Grants:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round2/Wikimédia France/Impact report form

Period is 1st July 2014 to 30 June 2015

This page is now finalized, and is the current version of the impact report form. Please do not edit this page, as it should accurately reflect information found on the forms and templates associated with reporting. Please offer feedback and suggestions for improvement on the discussion page. Note that this form may be revised by FDC staff before the next reporting cycle, and that reports should always be made using your proposal hub page and not by copying and pasting this form. For the older version of this form see, Grants:APG/Impact report form/Version 1.

Purpose of the report

FDC funds are allocated to improve the alignment between the Wikimedia movement's strategy and spending; support greater impact and progress towards achieving shared goals; and enable all parts of the movement to learn how to achieve shared goals better and faster.

Funding should lead to increased access to and quality of content on Wikimedia project sites – the two ultimate goals of the Wikimedia movement strategic priorities, individually and as a whole. Funded activities must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

Each entity that receives FDC funding will need to complete this report, which seeks to determine how the funding received by the entity is leading towards these goals. The information you provide will help us to:

Identify lessons learned, in terms of both what the entity learned that could benefit the broader movement, and how the entity used movement-wide best practices to accomplish its stated objectives.
Assess the performance of the entity over the course of the funded period against the stated objectives in the entity's annual plan.
Ensure accountability over how the money was spent. The FDC distributes "general funds", for both ongoing and programmatic expenses; these funds can be spent as the entity best sees fit to accomplish its stated goals. Therefore, although line-item expenses are not expected to be exactly as outlined in the entity's proposal, the FDC wants to ensure that money was spent in a way that led to movement goals.

For more information, please review FDC portal/Reporting requirements or reference your entity's grant agreement.

Basic entity information

Table 1

Entity information	Legal name of entity	Wikimédia France
	Entity's fiscal year (mm/dd–mm/dd)	07/01-06/30
	12 month timeframe of funds awarded (mm/dd/yy-mm/dd/yy)	07/01/14 - 06/30/15
Contact information (primary)	Primary contact name	Nathalie Martin
	Primary contact position in entity	Executive Director
	Primary contact username	Nathalie Martin (WMFR)
	Primary contact email	nathalie.martin@wikimedia.fr
Contact information (secondary)	Secondary contact name	Christophe Henner
	Secondary contact position in entity	Chairman
	Secondary contact username	Schiste
	Secondary contact email	christophe.henner@wikimedia.fr

Last year overview

The purpose of this section is to provide a brief overview of this report. Please use no more than 2–3 paragraphs to address the questions outlined below. You will have an opportunity to address these questions in detail elsewhere in this report. Also, we encourage you to share photographs, videos, and sound files in this report to make it more interactive, and include links to reports, blog posts, plans, etc as these will add context for the readers.

HIGHLIGHTS: What were 2–3 important highlights of the past year? (These may include successes, challenges, lessons learned. Please note which you are describing)

Launch of WikiCheese project
International Hackathon in Lyon
Wikiday in Bordeaux

SWOT: Reflecting on the context outlined for your entity in the FDC proposal, what were some of the contextual elements that either enabled or inhibited the plan? Feel free to include factors unanticipated in the proposal.

Strengths		Weaknesses
Stable staff team (no turn-over) and good collaboration within the team; More transversality, within WMFR's departments and working groups, through the creation of 2 "special advisers" positions Attractiveness of WMFR with high level-partners ability to carry out major projects; Early design and management of an innovative quality approach		Fragility of volunteer governance Lack of diversity (gender, ethnicity, etc.) among WMFR stakeholders Difficult communication on our mailing-lists

Additional human resources through a French programme called "Volontariat en service civique"; Audit reports allowing us to call for diversified and external funding; A "Reconnaissance d'Utilité Publique (RUP)" status made accessible (acknowledgement of public utility)		Lack of stability in the evaluation process of our activities Financial insecurity (sources of funding) Unreliability regarding volunteer involvement management (anticipation is difficult, involvement is inconstant)
Opportunities		Threats

WIKI-FOCUS: What Wikimedia projects was your entity focused on (e.g., Wiki Commons, French Wiktionary) this year?

In 2014-2015, we focused on:

Wikipedia (conferences, workshops, editathons);
Wikimedia Commons (support to photographer, GLAM upload, organizing contests such as Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments);
Wiktionary (conferences);
Wikidata (via WikiCheese)
Wikisource (scanning: e.g. we have invested in a book scanner to help volunteers work on Wikisource);
Mediawiki (supporting the tech. community: e.g. organizing the Hackathon in Lyon);

GROWTH: How did your entity grow over the past year (e.g., Number of active editors reached/involved/added, number of articles created, number of events held, number of participants reached through workshops)? And which were this growth long term effects (e.g. relationships with new editors, more returned editors, higher quality articles, etc)?

Number of medias supported by WMFr: + 40,480
- 296 Quality images, 117 Valued images, 4 Featured pictures
- Usage: 5057 distinct files used (=12.5%) ; with 42375 usages on 263 wikis (source, see Data visualisation of reuses)
- 59 uploaders
- > 430M page views
Number of new members: +105
Number of accounts created during events: +970
Number of edit-a-thons: 9
23 partnership agreements signed

Financial summary

The FDC requires information about how your entity received and spent money over the past year. The FDC distributes general funds, so your entity is not required to use funds exactly as outlined in the proposal. While line-item expenses will not be examined, the FDC and movement wants to understand why the entity spent money in the way it did. If variance in budgeted vs. actual is greater than 20%, please provide explanation in more detail. This helps the FDC understand the rationale behind any significant changes. Note that any changes from the Grant proposal, among other things, must be consistent with the WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, must be reported to WMF, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement. The WMF mission is "to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally."

If you'd prefer to share a budget created in Google or another tool and import it to wiki, you can do so in the tables below instead of using wiki tables. You can link to an external document, but we ask that you do include a table in this form. We are testing this approach in this form.

Revenues

Provide exchange rate used:1€=1.37677$

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.

Revenue source	Currency	Anticipated	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Cumulative	Anticipated ($US)*	Cumulative ($US)*	Explanation of variances from plan
FDC Grant	€	600,000	350,000	0	250,000		600,000	826,062	826,062	We received all of the grant (last part in mars 2015)
Direct Donations	€	200,000	12,820	251,871	97,933	3,586	366,411	275,354	504,464	With the introduction of a more sophisticated segmentation of our campaign, we managed to exceed our fund-raising targets for 2014 by nearly 40%.
Direct débit donations	€	60,900	16,220	15,912	10,962	16,018	59,112	83,845	81,684	The problems of our CRM have induced defects takings ( in March). This explains the observed decrease.
Memberships	€	15,000				10,395	10,395	20,652	14,312
Sponsorship	€	15,000	1,579	0	0	99,271	100,850	20,652	138,847
Grants	€	5,000	0	0	0	0	0	6,884	0
Call for project	€	10,000	0	4,320	0	27,783	32,103	13,768	44,198
Crowdfunding	€	10,000	0	0	7,345	0	7,345	13,768	10,112	Our first crowdfunding operation was a success and largely exceeded our targets: 7,345 € (the funds were paid in on 1st January and will therefore appear in Q3)
E-shop	€	2,500	0	0	0		0	3,442	0	We have an agreement with the Foundation to open our e-shop, provided it shall not be a source of benefit (higher than the management cost). As to the present day, it has not been opened yet.
Charity products	€	2,500	0	0	0		0	3,442	0
TOTAL	€	960,900	380,473	272,103	366,240	157,053	1,175,869	1,322,942	1,618,901

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

Spending

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)

Expense	Currency	Budgeted	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Cumulative	Budgeted ($US)*	Cumulative ($US)*	Percentage spent to date	Explanation of variances from plan
Axis 1	€	43,000	1,925	2,741	1,270	12,890	18,826	59,201	25,919	44%	Most actions led in axis 1 are not costly, but rather time consuming for volunteers and staff members. Moreover, as expected, the design of the document directed at GLAM partners strongly impacted the Q4 budget.
Axis 2	€	92,000	6,689	11,212	10,011	14,178	42,090	126,663	57,948	46%	the local groups didn't grow as well as we expected.
Axis 3	€	68,662	25,246	3,190	11,767	29,820	70,023	94,531	96,406	102%
Axis 4	€	35,000	5,949	7,603	2,468	134,667	150,687	48,187	207,461	431%	The Hackathon is by far our main expense on this axis this year, and most of the related costs has been paid on Q4.
Axis 5	€	25,000	5,797	21,040	3,673	4,395	34,905	34,419	48,056	140%	The difference is due to new events (photos contest, etc.)
Axis 6	€	60,000	10,006	16,856	26,327	19,011	72,200	82,606	99,403	120%	-
Staff expenses	€	447,945	132,206	128,586	144,451	133,253	538,496	616,717	741,385	120%	The difference is due to conventional (legal) increases, and recruitment of special advisers (senior)
Functionning	€	189,296	38,691	26,608	67,058	120,314	252,671	260,609	347,870	133%	It's about last expenses in the relocation and recruitment of civic volunteers service
TOTAL	€	960,900	226,509	217,836	267,025	463,152	1,174,521	1,322,942	1,617,045	122%	-

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

Progress compared to past year's goals/objectives: Projects & Lessons

Past year quality results

Data summary for the year 2014/2015

In order to have an overview of the impact of our actions we have compiled the data for the four quarters of the year (2014/2015) in the following sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SObKX40aP1mrF3VriGoAK8-gyza4SZHkfkZw9SMdeaE/edit?usp=sharing

The metrics are summarized in the left column with the objectives for all our axes.
The results for the year are compiled in column D.

Quick insight on our results

Projects

Chapter

Society

Edits in main namespaces : 77,908 / 69,750 (111.7%)

New editors : 970 / 1,665 (58.3%)

Quality of content — NO GOAL : 68

Increase skills/knowledge (%) : 90 / 70 (128.6%)

People reached : 103,271 / 11,500 (898%)

Actions toward specific groups : 41 / 25 (164%)

Actions toward specific thematics/languages : 37 / 25 (148%)

Firsts : 35 / 22 (159.1%)

Paid hours : 4,922 / 13,614 (36.2%)

Paid staff (including interns) : 13 / 18 (72.2%)

Volunteered hours : 11,773 / 16,850 (69.9%)

Volunteer involved : 209 / 218 (95.9%)

Shared knowledge (# of people) : 44 / 24 (183.3%)

People doing a first : 302 / 206 (146.6%)

Mentions in national medias : 111 / 64 (173.4%)

Mentions in local medias : 215 / 69 (311.6%)

New partnerships : 38 / 18 (211.1%)

Partnerships satisfaction (%) : 94 / 80 (117.5%)

CO2 emissions (kg) UNTRACKED : 0 / 6,000 (0%)

Ethical/Sustainable actions : 7 / 14 (50%)

Use/developpement of Free software : 6 / 14 (42.9%)

Contact influencers : 32 / 34 (94.1%)

Learning patterns : 8 / 12 (66.7%)

Comments on our data sets for the year 2014/2015

Impact on Wikimedia projects

About 80,000 edits and 1,000 new contributors were recorded during actions organized or supported by Wikimédia France, mainly during edit-a-thons. Most of the participants in the training sessions, edit-a-thons, outreach sessions and whose answers have been collected through surveys responded that their knowledge had been improved.
Our actions have reached around 100,000 people. To calculate this metric, we relied on readers of our magazines (Wikirevue), number of communication requests for documents, photos contest, attendees at events, donors…
WMFR’s actions are systematically documented and archived. The project manager (volunteer or staff member) documents the action and can add a lot of useful information (following a meeting, after the end of a contest,…). We try our best to document actions and in particular their innovative nature (first action led by a local group, specific target group or specific thematic addressed…).

Impact on the association

200 volunteers of the association and Wikipedians were involved in our actions. This represents a total of 12,000 hours during the year. Over the period of Q4, 3,516 volunteer hours were recorded which represents € 33,788 (based on the minimum hourly wage in France).
This voluntary participation, real strength of the association, was supported by a team of 9 staff members over the past year (varies with departures and recruitment) representing 4,922 hours in total. The entire staff, organized in 5 departments, was involved in the actions of the association.
30 volunteers achieved an action or task for the first time. This can be explained by the fact that we systematically ask members and Wikipedians to be involved in the actions.

Impact on society

A satisfaction survey was sent to all the partners we worked with last year. 19 partner institutions answered the survey about the overall quality of the partnership. Overall, our partners evaluated their satisfaction of the partnership with Wikimédia France at 9.42 / 10 (averaged).
We used different communication channels to support our actions: blog posts, press releases and press kits, social media,… We recorded 340 mentions of Wikimédia France in national / international media, regional media and blogs. This result is higher than the target that we set and can be explained for several reasons. First, we built up our media contacts database; second we helped local groups to do their own local press relations; and third we tried to be more systematic in sharing stories of our actions on our blog.
To capitalize on the innovative nature of the actions and share our lessons learned with the wider community, nine learning patterns have been written and uploaded by staff members and volunteers:
Publishing policy
Photo training sessions
Festival advertisement
A successful crowdfunding operation
Pedagogical scenario implementation
Regional Action Plan
Third place for local groups
Organize childcare During a Wikimedia Event
Reducing the north–south divide

Global Metrics applied to 4 actions

We applied the Global Metrics on four actions:

Wiki Loves Earth (photographic competition on protected natural areas to enrich Commons);
Été des villes Wikipédia - Summer of Wikipedia cities (operation to enhance and enrich the territories through Commons);
Wikiconcours lycéen (high schools Wikipedia editing contest with +800 students involved)
Archives Nationales de France upload project (uploading of selected major documents from history of France)

The results of this assessment can be found in the following spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jm16PVX92O7xa4E1XJWqMKk1BvxhRs6r9q3Ki_KzA74/edit?usp=sharing

Axe 1: Increase the number of editors and improve contents by teaching different populations

SUCCESSES

Partnership management

The 2014-2015 financial year was particularly fruitful in terms of partnerships of all kinds.

We signed 23 agreements, and met with 25 other partners. For half of these, initial activities have already taken place (<outside the scope of an agreement). Wikimédia France has therefore seen an increase of more than 100% in the number of partnerships compared to the last financial year.

Wikimédia France’s activities are attracting a wide range of stakeholders including associations or cultural groups, local authorities, municipalities, educational bodies, organisations working in the social and solidarity economy, ministerial working groups or public consultations. Among the activities aimed at improving Wikimedia’s projects, a recurrent event format is now emerging: the edit-a-thons, which is appreciated by our partners and involve volunteers. This trend also goes hand-in-hand with increasing demands for training for Wikimedia projects from outside the organisation. This demand often occurs before or during contribution days. At the end of the financial year, Wikimédia France has consequently sought to measure the satisfaction of its partners, chiefly those with whom actions and initiatives have been carried out, by means of a questionnaire. The results of this questionnaire are shown in the graph below.

The training of PhD students

Project description

Last year, the training of PhD students was focused on two partnerships: the Université de Lille I in March 2015 and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in February 2015. The PhD students were trained to contribute to Wikipedia for six hours and were subsequently able to contribute for six months before being assessed at the end of this period. In the case of the partnership with Lille I, this was the seventh year that this training was organised.

Resulting benefits

This year, the PhD students from the Université de Lille I were more productive (with twice as many edits) than in previous years; thanks to training focused on help and on-boarding mechanisms on Wikipedia and a longer contribution time than previously (3 hours). The students created new articles related to their thesis subjects.

Pitfalls to be avoided

The wide variety of PhD students can make it longer to explain the basic concepts behind contributing, with some students fully mastering advanced features (mainly those doing technical subjects) in just a few minutes while others require longer to get the hang of basic editing (those studying human and social science subjects). For this reason, we noted with the contributions that more of the articles are created by students from the technical fields (please see the "lessons to be learned") section.

A selection of key data

40 PhD students trained in contributing to Wikipedia
13 articles created
651 modifications

The training of teaching staff

Project description

Two training courses aimed at secondary school teachers were held last year:

Secondary school teachers and coordinators from the CLEMI (centre for liaison between teaching and information media) as part of the Wikiconcours lycéen (high school wikicompetition) in January 2015;
Newly qualified teacher-librarians, as part of the Créteil Academic Training Programme in April 2015.

These two training courses brought together more than 40 teachers who were made aware of Wikimedia’s projects and how these can be used in class.

Resulting benefits

Both training courses provided an opportunity to make good use of the approval issued by the French National Education Ministry last year. Designed for an expert audience who themselves will one day be training pupils and students, these training sessions offer a great opportunity for the association as they reinforce our credibility within these institutions.

Building awareness among staff in the national education system

Project description

Wikimédia France was invited to hold a conference at the Mairie de Brest (Brest City Hall) examining the challenges and opportunities of digital technology in class. During this conference the audience members (most of whom were teachers and establishment managers) were made aware of Wikimedia's projects and the use of Wikipedia in class. These discussions provided an opportunity to learn more about the needs and expectations of professionals from the education system where Wikimedia is concerned. During this trip, we met with a variety of stakeholders:

Managers of a connected school
Regional education authorities
Educational professionals
Trainers
Teachers

Resulting benefits

The two discussion sessions with the staff from national education system, more of whom were decision makers than future trainers, enabled the association to take full stock of the expectations of this type of highly specific target audience (necessary budget and involvement of all participants).

Wikiconcours lycéen (high school wikicompetition)

Project description

This was the third Wikiconcours lycéen, organised in partnership with the Centre for Liaison Between Teaching and Information Media (CLEMI), reporting to the National Education Ministry. This contribution contest involved 25 establishments, mainly high schools (lycées) including French lycées overseas such as London or Athens, etc., but also elementary schools, middle schools and IUTs (University Institutes of Technology).

With the help of a teacher, academic coordinators from the CLEMI (trained by Wikimédia France) and Wikimedia’s contributors, more than 700 pupils were able to contribute to themes of their choice. A jury consisting of three contributors, four members of the CLEMI and the chief editor of a youth magazine met in May to choose the four prize-winning classes who received books as prizes.

Resulting benefits

The quantitative contribution to the projects (chiefly Wikipedia in French but also Wikipedia in English and Wikipedia Commons) was considerable (please see below). Additionally, the contributions showed an impressive leap forward in terms of quality compared to the previous event. The project also allowed us to make a certain number of pupils aware of how Wikipedia operates. Most of the teachers also stated that they felt that the project had encouraged some people to continue contributing on a personal basis. The project additionally gave us a chance to get Wikipedia, its objectives and educational aspects better known within the French educational establishment.

Pitfalls to be avoided

In their replies to a questionnaire, the teachers indicated that overall they greatly appreciated the project but noted that upstream support had been insufficient (particularly concerning Wikipedia's technical aspects) and that the calendar had been changed during the competition (the end of the competition had been pushed back). Both of these factors will be corrected this year when the new school year begins with more extensive training of teachers on the CLEMI’s premises and a fixed calendar, which has already been drawn up.

A selection of key data

WikiMOOC

Project description

Wikimédia France is supporting a group of around a dozen Wikipedia contributors in the production of a MOOC titled "How to contribute to Wikipedia". The aim is that by taking a MOOC, the "students" will acquire a useful practical skill − contributing to the encyclopaedia. The MOOC will last five weeks and is scheduled for a February 2016 launch. The contributors’ group is targeting at least 10,000 users and it is hoped that a sizeable percentage will come from French-speaking Africa. The highly ambitious goals of this project were drawn up in December 2014 and the volunteers involved have been working on it continuously since May 2015. A detailed plan has been drafted, the content is currently being produced and the choice of a platform to host the MOOC has been made.

Resulting benefits

The anticipated benefits include greater public awareness of Wikipedia and the various Wikimedia projects, an increase in the number of contributors and the increasing diversity of the contributors (African contributors and women). An initial benefit has already been observed: this project has been initiated by contributors, most of whom are not members of Wikimédia France. We have noted that the close links between our association and the community have been strengthened as a result.

Pitfalls to be avoided

None.

A selection of key data

12 contributors involved and active
10,000 members targeted
A cost of approximately 15,000 Euros

Contribution Days

Project descriptions

Wikiday held in the cultural establishments of the city of Bordeaux in partnership with the City of Bordeaux, in April 2014 (please see Theme 2)

The Avignon Festival: updated and improved articles dealing with the events programme for this year and the buildings in the city of Avignon, in July 2014.

The organisers of the world-renowned Avignon Festival held every year in July contacted us to establish a partnership and if possible to give thought to initiatives to be undertaken in relation with the world of the arts and live performances. Each contribution day was held in a media library, involving six volunteers, in connection with specific themes such as theatre performers, plays currently being performed, the creative side of the city, etc. During these two workshops, the goal was to make the most of the various Wikimedia projects, chiefly via contributions to Wikipedia and the contribution of images on a Commons basis.

Women in Science: raising the profile of female scientists, in partnership with the L’Oréal Foundation and Universciences, in September 2014 and March 2015

Two contribution workshops to Wikipedia on the theme of women in science were held at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie’s library and included researchers having been awarded prizes from the L’Oréal-UNESCO Programme for Women in Science, historians, librarians, and individuals working to ensure improved representation for women in the scientific research field (associations, bloggers and scientists). The event was formally opened by Claudie Haigneré, president of Universcience and a former astronaut. The goal of this initiative was to encourage women to contribute more extensively to Wikipedia but also to build public awareness of the place of women in the history of science.

Former French scholarship holders from the International Programme for Women in Science were involved in the events. These provided an opportunity for these brilliant young female scientists to build greater awareness among their elders of the progress achieved in scientific knowledge. To ensure that these days would be a success, Universcience made available librarians and resources from the History of Science Library from the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie (Science and Industry Centre). Throughout these days, the librarians assisted the participants with their documentary research.

Art+Feminism, raising the profile of female artists, in partnership with the Galeries Lafayette Foundation in March 2015

A study published in 2011 showed that less than 10% of contributors to Wikipedia are women. This disparity is believed to have an impact on the very content of the encyclopaedia. Whether in the fields of art, science, literature or politics, posts devoted to women are few and far between and sometimes listed in subcategories. To remedy this imbalance, referred to as the "gender gap" within the Wikimedia movement, a contribution marathon was organised on Saturday 7 and Sunday, 8 March 2015 in various towns and cities worldwide with the goal of creating or improving as many pages as possible on Wikipedia concerning women, feminists and culture. Launched last year by Art+Feminism, the project was hosted for the first time in Paris by the Galeries Lafayette Foundation. The Parisian version of the event was developed in partnership with the artist Addie Wagenknecht and included two conferences open to all and focusing on minority communities and knowledge. More than 50 people came along to contribute, supervised by 5 to 6 volunteers who worked in shifts over the space of two days.

Information technology, the improvement of articles for the popularization of science, in partnership with the Société Informatique de France in April 2015

Serge Abiteboul, a doctor in information technology at the INRIA (a public research organisation dedicated to digital technology and sciences) was keen to work with Wikimédia France to set up a contribution workshop aimed at computer engineers to improve articles related to this theme. Based on the principle that school students consult Wikipedia to choose specialty for their ongoing studies, Mr Abiteboul was therefore looking to organise a contribution day to upgrade the articles and to raise awareness among all key stakeholders in the education and IT sectors (INRIA, public IT teaching staff, secondary school and sixth form pupils, etc.).

Numbering around 20 in all, the contributors were IT teachers and doctoral students preparing their theses.

Tatoueurs, tatoués: the upgrading of articles related to tattooing, in partnership with the Quai Branly Museum in June 2015

As part of the exhibition underway at the Quai Branly Museum concerning tattooing around the world, including its history, origins and practices, and as part of a wider partnership having already resulted in two contribution days in 2015 and 2013, a new edit-a-thon was held with the exhibition as its theme. This day included a visit to and access to the collections during the morning and contribution time in the afternoon. The contributors were accompanied by collection managers and documentalists from the library who did a great deal of work collecting and finding documents and illustrations.

Resulting benefits

These various contribution days provided a particularly enriching experience for the association's volunteers and the organisers coordinating these activities. Indeed, the volunteers involved had a chance to fully share their knowledge with a captive and highly motivated audience. With regard to partnerships, these events were always accompanied by partnership agreements. Most of the edit-a-thons made it possible to improve the Wikimedia projects, to recruit new contributors, to build awareness among new participants and sometimes to try out new and experimental event ideas.

Pitfalls to be avoided

A number of pitfalls were encountered last year when organising edit-a-thons, including:
Dealings with partners

In order to maximise the impact of the volunteers’ work and to lay down each party’s obligations, agreements were drawn up for each partnership. It frequently occurred that the signature of the agreement was significantly delayed by rereading by the partner's legal department. This resulted in us starting some events without the partnerships being finalised.

The involvement of volunteers

In March 2015, two edit-a-thons were held simultaneously in Paris: Art+Feminism and Women in Science. We launched an appeal for volunteers approximately a month and a half before the events and 4 people volunteered to supervise the participants. However, most of the available people attended Women in Science and not Art+Feminism (at least for the first day in any rate, as the Art+Feminism edit-a-thon lasted two days). This raises the question of the association's capacity to handle two events on the same day, and the question of prioritisation (the Women in Science contribution day had been arranged since October whereas the Art+Feminism project, which attracted a large number of volunteers, was much more recent and Wikimédia France had not previously committed to this partnership).

The involvement of participants

For all of the edit-a-thons, we found it difficult to involve editors as participants (except for Art+Feminism). The headcount is not as important as the capacity to target specific networks, subject- experts and motivated to contribute, as well as making the partners fully aware of the importance of involving one of their target audiences with these events, sufficiently interested and available to be trained in contributing before the event. It was the case for example that the anticipated group of experts were not present at the edit-a-thon. We therefore had to make the most of other networks of stakeholders, for example regular readers in the case of a library.

A selection of key data

9 edit-a-thons
More than 180 participants in the edit-a-thons

Wikipedia readers’ survey

Project descriptions

In 2011, the Mines Télécom research institute (Brittany) made a study known of French-speaking contributors to Wikipedia − the “Marsouin survey”. 12,000 contributors had replied, making it possible to establish a “portrait of the typical Wikipedian”. Last year, the research team contacted us once again to launch a survey aimed this time at Wikipedia's readers. This study involved three stages: designing the questionnaire along with the community, the online publication of a banner and a project page, followed by the collection and analysis of the results.

The questionnaire examined the following themes:

The uses of the Wikipedia encyclopaedia
Opinions concerning Wikipedia and the information to be found on it
Knowledge of the way the online encyclopaedia works
The contributors to Wikipedia
The possibilities to assist Wikipedia financially
The possibility to pay a subscription to Wikipedia

Resulting benefits

At the time this impact report was written, the results were still being analysed by the research team. Another of the benefits noted is the community's involvement when designing the questionnaire, with more than 30 contributors continuously involved in this and in the proofreading.

Pitfalls to be avoided

We succeeded in meeting the deadlines, although we had to postpone the questionnaire design stage due to the school holidays in order to be able to take account of the widest possible number of opinions. Furthermore, we put up a site-notice banner, and a dedicated project page. However, some contributors did not appreciate the fact that the research institute is mentioned on several occasions with the link to the questionnaire on the project page.

A selection of key data

16,277 people replied to the questionnaire between late February and late March 2015.

Safeguarding intangible heritage in Sèvres

Project descriptions

Five trips to the Cité de la Céramique (Ceramics Centre) in Sèvres took place during this financial year as part of the partnership launched in 2012. More than 2,000 photos have been added to Wikimedia Commons since the start of this partnership, including almost 140 this year. Two Wikimedian photographers have been handling this on a long-term basis and have been able to capture the work of the craftsmen at the factory for posterity, during the following workshops:

Burnishing workshop and base fitting workshop
Offset workshop
Painting workshop
Pouring the great Charpin vase

This emblematic initiative was also highlighted twice during the year: firstly with the presentation of the partnership during the audit of the Wikimedia Foundation, which made it possible to illustrate an active partnership in a concrete manner, and secondly a presentation of this initiative by our partner at the Musée des Arts et Métiers (Museum of Arts and Crafts) in December, in the presence of staff from the CNAM-Conservatoire national des arts et métiers.

Resulting benefits

The free and unrestricted sharing and highlighting of intangible heritage, skills and know-how;
The improvement of articles concerning ceramics and the factory's collections;
The preservation of activities and know-how dating from the 18th century by means of multimedia records (photos and videos);
Involving the establishment’s staff in a digital marketing project.

Pitfalls to be avoided

Approach other Wikimedians to organise more regular sessions
Some items could not be photographed, particularly the plates and items in the factory display cases as these are part of the collections.

A selection of key data

Number of workshops covered: 15
Number of photos contributed: 2,000

Pictures from the Musée National du Moyen-âge

Our cooperation with the Musée national du Moyen-âge (National Museum of the Middle Ages) was revived during the financial year. Two "photo" trips were organised to cover a newly opened exhibition entitled "Swabian sculptures from the late Middle Ages" (200 pictures uploaded to Wikimedia Commons) in order to document the museum’s various sections with high-quality photographs.

Mass uploads

This year 4 mass uploads were completed (two using GLAM Wiki Toolset), and involving content from three different partners (Municipal Archives of Toulouse, the National Archives and the Ministry of Culture and Communication).

Pitfalls to be avoided

Familiarity with the GLAM WikiToolset (or other mass-upload tools) is a rare skill among the members of Wikimédia France. Although training in the GWT has been considered, it was not organised in 2014-2015, mainly because it is no longer maintained by either Europeana or by the Wikimedia Foundation. Consequently, fairly few volunteers in the movement are able to assist with a mass upload if required.

A selection of key data

3,000 pictures of historical monuments in the Paris region, from the Ministry of Culture and Communication’s memorial and history database, of which 99.3% were categorised during the upload. Only 3.74% used on projects, but among those were the only illustrations available for about a dozen monuments.
2,100 photographs from the Berthelé Collection, featuring scenes from the First World War. Rate of re-use for projects: 17%.
107 reproductions of various historical documents from the National Archives, with a 100% rate of re-use on Wikimedia projects.

Building awareness among cultural institutions

Wikimédia France has given a number of speeches in Paris and throughout the regions to cultural institutions:

Speech at the 6th national culture and innovation meeting and at the Open Content seminar "Open museums, Shared collections" from CLIC France, with more than 450 participants;
More than 10 awareness-building sessions aimed at (among others) the MUCEM, the musée des arts et métiers, the Culture and Heritage Department of the Isère Regional Council, and the Musée d’Histoire Naturelle de Lille (Lille Museum of Natural History).

Participation in the Convergences forum

Project descriptions

Launched in 2008, Convergences is the first discussion forum in Europe intended to encourage convergence among stakeholders in the public, private and welfare-related sectors to promote the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and to combat poverty and precariousness in countries of the northern and southern hemispheres. Wikimédia France was the joint organiser of an interactive conference including a panel of speakers consisting of Erwan Kezzar, joint founder of Simplon.co, Valérie Peugeot, VP of the Conseil National du Numérique (French Digital Council), Jean Deydier, manager of Emmaüs Connect and Emmanuel Freund founder of E-Sidor. Moderated by Florence Devouard, this conference focused on the theme of "An introduction to new technologies to promote inclusion" with the goal of:

Establishing Wikimédia France as a key player regarding the new technologies and their societal impact
Establishing contact with other stakeholders involved in this theme through a recognised forum
Opening up Wikimédia France to the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) sector by participating in an event with a high impact in terms of media and networking

Around 100 people involved in the social and solidarity economy and the digital sector (public authorities, private companies, NGOs, governmental institutions, etc.) were present at this conference. Subsequently, Wikimédia France participated in the meetings of the New Convergence Technology working group to prepare the 2015 event. Among other things this paved the way for a partnership for an SSE and Big Data project entitled Epidemium, launched by Club Jade, an open and participative group working on the interaction between democracy and openness, education and innovation.

Pictures taken at Rennes 1 University

Project descriptions

The local group in Rennes signed a partnership with Rennes I University which hosts to an impressive zoology collection, mainly composed of stuffed specimens and skeletons (150,000 in total). The key advantages of the partnership is to have great conditions to take photos of these specimens and access to the description of each specimen, which allows for high-quality identification on Wikimedia Commons.

A selection of key data

5 sessions
For now 40 files were contributed to Wikimedia Commons as part of this partnership
2 potential partnerships resulted from this one (Pierre et Marie Curie University and Lyon I University)

Activities at the Musée de Bretagne

Project descriptions

The local Rennes group has been in contact with the Musée de Bretagne since 2012. After having agreed a basis for partnership in May 2014, an initial activity took place in June 2014 and others followed during the last financial year, including in particular contribution workshops focusing on Anne de Bretagne, as part of the museum's event programme; a workshop on the churches of Ille-et-Vilaine, opening the museum’s documentation centre for a special visit directed by a curator and a workshop on Breton headdresses and costumes.

Resulting benefits

An excellent working relationship has been established between the wikimedians and the university staff. This was clearly reflected in an interview carried out last April and reported both on the Wikimédia France blog and in Wikirevue no.9.

A selection of key data

61 hours of volunteer work
12 volunteers involved
74 contributions in the main area
91 files in the Commons category "Media contributed by the Musée de Bretagne"

LESS SUCCESSFUL ASPECTS

Building awareness among stakeholders in the national education system, participation in the ministerial working group in October 2014

Project descriptions

Last year we had an opportunity to participate from October 2014 to January 15 in the ministerial working group, the purpose of which was to give thought to be launch of educational projects with Wikipedia in school books intended for vocational high school classes. Despite our fruitful discussions, this working group was scrapped in February 2015.

Sources of problems The working group was dissolved in February 2015 although we do not know the exact reasons for this. From what we have been able to glean from the person who invited us, the school reforms currently going through have demanded a great deal of attention and the local education officers attending this group have had to focus on this current pressing matter. We hope to be able to participate in such a working group again at some stage to raise awareness among decision-makers of the use of Wikimedia projects in the classroom.

Possible benefits

Participating in this working group would have enabled us to refer back to this activity as a reference, particularly in dealings with establishment managers and decision-makers. Indeed, the organisation organising this working group has responsibility for redesigning educational programmes and operates under the auspices of the Ministry of National Education.

The "Ethnology may surprise you" edit-a-thon at the Musée du quai Branly in March 2015

Project descriptions

During the year gone by, 9 edit-a-thons were carried out in partnership with cultural institutions, learned societies, museums and company foundations. One of the edit-a-thons was not really successful, namely "L’ethnologie va vous surprendre" (Ethnology may surprise you), the purpose of which was to improve articles on technology and social sciences in partnership with the Musée du Quai Branly in March 2015.

Sources of problems Our partner, the Musée du Quai Branly, had publicised the activity on its usual communication channels and circulated the message throughout its networks. However, only one single person contributed on the first day and 3 the next day. We view this event as a failure, which shows that even if we count on the support of a partner with a high degree of media visibility, this is not the key factor for success.

Possible benefits

Following this edit-a-thon, we drafted two booklets, one aimed at partners and the other at volunteers and staff members laying down guidelines, to recruit contributors, to make the most of the event and to publicise it.

Partnership with the HADOPI

Project descriptions

The HADOPI is a public institution, the purpose of which is to protect copyright and to promote legal resources with regard to copyright applicable in France. Following a meeting with the HADOPI’s outreach officer, a standard presentation to be given in educational establishments (mainly high schools) was drafted. The purpose of this presentation was to have the pupils work on royalty free educational resources in the morning (Wikimedia Commons among others) and then in the afternoon to produce a short comic strip using pictures from the Commons. The partner’s approach, which was often perceived as rigid and opposed to the values of sharing, was focused solely on the reuse of royalty free educational resources. Unfortunately, no workshops followed.

Sources of problems

No workshop was organised with HADOPI within educational establishments due to a lack of volunteer resources (because of the need to be available in the week). We tried to organise a workshop on Saturday during an event at a high school but the logistical conditions for this were not met (no room could be provided).

Possible benefits

The event was publicised on several themed discussion lists. The failure to hold these workshops made us aware that the availability of volunteers is a key factor in the success in any event.

Tripartite partnership between Anaphore – The Vaucluse Archives - Wikimédia France

Project descriptions

At the start of the financial year, we were selected in a call for projects launched by the company Anaphore in partnership with the departmental archives of the Vaucluse at the initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Communication. More than 200 tripartite projects were in competition and the project entitled "multi directional circulation of metadata describing archival resources", had the potential to put Wikimédia France in good stead for future projects of this type. Wikimédia France committed itself to:

Working with Anaphore to define a model for two types of instructions, established based on the Infobox principle
Assisting with the development of two WikiBots, robots designed to automatically supply Wikipedia with these descriptive instructions, and therefore to help in the choice of exportable data formats
Helping with the choice of relevant indicators for the project’s impact measurement
Advising the archive department concerning the reuse of their data according to the various Wikimedia projects concerned (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and potentially others)

Sources of problems

While not referring to this as a failure at this stage, the start-up has been very slow and complex. The "advisory" mission to successfully complete the technical part of the project has been very difficult to coordinate as only one member of the association had the skills required to act as a key point of contact with the company Anaphore’s developer. Secondly, the take-up expected for this project in the administrative bodies managing the archive departments has not gone as we would have wished, and consequently the promotion of this service organised with Anaphore has not been optimal.

Possible benefits

Anaphore is a useful interface for networking with archive departments and for helping them find innovative ways to use their collections. Additionally, the reply to a tripartite call for tenders was a useful learning experience for Wikimédia France.

Workshops at the National Archives

Project descriptions

As part of the partnership launched in 2013 with the National Archives, two speeches were given during the financial year, in December 2014 and April 2015. Additionally, three uploads of documents took place. Half a dozen staff from the National Archives participated in these two activities, supervised by 3 to 5 volunteers; the most recent was managed by a member of the executive board.

Sources of problems:

Although this partnership cannot really be described as problematic some of the conditions required for the members to work in a profitable and sustainable manner were not met. We can advance some hypotheses for this:

The frequency of the workshops was too low to generate a real dynamic within the National Archives;
The basic contribution conditions were not met (faulty Internet connection);
Only a single person to manage the uploading of corpuses of illustrations ("bus factor");
No link between the uploaded corpuses and the organised workshops.

This partnership needs to be re-discussed at the start of the second financial year as the volunteers were both interested and motivated, and the partner also appears to be involved and committed.

Lessons for the future

This experience highlighted the need to train more people in mass upload tools and the GLAM Wiki Toolset.

The management of partnerships and activities

During this financial year, a very large number of activities were performed without having been planned (opportunities seized). Thought was therefore given in the financial year to the desirability of seeking to prioritise the actions to be performed in the next financial year, in accordance with:

What was proposed in the FDC request (our common thread)
The potential of the association's activities with regard to the new metrics
All other indicators essential to Wikimédia France’s development.

Consequently, to monitor and to provide high-quality support for the actions of local groups and themes and to achieve the expected impact, new partnerships will be assessed using a prioritisation scale which will aim to rate and measure an action’s potential according to a number of factors. We can then rationally assess whether it is judicious to commit human or financial resources to it. Additionally, this tool will be accompanied by a discussion process for new ideas which do not fall within the framework of the FDC request ("opportunities" seized several times during the financial year but which resulted in a number of pitfalls).

As announced in the FDC request, this should help to free up the necessary time and space needed to:

Continue experimenting and exploring these less habitual areas for contributors
Seek to capitalise on the experience and the skills management aspects following the actions implemented.

The training of PhD students

In future, the training issued as part of this partnership will ideally be intended for students from technical fields which, as we have remarked, manage to familiarise themselves with the system in a far shorter time and produce high quality articles. Naturally, students from other fields will not be forgotten and in as far as possible three sessions per year will be held (instead of two currently). Additionally, as we have seen, providing students with tools, techniques and tips needed to get in contact with the community has been very useful to them and we will therefore be capitalising on these aspects for future sessions This new approach (in comparison with previous years) is one of the association's objectives in relation to the provision of help, induction and support for new contributors (via the WikiMOOC project for example, included in the FDC request).

The training of teaching staff

A new form of training for future teachers (and therefore trainers) will be launched in September 2015 in other regions of France. These training courses which are part of what we refer to as the Academic Training Plan (the training programme intended for teaching staff), will be aimed at secondary school teachers. For the association, these training courses are a fantastic means of promoting our activities in relation to the educational system.

Partnership with HADOPI

The availability factor is critical when volunteers are involved. Not all of them are available in the week and although most events are held in the evenings or weekends, it can be the case that the events take place in the afternoon. We therefore need to be cautious and to involve one or several motivated volunteers from the outset.

Building awareness for staff members within the national education system

These stakeholders must not be neglected

According to the time available, we need to increase the number of awareness building sessions aimed at decision-makers within the national education system. Although we work closely with secondary school teachers and teachers in the higher education sector, who organise educational projects on a daily basis with their pupils, we feel that it is necessary to work with institutions promoting digital technology in the classroom.

Monitoring is necessary

We are not normally approached by these institutions. It will therefore be necessary to monitor the subject closely to identify the key players and themes

Wikiconcours Lycéen (high school wikicompetition)

Partnership management

For future events, we have learned that it is necessary to ensure clear and well defined project management with the partners before the event takes place. This involves a very large number of minor participants (with more than 40 directly involved in the operation). We must provide exemplary instructions for our partners and take account of the difficulties and expectations of each of them. In particular, it is important to put forward our recommendations more explicitly.

Resource documents

We have drafted a detailed and exhaustive report to identify future key factors for success and areas for improvement. These resources provide excellent foundations to run a national competition as effectively as possible.

The training of teaching staff

Additionally, after having solicited the opinions of the teachers involved in this competition, we have taken note that most of them expressed a substantial need for training ahead of the event.

Contribution days

The organisation of the various contribution days with our partners enabled us to identify three areas for improvement and lessons for the future:

Mobilising contributors

As we have seen, one of the key factors for success of an edit-a-thon is the mobilisation of contributors, usually by the partner and occasionally by the association. Indeed, when an event is open to the general public, we have noticed that few people make the trip. On the other hand, when communities of key players and experts are being targeted, a large number of people turn out. We will therefore take care to ensure that for future edit-a-thons the partner is able to mobilise contributors (students, friends of them, readers from the library, communities of experts, etc.).

The parties’ obligations

The contribution of the various partners of an event must always be clearly defined before the event by means of a partnership agreement.

The replication of an edit-a-thon

We have drafted two guide books for volunteers and partners. These practical and educational guides include lists of best practices and checklists when organising an edit-a-thon. The themed headings (the mobilisation of contributors, publicity, agreements, equipment, etc.) make it possible for everyone to familiarise themselves with the prerequisites, useful tips and key factors for success, etc. These will shortly be shared on Meta.

Axe 2: Enhance local support to empower members

SUCCESSES

Territorial development

Project description

One of our priority is to enable members of the association to get involved locally, with support from the staff team. Building up on strong local presence with groups of volunteers, we went out and met editors and members, in order to continue developing local groups, supporting activities and building awareness among the various local stakeholders (cultural institutions, local authorities, educational stuff, associations working in the social and solidarity economy, etc.).

Resulting benefits

The territorial development project allows for greater consultation between the staff and the members in the regions including more effective support, the fine tuning of activities, technical requirements for the performance of projects, etc. In 10 months more than 10 action plans were written following the mobilisation of members. And more than 5 local groups have been developed (Nantes, Angers, Lille, Marseille and Auvergne) with the realisation of at least one activity (Wiki-helpdesk, proposed training, building awareness among local stakeholders, etc.). Others are in the process of being developed. Additionally, it has been possible to organise numerous activities this year thanks to the support of the association: photo trips, partnerships with cultural institutions or local authorities, the loan of equipment or communication-related activities, etc.

Possible pitfalls

We are naturally dependent on the willingness of members and editors to get involved. They do this in their spare time. Rather than increasing the number of activities in each region, one well prepared action working with local stakeholders enables us to make a greater impact.

A selection of key data

Actions	Before	Today
Number of groups	6	14
Number of local liaisons	0	21
Number of members	200	380
Number of agreements with local authorities	1	3
Number of cultural institutions targeted by awareness building activities in the regions	0	15

The appointment of liaisons within local groups

Project description

The role of liaison mainly involves being the main point of contact for the employees, members or even partners of the association at a local group level. He facilitates the feedback of information and expresses requirements, suggests activities and issues complaints in the group's name. Furthermore, once or twice a year the local liaisons meet up to get to know one another better and to share information about the activities undertaken during the year

Resulting benefits

The appointment of local liaisons has boost efficiency when it comes to transfer information and to have more effective contacts in each region.

Possible pitfalls

The members had to be fully briefed concerning the introduction of this system. Some of them were worried about creating a "hierarchical level" within the organisation. These doubts were overcome through discussion.

A selection of key data

20 people adopted this new role.

Wikiday and the signature of a partnership agreement with the City of Bordeaux

Project description

In the national context of public open data, the cultural institutions in Bordeaux joined forces with Wikimédia France to open their doors and to enable the public to disseminate their digital collections on Wikimedia projects. An initial event was organised to this end this year. Last October, an editathon was held simultaneously in 10 cultural institutions throughout the city almost 100 people took part in the event. The day ended with the signature of a renewable agreement with the Mayor's office of Bordeaux, one of the largest cities in France.

Resulting benefits

It took six months to prepare this initiative. Training was proposed for the staff of the cultural institutions enabling them to better understand how to contribute to Wikimedia projects. Additionally, this initiative resulted in the signature of a multi-year partnership agreement between the City of Bordeaux and the association, giving wikimedians the possibility to propose activities to the city and providing the cultural institutions with a secure framework and ample support for their contributions to Wikimedia projects.

Possible pitfalls

The event required a total of six months’ preparation for the City, the staff of Bordeaux's cultural institutions (the preparation of themes, the creation of files containing the source material, training, etc.) and the wikimedians. At their request, future activities should be less intensive and require less effort. This initiative enabled us to take stock of the differences existing between the wikimedians and the employees of the cultural institutions regarding availability. The communities are available in the evenings or weekends while the employees tend to be more available during office hours.

A selection of key data

50 people trained in one day
10 cultural institutions involved in the project
Signature of a partnership agreement with a major French city
10 editathons simultaneously
25 Wikimedians involved in the initiative

A practical guide for local groups

Project description

This guide has been designed to support local groups as they develop by covering key points to guarantee regional dynamism. The purpose is to inspire and facilitate the launch of activities and to get everyone involved. This is a resource document organised into themed information sheets. It offers detailed explanations covering themes relevant to local groups and also includes descriptions of methods concerning the main activities which can be envisaged in order to propose operational resources. The guide facilitates the technical aspects of activities in order that these run as smoothly as possible.

Resulting benefits

The guide makes it possible for local groups to share a common methodology. By using the same tools and harmonising their practices, the support from the staff team is further reinforced.

Possible pitfalls

Harmonising practices and developing missing resources was no easy task. What's more, to some extent the publishers themselves had to discover the movement in order to highlight the key points.

A selection of key data

More than 20 information sheets written
An updatable guide
A shared methodology

Signature of a partnership with the département (county) of Loire-Atlantique

Project description

The French départements (counties) have responsibility for cultural issues including the creation and management of local libraries, local archiving departments, museums and the protection of heritage sites. The département of Loire-Atlantique was therefore keen to participate in the overall improvement of the themes concerning it within the Wikimedia projects, in order to make good use its expertise and to present its region to best effect for a wider audience. To achieve this, an initial experimentation phase was undertaken with the Dobrée Museum and a number of heritage sites (the Domaine de la Garenne Lemot and the chateaux of Clisson and Châteaubriant) over a one-year period.

The partnership includes performing a full inventory of all subjects related to the département’s heritage on Wikipedia, the organisation of regular workshops intended for the département’s employees and the organisation of an editathon. And naturally free access to the cultural institutions concerned.

Resulting benefits

Cultural mediators, curators for heritage sites and regional managers were trained in contributing, analysing and improving articles. The official launch of a partnership of this scale provided a secure framework for all stakeholders and made it possible to organise numerous meetings, visits and training sessions.

Possible pitfalls

It took a while to set up the partnership agreement. Numerous round trips were necessary to complete this.

A selection of key data

30 employees of the département trained during the experimentation phase this year
Private visits to the cultural institutions
A new type of partnership with a local authority of this level
A local group (Nantes) initiated the partnership

The financing of local projects

Project description

To support the development of initiatives in the French regions, a number of schemes were set up and proposed by Wikimédia France. Firstly, several budget lines were devoted to regional activities. This covers the financing of help desks or a presence in forums, the financing of photographic equipment, the production and circulation of tools and resources, etc. Alternatively, a budget is available for micro-funding. This scheme, managed by a volunteer committee and for spendings below €2,000, is intended for editors. A contributor seeking financial assistance (including transport or accommodation costs, buying reference books, etc.) submits a request on which the committee votes. During the previous financial year, a total of €6,966 was allocation this way. Finally, this year we set ourselves the tasks of reducing financing times. This was achieved, since payment and reimbursement have taken a few days over the last months.

Resulting benefits

The benefits are of two types. Regarding the budget lines, the benefit is seen above all in the relationship between our members and the general public. The organisation of help desks, presence in forums and the organisation of workshops allow us to convey a message and an image matching the association's ambitions. Concerning the micro-funding, the committee follows on allocations to ask grantees to do a lightweight, long-term reporting of outputs, but it is hard to evaluate whether these contributions would have happen without our support.

Possible pitfalls

We need to ensure that the association is not viewed as only a provider of funds. Supporting editors and members should also happen through other ways than financial ones.

A selection of key data

Value of the photographic equipment provided: €10,000
Value of sums allocated through micro-financing: €6,966
24 applications submitted to the micro-financing committee, during the financial year

Lessons for the future

Wikimédia France's wish to adopt a decentralised organisational structure is generating new requirements. Each local group is faced with organisational difficulties and requests from the general public, etc. The challenge for Wikimédia France is to succeed in this transition from supporting numerous local projects to providing solutions to shared requirements and generating involvement for major national projects which can be easily deployed locally. It was with this in mind that the Practical Guide for Local Groups was produced, or projects such as the summer events in the Wikimedia towns (and villages).

Axe 3: Facilitate international relationships

SUCCESSES

Wikimania 2014

Project description

In early August 2014, the 10th Wikimania event was held in London. Just as it does each year, Wikimédia France allowed its volunteers to attend the conferences to discover the latest news from the Wikimedia movement and also to share activities and ideas from the year gone by. The members and employees of Wikimédia France attended half a dozen speeches. Among these we should note the conference on minority languages within the Wikimedia projects, a conference on the Wikisource technical infrastructure or the conference on the limits of free admission in the royalty free content creation process. Additionally, as is the case every year, Wikimania provided an opportunity for French-speaking wikimedians to meet up. The programme for the 2014 events included the organisation of the contribution month, the production of documentary aids in French and the organisation of various events for French speakers.

Resulting benefits

Wikimania was an excellent experience from an interpersonal viewpoint. The employees (most of them new arrivals in our team) and volunteers had a chance to get to know one another during one of the key events in the life of any wikimedian. Contacts with our international counterparts were forged or reinforced. The French-speaking side of the operation also emerged stronger, with a packed room for the WikiFranca meeting: 38 participants from 8 different countries (including the first Algerian to participate in Wikimania). Finally, the presence of a large contingent from France ensured added visibility for the activities of Wikimédia France via the various sessions prepared and presented there.

Pitfalls to be avoided

One area requiring particular attention is the circulation of information concerning the grants. These are a credit which people can use but are not intend to cover all costs. Furthermore, having a stand at the "Community Village" is a costly exercise in terms of both time and human resources. These resources could be pooled with others.

Key data

20 volunteers and 8 staff present
6 conferences accepted out of around a dozen proposed
9 grant holders present at Wikimania of the 11 grant applications accepted
6 reports submitted by grant holders after Wikimania
1 French-speaking meeting
4 blog posts

The training of independent French-speaking publishers in Senegal

Project description

The International Alliance of Independent Publishers is a not-for-profit association; a genuine solidarity network consisting of 90 publishers and 9 publishers’ groups from 45 different countries. The alliance directly or indirectly represents some 400 publishers. It organises international meetings, carries out activities arguing the benefits of independence and helps promote and circulate works from the southern hemisphere, thereby contributing to greater accessibility for both the works and the ideas they contain, as well as defending and promoting biodiversity. As part of a training week organised by the alliance in Dakar (Senegal) in June 2015 focusing on raising the profile of the publishers’ content, (training which involved for example creating a website or page layout for communication-related documents, etc.) we provided training in contributing to Wikipedia. This was held over two days in a hotel in Dakar and was organised by two members of Wikimédia France living in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast. Around 50 publishers were present on these two days and had an opportunity to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia.

Resulting benefits

4 participants out of the 18 trained completed a short satisfaction and evaluation questionnaire. These four people were highly satisfied with the training issued (with a score of 9/10 being attributed) and stated that they were now able to train other people in contributing to Wikipedia. As one of the initial objectives was to train trainers, this therefore appears to have been met. Furthermore, this training provided an opportunity for the participants and their trainers to meet people from the Kër Thiossane Association, which "is opening a digital public space with the aim of proposing activities going beyond the simple consumption of and fascination with the Internet, circulated by the numerous cybercafes in Senegal." An excellent opportunity for the various stakeholders to meet up.

Pitfalls to be avoided

We wanted the two trainers to be African and French-speaking. As they therefore do not live in France, lengthy discussion and contacts were necessary with them concerning the administrative formalities to be completed in order to obtain a visa. Furthermore, as with many edit-a-thons or training sessions, the time devoted to the practical aspects was considered insufficient by the participants who usually wished for greater contribution time. The session devoted to networking with the Kër Thiossane association was also not developed as far as it might due to lack of time.

Key data

14 hours of training
18 publishers trained in contributing, from 8 countries
8 articles modified

The Executive Directors’ seminars

Description of the activity

The executive directors of the various chapters of the Wikimedia movement, (Nathalie Martin’s counterparts) meet twice a year for a working meeting. In October 2014, Wikimédia France welcomed 10 directors for a two-day working session. Estonia, Austria, Switzerland, the UK, Israel, Sweden, Argentina, Germany and France: 9 countries represented for a packed meeting agenda. The objectives of these two days were to come up with a clear vision of the similarities and individual characteristics of the chapters with a staff and the added value they generate for the Wikimedia movement; to identify key themes for cooperation and to draw up a roadmap for activities to be undertaken together. During the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin in May 2015, a workshop was organised to follow on from this seminar. The goal was threefold: to welcome new executive directors who have recently taken up their posts, to clearly identify the reason for the existence of this working group and its value at both an individual and collective level and to draw up a clear roadmap for the year.

Resulting benefits

The seminar and workshop were organised and facilitated by external moderators, as unanimously agreed upon by all participants in order to allow for more fluid discussion and to keep to the ambitious meeting agenda.
Furthermore, deliverables were expected (a roadmap of the possible actions of the working group) and this focused all available energy on a tangible result.
The new executive directors had an opportunity to directly meet and contact their counterparts, which made it easier and quicker for them to adapt to the organisation.

Pitfalls to be avoided

The executive directors are a community with very little time to devote to discussions of this nature given their many responsibilities. Secondly, the various organisations are at different stages in their existence, which means that acquired skills and experience are not automatically transferable from one situation to another. Finally, the group has no fixed dogma regarding what it expects from itself, its operating methods and its relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation, etc. The reasons for that have not been analysed. However, the good will of all was clear, as well as the conviction of the necessity and added value of this group.

Relationship with the Wikimedia Foundation

Description of the activity

The 2014-2015 financial year saw a willingness to forge closer links between Wikimédia France and the Wikimedia Foundation. Among other things, this included two initiatives: the field visit by Anasuya Sengupta and Garfield Byrd, members of the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC), who visited Wikimédia France’s premises in October 2014 and the visit from Nathalie Martin, director, and Emeric Vallespi, vice-president, to San Francisco in February 2015.

Resulting benefits

Positive points stated during field visit were the following:

The relationship between staff and volunteers (particularly members of the board)
The practical guide for use by local groups
Contributors’ area on the premises
The quality system
The staff team reporting tools
The assessment table for volunteers’ hours
The flyer dealing with financing

The positive aspects following the trip to San Francisco were:

Meeting key contacts concerning subjects of strategic importance for the association (the FDC process, results from the field visit carried out in October, sharing themes for change and improvements implemented since the visit, use of the Wikimedia brand, etc.).
Making contacts for the preparation and planning of the 2015 Hackathon
Forging links with the team coordinating fundraising in order to clarify the processes related to the collection of funds and the opening of an E-store.

Possible pitfalls

The coordination of the Wikimédia France visit could have been better. Similarly, the debriefing from the Funds Distribution Committee visit was not the subject of any dedicated meeting or report. Additionally, the reorganisation of the Wikimedia Foundation resulted in changes of contacts and will doubtless prevent us from fully capitalising on this trip.

Relationships with Europeana (Participation in the Europeana/Wikimedia Taskforce and the organisation of a European GLAM coordinators’ seminar)

Description of the activity

The Europeana network decided to create a working group to examine potential synergy with the Wikimedia movement. Wikimédia France was approached in the autumn of 2014 to participate in this task-force along with other stakeholders from the movement and outside partners. Two working sub-groups were given the objective of establishing:

An audit of technological developments within both movements
An organisational audit (interfacing & synergy between the two organisations)
10 recommendations, incorporated within Europeana’s medium-term strategy

Between August 2014 and December 2014, the task force met a total of three times: in London during Wikimania, in Madrid during the Europeana Annual General Meeting and in Hilversum in November 2014, immediately after the GLAM Wikidata Hackathon organised in the Netherlands. The recommendations were made public during 2015. A meeting devoted to the European GLAM coordinators was held subsequently to maintain its dynamism and to encourage cooperation between chapters. The GLAM coordinators of the European Wikimedia chapters were invited to Paris for a two-day seminar proposed by Europeana and hosted by Wikimédia France. The objective of these two days was for the participants to share their successes and failures in order to capitalise on existing high potential projects but also to save time and to avoid the errors that someone else has already made. The 15 countries represented during the weekend of March 7-8 2015 had all set up awareness building programmes aimed at the GLAMs, which are different stages of development and varying degrees of complexity. These activities are coordinated by staff supported by volunteers, or by volunteers only, or by board members. The two workshop days provided an opportunity to benefit both from a face to face meeting and from the sharing of experience, with the idea of designing or refining common objectives for the year to come. The minutes from these two working days are available online on Meta.

Resulting benefits;

Participation in this working group and in the resultant activities made it possible to:

Strengthen the existing ties between Wikimédia France and Europeana;
Put Wikimédia France in touch with identified counterparts from 15 countries, active in dealings with cultural institutions;
Allow for easier and faster communication between the chapters for greater efficiency concerning the consultation of peers and the pooling of resources, etc.

Key data

7 months work
3 working group meetings
1 seminar in Paris
15 organisations involved

The growing importance of WikiFranca

Project description

Cooperation between the movement’s French-speaking organisations is gradually increasing and has made it possible to achieve notable progress during the 2014-2015 financial year.

French language contribution month

The French language contribution month was held in October 2014 for the second year running, as part of WikiFranca. International Francophonie Day on March 20 provided an opportunity to review this initiative in order to assess it and to draw up an initial evaluation of our requirements for the next event.

12 countries participated: Algeria, Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Canada, Estonia, France, India, Madagascar, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Tunisia.
36 towns and cities organised events, which were usually workshops involving a dozen or so people to raise awareness regarding contributions to Wikipedia.
Adaptable, shared communication resources were put in place to facilitate communication and to get people involved in these initiatives. Including a customisable press release and adaptable posters, these resources were greatly appreciated by the organisers from the different countries.

The objective for next year (WikiFranca will be organising its next contribution month in March 2016, in line with the international Francophonie event schedule) is to increase the number of participating countries and to be better able to coordinate activities upstream, as well as encouraging support for those Wikimedia organisations most lacking in human and financial resources.

A redesign of the Afripedia project

Among the French-speaking countries, many are located in Africa. Since the start of the financial year, Wikimédia France has had the intention of relaunching the Afripedia project, and with the establishment of new contacts this has opened up fresh perspectives for the French-speaking world in general and particularly French-speaking Africa. Additionally, thanks to the existing networking underway within WikiFranca, it is now easier to coordinate actions launched within the movement (such as encouraging the circulation of an initiative like the Wiki Loves Africa competition). Two training sessions were scheduled in spring 2015. One of these, a partnership with Bibliothèques Sans Frontières had to be cancelled due to the political climate in Burundi. The other took place in Dakar in June (please see the dedicated section above). Other activities such as the sending of photographic equipment to Burkina Faso went ahead and further extended the range of possible activities for WikiFranca in French speaking Africa.

New initiatives underway within WikiFranca

The 2014-2015 period also saw a number of new initiatives coming together, including the creation of the French-speaking branch of the Wikipedia Library. Its purpose is to provide access to high-quality source material to Wikipedians. Several solutions were put in place for this, the main one being the provision of access to online databases which are usually paid for. To achieve this, the Wikimedians approached digital hubs to obtain access rights which, taken together, account now for several thousand newly accessible resources. Although this project is now well established in the English-speaking Wikimedia world, the decision has been taken to extend it with the opening of localised branches and among the first of these is the Bibliothèque Wikipédia which officially opened the French-speaking Wikipedia site. The launch of this branch is the occasion to announce three partnerships with leading French language publishers: Cairn, Érudit and L’Harmattan. Any Wikimedian registered for six months or more and having submitted 500 contributions to the projects may request access to the dedicated resource page.

Meetings and resources

The French-speaking Wikimedians met up twice during this financial year: in London during Wikimania 2014 and in May 2015 in Berlin during the Wikimedia Conference. These meetings will continue during the next financial year including a French-speaking Wikimedia Convention for 2016. Additionally, a volunteer undertaking civic service has been recruited to support the growth of WikiFranca, for a period of 8 months.

LESS SUCCESSFUL ASPECTS

Afripédia

Project description

Afripedia is an initiative based around a two-part training model: a technical part (installation and operation of wireless repeaters, plugs, USB sticks, etc.) and a generic part (learning to use Wikipedia and basic information for submitting contributions). Over two years, this project has made possible to create off-line Wikipedia access points (using WiFi or an intranet) in more than 27 locations (mainly universities or French speaking digital campuses) in 11 different countries. After having carried out a detailed assessment of this initiative, following the decision to terminate the partnerships underway for various reasons in addition to questions concerning its impact, this initiative was redesigned during the 2014-2015 financial year.

Work was carried out to find new partners and different and complementary perspectives when considering issues of interest to French-speaking Africa. The results of this analysis led to the emergence of a number of ideas aimed at enhancing content related to the southern hemisphere as part of Wikimedia projects. These initiatives, most of which were carried out via WikiFranca, pursue the following objectives:

Building awareness among civil society: consolidating relevant online content, creating and circulating tools and resources;
Training the target audiences: supporting the creation of common digital assets, expanding access to knowledge;
Increasing the content;
Supporting communities in French-speaking Africa: embracing new dynamics and joining in the initiatives underway within the movement;
Supporting the various technical developments related to these activities.

Wikimédia France is seeking expertise which is complementary to its own, particularly concerning aspects related to knowledge of the African continent, project management in these countries, the local context, the take-up of new technology and the royalty free culture. The identification of suitable partners for these different initiatives is vital.

Sources of problems

The main reason for problems after the initial version of this project was the relationship with one of the partners. The latest activities concerning the Afripedia project were described in our 2013-2014 impact report. The main problem areas were:

Disagreements concerning the contracts covering the actions and initiatives;
The interference by the partners in the organisation of Wikimédia France regarding the selection and number of trainers;
Non-compliance with a number of rules intended to avoid conflicts of interest.

For more than six months, negotiations were held in order to try and find a favourable outcome but were ultimately unsuccessful. Other observations, concerning the project impact, led us to look for new partnerships in order to review this initiative, this time incorporating factors which had been insufficiently covered previously:

Local roots and the leadership of stakeholders in the locations concerned;
Undertaking training provided by trainers who had themselves been trained beforehand;
Building awareness among stakeholders in civil society, beyond the educational and university establishment.

As Afripedia offers a great opportunity to generate missing content, we really need to bring about a change in the way the project is run in order to involve local stakeholders.

Possible benefits

Up until now, the redesign of the Afripedia project and the areas identified to organise activities for and with stakeholders from French-speaking Africa are bearing fruit. It is easier to build upon existing projects, the vision and ideology of which match the association's objectives. This makes designing activities simpler and more natural, and involves us in a joint creation process. The partners approached (OIF, BSF, AIEI, Afrique Telecom, etc.) are open and enthusiastic regarding the idea of undertaking these initiatives with us and new perspectives are opening up outside the training field including participation in written activities, the provision of resources and the incorporation of other existing networked projects (like Wiki Loves Africa).

Lessons for the future

The training of independent French-speaking publishers in Senegal

The purpose of this training is to enhance the current data concerning African French language publishing, African authors and more generally the African continent in the world of literature. Over the longer term, this means contributing expertise in transferring these skills to other organisations with strong local roots, thereby creating the capacity to guarantee the long-term future of (and generate dynamism around) projects within the small group of publishers who participated in this training. We have identified the following key factors for success:

Planning the long term nature of the contributions (with a need to organise the group of trained people over the long term)
The presence of trainers, identified via the francophones@ list, themselves from French-speaking African countries, was appreciated by the participants
A partnership focusing on the challenges of impact measurement
A favourable framework: a training initiative using pre-existing digital resources
The provision of equipment: video projector, cables, screen, internet connection allowing for the simultaneous connection of at least 10 people, multiple plug sockets, workstations, etc.

Involvement of and sharing with the rest of the movement

The 2014-2015 financial year made it possible to bring Wikimédia France into greater contact with the other units within the movement and to begin the systematic sharing of its practices, the translation of documents designed for the chapter, active participation in various events involving the Wikimedia organisations and their representatives, in addition to the design of certain international events such as the Hackathon.

A handful of illustrations

3 shared structural documents (partnership guide, practical guide for local groups, proposed services, etc.)
Regular participation in This Month in GLAM
The organisation of 3 international events (Hackathon, executive directors’ seminar, the meeting of the European GLAM coordinators)
Active participation in activities related to the French language with support for WikiFranca and its initiatives.

Axe 4: Improve tools for editors

SUCCESSES

Wikimedia Hackathon

Project description

During Wikimania 2014 held in London, the French chapter was selected to organise the Wikimedia Hackathon 2015. This was followed by several months of preparation, with efforts to find new partners to finance the project as much as possible. At the same time, we began looking for a permanent site in order to deal with the organisational constraints.

The association organised the annual Wikimedia hackathon in Écully, a small town near Lyon. The characteristics of this site enabled the participants to work, sleep and eat at the same location. Additionally, the Valpré conference and seminar centre where the Hackathon was held was privately hired for the occasion, providing total liberty for the participants.

To finance the event, we partnered with Google, the French Judaism Foundation, and local free-software stakeholders.

Resulting benefits

With more than 200 participants present from 20 different countries, the organisational aspects were carefully thought out to welcome new contributors. As such, on May 23, 66 new participants were seated in the packed Valpré amphitheatre where the opening ceremony of the hackathon was held. Among the novice participants, a number were not from the Wikimedia movement but from several French IT schools. Introduction sessions for the new members were organised to get them started as effectively as possible by pairing each to a more experienced "Buddy".

For this event, Wikimédia France did everything possible to enable parents to come along with their children by setting up a crèche throughout the event. .

Possible pitfalls

The event was a success. However, a document produced at the last minute upset a number of participants. The problem was dealt with at the start of the event. Organising an event of this size also led us to postpone certain other projects, and work on these will resume in this new financial year.

A selection of key data

No fewer than 33 projects were presented during the closing ceremony. These included highly graphical projects such as Wikipédia on iWatch or an ultra-minimalist version of the free encyclopaedia. There were also more technological projects, with the possibility to search for data by entering a sentence in natural English

CiviCRM

Description

CiviCRM has been the platform used to manage our donors and members since 2012. We also added event management this year.

Resulting benefits

This system enables us to efficiently manage more than 300 members, thousands of donors, in addition to the regular sending of newsletters and registrations for events such as the hackathon, etc. The new feature this year (event management) enables us to set up a registration page for an event using a centralised interface, to collect registration details and to send out mailshots to all participants.

Possible pitfalls

A number of bugs noted with the new direct debit system currently make manual intervention necessary to create the list of debits before sending this to the bank. An update of the software and a correction phase are scheduled in September.

A selection of key data

363 members
More than 94,000 donors

OTRS

Description

OTRS is an e-mail-based request management system used by the whole Wikimedia movement. Among other things, the Wikimedia Foundation supplies queues to the French project communities and to Wikimédia France. The association's queues are managed by staff and those from the projects by volunteer agents.

The association's queues centralise requests related among other things to donations, memberships or the press. The project queues centralise requests for permission to republish, in addition to miscellaneous complaints and feedback from the general public.

At the request of several OTRS agents from Wikipedia in French, we organised a weekend meeting of OTRS agents in November. The first day was focused on training and exchanges of best practices and was open to everyone. The second day was reserved for the OTRS agents of Wikipedia in French, in order to deal with more complex requests as a group and in total confidentiality.

Resulting benefits

This weekend was a useful one for everyone involved, both in terms of learning and problem solving and it was decided that this event will be repeated each year.

Possible pitfalls

The association's OTRS files are still hosted in the United States by the Wikimedia Foundation, despite the fact that these may contain sensitive data, particularly regarding donors. We should therefore arrange for the migration of files to a server hosted by Wikimédia France. Although an initial feasibility study and tests were carried out on the morning of the first day of the OTRS workshop, this migration has not yet been finalised but should be in the short term.

A selection of key data

13 participants attended the first meeting.

Sémanticpédia

Logo Sémanticpédia

Description

Sémanticpédia is a collaborative platform involving the Ministry of Culture and Communication, INRIA and Wikimédia France to produce research and development programmes applicable to corpuses or to collaborative cultural projects using data drawn from the Wikimedia projects.

The goal of these activities is to build up an ecosystem of linked and publicly accessible cultural data.

The roles of the various participants are as follows: the Ministry of Culture and Communication contributes its expertise concerning cultural content or projects in connection with a national network of cultural institutions. It is the prime mover when it comes to defining the projects. Wikimédia France contributes its expertise concerning corpuses, tools, data, editorial processes and the wiki platform. Via the Wimmics team, Inria develops experimental tools using the data and cultural services of the Ministry of Culture and Communication on the one hand and the data and services of Wikimedia on the other.

As part of this cooperation, the hosting of the DBpedia platform in French is being transferred to servers managed by Wikimédia France. As a reminder, DBpedia is a university and community project exploring and automatically extracting data derived from Wikipedia. The principle behind this is to propose a structured version in the form of standardised data in the semantic web format of the encyclopaedic content of each encyclopaedic file. DBpedia also seeks to link Wikipedia (and vice versa) with sets of other open data derived from linked data: DBpedia has been designed by its authors as one of the emerging central hubs for the linked data web and one of its possible entry points. This project is being headed by the University of Leipzig, the Free University of Berlin and the company OpenLink Software. A version entirely in French with added new features was officially presented in March 2012. This is being developed by Inria with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Communication and the input of the Wikimédia France Association

Resulting benefits

Numerous developers need automatic and semanticized access to Wikipedia data for their applications. DBpedia meets this requirement. It is important for enhancing the influence of Wikimedia in French, and more generally the French language that a DBpedia concerning this version of the free encyclopaedia should exist.

It is also important for these developers that this DBpedia in French should have up-to-date data in view of the high level of volatility of articles on Wikipedia (with up to 80 modifications per minute). With this in mind, Wikimédia France is using Vocal Apps to update this version, which was delivered in November and which is available at the following address http://live.fr.dbpedia.org/

The company Vocal Apps was one of the first French small businesses to reuse data from the SémanticPédia project, particularly by developing the first automatic reply system in French. In view of this, Vocal Apps has acquired significant expertise with semantic systems in general and more particularly solid experience with DBpedia in French.

Possible pitfalls

Setting up a platform such as DBPedia requires expertise both in systems administration and technology related to the semantic web and to linked data. The satisfactory operation of this project over the long-term requires that we should be able to count on such experts.

A selection of key data

Number of entities in DBpedia Live in French: 4,921,910
Number of triplets in DBpedia Live in French: 151,825,718
Number of properties in DBpedia Live in French: 21,500

Photography

Description

Support for volunteer photographers and the organisation of this community has been one of the key strengths of Wikimédia France for a long while now, including the provision of professional or semi-professional photographic equipment (reflex cameras, lenses, flashes, etc.) This equipment is made available to members in the cities of Paris, Rennes, Strasbourg and Toulouse thanks to "packs" including a camera and several lenses according to the local groups’ preferred subjects (monuments, concerts, sport, etc.). Mini photographic studios are also available in Paris, Rennes and Toulouse.

The association also helps photographers to obtain authorisations to supply images under royalty free licenses, particularly thanks to a partnership with ASO (Amaury Sports Organisation) for taking sports photos, opening up the possibility of new activities such as golf tournaments and cycling or sailing events. Additionally, meetings devoted to photography are organised by Wikimédia France and provide an opportunity for experienced photographers to train the novices, while at the same time involving them in association life and in the projects.

Sports and concert photos
Champions league, PSG - Twente, October 15 2014 - Pierre-Yves Beaudouin / CC-BY-SA-4.0
Toulouse disabled sports Marathon - Pierre-Selim Huard / CC-BY-4.0
Wrestling gala in Belfort - Thomas Bresson / CC-BY-3.0
Izïa - Pablo Tupin-Noriega / CC-BY-SA-4.0
Alpha Blondy - Thesupermat / CC-BY-SA-3.0

Two weekends were organised this year. The first was in December in Alsace where the participants had a chance to train in photography on Colmar’s traditional Christmas market and the mediaeval market in Ribeauvillé. They also visited the castle of Haut-Kœnigsbourg which they photographed from every angle.

Highlights of the first photography week-end
Blacksmith at Ribeauvillé mediaeval Christmas market - G.Garitan / CC-BY-SA-4.0
The Castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg - G.Garitan / CC-BY-SA-4.0
The Castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg - Cyrille Bertin / CC-BY-SA-4.0

The second was held in June in Abeilhan (Languedoc-Roussillon), where the participants were able to photograph several caves collaboratives (cooperative wine vendors) in the area, a particular feature of this region which up until now was barely covered by the Wikimedia projects. After having examined several caves from the outside, the participants explored that of Abeilhan from top to bottom The following day, they covered a soapbox race enabling the beginners to get a feel for the basics of sports photography in a festive atmosphere.

Highlights of the second photography week-end
Cave de Roujan - Marianne Casamance / CC-BY-SA-4.0
Cave coopérative d'Abeilhan - Édouard Hue / CC-BY-SA-4.0
Soapbox race - Xavier Caré / CC-BY-SA-4.0
Soapbox race - Scaylina / CC-BY-SA-4.0
Lightpainting - Céline Rabaud / CC-BY-SA-4.0

Of the various forms of support provided by Wikimédia France, last but not least we should mention the association’s micro-funding programme. This programme has already made it possible to finance several photography-related initiatives, including the payment of the expenses of a contributor covering numerous cycle races in northern France and Belgium, as well as aerial photography sessions by drone or plane, as was the case for the Palace of Versailles

Resulting benefits

Volunteer support in this area resulted in breaking this year the milestone of 100,000 files supported by Wikimédia France. The success of the "introduction to photography" weekends is clear, with between 15 and 20 participants in each event, added to the fact that this draws attention locally to the existence of Wikimedia Commons, with the last event being covered in the regional newspaper.

Possible pitfalls

Although many photos were taken, in the end few of them are reused on Wikipedia. Additionally, not all of the participants necessarily submit their photos for Wikimedia Commons assessments, resulting in a decline in the percentage of highlighted photos.

A selection of key data

40,480 files were published with the support of Wikimédia France during this funding period
Bringing the total to 104,898 files

Contributors’ area

Description

When Wikimedia France moved its offices to larger premises in spring 2014 this made it possible to create a dedicated area for contributors to Wikimedia projects, whether from Paris or simply passing by. Known as the “Cléry area”, this facility contains resources for the contributors enabling them to learn, create and share. The contributors’ area includes an office with a computer for general use, broadband Internet access, a mini photo studio and a book scanner. A small library is also available. Unrestricted access is available during office hours.

A meeting room is available subject to reservation during office hours, in the evenings and at weekends. This includes a large meeting table for up to 12 people, a paperboard, a video projector and a screen.

Two sessions were held in October and December in the contributors’ area to assemble a book scanner, to install its software components and to carry out a test scan on the first book in the presence of volunteers.

These evenings devoted to the use of the book scanner were accompanied by WikiAttic evenings, which each month bring together members and the equipment made available by the association (scanner and photo studio) to improve Wikimedia projects.

WikiAttic evenings
Zoom H4n recorder - Lionel Allorge / GFDL - CC-BY-SA-3.0
Lime - Lionel Allorge / GFDL - CC-BY-SA-3.0
Snail shell- Lionel Allorge / GFDL - CC-BY-SA-3.0
Use of the book scanner- Thesupermat / CC-BY-SA-3.0
Photographers at work- Lionel Allorge / GFDL - CC-BY-SA-3.0

Resulting benefits

The creation of this area has made it possible to organise community events on a regular basis, with two recurrent evening events per month (WikiAttic and Wikicheese) but also training on an occasional basis in Wikisource, in Wikidata and in Lua/Scribunto. It also offers a "drop-in point" for members visiting Paris where they can contribute while waiting for a train or meet the staff team. Finally, by providing a fixed location for the mini photo studio and the book scanner, these become easier to use. In the case of the book scanner, which is particularly large and not particularly mobile, we would not have been able to install it if we did not have this permanent area.

In addition to the book scanning itself, the book scanner has also made it possible to bring Wikimédia France closer to the French-speaking Wikisource community but also, during the Public Domain Festival, to allow participants in the four scanning workshops to discover Wikisource.

Possible pitfalls

For the time being it is difficult to open outside office hours without a staff member of the Association or the local liaison of the Paris group being present, which has limited the usefulness of this area. Generally speaking, the community still does not know enough about the Cléry area.

We need to set up lending software to enable contributors to more easily learn which resources are accessible to them and during which period they are available.

A selection of key data

20 events in the contributors’ area
9 books scanned

Axe 5: Increase the reach of the association

SUCCESSES

The Public Domain Festival

Project description

When they are scanned, works in the public domain are accessible to everyone. They can be circulated, exchanged and modified without restriction. This is a huge common asset pool which each person can rediscover, familiarise himself with and reinvent as he sees fit. In this way, the public domain really does keep its promise: to give a "second lease of life" to works by enabling everyone to access them without requesting authorisation and without paying any royalties. The stated aim of this festival is to make as many people as possible aware of the importance and the sheer richness of the public domain through a series of events combining culture, the new technologies and creativity. Wikimédia France became a partner in the organisation of the first Public Domain Festival held in January 2015 in Paris.

Resulting benefits

Prior to the creation of the festival, a partnership between Wikimédia France and the Atelier Hourdet school was agreed to enable students to work on the communication and graphical aspects of the festival. With the coordination of the schoolteacher and Wikimédia France’s communication and events officer, the students worked for two months in groups. This initiative made it possible to raise awareness of the association and the public domain among the school's students thanks to the work of Wikimédia France and the Public Domain Festival with the students and teachers.

During the event, Wikimédia France organised four edit-a-thons, photo marathons and a presentation evening for the Public Domain Remix competition, a competition for remixing works from the public domain. This was a great opportunity to involve the association’s volunteers and to engage in dialogue with an audience particularly interested in Wikimedia projects.

Pitfalls to be avoided

Although the festival went well, we noted a lack of commitment by the partners. On several occasions we found ourselves in delicate situations, as was the case when one of the artists dropped out during an evening that we had organised, with the party concerned only informing us the day before the event.

A selection of key data

During the festival, 250 people were made aware of the public domain, of royalty free licenses, but also of Wikimedia projects. The presentation evening for the competition attracted 50 people and another 50 viewed the event live via the Internet.

Wiki Loves Monuments

Project description

Wiki Loves Monuments is an international competition for photographing historical monuments, which features a strong local dimension. This competition encourages participants both to discover heritage sites in their area and to share these with the whole world by posting photographs on Wikimedia Commons. In 2014, Wikimédia France joined forces with Canon and a "Coup de Cœur" (favourites) prize was created for the occasion and awarded during a prize giving evening in partnership with the City of Paris’ Musée des Arts et Métiers.

Resulting benefits

The participation rate remained stable compared to previous events with 18,000 photos and 800 participants for the 2014 event. Furthermore, visibility was improved, particularly thanks to the partnership with Canon France.

Pitfalls to be avoided

There were some difficulties in finalising the partnership with Canon due to the 2014 summer holiday period, although the agreement was reached with this partner before the deadline.

We are considering bringing in a new grading scale next year to ensure the results are more in line with the goal of the competition which is to illustrate Wikipedia articles.

A selection of key data

Salon du livre (the Book Fair)

Project description

Founded in 1881, the Salon du livre de Paris, (Paris book fair) is an event devoted to books and written material organised each year in the spring. Since 2013, Wikimédia France has been participating in this fair to promote projects such as Wikisource and Wikipedia. This year, the association has acquired a book scanner and presented it during the 2014 fair.

Resulting benefits

300 people stopped by on the association's stand, providing a great opportunity to chat with professionals from the French book world.

Pitfalls to be avoided

After the terrorist attacks of January 2015 in Paris, heightened security measures were introduced with tougher standards resulting in more work.

A selection of key data

During the event, 300 people were made aware of our activities. 10 volunteers were involved for 3 days.

Salon Educatec Educatice - Salon de l’Education

Project description

The Educatec show is an event reserved for educational professionals and is held at the same time as the Salon de l’Éducation (Education show), which tends to be aimed more at pupils and students seeking career ideas or study opportunities after the baccalaureate.

Resulting benefits

Our participation in this event was fruitful as we had a chance to talk to both teachers but also local education officers and trainers from the national education system. Our discussions with these groups concerned the use of Wikipedia in the classroom and the opinions of stakeholders in the national education system concerning Wikimedia projects. We listened to their comments and took note that a positive change is expected in 2016 at the same time as the "digital education" plans. We should be asked more frequently to get involved with training and awareness building in the use of Wikimedia projects in the classroom.

Pitfalls to be avoided

A selection of key data

9 volunteers manned the stand for three days
250 people were made aware of Wikimedia projects
A dozen high-quality contacts were made

The Geekopolis show

Project description

An annual event held in Paris, the Geekopolis show (the festival of fantasy cultures) is one of the leading events for all Geek communities (mediaeval fantasy, super heroes, Japanese animation, Steampunk, Tech.) in France. This particular audience seems the perfect target for the projects run by Wikimedia and over the space of the weekend some 20,000 people filed past our stand. The contributors and staff worked in tandem to present their activities over these two days. Due to an oversight by our friends the open information campaigners (or the organisers, we will never know), we were even asked to give a conference on the rules for contributing to Wikipedia. Two of the administrators present on-site rose to the occasion superbly.

Resulting benefits

With this kind of audience, the visitors naturally make their way to our stand. What's more, the questions we were asked were rarely controversial and displayed a genuine interest in the subject. Finally, the cooperation between the staff and contributors during assignments of this kind generates a healthy degree of understanding between these two communities and gives a human touch to what is otherwise a purely "online" relationship.

Pitfalls to be avoided

The main pitfall noted from this experience would be our wish to get involved in too many shows, as these were going so well. Indeed, these events soak up a huge amount of time and energy. We cannot make demands on our staff and volunteers every weekend.

A selection of key data

20,000 visitors
800 passes distributed
A stand open for 25h (4 people involved)
1 conference held

Lobbying activities

Project description

As a key player in the free information sector, Wikimédia France is keen to defend a number of ideals and to promote certain convictions in the political and media fields. The 2014-2015 financial year enabled the association to:

Question its capacity to fully mobilise for the principles it wishes to defend (due to time, financial and human resources, coordination, etc.);
Question its position in relation to the various subjects on which it may be tackled and its response policy;
Give priority to certain actions, particularly those related to defending the freedom of panorama and vis-a-vis all societal issues related to the digital field.

Resulting benefits

The 2014-2015 financial year provided an opportunity for the executive board to clarify Wikimédia France's position on the various aspects of lobbying and to focus on two of these: discretion and sharing. It also enabled us to identify additional activities to be carried out if sufficient human resources are available during the next financial year:

Identifying and prioritising the relevant issues which Wikimédia France wishes to raise nationally;
To chart these issues and correlate them with the 5 priority subjects for the Wikimedia Foundation and the areas for action pursued by the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group (FKAG);
Define WMFr’s position on these issues;
Monitor the situation nationally;
Work on the translation of existing documentation within and outside the movement concerning royalty free licenses, etc., for more widespread circulation, particularly in the French-speaking communities;
Identify like-minded networks for the various subjects and get in touch with them;
Support the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group (FKAGEU) to make the work more "transferable" locally.

Pitfalls to be avoided

It is probably necessary to focus more on the lobbying aspects nationally. To take part in the debate, and even to register on the political landscape we need to take account of our members’ ideas and even give our members the means they need to act on an as-needs basis in this field.

We should not neglect awareness building activities, particularly concerning the creation, adaptation and circulation of educational brochures on subjects central to the movement's interests.

A selection of key data

4 blog articles devoted to the freedom of panorama
Financing of 5,000 EUR for the position of Dimitar Dimitrov, a Wikimedian in Brussels
2 meetings with the office of the Secretary of State for Digital Affairs, 2 speeches at workshops dealing with the issue of freedom of panorama

Axe 6: Create a more friendly environment for Wikimedia projects

SUCCESSES

Communication tools

Project description

The year 2014-2015 was chiefly devoted to redesigning and creating paper-based communication media for the association. All Wikipedia, Wikimedia commons, Wiktionary and Wikisource flyers and those presenting the association were redesigned. Additionally, the quarterly review of Wikimédia France was also redesigned in order to reach out to a wider audience. Various documents were created such as the Service proposal and the Practical guide for local groups (Please see axe 2).

Resulting benefits

We have seen increased demand from members, partners and even the public concerning the reading of redesigned documents. Furthermore, the Practical guide for volunteers and the Service proposal are documents which have now become essential to the satisfactory operation of the association, enabling it to forge stronger links between the partners and the associations and between the volunteers and the staff.

Pitfalls to be avoided

The association has carried out a great deal of work on printed communication with the distribution of numerous posters, flyers and other media.

A selection of key data

25,000 WikiRevues in ‘Web and print’ form, 1,500 Flyers for projects (per project) distributed, etc.

Community management

Project description

Wikimédia France's presence on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter is vital. In July 2014 a new approach was tried concerning communication using these, with for example the combination of highly graphical images and text on social networks. Similarly, the Wikimédia France blog has been a useful tool enabling the association's members to express themselves. At the same time, work to redesign the editorial guidelines for our various networks has been undertaken and will continue throughout the whole of 2015/2016 to obtain coherence across our different media.

Resulting benefits

Over the last 12 months we have seen a 25% increase in the number of visitors on social networks. The sharing of our news has increased by 4%. Similarly, blog consultation trends also rose overall during the financial year.

Pitfalls to be avoided

Wikimédia France has several channels to manage at the same time: the blog, social networks, website and regular publications requiring content, such as the Wikirevue. The association will certainly gain by proposing/sharing its news more regularly with the rest of the movement, particularly via the Wikimedia foundation blog which brings with it a whole new audience.

A selection of key data

Press relations

Project description

Wikimédia France is now clearly identified as a gateway for the media who see the association as a key partner. Activities such as WikiCheese or more likely the Public Domain Festival have benefited from unprecedented media coverage. We therefore need to make the news with innovative, unexpected and easily covered projects (such as WikiCheese) or to count on the distribution network already in place and well maintained (as is the case with the Public Domain Festival). Additionally, mirroring the development of local groups throughout the financial year, more and more media coverage concerns the French provinces, hence the need to ensure that the local groups are equipped with a media relations kit, issued at the end of the financial year. Other solutions involve financing the services of a communication agency for the local groups, as was the case with Wiki Loves Earth, run by members of the local group from Rennes.

Resulting benefits

An overall increase in media coverage throughout the financial year
A real window of opportunity for media visibility (Wikicheese, news from the movement, the Public Domain Festival, the hackathon, etc.)
The use of increasingly diverse press relations methods to involve the association's members more closely (local contacts via networks of partners in the regions, equipping the members to carry out press relations work locally, associating ourselves with events providing a clear framework and generating greater media coverage, etc.)

Pitfalls to be avoided

We need to take care that we closely control our statements on all issues concerning the association’s national influence or on political issues, continuing to use the association's official spokespeople.

A selection of key data

The quality system

Project description

Following the introduction of an initial quality system in late 2013, which provided a starting point for us to assess the impact of the actions carried out by the association, we are keen to build on this system through the introduction of a new range of indicators. These indicators are broken down into three "impacts": Projects, Association and Society, and are listed together in a table and have been included in the previous quarters submitted to the foundation. In addition to this quality system, various quality-related activities have been undertaken including work to achieve quality labelling from a certification body providing us with privileged access to a wider range of donors and quality audits performed by the students of a major business school.

Resulting benefits

Via the various activities related to the quality system we were keen to involve the members of the association in the quality and evaluation aspects. A group dedicated to quality was set up and has made it possible to bring together volunteers and staff concerning this issue. A number of meetings have also been held, making it possible to hold discussions between the participants concerning the future of the quality system within the association. Furthermore, the audits performed within the association were also a useful means to bring together the various stakeholders in the Wikimedia movement to consider the impact of the activities carried out. We adopted a critical approach and the various areas of improvement raised by the people in charge of the audits will be improved in the months to come.

Pitfalls to be avoided

During the year 2014 - 2015, our quality approach has evolved due to various requirements we faced:

What we did first is redefining some objectives which had been implemented more than a year ago (when we did not have sufficient data) to be consistent with the current actions of our association;
some indicators were removed from the original quality approach. For example, one indicator dedicated to evaluate the level of exchange of information between volunteers had to be removed because we were not able to develop adequate tools to track it;
from a format standpoint, items, indicators and impacts represented a large number of cells in a spreadsheet but still, we decided to put the sheets on META for Q1. This time-consuming operation (construction of specifically designed models) led us to create Google spreadsheets for the following quarters, much easier to handle. Data archiving on both META and on Google Spreadsheets were not optimized;
finally, in April 2014, we learned that the Global Metrics were now compulsory to report required by the Wikimedia Foundation. This new requirement made us launch a whole new dynamics with our various stakeholders (employees, volunteers, partners,…), which had had very little time to comply with the former (and now obsolete) approach, and need now to comply to other standards.

A selection of key data

3 impacts (Wikimedia projects, Association, Society)
23 indicators

Crowdfunding

Project description

In early autumn 2014, a contributor contacted Wikimédia France to carry out his project to index and photograph the various cheeses of France. However, this project represented a number of major challenges:

The cost, which was not planned for in our budget
A chance to attract new members if we master the presentation aspect

We decided to experiment with a crowd funding campaign for these various points. We contacted the “KissKissBankBank” platform, and launched our campaign in December 2014, by offering rewards which could serve as Christmas presents.

Resulting benefits

The benefits of the experiment were numerous. Firstly, the financial benefit of the operation: €7,500. Next, through a substantial community management work, we achieved great communication results, with 56 press articles (national and international). Finally, this initial attempt proved to be a great success and has already generated a willingness to try new projects which could be launched using crowd funding.

Pitfalls to be avoided

These initiatives relied a lot on community management work. For this project, we benefited from the high level of involvement and the experience of our volunteer Pierre-Yves, which will not always be the case. This was nevertheless a key factor for success for such an undertaking

A selection of key data

LESS SUCCESSFUL ASPECTS

The website

Project description

The association is increasingly using web-based media to communicate. It benefits from a high level of awareness on social media (5,000 followers on Twitter, 2,000 likes on Facebook). However, the association has no central platform to communicate with partners, general public, members and journalists. For this reason, we plan the creation of an attractive community website enabling us to communicate as effectively as possible and to centralise the various communication channels. A website already exists although it is not regularly updated and is not designed for current requirements.

The reasons for failure

As mentioned above, this year was mainly focused on redesigning the paper-based media. It was thus difficult to allocate time to redesign the website, which is a major project and one of the priorities for the year to come.

Possible benefits

Despite the difficulties discussed above, several meetings have been held with volunteers and staff, who established together clear requirements, structure, and objectives. We hope to launch the new website for early 2016.

Additional learning

1. What are some of the activities that are happening in your community that are not chapter-led? What are the most successful among these, and why?

On French-language Wikipedia, we can think of the following activities:

The WikiConcours (“WikiContest”) is a team-contest which started in 2006 and now taking place twice a year, usually in September and March. It aims to improve article quality over a period of 1 or 2 months. There are two formulas: “selection”, where the team focuses on one to five articles; and “unstubbing” (« désébauchage ») where the team strives to improve as many articles as possible beyond stub-assessment. Two editions, both “selection”, took place on this funding period. Summarising both, 80 teams worked on 260 articles, resulting in 18 featured articles and 29 good articles. Winning articles included Aspects économiques et logistiques des guerres napoléoniennes, Équipe de Hongrie de football, Mythologie bretonne, Horus, or Tetris. The Wikiconcours is an important part of the life of the community, with a substantial impact on the quality of the encyclopaedia, often on articles of first importance.
→ For more information, see Wikipédia:Wikiconcours
The Projet:Aide et accueil (Help and welcome project), works on ideas to improve new users experience. This year, they focused on
- improving help pages by creating a new design (not deployed yet - waiting for user tests), dedicated pages for wikitext or Visual Editor, difficulty level, help arborescence,…
- deploy definitely Flow on the Forum des nouveaux, a help-desk for new users, after a one year test with the two systems. Flow gets better engagement with newbies (more thanks, new questions…)
→ For more information, see Projet:Aide et accueil
The group of French-speaking volunteers active on OTRS is more dynamic since mid-2014. As outlined above they organised real-life meetings, with the help of the chapter.

2. Provide any links to any media coverage, blog posts, more detailed reports, more detailed financial information that you haven't already, as well as at least one photograph or video that captures the impact your entity had this past year.

Various reports

Our quaterly WikiRevue: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4
A year of This month in GLAM
The WikiCheese newsletter, WikiCheese impact overview
Wikimedia Commons files: Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4

Press coverage

See our press review of Q1, Q2, Q3
Hackathon (just for example)
- "Le hackathon où Wikimédia France accélère la connaissance", Makery, Elsa Ferreira, 26.05.2015
- "Le Hackathon Wikimédia à Lyon : un rendez-vous européen pour 200 geeks", France 3, Sandra Méallier, 23.05.2015
- "Lyon: Rassemblement de geeks au hackathon de Wikimédia", 20 minutes, Mikael Libert, 23.05.2015
- "Wikimedia fait son hackaton à Lyon : gros arrivage de geeks en vue", Rue 89 Lyon, 22.05.2015
- "Hackaton Wikimédia : des centaines de développeurs à Lyon ce week-end", Gregoire Nartz, Lyon Capitale, 21.05.2015
- "Lyon accueille pour la première fois le Hackathon Wikipédia", Dominique Largeron, Lyon Entreprises, 18.05.2015
- "Rendez-vous à Lyon pour le hackathon européen de Wikimédia", Antoine Oury, ActuaLitté, 18.05.2015
- "Les développeurs de Wikipédia pour la première fois à Lyon", Le Progrès, 13.05.2015
- "Hackathon Wikimédia à Lyon : inscrivez-vous vite !", Pascaline, 05.2015
Wikicheese
→ See Wikipédia:WikiCheese/Presse

French volunteer Lionel Allorge talks about aerial photography at Versailles, which was supported by the chapter.

The WikiCheese project is one of this year's highlight − communication, fundraising, cross-project contribution…
Winner of Wiki Loves Earth 2015. This was the first time France participated in WLE, with good results
The Wikimedia Hackathon 2015 gathered 200 participants

Compliance

Is your organization compliant with the terms defined in the grant agreement?

1. As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

2. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

Yes

3. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

Yes

Financial information

1. Report any Grant funds that are unexpended fifteen (15) months after the Effective Date of the Grant Agreement. These funds must be returned to WMF or otherwise transferred or deployed as directed by WMF.

2. Any interest earned on the Grant funds by Grantee will be used by Grantee to support the Mission and Purposes as set out in this Grant Agreement. Please report any interest earned during the reporting period and cumulatively over the duration of the Grant and Grant Agreement.

Signature

Nathalie Martin (WMFR) (talk) 19:28, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Schiste (talk) 21:10, 14 October 2015 (UTC)