GLAM Macedonia User Group/Annual plan 2021

The logo of GLAM Macedonia

This is the annual plan of the activities of GLAM Macedonia User Group for 2021.

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 year, we have signed memorandum for collaboration with the Museum of Natural History of Macedonia in Skopje. The point of a collaboration is to sent Wikipedian in a certaion instituion. 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 2020, our user group maintained the strong collaboration with the institutions where we have sent WiR, which included regular visits, providing printed materials etc. 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 2021 is to send WiR in at least three GLAM institutions. 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.

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 2021 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. Almost all of the Wiki Clubs members are using Content Translation tool. Wiki Clubs activities can be followed at this link.

Wiki Clubs

So far, 7 Wiki Clubs are opened since this subproject is on: Skopje, Staro Nagoričane, Ohrid, Štip, Gevgelija, Struga and Veles. The last on was opened in February 2020. The volunteer members of GLAM Macedonia maintain four Wiki Clubs.

Our strength in this project so far is the reputation of the Wiki Clubs. 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.

Editing contest for students

The editing contest for students organised in April-May 2020 was highly successful with over 100 created articles, so it is our agenda again. Intended for persons from age 15 to 18, they are able to participate in a monthly editing contest where they can create articles listed for creation. Just as the previous edition, this will be partnered with the user group of Shared Knowledge.

Teachers' conferences

We had two Wiki conference for teachers in 2020, first one at the Elementary School „Sv. Kliment Ohridski“ in Skopje and a week later in Veles. There was always a big interest for these conferences by the teachers employed in the Macedonian schools. \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. Unfortunatelly Wiki Camp in 2020 was to be in Mavrovo, but got canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic.

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 2021 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 has more than 150 members who became our members. When it comes to the Board members and other GLAM Macedonia members, they have several meetings in person a month, in order to plan and schedule 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 2021 few public events will be organized, 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 collaboration and an Assembly meeting.

Biggest 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.

Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos

Another successful project from 2020 that will be intergrated this year. This international initiative, created for inserting images at their respective articles if they are lacking images, was for the first time joined by us Macedonian user group because we saw a great potential and the participants covered more than 1800 articles. To be noted, this is in collaboration with Shared Knowledge user group.

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

Covid-19

Due to the pandemic, GLAM Macedonia strictly follows the national measures and precautions regarding Covid-19 pandemic. The user group adopted general outline of the nation's recommendations.

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