Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Oesterreich/November2014

November 2014
Report

Community Support

WikiDienstag

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 November:

November 4th: Vienna Volunteer Fair follow-up activities
November 11th: Learnings of the Wiki Loves Monuments pre-jury
November 18th: Presentation of a Wikipedia summer camp on peace, planned for 2015
November 25th: Preparations for the 2nd guide camp on conflict resolution in Wikipedia

WMAT staff involved: 1. - Active volunteers involved: 6–8. - WMAT support: infrastructure, co-organisation, promotion.

→ WikiDienstag in the German-language Wikipedia

Lightroom 2014 in CUX

German volunteers organized a Adobe Lightroom workshop for Wikimedia Commons photographers in Cuxhaven, Germany. Among the 12 participants was 1 renowned Austrian Commons photographer. The three-day workshop was designed for beginners; another workshop for advanced Lightroom users is being discussed for 2015.
Active volunteers involved: 12. - External experts involved: 1. - WMAT support: 1 travel grant for an Austrian volunteer.

→ Report on Wikimedia Commons (in German)

→ Report in members wiki (in German)

Free Content Generation

WLM and WLE awards ceremony

The winners

The annual Wiki Loves Monuments award ceremony at the Federal Monuments Office has become a family gathering of the Austrian community. Photographers and monument enthusiasts from all over the country come together to celebrate and exchange and to introduce the many new contributors to our existing community on a more personal level. This year we even had community members from Germany visiting and presenting the status quo of their activities. For the first time, we combined the award ceremonies of our two photography contests, presenting the winners and highlights of both competitions. We also designed a new way of presenting the winning pictures: After a few words from the jury each photographer had the opportunity to tell his or her very personal story about the photo and how it was created. In this way we could show the different perspectives of the various stakeholders and the according layers of involvement and interpretation regarding the topics of natural and cultural heritage in Austria.
WMAT staff involved: 3 (+1 contractor) – Active volunteers involved: 31 (including 1 WMAT board member). – WMAT support: catering, organization, coordination, prices, public relations. - Federal Monuments Office support: venue, prices, organization, coffee and tea, public relations.

→ Announcement in members wiki (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

Top 3 of WLE and WLM 2014 in Austria
WLE Austria 2014 - 1st
WLE Austria 2014 - 2nd
WLE Austria 2014 – 3rd
WLM Austria 2014 - 1st
WLM Austria 2014 - 2nd
WLM Austria 2014 - 3rd

Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness

Monuments Fair in Leipzig

Three volunteers from Austria participated in the Monuments Fair in Leipzig, Germany. The Monuments Fair (“Denkmalmesse“) is the leading European fair for the preservation and renovation of monuments and historic buildings. WMDE organized a booth for the presentation of Wikimedia projects in general and Wiki Loves Monuments in particular. The Wikimedians informed other exhibitors e. g. about Wikimedia Commons as a suitable platform for their images and videos about traditional craftsmanship. The Austrians also uploaded photographs of exhibits such as old carpenter tools, butt hinges, strike plates etc.
Active volunteers from Austria involved: 3 (including 1 WMAT board member). - WMAT support: 3 travel grants, information material and give-aways.

→ Report in members wiki (in German)

→ Images on Wikimedia Commons

Teachers' training course in Hollabrunn

WMAT co-conceived an 8-hour teachers' training course on Wikipedia and other online media in school at the School of Education of Lower Austria in Hollabrunn. The course focussed on:

understanding and explaining Wikipedia to pupils,
using Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons as teaching aids in school,
understanding the connection of internet phenomena and youth culture.

25 teachers attended the course. It was held by a WMAT staff member and a WMAT volunteer as well as by two media education experts who talked about online games in the lifeworld of adolescents.and the depictions of youth culture in the internet.
Active volunteers involved: 1. - WMAT staff involved: 1. - WMAT support: concept (staff time), information material.

→ Course description, School of Education of Lower Austria (in German)

We published a learning pattern as a result of our experiences with the workshop, see below.

Open Data Discussion

The Austro-British Society invited WMAT chairman Kurt Kulac to participate in a panel discussion on Open Data, with about 50 people attending. It became clear that Wikipedia was a perfect counter example to alarming trends such as the collection of user data by social media or the new electronic health record by the Austrian public health care services.
WMAT board involved: 1.

→ Report in members wiki (in German)

Organisational Development

Volunteer Supporters Network

Participants of the Volunteer Support pre-conference, Wikimania 2014

In August 2014, WMAT, WMCH and WMDE staff members organized a Wikimania pre-conference on volunteer support. This led to the founding of the Volunteer Supporters Network in November 2014. The Volunteer Supporters Network is a working group of individuals from Wikimedia organizations dealing with volunteer/community support. The long-term impact the group wants to achieve is to improve the working conditions for volunteers in Wikimedia projects (online and offline), to increase diversity and to enhance the spirit of global cooperation and innovation.
WMAT staff involved: 1.

→ Volunteer Supporters Network

New administrative assistant

So far WMAT had two full time employees: an Executive Director (ED) and a Community Manager. The ED is in charge of preparing strategic processes and decision making, manages finances, office and staff, reports directly to the board and executes the board's decisions in the day-to-day operations. The Community Manager is responsible for community support and communication as well as operative administration.

As a result of the professionalisation process, there has been an increase in programmatic activities (new partnerships, more community interaction etc.) and deriving administrative tasks (e.g. FDC requirements, amount of book keeping) over the last two years. The current staffing level is not sufficient to cover all this, as a result WMAT this year tried a flexible staffing approach which consisted of hiring service providers (e.g. for book keeping) and short term contractors (e.g. infrastructure support for photography contests or graphic design) to solve the problem. However, we realized that especially in regard of administrative tasks there is a considerable amount of jobs that can't be outsourced as they need some deeper understanding as well as over- and insight of our day to day operations. We also realized that these exact same tasks draw heavily on our current staff resources - resources that according to their job profiles and salary structure should rather be invested in programmatic activities and strategy. Hence, WMAT decided to increase the current staffing level by a 50% Administrative Assistant for a testing period of six months, during which we will assess whether this strategy leads to the desired increase in operational effectivity.

In November 2014 Annemarie Buchmann joined our team in this position. Annemarie studied politics and is currently preparing her PhD in this field. Her responsibilities will be preparing the documents for our external bookkeeper and the analog and digital filing, updating our CRM with new contacts of partners, suppliers or donors. Furthermore, she will assist our Community Manager in terms of community event management, travel planning for the volunteers as well as coordinating and maintaining our tech pool / photography equipment.

Learning pattern

Editing leads to media literacy