Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Oesterreich/July2014

Community Support

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WikiDienstag

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Windows of WMAT's office

The WikiDienstag (“WikiTuesday“) is a weekly meet-up in the WMAT office. Volunteers share their knowledge and work together on improving the content of Wikimedia projects.

Topics in July:
  • July 1st: Open Data Portal launch (excursion)
  • July 8th: Updating Wikipedia biographies with the help of a newly published report of the City of Vienna on streets named after antisemitic people
  • July 15th: Workshop on Wikimedia Commons tools for a better documentation of and access to media files
  • July 22nd: How to handle the impact of new WWI books and WWI theories on edit wars in Wikipedia
  • July 29th: How to maintain quality and standardization of Wikipedia articles on municipalities in other countries than Austria

WMAT staff involved: 1. - Active volunteers involved: 6–7. - WMAT support: infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion.

WikiDienstag in the German-language Wikipedia

Portal Earth Sciences Meet-up

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Wikipedians exploring the mine

An Austrian Wikimedian participated in a meet-up of the German-language Wikipedia Portal Earth Sciences (“Portal Erdwissenschaften“). The meeting took place in the mining region of Ruhr in Germany. The participants visited a mine, learned how to write articles about the complex geology of North Rhine-Westphalia and how to make useful photos of outcrops for Wikipedia. - Active volunteers involved: 16. - WMAT support: travel grant for an Austrian volunteer.

Report in members wiki (in German)

Wikimania preparation

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Preparing the Austrian grantees/participants for this year's Wikimania included organizational support (hotel booking etc.), communicating various, sometimes changing basic information by the organizers, putting together information on aspects worth-knowing for Austrians in particular, discussing reporting requirements and organizing a special pre-Wikimania meeting in Vienna.- WMAT staff involved: 2.

Coordination page in members wiki (in German)

Free Content Generation

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Launch Open Data Portal

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The ODP core team and partners at the press conference

On July 1, 2014 we launched the Open Data Portal Austria (www.opendataportal.at) - a central data portal for business, culture, NGO/NPO, research and civil society as a joint venture of public administration and open culture communities (Wikimedia and Open Knowledge Foundation OKF). The Open Data Portal Austria primarily stores meta data, but also offers opportunity to upload data sets. The project follows the Open Data Principles of Cooperation OGD Austria and is an extension of the open government data portals of the Austrian Public Administration; the data and project results are made available under the free licence CC-BY AT 3.0. The project was sponsored with 50,000 EUR by the Internet Foundation Austria (IPA).

The launch events consisted of a press conference at the Federal Chancellery in the morning and an opening event for the communities (Wikimedia, OKF, developers) and partners (data economy, eGov stakeholders) sponsored by the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. Another reason to celebrate: Two days prior to the launch, our partner the Cooperation OGD Austria received the UN Public Service Award in the category "Improving the delivery of Public Services". The collaboration with the various communities in the context of the Open Data Portal and beyond makes Austria an inspiration and a model for other countries, as the awarding jury pointed out.

The entire open source code of the portal is available in the repository opendataportal.at on GitHub. We appreciate error reports, feature requests and contributions from the community.

For more details on the overall project and technical details please check out our presentation slides from Wikimania 2014: Presentation of Manuel Schneider, Stefan Kasberger and Claudia Garad on the Open Data Portal Austria at Wikimania 2014 - Participants press conference: 15 - Participants launch event: 100 - Active volunteers involved: 1, WMAT staff involved: 1 (+ project partners from OKF & Cooperation OGD) - WMAT support: project management, administration / grant handling, communication.

WLM Kick-off

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WLM logo

It is the time of the year again when the excitement for the next edition of Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is slowly kicking in. Traditionally, this starts with our kick-off meeting with the colleagues from the Austrian Federal Monuments Office, our longstanding GLAM partner for WLM and other related activities. The biggest challenge is to reinvent ourselves to a certain extent every year, in order to attract volunteers, media attention and to create added value for Wikimedia projects. With a coverage of more than 90 % of all Austrian monuments the challenge grows every year.

Hence, this year the photography contest will be followed by an article contest, lasting from October until December 2014. The goal is to increase and improve the written information on our monuments in order to supplement the photographic documentation. Thanks to our partner the Federal Monuments Office, our cooperation will this year also get some international attention, as it is featured on the European Heritage Portal. Austria is among the first countries to present itself on this brandnew portal. An incentive for other countries to start similar ways of cooperation with Wikimedians? - Active volunteers involved: 3. - WMAT staff involved: 2 (+1 service supplier) - WMAT support: website, information material, contact management with partner organizations / multipliers, prices, mailing, coordinating the jury.

wikilovesmonuments.at (in German)

GLAM: k.u.k. Ceramics, Majolica and Stoneware Museum

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The k.u.k. Ceramics, Majolica and Stoneware Museum near Bad Radkersburg, Austria is a small private museum with historical everyday objects (arts and crafts). The pieces were not documented photographically. That is why this GLAM project was not just about content liberation but demanded photography skills and infrastructure as well – a field where Austrian volunteers and WMAT have lots of expertise. The museum pieces were photographed systematically and 1728 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

In many cases it is unlikely that small private museums such as the k.u.k. Ceramics, Majolica and Stoneware Museum have the capacities to become a GLAM partner by providing useful images of their objects. Activities such as this one – which demand a close and trustful collaboration between the museum and Wikimedians as well as the special photography skills of Wikimedians – might become an “Austrian way“ of GLAM projects. - Active volunteers involved: 4. - WMAT support: equipment, travel grants.

Wikimedia Commons gallery on the project