousand visitors per year. The museum holds a 5,4 acre zoo botanical park - the first of its genre in Brazil, founded in 1866 -, that includes a live collection of fauna and flora and fixed ethnographical and archeological exhibits. Besides the zoo botanical park, the complex of the museum holds two other facilities: a research station and a scientific base, in the National Forest of Caxiuanã.

The Pará state, a region twice the size of France that comprehends a significant portion of the Brazilian Amazon, is an information desert on the Wikimedia projects.

MPEG is the legacy of the Swiss naturalist Émil August Goeldi, who ran and reorganized the institution during his mandate between 1894 and 1905. Goeldi was responsible for structuring a comprehensive e rigorous studies of the Amazon region and for organizing the first collections of the institution during this period marked by the europeans naturalists influence in Brazil. Today, the institution holds 19 main scientific collections with more than 4,5 million items and it is recognized worldwide as one of the most important research institutions on the Brazilian Amazon. The collections are broadly divided into: botany and zoology, ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, soil collection, palynology and rare works (these include drawings by European naturalists in Brazil in the 19th century). Part of the collection is already digitized, but not available on Wikimedia yet.

MPEG is located in the heart of the city that will host the United Nations Climate Change conference in 2025 (COP-30). The event is promised to center the Amazon in the discussion around climate change and the city of Belém is already going through infrastructural changes to receive the event. But the open knowledge ecosystem still lacks quality information about the Amazon’ social and natural ecosystems.

In 2023, Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB), invested in partnerships in the state of Pará through the Wiki Loves Pará project, in order to consistently engage local communities on Wikimedia projects to cover quality information about the region. The diagnosis is that the Pará state, a region twice the size of France that comprehends a significant portion of the Brazilian Amazon, is an information desert on the Wikimedia projects. By consequence, the Amazonian natural, historical and sociocultural diversity is invisible in the open knowledge ecosystem.

A GLAM Wiki partnership with Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi and its scientific and educational community is an opportunity to shift the scenario and democratize knowledge about the Amazon in its various dimensions. Considering the visibility that the region will receive for hosting the COP-30 in 2025, Wiki Movimento Brasil finds in MPEG, a major institution structured under a Swiss influence, a strong ally to prepare the internet with scientific information about the Amazon.

Even though Wiki Movimento Brasil has already +40 GLAM Wiki partnerships, the challenge with MPEG that this project is trying to solve has two dimensions. First, ensure that this new GLAM is well structured on Wikimedia projects in order to make their knowledge actually visible online for educational and cultural purposes. And second, encourage and develop an institutional culture that comprehends the digital dissemination aspect of the GLAM partnership as part of the in-house process, leading to more autonomy in the near future.

Summary of the problem:
Museum Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG) is the major Brazilian reference institution on studies of the natural and sociocultural systems of the Amazon, but their knowledge is not on Wikimedia yet.

This is particularly worrying, given that the city of Belém will host world leaders to debate climate change and the role of the Amazon in this, during COP-30 in 2025, and the open knowledge ecosystem still lacks quality information about the subject.

Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) have been focused since late 2022 in the diagnosis that the Pará state, where significant portions of the Amazon is located, is underrepresented in its social, cultural and natural diversity. During the project Wiki Loves Pará, WMB have built relationships with local communities to ensure sustainable partnerships and activities that have global impact and are consistent with local contexts.

The challenge is to include such reference institution and their knowledge on Wikimedia ensuring: 1. that the content is well structured and disseminated and 2. that a digital dissemination culture is developed inside the institution itself.

What is your solution to this problem (please explain the context and the solution)?

WMB and museum staff meeting at the Emílio Goeldi Zoobotanical Park, in 2023

With this project, Wiki Movimento Brasil proposes to bring the “classroom to the Amazon” to the open knowledge ecosystem through the Wikimedia projects. Given the context related above, 2024 is the perfect moment to deepen and strengthen the local community of MPEG on the open knowledge ecosystem as a means to prepare the internet for the COP-30, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It will also be the first year of working together with MPEG.

To properly include MPEG on Wikimedia, a major research and educational institution, it is key to go beyond GLAM uploads and invest in skills for the museum staff and community so that the institutional culture is well aligned with the digital dissemination protocols of a GLAM Wiki partnership. This will allow the museum to develop autonomy over the years to come in the partnership with Wiki Movimento Brasil and build a strong community around the GLAM. Wikimedia volunteers will play a significant role in this process as well.

Regarding content, a close relationship with the museum in a cycle of activities to improve the quality of media and information on the Wikimedia projects is key to do justice to the size and importance of the collections that the institution is willing to share online. It will impact future educational resources with curated knowledge about the Amazon in different media - whether it is photos, documents, scientific papers or metadata. For this to happen, a strategic work plan is needed to assess which collections will be uploaded and in which priority, and with what safety concerns, so that future dissemination activities can be related to their usage on Wikimedia and beyond, besides addressing a compromise with the partnership sustainability.

Wiki Movimento Brasil currently has more than 40 GLAM Wiki partnerships with institutions of varying sizes and each one has its own characteristics. The biggest partnership to date was with the Museu Paulista, from which we experimented and developed protocols for systematic uploading of collections of different types and digital dissemination strategies with community engagement, given the size and variety of its collection. The idea is that for the partnership with MPEG there will be a cycle of engagement activities that can train people and engage communities in the museum circuit.

All resources and documentation produced during the project will be shared on appropriate channels to ensure that different stakeholders will have access to them. Same with reports on learnings, since this knowledge can serve other contexts willing to replicate or adapt the strategies and activities elaborated for MPEG.

Summary of the solution:
Based on previous experiences with major GLAMs responsible for safeguarding knowledge on topics of impact, Wiki Movimento Brasil will focus the first year of the partnership with MPEG to structure a strategic work plan and engage stakeholders on the open knowledge ecosystem.

Activities in this project must be designed to educate, empower, and inspire individuals and stakeholders to actively participate in the Wikimedia movement while also enhancing the institution's institutional culture regarding open knowledge and digital dissemination.

The solution is to go beyond the upload of items from the GLAM, and develop a capacity building and engagement project so that 1. the museum community gains autonomy in the digital dissemination processes and 2. the content made available is visible and relevant within the open knowledge ecosystem, given the value of quality scientific information in the collection and the context of discussions about the Amazon worldwide

Project goals

Project goals are:

Significantly enrich the Wikimedia ecosystem with valuable content related to the Amazonian scientific knowledge through GLAM Wiki uploads, under the context of the coming United Nations Climate Change conference (COP-30) in Brazil;
Set the foundation for a sustainable GLAM Wiki partnership by building a strong and engaged community around it, with capacity building opportunities for the museum staff; and
Ensure that the knowledge gained from this project is documented and shared so that it can be replicated or adapted for different settings.

Project impact

How will you know if you have met your goals?

Metrics were designed based on previous experiences and are the quantitative expression of what would be considered a success for a ten months project (see below).
Develop a strategic work plan with the museum, in order to anticipate future steps and possible challenges for the coming years.
Structured feedback with stakeholders will also provide indicators of success for the goals that are directly related to them, specially on the capacity building aspect.
Systematically publishing documentation of the project for the broader community to access, in line with a communications plan designed for the project.

Do you have any goals or metrics around participation or content?

Metrics on participation and content are:

Metrics
Wikimedia Commons files	Files uploaded in continous flow; photos taken by professional	9000
Wikidata items (created/improved)	Metadata uploaded in continuous flow	5000
Wikipedia articles (created/improved)	Wikicontest contribution	1000
Participants and editors	Community activities participants	600
Tutorials/classes	Mapping activity; digital dissemination course resources	11
Strategic document	Work plan and evaluation assessment	1

Project plan

Activities

Activities for this project are organized in two streams: content and community. For the first year of the project with MPEG, content activities are related to the quantitative impact mainly on Wikimedia projects, while community activities are designed to create a culture around the GLAM Wiki partnership and create sustainability in the partnership.

Activities of the project are:

Activities
Content	GLAM Wiki uploads Professional photos of collections Improvement of digital mapping
Community	Open knowledge seminar Digital dissemination course Wikicontest

Content

GLAM Wiki uploads

Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi holds more than 4.5 million items in 19 main scientific collections. Part of them is already digitized and will be systematically uploaded on Wikimedia under the GLAM Wiki partnership with Wiki Movimento Brasil. Given the dimension of the institution and their collection, this process will be supported by an assistant based in Belém to do direct in person work with the staff of the museum and transfer files to the permanent remote staff of Wiki Movimento Brasil specialized in GLAM Wiki processes. The GLAM Wiki uploads will also involve:

Structure the portal for the GLAM Wiki partnership
Elaborate a work program with the museum to strategize the priority and flow of the uploads in direct collaboration with the curatorship of the museum
Organize operations to systematically upload files on Wikimedia
Design dissemination activities for the uploads, considering their topics

We are expected to upload at least 8.000 Wikimedia Commons files and 5.000 Wikidata items in 2024. To support the long run partnership, it will also be elaborated a strategic document with a work plan and evaluation assessment for the following years.

Professional photos of collections

Although part of some collections are already digitized, there are still thousands of items to be photographed in order to: 1. preserve them and 2. disseminate their knowledge online. To improve the coverage of content, the project also includes taking new photos of MPEG’s collections.

In 2016, Wiki Movimento Brasil had a professional to photograph the collection of the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy (FMVZ USP) for our GLAM partnership. The small university museum went from a few thousand in person visitors per year to millions of views in a short period due to the quality of the images of their collection being used on Wikimedia. Today, the 629 files from the GLAM have a monthly rate of 2,9 million views and are being used as educational resources. More on this case study here. Therefore, given the nature of the collections of Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, including the live fauna e flora collection, and the need for more photos of them, in this project a designated photographer will cover part of their collections to be uploaded on Wikimedia. The steps for this activity include:

Dialogue with the curators to decide which collection items will be photographed
A designated photographer will spend at least one week working together with the institution
The photos and their metadata will be organized and uploaded on Wikimedia
Photos will be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles afterwards

The number of photos is to be decided, based on the evaluation of type, priority and availability of items by the curatorship of the museum, and it is currently estimated at 1000 photos.

Improvement of digital mapping

Collaborative mapping is a relevant instrument to include Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi on the open knowledge ecosystem beyond the Wikimedia projects, especially given the complexity of its headquarters in the zoo botanical park.

In 2021, Wiki Movimento Brasil experimented with mapping on the Museu Paulista GLAM initiative. It resulted in very detailed mapping of each room of the building, the surrounding park and a video of the process. For Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi GLAM, the proposal is to improve the mapping of the museum area and its zoo botanical park and document the process as a tutorial, in order to share knowledge on how to do it.

Improvement of the zoo botanical park complex on OpenStreetMaps
Elaboration of a tutorial on how to work with collaborative mapping using Goeldi’s as a case study

The mapping will be done by an experienced wikimedian, hired also to do the tutorial.

Community

Open knowledge seminar

The seminar is the launch event for the GLAM-Wiki partnership. It is a means to connect Wiki Movimento Brasil with Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi internal culture and what they are currently doing as a strategy for science dissemination.

Topics to be covered during the seminar:

GLAM Wiki partnerships as digital dissemination strategy for museums
Case studies on GLAM Wiki partnerships in Brazil
Community engagement during the GLAM Wiki partnership
MPEG’s educational and scientific dissemination strategies

Staff from Wiki Movimento Brasil will have the opportunity to actually go on-site and better understand the dynamics of the institution and its complexity. Former partners that went through the process of digital dissemination with Wiki Movimento Brasil will be invited to participate in order to share experiences.

The seminar will take place in person during two days, with at least four main speakers and 30 participants from the MPEG’s network, including staff and their scientific community.

Digital dissemination course

The goal of this course is to support the development and strengthening of an institutional culture that understands their role in the open knowledge ecosystem and how Wikimedia platforms are allies in their daily practices. Once the staff of the museum is aligned with the opportunities presented by digital dissemination through Wikimedia, it will be easier over the next years of the partnership for them to gain autonomy in the GLAM Wiki processes, which is in line with Wiki Movimento Brasil’ Strategy 2023-2025 to support a decentralized governance of Wikimedia agency in the Brazilian territory.

The audience for this course is the staff of the museum. The program will be an updated version of the course “O Museu Paulista na cultura digital”, organized by Wiki Movimento Brasil in 2021 under the context of the Museu Paulista partnership. It includes topics such as:

Copyright on digital museum collections;
Digital collections policies;
Interoperability and websemantics;
Diagnosis for institutional technological maturity;
Wikimedia as platforms for digital dissemination of collections; and more.

The course will take place online during three months, with the support of three professors experts in the domain. Classes will be recorded and publicly shared.

Wikicontest

Besides staff and the community of the museum, this project aims to engage wikimedians in content related to the collections to be uploaded, in order to improve the quality of information online and add to the ecosystem of the GLAM partnership. This activity is an editing contest on Wikipedia in Portuguese. Over three months, new and experienced editors improve and create articles to enhance the coverage of Amazonian issues on the free encyclopedia. By the end of the contest, users who contributed the most will receive prizes. The contest will be dedicated to the Amazonian region and topics related to the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP-30) agenda and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The contest involves the following steps:

Curatorship of content in partnership with MPEG and organization of the contest infrastructure on Wikipedia
Online event for the launch of the contest
Monitoring of edits and volunteer support
Online event for the closing of the contest and awarding the winners

It is expected to have at least 500 editors subscribed to the contest, with at least 300 new articles created and other 1000 improved, adding at least 3 million bytes of information to Wikipedia. Wiki Movimento Brasil have organized such wikicontests annually.

Activities will happen in the following timeline:

Activity	FEB	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	JUL	AUG	SEP	OCT	NOV	DEC
Timeline
GLAM Wiki infrastrucuture setup	X	X
GLAM uploads				X	X	X	X	X	X	X
Professional photos of the collections			X
Digital mapping			X
Open knowledge seminar				X
Digital dissemination course					X	X	X
Wikicontest								X	X	X
Strategic work plan											X

Budget

Besides Wiki Movimento Brasil staff, the project will need contractors for the period of ten months to properly execute the activities. It includes one assistant in Belém, working on-site with the museum staff, and one assistant working remotely to support the infrastructure of the project. Both assistants will be on the team for ten months. Plus, the project will need: an experienced wikimedian will be hired to map the zoo botanical park and its surroundings plus make the tutorial on mapping; a professional photographer to photograph the collections; and three professors to organize and deliver classes in the digital dissemination course.

The budget also includes equipment, prizes and travel expenses for the execution of the proposed activities.

Contractors	Monthly value (BRL)	Number of months of activity	Amount (BRL)	Amount (CHF)
Budget
Projects Assistant (local)	R$ 4.520,00	10	R$ 45.200,00	CHF 8.862,75
Projects Assistant (remote)	R$ 4.520,00	10	R$ 45.200,00	CHF 8.862,75
Photographer	R$ 4.520,00	2	R$ 9.040,00	CHF 1.772,55
Digital dissemination course (3 university professors)	R$ 7.500,00	3	R$ 22.500,00	CHF 4.411,76
Mapping of the museum and surroundings (experienced wikimedian)	R$ 4.520,00	2	R$ 9.040,00	CHF 1.772,55
Item	-	-	Amount (BRL)	Amount (CHF)
Equipement for photos			R$ 22.000,00	CHF 4.313,73
Wikicontest prizes			R$ 18.000,00	CHF 3.529,41
Travel and accommodation costs			R$ 32.000,00	CHF 6.274,51
Total	-	-	Amount (BRL)	Amount (CHF)
Total project value			R$ 202.980,00	CHF 39.800,00
Exchange rate			R$ 5,10	CHF 1,00

Community engagement

Community engagement for this project involves MPEG’s staff, their scientific and educational community and partners, and Wikimedia volunteers.

A communications plan will be designed for it, in order to systematically activate MPEG’s and Wiki Loves Pará’ network, the latter developed by Wiki Movimento Brasil during 2023. Social media, press and on-wiki communication will be included in the plan. WMB has been contributing to the This Month in GLAM newsletter for years and will use this and other international Wikimedia spaces to report and engage the broader community on the partnership.

Regular meetings between MPEG’s and Wiki Movimento Brasil are key to ensure a fruitful relationship and in person meetings with staff will be set on a calendar to create consistency in the work together.

Activities under “community” were designed to engage the scientific community and partners of MPEG, their staff and Wikimedia volunteers. Each of the activities will take into account the needs of the audience, in consultation with them. For the wikicontest, for example, we’ll offer online training sessions for newcomers. In-person and remote events in the program will allow for connection between stakeholders and their program will be contextualized locally.