Wikimedia Israel/Strategic Plan

The strategy exists in a Hebrew Version, followed by an English version.

This plan is in draft status.

את השלבים בתהליך האסטרטגי תוכלו לקרוא כאן

חזון

עמותת ויקימדיה ישראל פועלת ליצירה, לשחרור, ולהנגשה של מידע וידע חופשיים

ערכים

• אנו מאמינים בבכבוד הדדי כמפתח ליצירת קהילת מתנדבים מעורבת, המאפשרת השתתפות כלל האוכלוסיה

• אנו דוגלים בשיתופיות ובגישה חופשית למידע ולידע

• אנו מאמינים ביזמות ככלי משמעותי להרחבה מתמדת של פעילותנו וכאמצעי ליצירת דרכי גישה חדשניות למידע ולידע

• אנו פועלים בשקיפות למול חברי העמותה והקהילה, שותפינו והציבור

מטרות על

• טיפוח מתמיד וחתירה לגיוון של קהילת הידע החופשי

• הנגשה של מידע וידע חופשיים לציבור

• חיזוק המודעות לחשיבות נחלת הכלל ולגישה חופשית למידע ולידע

2015-2017 מטרות

• חיזוק והרחבת קהילת עורכי ויקיפדיה ומתנדבי ויקימדיה

• תמיכה בקהילות נוספות העוסקות בידע חופשי

• פיתוח משאבים (אנושיים ופיסיים) לקידום הנגשת חומרים ברישיון חופשי

• כינון שיתופי פעולה משמעותיים עם מוסדות מידע וידע

• קידום המודעות הציבורית לחשיבותם של הידע החופשי ולהרחבת נחלת הכלל

• חיזוק המעורבות ושיתוף הידע בקהילה הבינלאומית

שיפור מערך ההדרכה למיזמי ויקימדיה

פיתוח ותחזוק תשתיות ארגוניות

Vision

Wikimedia Israel is creating, preserving and making open knowledge and information accessible for all.

Values

We believe that mutual respect is vital for developing and sustaining an involved community of volunteers from all walks of life.

We advocate open and shared content and free access to knowledge and information.

We believe that initiative, both personal and institutional, is vital for the constant development of our activities, and an important tool for the creation of new and innovative ways to make information and knowledge accessible for all.

We believe in transparency in our operations and our dealings with our members, our volunteers, our partners and the public.

Strategic Goals

• Nurturing and diversifying open-content communities.

• Making knowledge and information open and accessible for all.

• Raising public awareness to the importance of open and data and open knowledge

Goals for 2015 - 2017

• Expanding and strengthening communities of Wikipedia editors and Wikimedia volunteers

• Supporting other open content communities

• Developing human and technological infrastructure to promote the creation of openly licensed materials

• stablishing meaningful collaborations with knowledge-centric institutions

• Raising public awareness about the importance of open data and of the public domain and its expansion

• Improving the training infrastructure for Wikimedia initiatives

• Strengthening our involvement internationally - sharing experience with, and learning from the international Wikimedia community

• Developing and strengthening our organizational infrastructure

Strategy planning process

Background

Wikimedia Israel is currently developing a three-year strategic plan. Its goal is to develop and strengthen the chapter’s current activities and initiatives and create new ones. Wikimedia Israel strives to establish, expand and develop projects and initiatives that enhance the use of and access to open knowledge and information. In addition, WMIL will increase international cooperation and exchange of knowledge in the Wikimedia movement.
The strategic process included interviews, questionnaires, community meetings and an analysis of the current strengths and weaknesses of WMIL.
Wikimedia Israel has begun to outline its strategic plan in June 2014, when the Board and the ED met to discuss a future work plan. It was decided to begin the process by interviewing chapter's stakeholders and leading figures related to the chapter’s activities in order to research and understand what constitutes success, the goals that need to be defined to reach our objectives, policies that need to be changed or refined, and probable implications following such changes. These in-depth interviews were conducted with one or two representatives of WMIL various stakeholders: representatives of the international community, community members (Wikipedians, Wikimedians), WMF representatives, representatives from academic institutions, representatives from cultural institutions that collaborate with the chapter and representatives from several NGOs.

This process is being led by a steering committee whose members are:

• Itzik Edri, Chairman of the Board of Governors
• Yael Meron, Board member and chapter secretary
• Ido Ivry, Board member
• Tomer Ashur, Former Chairman of the Board of Governors
• Michal Lester, ED, Wikimedia Israel
• Sarah Horowitz, strategic planning consultant
  

Research Method

The strategic process is based on a number of research methods: acquaintance and learning of strategic processes of other chapters - WMUK, WMFR, WMNL and the Wikimedia Foundation, in-depth interviews, questionnaires disseminated among community members and supporters, focus meetings with community members and SWOT analysis.

The Steering Committee defined the key stakeholders of the chapter and chose to turn prominent representatives of each of them. Luckily, all of them agreed to interview beside one. A questionnaires comprehensive were sent to to WMIL mailling list, pratners and others. 90 respondents answered; 40% of whom participated in chapter project/s, 30% were Wikipedians, and the rest were volunteers and other stakeholderser. The aim was to map and analyze which projects are to be preserved, and which projects are in need of development and enhancement. The respondents were also asked to suggest new ideas and directions for other chapter activities.

Interviewees’ names and roles:

1. David Shai, veteran editor, Hebrew Wikipedia.
2. Hana Yariv, chapter member, facilitator of Wikimedia projects in University of Haifa and editor, Hebrew Wikipedia.
3. Anasuya Sengupta. Senior Director of Grantmaking, WMF.
4. Garfield Byrd, CFO, Wikimedia Foundation.
5. Prof. Karine Nahon, external Board member, Wikimedia Israel.
6. Beni Daon, Founder and CTO, Public Knowledge Workshop.
7. Prof. Uri Amitai, senior lecturer, University of Haifa.
8. Dror Kamir, editor in the Hebrew Wikipedia and one of the founders of Wikimedia Israel.
9. Dr. Patricio Lorente, WMF trustee.
10. Orly Simon, Head of Public Services, National Library of Israel.
    

Focus meetings and Board meetings

A part of our strategic planning process, our staff, community members and Board members have convened to discuss directions and actions needed to further our chapter’s growth. Preliminary plan review meetings were held with Board members and personnel, as well as two open meetings with our community members for brainstorming and open discussions. Protocols and decisions made in these meetings were published on Meta-Wiki. Meetings were held and are planned to be held on the following dates in 2014:

• July 16: Preliminary Board meeting
• July 23: Preliminary Board meeting
• July 25: Focus meeting with community members
• August 14: Board meeting
• August 29: Focus meeting with community members
• November 28: A Final meeting for devising a strategic plan

SWOT Analysis

Strengths:

• Strong track record of success
• Sagnificant existing partnerships
• Active volunteers - a vibrant community
• Entrepreneurial volunteers
• Stable funding sources
• Stabilization of the chapter
• Starting to see lasting cooperations between the chapter and GLAM institutions
• Strong networking with decision makers
• Active at the international level
• Committed staff and board that collaborate successfully with the community
• High media visibility

Weaknesses:

• Small number of very active volunteers but a low community growth
• There is no pool of candidates to diversify the board
• Volunteers not professional enough (need more training programs)
• Limited experience in fundraising and financial dependency on the FDC
• The chapter is measuring only some of the programs but is building capacity to become more experienced effective
• Not enough diversification in the volunteer community
• Need more connection to sister wiki communities (wikibooks, wikiquotes…) in Israel
• Some existing programs have low impact and need revising (and/or a change of mindset)

Opportunities:

• Building a significant partnership with the Ministry of Education
• Increasing collaborations between chapters
• Improving the relationship with the Wikipedia Community
• Expanding relationships with new communities - new programs might bring new volunteers on board
• Visual editor which will helps to bring new editors
• A large technical community that might help develop MediaWiki
• Ability to support new wiki communities
• A lot of common ground with Israeli Open Data/ Open Source NGOs

Threats:

• Rapid professionalization of the chapter that would hurt the volunteering spirit
• Rapid deployment of new fields - need to ensure new programs sustainable
• Closed editors' community is not receptive to new editors
• Wikimedia Users groups and thematic organizations may open in Israel
• Working with the ministry of education can prove to be a difficult collaboration
• Need to ensure everyone is onboard with long term thinking and the changes to the work plans in the next few years
• Proposed changes to existing programs might cause resistence from volunteers
• The need to measure and be impactful is not well understood by volunteers
• Lack of cooperation among third sector organizations in Israel

Main Survey Findings

Most of the chapter’s activities received a 4.8 rank with a standard deviation higher than 2. That is, the findings did not show a significant and unequivocal trend related to the need to continue or discontinue any specific activity/initiative/project. In addition, when the answers were compared between different segments, no significant differences were found.

The main themes that arose from both the in-depth interviews and questionnaires are as follows:

• The need for an open community that will incorporate new editors and volunteers, facilitate their work and follow-up on it.

• Expansion of the Hebrew Wikipedia through an increase in the number of articles, diversification of subject-matters and the recruitment of new editors (women, minorities, editors that can write and edit in other languages spoken in Israel).

• Promotion of more activities in sister initiatives (Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikisource, GLAM and so on).

• Strategic collaborations with local and international knowledge communities, as these can contribute to, expand upon and support public access to open content.

• Education system and the academia: Establishing long-term partnerships with educational institutions and organizations, as research and information created and supported by them are perceived as updated and innovative.
  

As a whole, this process has led us to the understanding that our stakeholders seek to create open, updated, diverse and increasingly accessible content.

Feedback from the community

During the community meetings, we have gathered extensive feedback from the Wikipedian and Wikimedian communities, in a few key ares: cultivation of the existing communities and expansion to help sister projects in need; arranging more face to face meetings and events (such as edit-a-thons); a need for a more systematic work in the academia and/or education; a strong voice to continuing our efforts to release materials into the public domain / with free licenses, with an emphasis of interesting sources that do not reside in "classic" institutions, but in small city archives and/or personal collections; and finally - the significance of the effort to cultivate a technical volunteer community to the Hebrew Wiikipedia.