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Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round1/Wikimedia Österreich/Impact report form

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Purpose of the report

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This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their results to date. For progress reports, the time period for this report will the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). For impact reports, the time period for this report will be the full 12 months of this grant, including the period already reported on in the progress report (e.g. 1 January - 31 December of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.


Global metrics overview - all programs

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Global metrics: Community Support

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Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 882 4 + 17 + 27 + 40 + 12 + 42 + 10 + 16 + 40 + 10 + 23 + 2 + 16 + 16 + 20 + 3 + 22 + 55 + 38 + 9 + 11 + 15 + 10 + 81 + 180 + 8 + 1 + 29 + 19 + 8 + 45 + 2 + 20 + 15 + 16 = 882
2. # of new editors 206 153 + 11 + 42 = 206
3. # of individuals involved 1502 22 + 17 + 28 + 42 + 13 + 44 + 12 + 16 + 40 + 16 + 24 + 200 + 17 + 16 + 21 + 4 + 24 + 211 + 39 + 13 + 13 + 29 + 13 + 126 + 186 + 11 + 100 + 31 + 22 + 8 + 50 + 3 + 21 + 52 + 18 = 1502
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 0 n/a (out of program scope)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 0 n/a (out of program scope)
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 0 n/a (out of program scope)


Global metrics: Free Content Generation

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Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 329 12 + 2 + 35 + 1 + 2 + 40 + 11 + 26 + 3 + 6 + 11 + 7 + 7 + 36 + 27 + 12 + 8 + 32 + 51 = 329
2. # of new editors 0 n/a (out of program scope)
3. # of individuals involved 388 13 + 3 + 36 + 8 + 3 + 11 + 41 + 27 + 4 + 6 + 13 + 9 + 8 + 37 + 40+ 10 + 25 + 9 + 33 + 52 = 388
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 7158 see also table "Number and usage of media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich" in section #Free Content Generation
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 12695 2828 + 3846 + 27 + 39 + 28 + 4 + 81 + 2245 + 33 + 3564 = 12695
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 0 not used, see explanation in our Progress report


Global metrics: Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness

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Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 103 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 2 + 5 + 17 + 4 + 9 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 + 10 + 8 + 23 = 103
2. # of new editors 42 9 + 33 = 42
3. # of individuals involved 9834 40 + 2 + 40 + 16 + 800 + 12 + 40 + 7 + 7137 + 52 + 1000 + 11 + 260 + 200 + 40 + 28 + 34 + 20 + 35 + 60 = 9834
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 0 n/a (out of program scope)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 0 n/a (out of program scope)
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 0 n/a (out of program scope)


Global metrics: Movement Sustainability

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Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 39 3 + 5 + 2 + 13 + 5 + 1 + 3 + 7 = 39
2. # of new editors 0 n/a (out of program scope)
3. # of individuals involved 132 4 + 11 + 8 + 5 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 60 + 4 + 9 + 3 = 132
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 0 n/a (out of program scope)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 0 n/a (out of program scope)
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 0 n/a (out of program scope)


Telling your program stories - all programs

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Summary

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For WMAT 2015 was filled with quite a few interesting and – in some cases – unexpected developments. From the short-term commitment to throw an international conference to some staggering numbers concerning quality content: Many of the exciting but also challenging aspects of volunteer-driven organizations are linked to finding the right balance between sound planning of foreseeable demands and projects and flexibility for new ideas, impulses and chances. Our experiences of the past year helped us to get yet better in mastering this challenge and showed that our current core team and organizational set-up are huge assets in this regard.

Some of the most important developments in 2015:

  • Hosting the first international Wikisource Conference in Vienna
  • First WMAT community survey with high satisfaction rates
  • Increasing the number of decorated images by some 600 % compared to last year
  • 76% more active editors involved in our existing activities / starting new activities with WMAT
  • Increased number of female event participants and volunteers in our projects
  • Fostering our ties with the CEE (Central and Eastern European) communities
  • Institutionalizing our cooperation in the field of volunteer support between the DACH chapters (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
  • Improved outreach material and infrastrucutre for external stakeholders and fundraising (website, newsletter, press data base)
  • Establishing procedures for quality management in the core team

Community Support

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  • Wiktionary Conference
    Wiktionary Conference
  • Wikimania
    Wikimania
  • Wikipedia for Peace
    Wikipedia for Peace
  • WikiCon
    WikiCon
  • Wikisource Conference
    Wikisource Conference

Maintaining and expanding existing communities

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  • Success – vibrant community life
Highlights from the WMAT community survey I
Meetings and events are an important tool for us when it comes to fostering our existing community. We regularly host WikiTuesdays on a variety of topics in our office, to foster exchange between volunteers and to prepare or evaluate on- and offline projects. The retention rate of the event and our satisfaction survey demonstrate the value of these gatherings for the volunteers. Other events that work great for retaining existing volunteers or involving more Wikimedians in our activities are workshops or photo hunts for our dedicated photographer community or editing events in the scope of our university projects. WMAT supports planning and coordinating these events, looks for support of suitable partners (e.g. financial or in-kind donations) and offers travel support to volunteers where necessary.
This is also reflected by the results of our 2015 community survey which stressed the importance of personal contact (between the individual volunteers as well as between volunteers and WMAT staff) both, in terms of communication (only championed by the mailing list), and as a resource for their volunteer work. According to the survey, our other services (travel support, organizational assistance) were also rated positively and adress the needs of our volunteers.
  • Challenge – Retention of new users from photo contests
Our objective concerning new users from Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments was to increase the number of newly registered users by 8 (5% of 150) that make one additional edit in defined namespaces on Wikimedia Commons in the six months after the photo contests. We managed to reach and even slightly surpass this limit, with a retention of 13 (8.5 % of 153). This would have been good news if we had used only our standard communication procedures with the participants – as originally planned.
However, we decided to use WLE for experimentation: Would it make a significant difference if we invested much more time and effort into the online communication with new users? Our strategy included:
  • to encourage new users to upload other images by giving individual, customized positive feedback e.g. by telling them were their images were used in Wikimedia projects at the moment;
  • to inform them about other Wikimedia photo competitions (e.g. WLM, Commons:Photo challenge) as well as about „requested pictures“ lists;
  • to keep communicating over a long time span: from July (immediately after WLE) until November.
This experiment was rather time-consuming and didn't have any noteworthy impact: the retention number was almost the same as for previous editions of WLE or WLM. We know now which actions don't work. We intend to keep learning and to pursue this issue with new ideas, such as inviting them to join the pre-jury, a tool which we know has a positive effect on community building and volunteer retention.
→ Wiki Loves Earth 2015
→ Interview with Ms Reitler from our WLE Partner the Austrian Alpine Club

Incubator projects – developing new communities

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For this year's budget we specifically provided an incubator budget in order to fund ideas which have the potential to open up new communities. An important requirement for these initiatives is that they are developed together with the existing community and have at least one volunteer who wants to push the idea with the help of our staff.
  • Success – Workcamp Wikipedia for Peace
The SCI Austria workcamp "Wikipedia for Peace"
"Wikipedia for Peace" was a two-week project organized as a workcamp in cooperation of Service Civil International (SCI) Austria and Wikimedia Austria. In the course of the project 12 people from different countries (Spain, Ireland, Ukraine, Serbia, France, Portugal, Germany, Bulgaria) and language backgrounds came together in Vienna (starting August 14 until August 27, 2015) in order to edit Wikipedia articles about peace.
“ It's definitely worth getting to know the people who are behind this well-known and commonly used website personally. On the whole, cooperation was very straightforward and flexible [...] The low-threshold access to Wikimedia surprised me too, and this experience helps me appreciate Wikipedia even more and inspires me to contribute to it in the future. ”

— Jana Forsthuber, Chairlady of Service Civil International (SCI) Austria

The participants - mostly newcomers to Wikipedia and 80 % female - did research by themselves online and in libraries in Vienna surrounding the topic, they exchanged about their research and received additional input through workshops by Austrian organisations and institutions focused on peace (e.g. Amnesty International). Wikimedia Austria organized online buddies for the participants in their native language Wikipedia for additional help, especially in cases where we were not familiar with the particularities and rules in detail. Furthermore, Austrian volunteers held workshops on various Wikimedia projects besides Wikipedia: Commons, Wiktionary and Wikidata. The WikiTuesdays were used as social events (e.g. Austrian cooking) for the Austrian community to meet the international guests. Thanks to our focus on peace issues in combination with the promotion of the access to open content, the Austrian Commission for UNESCO took the project under its patronage.
WMAT put a lot of effort into documenting and promoting the concept for the wider community as we believe the model could be easily adapted internationally. The positive feedback on the WMF blog and mailing lists also seem to suggest that. WMAT plans a refined edition of the workcamp in summer 2016 and also cooperates with the SCI in other projects. We consider this project as the most effective incubator project of 2015 as it successfully reached out to new contributors, fostered diversity (concerning contributors and content), and can be replicated by others.
→ Blogpost on WMF Blog
→ Interview with Jana Forsthuber, Chairlady of Service Civil International (SCI) Austria
→ Wikipedia for Peace 2015 on Meta
→ Wikipedia for Peace 2015 in the German-language Wikipedia
→ Images on Wikimedia Commons
→ Wikipedia for Peace Presentation at the CEE meeting 2015
  • Workcamp Wikipedia for Peace
  • Participants
    Participants
  • Results in Wikimedia projects
    Results in Wikimedia projects
  • Expenses
    Expenses
  • Funding
    Funding
  • Challenge – Explainer videos for Wikipedia
Explainer video about Wikipedia
Videos become more and more popular as media for knowledge transfer. Especially explainer videos are used to communicate complex content in a simple way. In order to use this format in Wikimedia projects on a broader basis and to grow a community of storyboard authors for explainer videos, WMAT started a cooperation with the simpleshow foundation, an organization with long-standing experience in this field. Not only will simpleshow foundation videos be published under a free license on Commons, they also help us to build skills on how to create storyboards for explainer videos within our community and offer to produce them pro bono.
“ Wikipedia is a great example of what we wanted simpleshow foundation to be: a philanthropic organization providing “free knowledge” in the form of simple, open educational resources. We found a natural, open-minded partner in Wikimedia Österreich, that shared our idea that explainer videos can widen access to freely available knowledge, in an entertaining and easy-to-understand format. So it’s no surprise that our organizations get along well and mutually benefit from swapping skills. After successful workshops in the DACH region, Mexico and the Netherlands we’re very excited that our international collaboration is developing so promisingly. ”

— Ilya Kompasov, simpleshow foundation

We conducted two workshops in 2015: One first pilot workshop for volunteers from the DACH region (Austria, Germany, Switzerland) at the simpleshow office in Stuttgart and a second one for the international community during the Wikimania Pre-Conference. While the first feedback of the participants was extremely positive and enthusiastic at both workshops, the follow-up process and completion of the storyboards proved to be a challenge. A third workshop for the DACH community aimed at the many people who subscribed to the waiting list after the first event was fully booked couldn't take place because of short-termed planning and hence a lack of participants. One of the main reasons was a lack of time and staff resources on the side of the small simpleshow team allocated to this project to follow-up consistently and continuously on each individual. Hence, we decided to focus on necessary changes to the project which will make a more independent working mode possible for interested volunteers: In 2016, we plan to introduce a freeware which will enable video enthusiasts to create their own explainer videos which will severely reduce the reliance on the simpleshow team.
Notwithstanding the above, there are also many positive outcomes of the project: The project was adapted by the Dutch chapter, which will host their first workshop in 2016. We also plan another workshop for Wikimania where we will present the video freeware mentioned above. In addition, all the explainer videos produced by the simpleshow foundation - regardless of who created them - are published under a free license and made available via Wikimedia Commons (currently roughly 20 videos).

Wikisource Conference

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An activity which was not planned for this year was that the first international Wikisource Conference would be hosted in Vienna with WMAT as the fiscal sponsor and main organizer. The Wikisource Community User Group (WSUG) wanted to create fresh impetus for Wikisource and its community by gathering the most active volunteers from around the world to discuss the future of the project and necessary technological developments. As WSUG did not have the capacity to organize this event alone, help has been asked from Wikimedia Österreich in order to gather the administrative resources needed. WMAT committed to handle the PEG grant to finance the conference, the event management, and the administrative tasks around visa applications, scholarships etc. The program planning was conducted by the Wikisource User Group and only partly facilitated by us. The event comprised three full days (Friday to Sunday) and attracted 50 participants. The feedback from the participants was quite positive, both concerning the content and outcome of the conference as well as the organizational aspects.
From WMAT’s perspective the conference was also a success, as it created quite some publicity in Austria, unearthed new volunteers, and provided a great opportunity for Austrian community members who don’t travel a lot to connect with the international Wikimedia community. A complete account of the outcomes and learnings can be found in the PEG report linked below.
→ Wikisource Conference 2015 on Meta
→ PEG Report on the Wikisource Conference 2015
→ Images on Wikimedia Commons
  • Wikisource Conference
  • Participants
    Participants
  • Overall experience
    Overall experience
  • Expenses
    Expenses
  • Wikisource communities
    Wikisource communities
Learning patterns
Objectives and results
Objectives 2015 Results 2014 Progress until Q2 / 2015 Results 2015
Gaining and retaining newly registered users
Increasing the number of newly registered users (one or more uploads) by 150 through participation in 2 photo contest events. 238 newly registered users. 153 newly registered users.
195 newly registered users.
Increasing the number of newly registered users by 8 (5%) that make one additional edit in the Media namespace, File namespace and/or (Gallery) namespace on Wikimedia Commons in the six months after the photo contest (turning newly registered users into regular editors). (Retention for WLE and WLM in all projects and namespaces: 23.) 0.
13 (8.5 %) of 153 users.
Engaging active editors into online and offline chapter activities; empowering existing active editors
Engaging 30 active editors into the planning and/or executing of 2 photo contests and/or into participating in 2 photo contests. n/a Engaged 55 active editors.
Engaged 136 active editors.
Conducting 40 offline community events in 2015 that support and value the online work of our active editors and create a motivational environment. (Supported or organized 36 community events.) 29 offline community events.
48 offline community events.
Attracting at least 200 participants at the events mentioned above. n/a 220 participants.
432 participants.
At least 75% of the participants state in questionnaires that they have gathered and/or shared useful know-how regarding their work on Wikimedia projects by attending the events mentioned above. n/a 100% yes.
98.3% yes.
Engaging 10 active editors who have formerly not or very rarely been active WMAT volunteers into the planning and/or executing of chapter activities. Engaged 17 active editors. Engaged 14 active editors.
Engaged 30 active editors.
Retaining 5 active editors who became new active WMAT volunteers in 2014 (this is 50% of the 10 Wikimedians we wanted to become active WMAT volunteers in 2014) into the planning and/or executing of chapter activities. n/a Retained 9 active editors.
Retained 12 active editors.
Reports on other activities within the scope of this program:
Video workshop in Stuttgart (Jan.), Community survey (Mar.), European GLAMwiki Coordinators Meeting in Paris (Mar.), AdminConvention 2015 (Mar.), German WLM Kick-off in Wiesbaden (Mar.), GLAM-WIKI 2015 in Den Haag (Apr.), 15th Wikipedia Photo Workshop (Apr.), Wikimedia Hackathon Lyon 2015 (May),Wikimania 2015 (Jul.), Workcamp Wikipedia for Peace 2015 (Aug.), WikiCon 2015 (Sep.), Wikipedia Science Conference in London 2015 (Sep.), Arbitration Committee meeting (Oct.), Erasmus Prize and Wikimedia Conferentie Nederland (Nov.)

Free Content Generation

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  • Wiki Loves Earth
    Wiki Loves Earth
  • Eurovision Song Contest
    Eurovision Song Contest
  • Historical Cameras Graz
    Historical Cameras Graz
  • Wiki Takes Innviertel
    Wiki Takes Innviertel
  • Wiki Loves Monuments
    Wiki Loves Monuments

Beyond quantity - from quantity to quality and added value

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“ The greatest added value of the association for me as a pensioner is also the financial support. The work, whether the participation in the "Ortsbildmesse" in Upper Austria or the work on the jury of "Wiki Loves Earth", was always great fun for me and something for which I am happy to invest my time. Should there also be financial expenses involved (travel costs), support is a help to me. I see further added value in that the association functions as an interface to other organizations and their activities. In this respect I think of the collaboration with the Federal Monuments Office, the assistance with the creation of labels with QR codes or the latest activity "Open Data" ”

— User:Manfred Kuzel

As described in our 2015 progress report, WMAT's main focus concerning content this year was to make it as high-quality and valuable as possible. The main criteria being the quality of the content (e.g. decorated images), the added value for Wikimedia projects (e.g. encyclopaedic value of rare pictures or documents / usage in Wikimedia projects), and the added value for free knowledge in general, such as new partnerships and contacts or an increased awareness for free licenses by cooperations to liberate content.

While the success of the first two criteria (quality, usage) can be easily measured by the numbers in the tables below, the third criteria is somewhat harder to grasp. The following two examples showcase activities aimed at generation added value for free knowledge in general and the respective opportunities and challenges entailed:

  • Cooperation with the Botanical Garden Graz and Austrian Alpine Club
The real value of free knowledge and educational content truly unfolds once it finds its way to an interested audience. This can be a result of the original design of the project or as side product. A project for the first case is our cooperation with the Botanical Garden Graz. In cooperation with the botanical garden of the University of Graz, Wikimedia Österreich set up a new and world-wide unique project in 2013. As part of this project, small plates have been placed next to some plants. On these plates there is a QR-code which links directly to the Wikipedia article regarding to the specific plant. The project has been running ever since as more articles of the original list of some 300 plants in the botanical garden were created. There was a large amount of press-coverage on this cooperation and the cooperation with the partners extended to other projects such as Wiki Loves Earth. Just recently we also learned that a botanical garden in the Netherlands heard about the cooperation from their colleagues in Graz, liked the idea, and approached WMNL for a similar project. However, we also encountered some challenges in the past year: the remaining list of plants which need an article require highly specialized knowledge and sources, so the barrier for the community to create them is fairly high. In addition, one of the most active Austrian volunteers in this field passed away unexpectedly last year, leaving behind a huge gap in our community.
“ [...] it is difficult to find information on rare and endemic species. Our project can help close this gap. At the same time, for our species identification profiles, we used images with Creative Commons licenses, for which we were very grateful! ”

— Barbara Reitler, Austrian Alpine Club

An example for the second case is our partnership with the Austrian Alpine Club. The collaboration started of in the context of Wiki Loves Earth and was mainly aimed to merge our communities of nature enthusiasts and photographers, with the Austrian Alpine Club being a valuable multiplier for us. One of the "by-products" is that some freely licensed material by the Austrian Alpine Club is being re-used in the scope of one of their educational nature preservation projects. It aims to contribute to the preservation of Alpine biodiversity and to enhance our knowledge of how things are connected. The project is also a volunteer project aimed at determining how biodiversity develops over time and requires the regular and systematic monitoring and documentation of appropriate animal and plant species (indicator species). For the currently 17 different species in the project profiles were created using material from Wikimedia Commons to support the volunteers in their work.
Number and usage of media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich
2014-12-31 Growth 2015-12-31
Total number of files 135709 + 58188 193.897
Distinct images used (main namespace only) 22651 + 7158 29809
Decorations for media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich
2014-12-31 Growth 2015-12-31
Featured pictures on Wikimedia Commons 15 + 99 114
Quality images 1325 + 4332 5657
Valued images 23 + 134 157
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, Chinese 0 + 1 1
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, English 3 + 9 12
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, German 9 + 5 14
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, Hindi 0 + 1 1
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, Indonesian 0 + 2 2
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, Persian 8 + 12 20
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, Slovenian 1 + 1 2
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, Spanish 0 + 1 1
Featured pictures on Wikipedia, Vietnamese 0 + 4 4
Total 1384 + 4601 5985

Pooling forces for high-quality content

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Hubertl in action
Hubertl in action

INTERVIEW with Hubertl

Long-term Wikimedian and experienced project leader.

Hubertl conducted one of the most outstanding photography projects in Austria in 2015: the Historical Camera Collection Project focussed on the high-quality documentation of a collection of historical cameras. In the interview, he gives some insights about the experiences of the project team.

How was it possible to achieve such an exceptionally high quality of images with over 100 decorated photos on Commons? Was the WMAT equipment a help? What did you use exactly?

The project was designed to produce high quality pictures, to learn from each other how to get the most out of the equipment provided by our chapters. It's not enough to buy high-end equipment, people have to be empowered handle it adequately in order to exploit the full potential. Instead of expecting volunteers to become self-taught experts themselves, we decided to offer a platform to exchange expertise and learn together by doing. Concerning the equipment, it must be said that a project like this requires the availability of some basic gear. We were able to use gear provided by Wikimedia Austria and Wikimedia Germany which we complemented with additional private items. We made the conscious decision not to buy any new equipment and to exhaust the possibilities of the equipment we had instead, thus working on the improvement of our techniques and skills concerning the existing equipment. Specifically, we used the cameras and the continuous lights provided by Wikimedia Austria and the video camera provided by Wikimedia Germany. The only new purchase made for the project was the revolving stage and glass plate. A macro lens, a tablet or smartphone were provided from private sources which we used as control monitor and for external camera control.

Please describe the project process, as you didn't only take pictures, you also made videos. Were there any specific challenges?

First of all, transporting the equipment to Graz and back to Vienna already represented a challenge. We needed a van for this, which the proprietor of the collection provided, because the equipment was both bulky and fragile at the same time.
During the actual project, the process was assembly line-like. We had two tables in different rooms - one for photography and one for video. There were two people working at each table. The owner of the cameras supplied us the material and in the end someone immediately inventoried the finished files on the computer. This had to be done straight away, because otherwise we would have had trouble trying to establish what object is depicted afterwards. 15,000 individual images were made during this week, thus producing vast quantities of data at incredible speed. This is not comparable to, for example a Wiki Loves Parliaments project, where portraits of people are made. While this does produce a large number of pictures, they are all individual images. We, in contrast, were producing a sequence of images, so up to 20 images per shot and 4 to 6 shots per object; that makes roughly 200 individual images per object.

How did you coordinate the different levels of know-how among participants?

We were six people and from my experience with Wiki Loves Parliaments projects and the EU Parliament project, I was already familiar with the necessary workflows. My coordination work began months before the actual date. In particular, the collection of cameras needed to be prepared, inventoried and, above all, cleaned. In terms of photography technique, the project involved learning by doing for almost all the participants; aside from me, none of the other participants had worked with this before. Specifically, we knew relatively little about the area of video, but we just approached it in a relaxed manner and it turned out to be rather easy. Theoretically, it takes just 15 minutes to understand the technique of continuous shooting. Implementation, of course, is a different story, but within at most an hour, the teams were able to work at the tables independently and on their own authority. Of course questions arose during the project which we then discussed and solved as a team. In general, the focus of this project was very much on team spirit. This is also why we published the images under joint authorship. For in a project like this, the image is not created because of an individual photographer, it is the result of the joint creative composition of an object - and this creative element ignited in each of the participants: for they were not helpers, they were an integral part of the process.

Why was it important for you to involve participants from different countries in the project?

I believe it is very important for the project participants to come from different regions, because different regions always mean expanding one's peer group. I invited the participants quite specifically; I already knew most of them from various Wikipedia meetings. I wrote to them, asking them to participate, as a result of which new ties were established and existing ones deepened. In addition, the project generated "experts" who know how to make most out of the existing equipment in the chapters and can now teach this skills to other volunteers in their local group.

What are the most important tips and advice you can give other organizers of such projects?

The first tip I would share with future project leaders is to connect with former leaders of successful projects and to help yourself to their know-how. Most notably, the workflows and time schedule must be well planned and realistic - and this experience can save a lot of time and frustration during the actual project and, at the same time, adjust expectations to a realistic level. The workflows and technical areas need to be clear to everyone - ideally, a participant can learn so much that he/she will be able to organise a future project alone. Having participants learn something new is of the highest priority to me, because only this will lead to a successful transfer of know-how, which in turn will benefit future projects in completely different places.
However, project leadership also means that a project is not immediately over once it is completed. Follow-up is an important part of projects as technically challenging as this one is, without which there are no results. Sometimes, this support and follow-up work can take very long, meaning great responsibility for the project leader to continue leading the project even over an extended period of time. Overall we can say that this project has produced results that are unique in terms of quality.
Learning patterns
Objectives and results
Objectives 2015 Results 2014 Progress until Q2 / 2015 Results 2015
Generating and spreading media files
Generating 30,000 media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich for Wikimedia Commonsː at least 10,000 by photo contests and the others by activities such as lending photographic equipment, organizing accreditations, giving travel grants for photo tours and liberating content with GLAM partners. 60644 media files (15218 by photo contests). 21032 media files.

3638 by photo contests.

58188 media files.

12228 by photo contests.

Increasing the number of decorations (valued, quality, featured) of images supported by Wikimedia Österreich by 500; this applies regardless of the creation and upload date of the images. 758 new decorations. 2134 new decorations.
4601 new decorations.
Increasing the number of media files supported by Wikimedia Österreich used in the main namespace of Wikimedia projects by 3000; this applies regardless of the creation and upload date of the media files. n/a 2449 media files.
7158 media files.
Generating written content
Supporting at least 7 editing contests and/or events which result in 1000 new articles and 2000 revised articles; 10 newly decorated articles resulting from editing contests and/or events supported by Wikimedia Österreich. n/a 7 editing contests/events.

102 new articles.

6751 revised articles.

16 newly decorated articles.

10 editing contests/events.

3007 new articles.

9688 revised articles.

42 newly decorated articles.

Establishing an expert network for one subject area, consisting of at least 3 people who review at least 20 articles. n/a 0.
0.
  • Detailed reports: –
Liberating content
Opening 70 data sets of 15 different organizations in the context of the Open Data Portal Austria partnerships. 89 data sets. 245 data sets.

8 different organizations.

255 data sets.

10 different organizations.

  • Detailed reports: Progress Open Data Portal (Mar.)
  • Note: Organizations: Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Lastenräder Rentals, WIFI, Greenpeace, WKO, Grüne, ÖRC, zoomsquare, ADV, Computerwelt.
Generating or liberating 1000 media files in cooperation with at least 3 GLAM partners. 1759 media files, 2 GLAM partners. 285 media files.

2 GLAM partners.

457 media files.

4 GLAM partners.

Reach / Free Knowledge Awareness

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  • Freedom of Panorama campaign
    Freedom of Panorama campaign
  • WWI university course
    WWI university course
  • Townscape Fair
    Townscape Fair
  • History Edit-a-thon
    History Edit-a-thon
  • University Library Edit-a-thon
    University Library Edit-a-thon

Integrating Wikimedia into university teaching

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(l.t.r) Klaus Lojka, Hubertl, Prof. Dr. Friedrich Schipper, Beppo Stuhl
(l.t.r) Klaus Lojka, Hubertl, Prof. Dr. Friedrich Schipper, Beppo Stuhl

INTERVIEW with Prof. Dr. Friedrich Schipper

Lecturer at the Department of Communication at the University of Vienna, Professor of Cultural Science at the Paneuropean University in Bratislava (Slovakia).

For about one and a half years, Wikimedia Österreich has been cooperating closely with the University of Vienna. The aim is to provide access to more of the diverse knowledge generated at universities by the vehicle of Wikimedia projects such as Wikiversity or Wikipedia and to instill enthusiasm for the idea of free knowledge in young people and to motivate them to participate. Together with Friedrich Schipper and scores of volunteering mentors, we develop formats for the integration of Wikimedia into university teaching - to date, the second joint semester project has already been concluded. In the interview, he reports his view of what makes this cooperation interesting and exciting.

How much Don Quixote is there in the endeavour to create new teaching formats and what windmills are there to conquer?

Honestly: It's not all that bad. Of course implementing something new is always associated with hard work. However, this is probably always the case. In every university, company or organisation. The Rectorate of the University of Vienna immediately responded positively to our initiative. Most of the university faculty members and, in particular, the study programme directors addressed also responded favourably. Of course there are some who voice reservations against Wikipedia. And there are some who take no interest in this initiative.
The various Wikipedia entries are now, largely, very reliable and high in quality. So most of the times, in education, you find yourself kicking at open doors when it comes to Wikipedia. Public knowledge - its generation and its use - are also a significant factor of communication and knowledge dissemination in tertiary education and in science and university research. For example, to the FWF, the Austrian government "research development bank", the presentation of the results of a research project as open source constitutes a major evaluation factor with regard to research project applications and their approval.
Essentially, our proposal to launch a Wikipedia initiative at the University of Vienna fell on fertile ground. Initial results have been very encouraging. Now we must address the issue of the sustainability of our initiative. And to this effect, we need to motivate our partners at university to keep up their efforts. The prospects of this succeeding are very good.

What makes Wikimedia Österreich a good partner in terms of access to knowledge and science at universities?

First of all, Wikipedia, as Wikimedia's main project, is very well known; it is very widespread and very intensively used. Also in schools and universities - by school students, university students and teachers alike, both for business and private purposes. However, very few people know who or what is behind Wikipedia. When you then get to know the community and its members, that's fascinating - for me and probably for most people. It is fascinatingly unpretentious and simple - and the fact that as an Austrian you do not need to contact someone in Germany, but can get in touch with a local partner in Vienna, helps lower the barrier even further. Wikimedia Österreich thus becomes a potential partner who is easily accessible and shows an interest in collaborations itself.

What has been your personal highlight in cooperation so far?

I don't know whether you can reasonably speak of one or several highlights. As it were, the joint final public presentation of our first lecture project at the Department of Communication in June 2015 was certainly a first highpoint. But this cooperation is ongoing and even if it is sometimes tedious, it is never frustrating and always exciting.

What new ideas and projects for the coming months are you particularly looking forward to?

Our upcoming lecture projects, also at the Department of Communication of the University of Vienna, will certainly demonstrate whether we have built our initiative on solid ground - or on feet of clay. We have already accumulated important experience and are now called upon to implement it professionally in order to ensure sustainable success. I look forward to the end of the semester that has just begun, when we can look back to see that we have taken the right path and that the support of the faculty and the student union management at the University of Vienna is unflagging and that our initiative has become permanent.

Many readers of Wikipedia are unaware that there is a community of authors, photographers and coders or Wikimedia associations behind this website who support them in their work. How would you describe the community and cooperation with this community to these people in a nutshell?

Ha. Well, very colourful I would say. The community is young and old, male and female, noisy and quiet, funny and level-headed, competent, flexible, and curious. Will that do for a first evaluation?

Challenge – how to create a sound basis for EU advocacy in Austria

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Net political evening in Vienna
In our progress report we showed how we successfully conducted a press campaign around the topic of Freedom of Panorama and how EU advocacy affects our project work in Austria. While the campaign itself was effective, we also realized some shortcoming in our advocacy work – mainly deficits regarding the ability to mobilize a network of net activists and other like-minded interest groups on short notice. The challenge was to find a way to build such a network with our given resources, i.e. little staff time that can be allocated to advocacy work and few volunteers engaged in the topic. We decided that the best way forward would be to partner up with like-minded organizations and individuals in the field of Austrian net politics and find a way for regular and systematic exchange on important topics. The idea was to adopt the concept of regular "net political evenings" – a successful event and exchange platform from Digitale Gesellschaft in Berlin. The Viennese edition of the event has been taking place every first Thursday evening since December 2015 and is organized by an informal network of net political players in Austria, including WMAT. The ratio of men and women in the group is exactly 50:50 and gender equality is also incorporated in the program planning: at least one of the three main speakers at every event has to be female. The first event was immensely successful in terms of interested participants (approx. 100 people, almost going beyond the scope of the venue) – 2016 will show how successfully this general interest can be turned into concrete and active engagement if necessary.
Learning patterns
Objectives and results
Objectives 2015 Results 2014 Progress until Q2 / 2015 Results 2015
Enhancing the media competency concerning Wikimedia projects and free knowledge in educational institutions
Providing skill transfer and training by offering 5 workshops or seminars in 2015. 7 workshops / seminars. 3 workshops / seminars.
7 workshops / seminars.
Attracting 100 participants. 217 participants. 93 participants.
206 participants.
At least 80% of the institutional representatives (e.g. teachers and professors) state in questionnaires that the workshops mentioned above improved the media competency of the participants. n/a 0.
100%
  • Detailed reports: –
  • Note: Instead of simple questionnaires we used semi-structured interviews and debriefings for evaluation.
Establishing contact with EU MEPs via the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU (FKAGEU) and actively consulting them on free knowledge issues
Providing an EU advocacy contact database for Wikimedians. n/a Provided database.
Provided database.
Establishing 10 new working contacts to MEPs, which result in ongoing consultations by volunteer Wikimedians (as qualified by meetings, email conversations, phone calls). n/a 20+ new contacts.
37 new contacts.
FKAGEU participates in all relevant EU copyright dialogues, meetings and consultations (at least 20, no more than 90 events) and plays an active role in all opportunities. n/a 88 dialogues etc.
203 dialogues etc.
Additional working partnerships on EU consultancy are established and existing ones are deepened (as qualified by shared vision and goals, joint projects, joint policy statements, 2 collaboratively organized events, 20 additional volunteers engaged in advocacy activities). n/a 8+ working partnerships.

2 events.

10 additional volunteers.

10 working partnerships.

4 events.

22 additional volunteers.

By end of 2015 at least 2 volunteer Wikimedians from EU chapters have participated in the “Wikimedian in Brussels” work stipend and our EU advocacy activities. n/a 1 volunteer Wikimedian.
1.5 volunteer Wikimedians
Networking, sustaining existing and reaching out to new partners and allies
Building a media database with 50 press contacts and using it for 3 press campaigns. n/a 108 press contacts.

3 press campaigns.

154 press contacts.

4 press campaigns.

Gaining 150 new subscribers to our newsletter and social media channels. n/a 163 new subscribers.
846 new subscribers.
  • Detailed reports: –
  • Note: Newsletter: + 171 (total: 171), Facebook: + 482 (total: 1030), Google+: + 1 (total: 30), Twitter: + 182 (total: 580), YouTube: + 10 (total: 10).
Involving 15 Non-Wikimedians from 10 different organizations in our activities in 2015. (Collaboration with like-minded organisations and communities in 7 projects.) 16 Non-Wikimedians.

5 different organizations.

27 Non-Wikimedians.

11 different organizations.

Reports on other activities within the scope of this program:
Wikipedia at Grazer Linuxtage (Apr.), Exhibition "War On the Wall" (Jun.), wikimedia.at relaunch (Jun.), Upper Austrian Townscape Fair (Sep.), SOIMA 2015 (Sep.)

Movement Sustainability

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  • Mission statement workshop
    Mission statement workshop
  • Wikimedia Conference
    Wikimedia Conference
  • General assembly
    General assembly
  • General assembly
    General assembly
  • CEE Meeting
    CEE Meeting

Sharing is caring – supporting capacity building in the movement

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WMAT identified two strategic priority areas which are strengths of our organization but in which we are also continuously striving to become even better: volunteer support across chapters and countries, and organizational effectiveness. We also believe that these are crucial factors for the sustainability of our movement. Our approach towards sustainability is based on two dimensions: structure (organizational dimension) and context (environmental dimension). Concerning the first dimension, we aim at designing WMAT to be a learning organization with effective processes which is not dependent on certain individuals in board and staff. The second dimension relates to context of our work; as part of an international movement the quality of our collaboration with other players in the Wikiverse has a major impact on our programmatic work and organizational development.
  • Success – international cooperation for community support
WMAT played a leading role in intensifying the exchange between Wikimedia affiliates concerning volunteer support. WMAT, WMCH und WMDE community managers built a lively core group of a wider volunteer supporters network. The core group established regular bi-weekly phone calls which led to a more economical and best-practice oriented approach to every-day tasks and short-term strategies. This cooperation also led to outputs such as the Technikpool in the German-language Wikipedia and the Support Hub Page in the German-language Wiktionary.
Major learnings and discussions relevant for the whole movement were shared with the wider network at the Wikimedia Conference ("Volunteer Supporters Network: Global exchange of experiences and learnings") and the Wikimania pre-conference ("WMCON Follow-Up Day at Wikimania 2015"). For 2016, the core group plans a series of collaboratively created learning patterns among other things.
  • Challenge – systematic capacity building in the wider movement
What are the best ways to foster capacity building in the movement? WMAT has tried various approaches during the last two years. In 2014 we started off by designing stand-alone board training workshops as capacity building events − an international group of volunteers took over the idea and concept and WMAT support was not longer necessary. Hence, we now focus on amplifying and supporting existing events and initiatives: In the first half of 2015 we focused on the Wikimedia Conference as a platform for learning and exchange on these topics. A WMAT representative served on the program committee, we hosted and supported several sessions on the topics mentioned above and we have since continued to work closely together with the Wikimedia Conference program coordinator to follow up on these topics and further develop them until the next conference. During the second half of 2015 we to contributed to Wikimania and the CEE Conference in a similar fashion.
From our experience there is a keen interest for exchange and assistance in the field of organizational effectiveness and WMAT has been consulting smaller affiliates from neighbouring countries and beyond. Nevertheless, this 1:1 approach has its limits; hence we would love to collaborate with the WMF and other affiliates to develop a more systematic and scalable model for the wider movement. We put hope in a tool for capacity building for affiliates which the WMF launched end of 2014 and directed some resources into supporting this initiative by translating parts of the tool into German, contributing to the creation of a case study about organizational effectiveness at WMAT and serving as a model chapter for the use of the tool. However, the tool did not really take off and there is no systematic approach to the issue on an international level currently. We hope that 2016, e.g. the Wikimedia Conference, will bring fresh impetus to address this challenge.
Learning patterns


Objectives and results
Objectives 2015 Results 2014 Progress until Q2 / 2015 Results 2015
Building strong international networks for effective volunteer support
Establishing an international volunteer support working group by creating communication channels (e.g. mailing list) and holding 2 meetings in the context of international Wikimedia events involving 20 delegates of 10 different chapters. n/a Created communication channels.

Held 1 meeting.

34 delegates involved.

Created communication channels.

Held 2 meetings.

54 delegates involved.

Cooperation and bi-weekly exchange of the DACH volunteer support teams resulting in viable and transparent processes and procedures for all common support areas. n/a Cooperation and bi-weekly exchange established.
Cooperation and bi-weekly exchange established.
  • Detailed reports: –
Building capacities for effective leadership and collaboration in chapters
Designing and implementing a CIP (Continual Improvement Process) tool for quality management in chapters; share first insights and experiences with the movement during the Wikimedia Conference 2015. n/a CIP designed and implemented.

Shared insights during Wikimedia Conference 2015.

CIP designed and implemented.

Shared insights during Wikimedia Conference 2015.

Collaborating on two international events for capacity building and chapter effectiveness (such as board training workshops) involving 40 movement leaders. 2 events. Skipped.
Skipped.
At least 75% of the participants state in questionnaires that they have gathered and/or shared useful know-how regarding their chapter work by attending the capacity building events mentioned above. n/a Skipped.
Skipped.
  • Detailed reports: –
Reports on other activities within the scope of this program:
Organizational effectiveness survey (Jan.), Mission statement workshop (Apr.), Mission statement (Jun.), General assembly (Jun.), Technikpool (Aug.), Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2015 (Sep.), The future of board trainings (Nov.), WMAT strategy meeting (Dec.), Wiktionary: inter-chapter collaboration (Dec.)

Revenues received during this six-month period

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Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

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 EUR 228,000.00 133,000.00 - - 95,000.00 228,000.00 299,364.00 299,364.00
netidee grant EUR 9,796.00 9,796.00 - - - 9,796.00 12,862.15 12,862.15 Last installment from the 2014 grant.
Membership fees EUR 3,000.00 - 1,577.00 - 848.00 2,425.00 3,939.00 3,184.00 WMAT is systematically updating its membership data base - members who haven't paid in several subsequent years will be eventually removed. Hence, the expected income at the end of the year is a bit lower than expected.
Fundraising / Donations EUR 17,000.00 - 2,806.00 - 10,074.07 12,880,07 22,321.00 16,911.53 No WMF fundraiser in Austria in 2015: The annual fundraiser usually also draws attention to WMAT and generates additional donations. However, as a result of the WLM & WMIT issue, our fundraiser was postponed to 2016 which led to a loss of our total amount of donations.
Wikisource PEG grant EUR 24,850.00 - - - 24,850.00 24,850.00 32,628.00 32,628.00 WMAT was the fiscal sponsor and main organizer of the first international Wikisource Conference.
In-kind donations EUR 8,000.00 - 6,825.00 - 9,595.00 16,420.00 10,504.00 21,559.46 Mainly pro bono consultation, video workshop for volunteers and event support (free venue, catering). For a full account see here.

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)

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Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

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
Staff expenses EUR 104,000.00 - 54,577.00 - 61,983.00 116,560.00 136,552.00 153,043.28 112% As explained in our latest FDC proposal, we increased our staff by 0,25 FTE (Administrative Assistant) starting in October 2015. The additional (unforeseen) money for this year was covered by the PEG grant for the Wikisource Conference.
Operations EUR 33,000.00 - 16,986.00 - 18,096.00 35,082.00 43,329.00 46,062.67 106% Some unplanned investment in technical infrastructure, broken equipment (staff laptop) had to be exchanged.
Community support EUR 72,500.00 - 30,081.00 - 20,215.00 50,296.00 95,193.00 66,038.65 69% WLM not completely accounted for as it ended later in 2015. Invoices only arrived in 2016. Massive savings as a result of in-kind donations.
Free content generation EUR 35,400.00 - 6,652.00 - 16,746.00 23,398.00 46,480.00 30,721.00 66% The parliament project did not take place. Less spending on GLAM related work.
Reach / Free knowledge awareness EUR 22,500.00 - 8,708.00 - 4,252.00 12,960.00 29,543.00 17,016.48 58% Substantial savings at public relations through in-kind donations. School and university projects cost almost no money.
Movement sustainability EUR 9,500.00 - 3,543.00 - 4,931.00 8,474.00 12,473.50 11,126.36 89% -
TOTAL EUR 276,900.00 - 120,547.00 - 126,223.00 246,770.00 363,569.70 324,009.01 89% Reduced spendings to match the likewise lower revenues.
Wikisource Conference EUR 24,850.00 - - - 20,544.00 20,544.00 32,628.00 26,974.27 83% Grant was not finished at the end of the year. For the full and final account please the PEG grant report.

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Compliance

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

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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.

  • No major deviations.

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

  • Yes.

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.

Signature

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Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.

Resources

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Resources to plan for measurement

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Resources for storytelling

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