GLAM Macedonia User Group/Annual plan 2020

The logo of GLAM Macedonia

This is the annual plan of the activities of GLAM Macedonia User Group for 2020.

SMART objectives

GLAM

Wikipedian in Residence

The SMART objectives of the GLAM program, i.e. Wikipedian in Residence sub-programme are:

to deepen GLAM Macedonia collaboration with GLAM institutions in Macedonia
to educate the GLAM employees on Wikimedia projects, educate them to add references into articles, and create new articles or improve the existing ones;
implementation of WIkimedia projects within WiR work and using the available resources for enriching the Wikimedia projects' contents;
establishing connections and starting cooperation with new GLAM institutions in Macedonia that have not been involved in GLAM Macedonia projects;
improving the cooperation with GLAM Institutions in Macedonia which already exists and have signed memorandum for collaboration;
organize special events in collaboration with GLAM institutions, such as edit-a-thons; workshops and Wikipedian tours, which will bring Wikipedians on-site to work with staff on content creation and improvement;
enriching Wikipedia with new content, that is articles, multimedia content and references which are provided by the GLAM Institutions that have collaboration memorandum with GLAM Macedonia.

Education

Wiki Clubs

The SMART objectives of the education sub-programme are:

establish new Wiki Clubs or Wiki sections with underage students and in schools that have not yet took part in GLAM Macedonia education programme;
recruit new editors and contributors that will improve Wikimedia projects' content through Wiki Club activities;
add or improve the content (articles, multimedia content, references) of the existing Wikimedia projects in Macedonian through Wiki Club activities
recruit new Wiki coordinators for education that will work with the existing and the future new Wiki Club and GLAM Macedonia education programmes;
establish new collaboration with schools that have no participation in GLAM Macedonia education activities;
familiarise and introduce new Wikimedia editors with the basic concept of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, as well as with the Wikimedia Movement.

Teachers' conferences

The SMART objectives of the conferences for teachers sub-programme are:

To educate and train teachers on how to use Wikipedia in classroom and implement Wikimedia projects as teaching tools;
To recruit a new Wiki coordinators for education that will work with the existing and new GLAM Macedonia education activities and programmes;
To establish new collaboration with schools and education institutions for opening new Wiki Clubs or Sections, training underage students as Wikipedia editors and training teachers on using Wikimedia projects as teaching tools.

Wiki Camp

The SMART objectives of the Wiki Camp sub-programme are:

Build connections between experienced and new underage participants, developing the editing skills and deepening the knowledge of Wikipedia and its related projects;
Engage new editors and members (underage students, teachers and other volunteers) in GLAM Macedonia activities;
To increase the number of content pages on Wikipedia in Macedonian (articles, references and multimedia files).

Community

The SMART objectives of the user group regarding the community sub-programme are:

To increase the number of involved volunteers in GLAM Macedonia that will actively contribute to the development of the Wikimedia Movement in Macedonia;
Maintain a good collaboration with the members and strengthening the good working environment, mutual respect and help regarding the execution of the planned GLAM Macedonia acitivies;
Increase visibility of the user group in society, by followers on social media (Facebook), number of blog posts and visits to them, and number of media and press mentions about GLAM Macedonia activities and Wikimedia Movement developments in Macedonia.

Plan

Activities

GLAM

Our GLAM activities and collaborations are quite successful. In numbers: more than 3,300 files were released and uploaded on commons, more than 2,000 articles, improved or created, more than 800 references added, and we have signed memorandum for collaboration with five important GLAM Institutions in Macedonia. During the last three years, we have signed memorandum for collaboration with the following GLAM institutions in Macedonia: with the State Archives of the Republic of Macedonia, the Museum of Macedonian Struggle in Skopje and the City Library “Braḱa Miladinovci” in Skopje, the Institute of National History and Archaeologic Museum. Our collaboration is mainly, but not exclusively, about sending Wikipedian in residence. The collaboration with the institutions is so far very good, particularly because they have helped our WiR with lots of material resources (books, magazines, images, archive materials) and human resources as well (help by the employees of the Institutions, in terms of technical help, scientific opinion and selection of the most suitable items that can be freely shared with the public).

During the course of the year 2019, GLAM Macedonia maintained the strong collaboration with the institutions where we have sent WiR, which included regular visits, providing printed materials etc. As the budget was cut, seven Wikipedians serve as WiR in 2019 to fulfill the task we already have signed for, with the Archeologic Museum in Skopje. The GLAM employees have shown great interest in Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects and did not hesitate to provide Wikipedians with the needed materials. Some of the employees showed interest and willingness to be part of Wikipedia and Commons (as contributors). Since GLAM institutions in the Republic of Macedonia are closed ones and not easily accessible, this warm welcome and productive collaboration was more than satisfying. However, in order not to lose these good links and good collaboration ground, we have to send Wikipedian in Residence in order to maintain the connections and expand the possibilities for further collaboration.

The benefit of collaboration with GLAM institutions are many, including: strengthening GLAM Macedonia collaboration with GLAM Instituions in Macedonia in order to educate GLAM employees on Wikimedia projects; educating GLAM employees to add references into articles, and creating new articles or improving the existing ones as the GLAM employees are high educated professionals. The implementation of WIkimedia projects within WiR's work is giving us chance to organize special events in collaboration with GLAM institutions, such as edit-a-thons, workshops and Wikipedian tours, which will bring non-WiR Wikipedians on-site to work with staff on content creation and improvement of Wikimedia projects. The GLAM institutions collaboration with us is their opportunity to be more open to the public, understand the need of digitization, as well as the need of sharing the knowledge, documents, historic photos and materials with the general public.

Wikipedian in Residence

The plans for the activities in 2020 is to send WiR in at least three GLAM institutions, which is one more institution annually and cumulatively in comparison to the previous year (two in total last time we have send WiR), and this year, 2019 - we didn't have funds to send WiR, but anyway, seven volunteers did some good job. We plan to deepen and strengthen our cooperation with the Archaeological Museum in Skopje by sending Wikipedian in Residence for additional two months in the 2020, avoiding the summer period, because of the high temperatures in Skopje. The expectations are to have two productive months because the Museum Staff was glad to establish such cooperation with us and they are willing to provide us the needed help in order to digitize as much materials as possible which can be freely shared on Wikimedia projects. Another Wikipedians in Residence is expected to be sent to two new GLAM institution (negotiation in progress), in the period of two months, again avoiding the summer period. This is very important for GLAM Macedonia since these two GLAM Institutions will be working or establishing cooperation with us for the first time. Moreover, sending WiR to these new GLAM Institutions increases the total number of institutions that have signed memorandum with GLAM Macedonia.

Our strengths are experienced Wikipedian in Residence, and good established collaboration with the State Archives of the Republic of Macedonia as well with the Museum of Macedonian struggle in Skopje. We don't need to send WiR in those two institutions, as collaboration is already set on high level. We have an offer for collaboration with the several other GLAM institutions in Republic of Macedonia, and at the moment we are in negotiation of the future collaboration. Once when we will fix the nature of collaboration, the memorandum of collaboration will be signed. GLAM Macedonia has to sign Agreement with the WiR in order to be clear the activities the WiR is required to do: to serve as liaison between the GLAM institution and community, to engage the GLAM employees into Wikimedia activities, to establish a good collaboration and to build a sustainable platform that ensures outcomes long after the WiR has completed their service.

We don't have a weakness in this area of activities, but the threat could be lack of interest of GLAM employees to edit Wikipedia in the future, or after WiR's task is done. To avoid this, we plan to engage them in edit-a-thons, in Wiki Tours, and most important, to provide the material for articles.

Measure of success:

three WiR in three different GLAM institutions;
10 organized events with GLAM partners
10 newly trained employees of GLAM institutions and at least 50 new articles edited by them
new agreements for collaboration with 2 new GLAM institutions
expected number of created or edited articles, files or Wikidata items for 2020 as a result of GLAM collaboration is 1000

Education

Education program this year includes education-related activities of underage students (secondary and high school) and teachers, which means training and teaching students how to edit Wikipedia, use Commons and contribute to the Wikipedia movement, as well as training teachers how to use Wikimedia projects as teaching tools. Students are educated mostly in the Wiki Clubs in several schools in several cities in Macedonia. Each clubs has an appointed coordinator, member of GLAM Macedonia. On the other side, for teachers we organized a conferences. We have 54 new students (out of 324 trained students so far) involved in 6 Wiki Clubs, coming from at least 17 schools from the Republic of North Macedonia. Also at the moment we have 10 coordinators of education. As a result, more than 8,300 articles were created or improved so far. Almost all of the Wiki Clubs members are using Content Translation tool. Wiki Clubs activities can be followed at this link.

Wiki Clubs

The first Wiki Club in Macedonia was established in the Museum of Macedonian struggle in Skopje. The first working day of the Wiki Club was on 19 October 2016. We have students coming from at least ten schools from Skopje, all coming from different part of the city, most of them by bus, using their free time. The opening of other 5 Wiki Clubs continued from 2017 are in: Staro Nagoričane, Ohrid, Stip, Gevgelija and Struga. The latest two are the newest, opened in 2019. The volunteer members of GLAM Macedonia maintain four Wiki Clubs. More than 320 students and more than 30 adults passed the training about Wikipedia in the Wiki Clubs, more than 8,300 articles were created or improved so far. The big success of the Wiki Clubs was an award which we received at the international day of the Museums, 18 May 2017.

In 2020 we plan to start at least two new Wiki Clubs, and successfully maintain the existing ones. The regular meetings at two Wiki Clubs (in Skopje and Ohrid) are happening at least once a week. The regular meetings in the other Wiki Clubs are at least twice a month.

Our strength in this project so far is the reputation of the Wiki Clubs. We signed memorandum of collaboration with five schools, and students from many others schools participate in existing Wiki Clubs. We already had offers for collaboration with several schools out of the capitol city. We have opportunity to educate many students about Wikipedia, and we hope that a good number of them will continue to edit Wikipedia. The weakness is that we are not capable to answer all calls for collaboration with schools, as the volunteers will be overloaded with too many tasks.

Teachers' conferences

We had no Wiki conference for teachers in 2019, as per no funds for projects last year. There was always a big interest for these conferences by the teachers employed in the Macedonian schools. There were more than 210 teachers trained so far, with 4 speakers and 10 Wikipedians volunteers involved in each conference. After the conference was announced, we were unable to accept all the interested teachers. In 2020 we plan to organize two teaches' conferences, one in spring and one in autumn. Taking look at the past experience and success, we expect each conference to be visited by at least 65 teachers which will be trained, theoretically and practically, on using Wikipedia in classroom and also editing and improving Wikipedia.

The strength of this project are GLAM Macedonia members, Wikimedians who are teachers in the same time. The big interest of teachers in the Republic of Macedonia is giving us the strength also, as the great interest points that with such conferences we are on the right track to reach them. We teach the teachers on how to use Wikipedia in the classroom, and the opportunities are big for us: we can establish collaboration with the schools; we can start Wiki Club or Wiki section in their school; we can spread the word about Wikipedia, and involve the teachers and students into editing Wikipedia articles. We cannot list any problem which may appear one day, as for now everything is smooth: teachers are interested to participate and after the conference to collaborate with us; we have volunteers who are happy to organize or to help organizing the conference; the media covered the event.

Wiki Camp

Wiki Camp is a three-day camp for underage students and members of Wiki Clubs. We plan to organize one Wiki Camp for 50 Wiki Club active members and new participants, plus 12 volunteers, teachers and Wikipedians. Adults have to be present in order to maintain the Wiki Camp. The first day, there will be session for beginners on how to edit Wikipedia. All three days we will have edit-a-thons, workshops, one wiki expedition around the event place, workshop about Commons, etc. Wiki Camp in 2019 was held from 3-5 May in Veles. There were more than 500 new articles created by the participants at the end of the event. One of our team members is an amateur athlete, and she was responsible to organize morning sport activities for the participants.

Strength: Our big strength for this project are our volunteers, who are ready to organize the Wiki Camp. We already have teachers ready to lead a group of students at the Wiki Camp, and also, the interest between the students is big for this kind of activity. The opportunity for us after this event is that we will be able to build connections between experienced and new participants, and also to engage new editors and future members of Wiki Clubs. The only problem we could faced with is not enough lap top computers for every student at the Wiki Camp. To avoid this, we plan to divide students into several groups while they will edit Wikipedia, using the available lap top computers.

Measure of success:

at least 2 new Wiki Clubs in 2019 and engaging students from at least additionally 5 different schools (in addition to the existing ones)
at least 3000 new articles as a result of the education program in 2019
to train 100 new editors
to recruit at least 50 of them
at least 150 trained teachers regarding using and editing Wikipedia and involving at least 20 of them into existing or new Wiki Clubs

Community

GLAM Macedonia user group is registered non-profit organization, and it is a user group of contributors, teachers and researchers who are interested to generate and organize projects and events for promotion of free knowledge, including participation of Wikimedia volunteers, and employees from GLAM and educational institutions. At the moment, we have more than 100 members who signed the form for membership. The Board members and other GLAM Macedonia members have several meetings in person a month, in order to plan and design new activities and projects related to Wikimedia projects and promotion of Wikimedia Movement. Many times there is a need to discuss the ongoing projects or projects we plan to organize in person. As community projects we include workshops, media appearances and other public events.

In 2020 we plan to organize several public events, as well as workshops (on various different topics, mostly concerned with creating new articles and improving the existing ones on Macedonian Wikipedia), Wiki tours with GLAM Macedonia members and underage students in GLAM Institutions that have signed a memorandum for collaborationand an Assembly meeting.

Strength on this project are our volunteers and a big number of Wiki Clubs members who are trained to edit Wikipedia. The collaboration with the GLAM institutions in the Republic of Macedonia is on a high level, which is good as we hold events usually in collaboration with one of them: in order to get materials for articles, or to use their working room. The opportunities are many: organizing workshops for Wiki Club members proved to be a good way to engage the students to be more active during regular club meetings. Also collaboration with the media is on high level.

We cannot list any problem which may appear during the future events.

Measure of success:

At least once in a month member meetings;
One annual Assembly with program and activities;
at least 10 media and press interviews or mentions to introduce Wikipedia and user group work to the audience;
at least 15 organized events

Metrics

metrics page

Priority levels

Level	Programmes/ Sub-programmes
High	WiR, Teachers' conferences, Wiki Clubs, Wiki camp
Mid	New collaborations, media appearance, other events.
Low	none