Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round1/Wikimedia Serbia/Impact report form
Purpose of the report
[edit]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
[edit]We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees' programs. Please use the table below to let us know how your programs contributed to the Global Metrics. We understand not all Global Metrics will be relevant for all programs, so feel free to put "0" where necessary. For each program include the following table and
- Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
- Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
- In addition to the Global Metrics as measures of success for your programs, there is another table format in which you may report on any OTHER relevant measures of your programs success
For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.
Overall
[edit]Education program
[edit]Collected metrics for the following projects:
- Wikipedia in schools
- Accredited seminars
- Edu Wiki camp
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
1. # of active editors involved | 21 | 70 planned (detailed report) |
2. # of new editors | 685 | 1125 planned (detailed report) |
3. # of individuals involved | 747 | 1137 planned (detailed report) |
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages | 22 | 600 planned (detailed report) |
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects | 2026 | 1035 planned (detailed report) |
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects | 10,350,160.00 | 4,000,000.00 planned (detailed report)
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GLAM program
[edit]Collected metrics for the following projects:
- Wiki Takes Galleries
- Wiki Loves Theatres
- Edit-a-thons
- Wikipedian in residence
- Wiki librarian
- Digitization of techno culture in Serbia from 1990
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
1. # of active editors involved | 64 | 59 planned (detailed report) |
2. # of new editors | 170 | 202 planned (detailed report) |
3. # of individuals involved | 446 | 271 planned (detailed report) |
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages | 443 | 840 planned (detailed report) |
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects | 1302 | 455 planned (detailed report) |
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects | 7,892,176.00 | 1,775,000.00 planned (detailed report)
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Free content
[edit]Collected metrics for the following projects:
- Wiki Loves Earth
- Zapis - Sacred trees
- Serbian Holy Mountain in 4 seasons
- Valjevo Mountains Through the Lens
- Wiki Loves Dragonflies
- Kurgans of Serbia
- Competitions on Wikipedia
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
1. # of active editors involved | 84 | 64 planned (detailed report) |
2. # of new editors | 151 | 71 planned (detailed report) |
3. # of individuals involved | 283 | 127 planned (detailed report) |
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages | 3373 | 2330 planned (detailed report) |
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects | 773 | 1225 planned (detailed report) |
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects | 5,779,872.00 | 1,000,000.00 planned (detailed report)
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Wiktionary
[edit]Collected metrics for the following projects:
- Wiktionary
- Language laboratory
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
1. # of active editors involved | 12 | 10 planned (detailed report) |
2. # of new editors | 56 | 30 planned (detailed report) |
3. # of individuals involved | 69 | 50 planned (detailed report) |
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages | 0 | 500 planned (detailed report) |
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects | 253 | 2000 planned (detailed report) |
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects | / |
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Community support
[edit]Within Community support there are following projects: Animating the community, WikiLive conference and Wiki South. Animating the community is a specific group of activities which aims to create healthier environment within the community, so this project can’t be represented through global metrics. The impact of these activities will be measured via quality metrics which will be discussed in narrative section of the report. It is similar with a local Wikipedian conference. This event is not being evaluated via qualitative metrics. Its results will be discuss narrative part of the report.
These are metrics for Wiki South project:
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
1. # of active editors involved | 20 | 20 planned (detailed report) |
2. # of new editors | 23 | 5 planned (detailed report) |
3. # of individuals involved | 10 | 50 planned (detailed report) |
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages | 100 | 200 planned (detailed report) |
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects | 210 | 200 planned (detailed report) |
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects | / | /
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Grants
[edit]Collected metrics for the following projects:
- Standard grants
- Wiki Wild parks
- Lingvopedia
- Photo grants
- One picture - 1000 words - Journey around Pirot
- Cultural heritage of Mačve and Pocerina
- * Raška in the centuries of the centuries
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
1. # of active editors involved | 58 | 10 planned (detailed report) |
2. # of new editors | 36 | 45 planned (detailed report) |
3. # of individuals involved | 88 | 60 planned (detailed report) |
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages | 2237 | 3250 planned (detailed report) |
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects | 524 | 75 planned (detailed report) |
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects | / | /
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Telling your program stories - all programs
[edit]Please tell the story of each of your programs included in your proposal. This is your chance to tell your story by using any additional metrics (beyond global metrics) that are relevant to your context, beyond the global metrics above. You should be reporting against the targets you set at the beginning of the year throughout the year. We have provided a template here below for you to report against your targets, but you are welcome to include this information in another way. Also, if you decided not to do a program that was included in your proposal or added a program not in the proposal, please explain this change. More resources for storytelling are at the end of this form. Here are some ways to tell your story.
- We encourage you to share your successes and failures and what you are learning. Please also share why are these successes, failures, or learnings are important in your context. Reference learning patterns or other documentation.
- Make clear connections between your offline activities and online results, as applicable. For example, explain how your education program activities is leading to quality content on Wikipedia.
- We encourage you to tell your story in different ways by using videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g.), compelling quotes, and by linking directly to work you produce. You may highlight outcomes, learning, or metrics this way.
- We encourage you to continue using dashboards, progress bars, and scorecards that you have used to illustrate your progress in the past, and to report consistently over time.
- You are welcome to use the table below to report on any metrics or measures relevant to your program. These may or may not include the global metrics you put in the overview section above. You can also share your progress in another way if you do not find a table like this useful.
Target | Last year (if applicable) | Progress (at end of Q2) | End of year (projected or actual) | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|
Example | Example | Example | Example | Example |
Education program
[edit]The Education program is one of the priority programs of Wikimedia Serbia, seeing as it has been developing from 2007. The goal of the program is that Wiki projects, primarily Wikipedia in Serbian language, develop in an academic environment. The program entails cooperation with high school and higher educational institutions and involves professors/teachers and students. This usually involves writing papers as a part of students’/pupils’ exam/subject on Wikipedia, as well as training of teachers/professors in terms of Wiki syntax. Based on the level of education and target group, within the education program the following projects have been developed: Wikipedia in schools, Accredited seminars and Edu Wiki camp.
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WMRS seminar in Stara Pazova
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Brochures for teachers
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Editing Wikipedia in Electrotechnical school in Pančevo
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Wiki ambassadors
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Edu Wiki campers
Wikipedia in schools
[edit]
Goal: introducing and developing Wiki projects within academic environment |
- Successes
- High schools pupils and students had more individual work on their seminal papers. Spreading the network of Wiki ambassadors helped a lot.
- The project had been implemented in other cities in Serbia so decentralization of activities is very present. In addition to editing Wikipedia workshops, informal training for teachers had been organized.
- One of the valuable aspects of this project is its far-reaching and long term influence on younger population. That influence is mirrored in the fact that students and pupils develop: writing and reading skills, media and digital literacy, critical thinking and research skills, the practice of finding the adequate and reliable literature and ways of referencing, translating skills, ability of interpersonal cooperation, technical skills, understanding copyright and free licenses.
- During the 2016, an increase in the number of educational institutions that had been involved in the project had been noticed.
- Challenges
- When implementing the project, the most common challenges are disapproval and lack of understanding from Wikipedia community in terms of article quality, but also lack of the teachers’ and assistants’ motivation in educational institutions.
- One of the setbacks for Education program in 2016 was absence of the Education Program Manager from April to September due to the maternity leave.
- Lack of equipment in schools related to bad internet connection and insufficient number of computers is known to affect the quality of the workshops.
- Lessons learned
- For better project results constant communication with the participants is necessary as well as adapting communication channels to students through social networks, Moodle platform etc.
- Support of the school management is very important. By evaluating the project, we have come to the conclusion that a noticeable trend is an increase of the number of institutions based on a recommendation that we have gotten from the institutions we already cooperate with.
- Interactive approach is much better and improves results. Students are more interested and engaged as they are introduced with questions and short assignments within the presentation. Also we used small rewards (in the form of promo materials) and other tools.
- Adjusting Edu projects to the institutions is very important. Students are more motivated when introducing the new models of cooperation. One way is creating a tutorial on how to edit Wikipedia by students.
- Setting shorter deadlines that can later be extended enabled the reduction of delays in writing articles on Wikipedia. In these cases, constant communication has played a crucial role.
Accredited seminars
[edit]
Goal: creating independence of teachers in regard to the implementation of the Wiki project in their institution |
- Successes
- By comparing the results achieved in 2015, it is clear that accredited seminars are developing in all its aspects. It is important to be mentioned that more individuals and editors were involved and more articles were written and improved in comparison with results from 2015.
- Wikimedia Serbia was given funding on December 5th, 2016 for realization of four seminars by the Ministry of Education. This support of the Ministry is very important to us because it represents a powerful reference for future activities, which makes the project more sustainable and can achieve great results.
- Experiences that the participants have after the seminars and the application of the practical knowledge holds a special significance. This is why we were especially pleased to hear that Zorana Matićević, sociology teacher at the 15th and the 3rd Gymnasium, won second place on a contest called “Learned on a seminar and put into practice” for a piece “Creation of Wiki articles in the sociology field, what can I do?”. The contest was organized by the Institute for the advancement of education, and her piece was selected among 80 other pieces.
- Through good cooperation with educational institutions WMRS has managed to provide a free venue for the realization of the seminars.
- Seminars got good grade in participants’ evaluation. They were successful and very interactive. This is done by filling in the questionnaire by teachers. Results of the seminar can be seen on this link also.
- Challenges
- Digital illiteracy of teachers was the most common obstacles in the seminars.
- Some schools where the seminar was realized had poor Internet access and old computers. In these cases, we improvised and managed to deal with the problem.
- Occasional lack of motivation among teachers was evident. In fact, some teachers have used the seminar just for getting their points. Fortunately, it is a small number of teachers.
- Small number of accredited trainers, most of whom are volunteers, so it is problematic to make a schedule. Education Program Manager in WMRS was accredited and she has been on maternity leave.
- Lessons learned
- Teachers who implement Wiki projects in class share their experiences with others, which make it possible to reach different models of implementation of Wikipedia and other Wiki projects in the classroom.
- Teachers should be more encouraged to write articles on Wikipedia and they should also understand making wiki article implies patience in following the instructions that are quite clear and thorough.
- Preparations are most important and they include opening accounts on Wikipedia and preparing article literatures before the seminars. These preparations can save a lot of time and they can make more space for further questions or concerns during the seminar.
Edu Wiki Camp
[edit]
Goal: attracts new Wiki ambassadors and strengthen the connections between them |
- Successes
- This type of camp was organized for the first time and it had a great influence on the increase of volunteer capacity within the Education program. New volunteers are animated and they continued to work on Edu or other WMRS program.
- Wiki ambassadors were additionally educated and they learned how to make an agreement with educational institutions.
- Camp’s got high evaluation rate from the participants, and almost all of them were interested in participating in this event in 2017.
- Challenges
- The biggest problem at the camp was the poor internet connection, but we managed to realized everything what was planned.
- There’s always a possibility that some of the participants won’t continue working within WMRS programs. Although, there were several cases like this, a large number of participants have continued to engage in Wiki activities.
- Lessons learned
- Interactive workshops, photo tours, quizzes were the main strength of the camp. Beside from learning, strengthening connection between Wikipedians was very important as well.
- Balance should be created between socializing, fun and learning. In this way, camp gets educational and entertaining character, which is important for community spirit. The key is in planning and preparing lectures, rules of camp and workshops.
High school pupils and students understand the importance of Wikipedia and its usage
A progressive growth of the number of educational institutions involved in the Education Program of Wikimedia Serbia from its inception until 2016 can be seen in this chart. By analyzing the chart bellow, it can be seen that 22 institutions were involved in the projects in 2016, which is the highest number to reach so far. This increase in number of partners is another proof of the importance of the Education program and the effects that we have achieved by realizing the planned activities.
The results of an evaluation poll conducted from September to December 2016, with 143 students participating in it, show that the immediate goal of the project was achieved - raising the motivation of young people and their overall interest in spreading free knowledge. By researching the effects of the program, a whopping 55.24% replied that workshops of that kind should be held all the time, 44.76% said that they should be held periodically, and no one said that those workshops are not necessary.
The chart bellow shows the results obtained by polling the students of the University who participated in the Wikistudent project. One of the questions they were asked was “How would you rate the importance of the topics covered during the workshop about editing Wikipedia?” The results showed that 61.54% rated the importance of the topics with “excellent”, while 30.77% rated “very good”. That fact is particularly important to us because we got a confirmation that the workshops are well-conceived and that important things to be presented to students are singled out.
The usefulness of the information that is presented to the students was also highly evaluated. When asked to evaluate the usefulness of the information that they’ve heard, over 65% of the students said it was "Excellent".
It is important to be mentioned there is a consistent difference between the period in which we counted metrics and the school year. School year has two semesters and some edits made between December 2015 and February 2016 were counted within calendar year in which most of the edits were made.
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Blue line shows growth of number of educational instituons
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Blue - all the time; red - periodically
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Blue - excellent; red - very good; yellow - good; green - below expectations
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Blue - excellent; red - very good; yellow - good; green - weak
Projects | # of new accounts | # of new and improved articles | # of bytes |
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Wiki Gymnasium | 54 | 235 | 560838.0 |
Wiki Student | 497 | 1692 | 9374402.0 |
After looking the results of the survey that was filled in by students and high school pupils, we can conclude that about the same number of students (60.92%) and high school pupils (61.54%) had heard for some of the Wiki projects before the workshop. Students rated “usefulness of the information they heard” with much higher grade (65.73%), as well as the experience of the lecturers (75.52%). High school pupils rated “expertise of the lecturers” with "excellent" (52.87%) and 25.29% of them describe “usefulness of the information they heard at a workshop” with the same rate.
Teachers are increasingly interested in the introduction of Wikipedia in the classroom
In order to make the acquisition and application of knowledge by the pupils in lectures in the Wiki environment easier, a seminar of professional development of elementary and high school teachers for using Wikipedia in learning and teaching has been accredited. The professional development seminars are a part of mandatory activities of the professors, so the influence of this project provide extra positive influence on the Wikipedia in schools project.
Seminars' concept:
- Basic principles of the seminar:
- Basic principles of the wiki projects
- Wikipedia in educational processes - examples of good practice
- Presenting wiki tools
- Creation of a wiki article
- Application in teaching
Aside from teachers’ education, seminars are important part of the decentralization of WMRS activities. In this way, we are trying to reach out to smaller communities and engage them in activities of Wikimedia Serbia. Since the beginning of the seminars’ implementation, we included 9 cities in Serbia.
Teacher won second place on a contest called “Learned on a seminar and put into practice” for a piece “Creation of Wiki articles in the sociology field, what can I do?”. |
"I was mostly fascinated by the idea of "common good" that is a guiding star for the Wikimedia Serbia. I recognized this as a rare value and it motivated me to look up to the Wikipedians. What particularly encouraged me is something I later called Holy Trinity of accomplishments. These are: possibility to learn something from various fields (informatics, foreign language and sociology - interdisciplinary), the ability to do something for cultural heritage (contribute to Wikipedia articles), the possibility to help others to learn something new (do something for each other, to become better)." - Zorana Matićević, (User:Lola Selena) |
Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development recognized the importance of Wiki seminars as a tool for professional development
Wikimedia Serbia was given funding in December 2016 for realization of four seminars by the Ministry of Education. The funding was allocated based on the Public call for participation in using financial resources by the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technological Advancement, intended for grants to the non-government organizations that are significant to the education. This support of the Ministry is very important to us because it represents a powerful reference for future activities, which makes the project more sustainable and can achieve great results. We also plan to continue applying to their and other public calls in order to gain extra funding for realization of seminars and expand the field of action onto other cities in which we did not yet have this type of activity.
First Edu Wiki campers are actively involved in the WMRS activities
Having the results of the evaluations, participants’ motivation, and the results with regard to the added free content at the Edu Wiki Camp in mind, we came to the conclusion that a camp of this kind is extremely important for the volunteers to get to know one another and for building stronger bonds. This kind of events make it possible for the students to get better acquainted with the Education Program of Wikimedia Serbia, but also other projects, and to become actively involved in them. The atmosphere of the camp was dynamic, which resulted in good motivation of the students. Sessions were diverse and they encompassed edit-a-thons, quizzes, mini-contests, but also photo-tours, which brought greater dynamic. After the camp, one of the participants became active in the GLAM program as a Wikipedian in Residence, and later became a Wiki Ambassador at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. Three participants continued to be active within WMRS projects and became members of the Board. Participants from Kragujevac, Pirot, and Smederevo participated in the Wiki Corner within the Researchers' Night, while other active volunteers continued their work in the Education projects.
Edu Wiki Camp helped me learn more about Wikimedia and Wiki ambassadors |
"I’m in the world of Wikipedia and Wikimedia for two years now and I have been involved into various events, conferences, camps and similar activities. Edu Wiki camp on Golija was one of the most interesting activities and certainly different from the others. In fact it was the first education camp, which was organized by Wikimedia Serbia, and as its name suggests, the camp is aimed to familiarize the participants with the programs of Wikimedia Serbia." - Miljan Simonović (User:Miljan Simonović) |
Detailed report about WMRS activities and programs can be found on these links:English, Serbian.
GLAM
[edit]GLAM is a program that has a goal to establish a two-way cooperation with cultural institutions with a focus on content release under the Creative Commons license and digitization. Wiki Loves Galleries, Wiki Loves Theaters, Edit-a-thons, Wikipedian in Residence, Wiki Librarian, and Digitization of Techno Culture in Serbia from 1990 until today are realized within this program.
Unfortunately, there were no significant activities on the Wiki Loves Galleries project during 2016, due to an increased engagement on other programs, projects, and activities of the organization, but also the desire to approach the cooperation with the galleries systematically and to establish quality results.
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Grease, premiere at Terazije Theater
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Gospođa Ministarka, poster
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World Mime Day Edit-a-thon
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Wiki4MediaFreedom edit-a-thon
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Wiki4MediaFreedom edit-a-thon
Wiki Loves Theaters
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Goal:establishing cooperation with theaters regarding the increase of free content about these institutions and their activity on the internet |
- Success
- Theaters that answered the call were extremely interested in the cooperation, thus cooperation with two significant theaters in Belgrade were achieved (Terazije theatre, Bosko Buha theatre).
- Quality photos and posters from the shows were released and uploaded on Commons. They were also used for illustrating articles.
- Challenges
- Getting acquainted with CC licenses and explanation about the terms of use, as well as getting permissions in terms of releasing files is still one of the main challenges.
- Theaters do not have enough staff, so they are unable to delegate a single person who could coordinate cooperation with Wikimedia Serbia. One of the theaters does not have a clear structure regarding people who are in charge of finding and scanning the material, putting together lists of files for marking the material with permits, so the work was developing very slowly.
- In conclusion, the theaters are very interested in cooperation in theory, but when we get to the practical part, which entails engaging the employees at the theater in the selection, classification, and systematization of the material for release, their enthusiasm wanes.
- Lessons learned
- We should work on establishing cooperation with more representatives from one institution in order to sustain the cooperation.
- Experience tells us that after presenting Wiki projects, we should focus on a smaller number of photos in the beginning so that the institutions would not put up walls and postpone the cooperation.
- If the GLAM institutions do not understand free licenses and look at Wikipedia solely as a marketing channel, we should not devote extra time to these types of cooperation.
Edit-a-thons
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Goal:increasing free content on Wiki projects as strengthening of the volunteer spirit and education of GLAM representatives |
- Success
- Edit-a-thons are a good means for establishing GLAM cooperation.
- Through organization of 2 larger and several smaller marathons, we gained quality content on Wikipedia, new participants got educated, and the old ones got better acquainted.
- Edit-a-thons have garnered good media attention, so two marathons were seen through 73 media posts. One marathon had an international character.
- Challenges
- A large number of new editors were present at the edit-a-thons, so it was sometimes needed to correct the articles so they would not be deleted.
- Negotiations with the GLAM institutions before the edit-a-thons are very common, so their representatives have to be properly acquainted with the Creative Commons licenses.
- When the events have an international character, as was the case with the World Mime Day edit-a-thon, the response from other chapters was poor.
- Lessons learned
- It is good to organize a training for new participants who have not yet had an encounter with Wikipedia before the edit-a-thon, but were willing to contribute with articles. In this way we save time, and gain better quality results.
- The topic of the edit-a-thons is very important. It should be specific enough, yet extensive, so that would attract the members of the community. Connecting the topic with significant dates can also contribute to better results.
Wikipedian in Residence
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Goal:the internship program has several objectives: strengthening cooperation between a certain GLAM institution and Wikimedia Serbia, increasing motivation of the volunteer intern, as well as securing a systematic approach to content release. |
- Success
- Two internship programs were realized in 2016 (University Library, Smederevo Museum) during which 12 pieces (2887 pages) were digitized and 80 photographs were released. One program was a result of the current cooperation with the GLAM partners, whereas the idea about the second one came about at the Edu Wiki Camp, which shows that the activities so far have been fruitful.
- Wikipedians in residence were getting the GLAMers acquainted with Wikipedia, free licenses, the idea of free knowledge, and referred them to the future models of cooperation.
- Challenges
- The most important step was a challenge at the same time, which is the selection of a good and reliable GLAM partner.
- Selection of a Wikipedian in residence can also pose as a challenge. If the person is new, we have to know if they will honor the tasks and deadlines.
- One internship program was performed in Smederevo, where WMRS could not perform a daily control and supervision.
- Lessons learned
- It is challenging to select a GLAM institution, but we have learned so far that in selecting it you have to pay attention to several things: a clear understanding of free licenses by the GLAM partners, selecting a relevant institution which can provide enough material for digitization, choose an institution that has employees interested in using Wiki projects in their work, and who understand the importance of free knowledge on the internet. Defining a clear model of cooperation and results is necessary before the program begins.
- A constant communication with the Wikipedian in residence enables a clear insight in the results and giving guidelines in which direction we want to cooperation to go. This affects the sustainability of the very cooperation.
Wiki Librarian
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Goal:еducating and networking of librarians regarding the creation of free content and using Wikipedia in practice. |
- Success
- Wiki librarians have had a lot of success in 2016. The results regarding the written/improved articles, opened accounts, and uploaded files have been surpassed.
- Cooperation was established with 48 cultural institutions whose representatives attended the lectures and /or workshops within the Wiki Librarian project.
- The Librarian department (Faculty of Philology) was included, which enabled students to write and improve articles for a certain number of points.
- The project and its success was presented during the professional conference in Prague.
- The project received media coverage (24 times on library site, local news, radio stations and web), bearing in mind that the library’s media partners were used.
- Challenges
- The participants’ motivation was the most common challenge. In addition to that, monitoring the entries and the control must be one of the main tasks during the realization of the project.
- Besides motivation, attention should be paid to the digital literacy of the project participants.
- We strive to retain the librarians on Wikipedia, but it continues to pose a challenge in and of itself.
- Lessons learned
- Preparations for each workshop and lecture for this project were essential, not only for the organizers, but also for the participants. A pattern was created for certain workshops which concerned writing about scientific magazines, which was very helpful to the new participants. That got them better acquainted with the appearance of the articles and there was no room for big mistakes.
- Preparations made by the participants enabled a larger commitment to master the Wiki syntax.
- Constant learning by the Wiki librarians made them confident in their efforts and enabled them to realize activities entirely on their own.
Digitization of techno culture
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Goal:To make free and available to the entire world a put-together, organized, and documented history of techno culture of Serbia and connect it to the world history of music, art, culture, media, scientific and educational institutions that use free knowledge, through releasing this material under Creative Commons license. |
- Success
- Over the course of the project, the participants have established in which archives and in which formats a potentially interesting content for this project is located, after which classification and digitization of the material ensued.
- Even though classification of the material took a little longer than expected, the participants have managed to digitize a relevant material about techno culture by the end of the year. All material were uploaded on Commons.
- Challenges
- Bearing in mind that this was the first time we worked on a project of this type, the beginning was riddled with challenges regarding selecting and classifying the material to be digitized. The participants have spent a lot of time for classification, after which digitization ensued.
- Uploading the material was very time-consuming, seeing as everything had to be converted due to the size.
- Lessons learned
- If it is a new model of a project, a constant communication and supervision is necessary in order to realize the given goal.
Focus on digitization
Wikimedia Serbia was largely focused on digitization of the material and uploading it on Wiki projects in 2016. Digitization was mostly being realized in the Wikipedian in Residence, Wiki Librarian, and Digitization of Techno Culture From 1990 Until Today projects. This could raise awareness in Serbia about free content on the internet and a possibility to use Wiki projects by GLAM institutions and individuals. During these projects, the following significant pieces were digitized:
- Guide through Smederevo with the history of the town
- Jovan Hadži-Vasiljević - Educational and political situation in the southern Serbian areas in the 19th century
- Borisav Stanković - From the old gospel
- Đorđe M. Stanojević - About the electric light
- Đorđe M. Stanojević - Experimental physics : for the pupils of the Great school. Book 1
- Đorđe M. Stanojević - Experimental physics : for the pupils of the Great school. Book 2
- Aćim Medović - Sanitation police
- Aćim Medović - Small surgical favors and first aid in bodily injuries : for trained barbers in the Principality of Serbia
- A bequest to the Virgin Mary and St. Spyridon
- Calculation meters and dinars
- History of the Serbian people
- The Brankovićs
In addition to these, a significant part of the GLAM activities was based on the digitization of 159 audio, video, print, and photo materials within the Digitization of Techno Culture From 1990 Until Today project. The very idea of the project entailed creating a large free base, platform, and system on Wikimedia Commons and Serbian Wikipedia, which would serve as a vehicle for the creators and users of cultural, artistic, and media contents to be able to and be motivated to improve, correct, and add new content from this field on their own, and then network, quote, use them as free knowledge. This way, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons become the main source of information in this field which is very interesting media- and user-wise, thus increasing visibility, relevance, quotability, and media exposure.
Art photographers release their work
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The village tavern
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The Sodamaker
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The Weaver
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The Barber
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The Cooper
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The Glasscutter
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The coppersmith
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The Locksmith
When it comes to donating free content, Wikimedia Serbia always tries to listen to the public and current cultural events, and to contact the authors of interesting art projects and ask them to release material for Wiki projects.
The Wiki Loves Earth contest introduced us to Maja Stošić, an art photographer, who donated 33 exceptional photographs of old crafts to Wikimedia Commons from her collection “Preserved from oblivion”. The photographs were taken over a period of 18 months, when Maja was visiting villages and cities in Serbia in search for the leftover artisans of old crafts. Maja Stošić is the recipient of the first Commendation at the Wiki Loves Earth contest, and several months later we contacted her with a plea to release this collection.
Six articles on Serbian Wikipedia was illustrated with some of these photographs, and they were used in the announcement of this donation in the global monthly newsletter about the GLAM project. We wrote about this donation on the Wikimedia Serbia blog, and we shared the news through all communication channels of the organization.
Individual work of Wiki librarians
Wiki librarians are one of the most significant projects of Wikimedia Serbia, not only regarding the achieved results, but also the complete gaining of independence of the librarians in the project realization. The organizational team successfully uses Wiki projects in its work and spreads awareness about free knowledge. Numerous institutions from all over Serbia who are still interested in editing Wikipedia or organizing marathons in their quarters get involved in the activities.
WIKI LIBRARIAN: Edit-a-thons “Scientific magazines in an open approach” |
"Production of scientific magazines in Serbia is at an enviable level. Many magazines are heirs of earlier periodical publications that had to be renamed due to the changes in the institutions, on both local and regional level. The magazines are one of the poorly covered topics on Wikipedia in Serbian language, and the possibility of enrichment of Wikipedia, as well as increasing visibility of periodicals in Serbia and the region, were the main reasons to organize a Wiki marathon. The editors are the best connoisseurs of the editorial policy, topics, history, and other facts about the magazines themselves. Calls for the magazine editors about organizing a workshop were put up on the web pages of the Library, CoBSON, and the Institute of Technical Science SANU. They were also sent direct e-mails with the information. The response was unexpected. Within 24 hours, the first appointment was filled. We offered two more appointments within the same day. Most of the applicants attended the marathon, and their comments were: “Call us if you decide to have another one of these interesting workshops”, “Thank you for inviting us and giving us the opportunity to present our magazine on Wikipedia”, “I would like to attend another workshop in order to learn more about editing Wikipedia”... The result of the edit-a-thon was extraordinary: 32 uploaded new articles and 1 improved article, 33 new accounts on Wikipedia. The attendants were sent the instructions for opening new accounts in form of a presentation, a Pattern was made for editing magazines which was transferred into a text document so that all the attendants could write texts based on the specified subheadings. They were sent more precise instructions on what to pay special attention to. Most editors were very generous to release the photographs of their magazine covers and some texts, with the consent from the publishers. Some of them brought already signed consent forms and scanned photos to the workshop, and some of them subsequently sent them via e-mail. " - Aleksandra Popović (User:11sasapus11) |
Detailed report about WMRS activities and programs can be found on these links:English, Serbian.
Free content
[edit]The Free content program had a goal to gather free material in any form (photo, audio, textual). The benefits of this endeavor are numerous:
- they generate a large amount of multimedia content
- they animate the community with a goal to increase the contribution to Wiki projects
- they are convenient for the newcomers who are still not very well acquainted with the Wiki projects
- they are projects of a thematic type, so the content is useful and meaningful for enriching articles on Wikipedia and other Wiki projects
7 projects were realized in 2016: Wiki Loves Earth, Zapis - Sacred Tree, Serbian Holy Mountain in 4 Seasons, Valjevo Mountains Through a Lens, Wiki Loves Dragonflies, Kurgans of Serbia, and Contests on Wikipedia. The emphasis within the photo-project was placed on using the files on Wiki projects.
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This image won the 1st prize in Wiki Loves Earth 2016
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This image won the 15th prize in Wiki Loves Earth 2016
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3rd prize on local Wiki Loves Earth 2016
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Material from Wiki Loves Dragonflies
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Monastery Blagoveštenje
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Rekovac
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Jablanik, Serbia
Wiki Loves Earth
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Goal:increasing photo content on Commons by uploading photographs of protected natural heritage; enriching articles on Wikipedia with said photographs; educating the public and engaging the community through organizing an edit-a-thon and a photo tour; promoting Wikimedia Serbia and its projects through organizing exhibitions throughout Serbia; establishing cooperation with GLAM institutions |
- Success
- This project has shown a great increase in the number of participants and photos that were collected and uploaded on Commons in 2016. A big media promotion in 2015 and 2016 contributed to that.
- Media promotion increased the visibility of Wikimedia Serbia and its other projects.
- The winning photograph at the world contest was in fact from Serbia. WMRS used this for a big media campaign that took place in late November. On this occasion, our organization was provided with billboards in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia with the winning photograph.
- GLAM cooperation with the Institute for Nature Preservation of Serbia, Tourist Organization of Serbia, and Nishville foundation were realized during the contest.
- Challenges
- The organization of the contest itself went according to plan. The problem still appears while uploading and proper marking of the photographs. The participants often had the following problems: an overly complicated uploading process, difficulty in navigating the lists of protected natural heritage and proper marking of the patterns, improper categorization, improper descriptions of photos, oftentimes the photos do not feature a protected natural heritage.
- A certain number of photos were disqualified for not depicting natural heritage.
- During the global contest, the representatives of Wikimedia Serbia were notified that the photo that took second prize was digitally enhanced, which required solving that problem.
- Lessons learned
- A photo contest, such as Wiki Loves Earth, contributes greatly to increasing the visibility of our organization, so WMRS plans to continue organizing it.
- During the organization of the contest, the contest rules should be very clearly stated so there would not be any misunderstandings and misgivings, and subsequent contestant resignations.
- The communication should be adjusted to the participants so the motivation would not decrease. This is where tutorials come in very handy.
Photo projects
[edit]
Zapis - Sacred Tree: collecting the photos of the Zapis trees in Serbia, uploading them on Commons, and completing the list on Wikipedia formed last year. In addition to the photo, the articles about the Zapis trees are also uploaded. |
- Success
- All the projects have significantly realized their goals and enriched Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Although thematically different, each project was important for preservation of natural and cultural heritage in Serbia.
- These projects are also important because of the decentralization of the activities. Most of the volunteers who participated and lead the projects were from various cities in Serbia, and were thus able to present the idea of free knowledge to their fellow citizens.
- It is commendable that some of the leaders of the projects continued their activities on Wikipedia even though the projects were not officially included in the WMRS program in 2017. We can conclude that these kinds of activities increase the retention of participants.
- Challenges
- There can sometimes be a situation when we do not have enough supervision and control when the activities are outside Belgrade, which can affect the results.
- Most of these projects are lead by one or two volunteers, which sometimes means the project will prove to be unsuccessful if that volunteer is unable to perform his or her duties.
- Lessons learned
- Based on the activities we have realized, we concluded that we have to engage more volunteers per project so that we would ensure project completion and success.
- We learned that this type of projects are a good channel for introducing new volunteers who have not had any experience with Wikipedia and/or Wikimedia Commons. It is by all means important to pick reliable people who will lead them and realize the set goal.
Competitions on Wikipedia
[edit]
Goal:the primary goal of the contests is increasing free knowledge through creating and improving articles on Wikipedia. Also, through the organization of these activities, motivation and involvement of the community increases. |
- Success
- During 2016 we have successfully conducted three contests on the topics of countries from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE Spring), literature, and living creatures, which resulted in 527 written and improved articles and over 20 participants.
- Contests on Wikipedia enable more community activities and promotes a healthy competitive spirit.
- In addition to the contestants, active members of the community get involved as members of the jury.
- Challenges
- The community sometimes expresses dissatisfaction with the way the articles are ranked because they are not sure that the chosen way covers both the quality and the quantity.
- Within the CEE Spring, the problem appeared with the selection of the countries which would take part in the competition, i.e. the community did not acknowledge the separate list of topics for Kosovo.
- The contest is interesting to the new editors, but oftentimes those editors quit the contest since they cannot master the Wiki syntax on their own.
- Lessons learned
- Contests on Wikipedia often attract new editors. Even though it is challenging to explain Wiki syntax and rules to them, we establish contact with new editors who can later get involved in other projects.
- It is important to select a good way to grade them, which covers both the quality and the quantity of the articles.
Wiki Loves Earth in Serbia attracts a lot of media attention
Wiki Loves Earth is a photo contest which has attracted a lot of attention from the media. There were 39 media posts about the project (television 15,4%, radio 12,8%, press 7,7%, web 64,1%) which increased the number of participants and more than doubled the number of photos than last year.
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WLE Serbia 2015 and 2016 - number of participants
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WLE Serbia - number of participants in 2015 and 2016
Exhibitions at the Tourist Organization of Serbia and the very well attended Nishville festival contributed to the media promotion. The exhibition ensued aright after the Edu Wiki camp, so the participants of the camp visited it as well. Over the course of the four festival nights, a Wiki corner was placed next to the exhibition, which had brochures and leaflets, and enabled us to inform the passers-by about the work of Wikimedia Serbia. The thing that took us all by surprise was the fact that a photo from Serbia took first place at the global contest. On that occasion we launched a big media campaign. Within this campaign, Wikimedia Serbia received donations in form of 8 billboards (3 in downtown Belgrade and 5 in the region where the winning photo was taken). Great media coverage secured a significant visibility of the Wiki Loves Earth contest, and it was used to announce the 2017 contests and attracting new editors.
In the last month of 2016, it was decided to have another WLE exhibition at the quarters of our partner, University library Svetozar Marković, and for it to be held within the celebration of 16 year anniversary of Wikipedia in English language.
Individuals all over Serbia use Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons to preserve cultural heritage
Wikipedia helped me increase visibility of the Zapis trees and work on preserving cultural heritage |
"Even though the Serbs have great respect for the Zapis trees, banning religious processions, cross bearers, and gathering around the Zapis trees rendered worshiping them illegal. It caused disappearance of the customs and beliefs in the villages, and complete unawareness of the existence of the Zapis trees in urban environments. Despite that, Wikimedia Serbia has recognized the importance of the idea of the “Zapis - Sacred Tree” project, and selflessly helped in its realization. The effects of that help are already visible, but the final results are yet to come. Wiki projects, which provide an unlimited space for uploading photo-video material and free page editing, are the most significant aspect of the help. That is, unfortunately, the part which is used the least in Serbia. Zapis trees and cross bearers become visible to the entire community, and that is how Wikipedia increases awareness about the importance of preservation of the tradition. The collected material will be the basis for starting the initiative for inscription of the Zapis trees on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. One or more interactive maps will be formed. Besides that, the entire project will be submitted to the Europa Nostra award in the Digitization of cultural heritage category." - Zoran Blagojević, (User:Zblagojevic) |
Wikimedia Commons served as a depot of my work in increasing the availability of information of historical cultural heritage ” |
"Two years ago, my friend suggested to me that, in addition to Wikipedia, there is also the organization Wikimedia Serbia, which finances small innovative and creative projects. My project began with receiving a micro grant which enabled me to work on the project of mapping kurgans - prehistoric tombs. I knew about Wikimedia Commons from before, people uploaded certain photos knowing that by doing that they contribute to general knowledge. Finally, I gave my contribution via Commons. Wikimedia Commons served as a depot of my work in increasing the availability of information about the historical cultural heritage which is neglected and collapsing - Jožef Dožai, leader of the Kurgans of Serbia project." - Jožef Dožai, (User:Jozefsu) |
Projects | Planned | Achieved |
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Zapis - Sacred Tree | 8000 photographs 100 used 100 articles |
5304 uploaded 2152 used in articles 151 articles |
Кurgans in Serbia | 300 photographs 300 used 300 articles |
900 uploaded 577 used 95 articles |
Valjevo mountains through the lens | 1000 photographs 750 used |
1011 uploaded 465 used |
Wiki Loves Dragonflies | 450 photographs 200 photographs 200 articles |
126 uploaded 6 used 0 articles |
Serbian Holy mountain in 4 seasons | 2000 photographs 180 used |
1900 uploaded 90 used |
A significant increase in the number of participants and written and improved articles was noted in comparison to 2015. Out of 400 written and improved articles on CEE Spring, 79 were created in 2015 and 321 in 2016. The following charts show comparative results from CEE Spring in 2015 and 2016 but also comparative results within the contests organized during 2016. With regard to the number of written and improved articles, the best result yielded CEE Spring, whereas the living creatures competition had the most participants.
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CEE Spring in Serbia 2015 and 2016 - number of participants
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CEE Spring Serbia 2015 and 2016 - number of bytes 02.png
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Number of bytes per competition in 2016
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Number of participants per competition in 2016
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Number of written and improved articles per competition in 2016
Detailed report about WMRS activities and programs can be found on these links:English, Serbian.
Wiktionary
[edit]The Wiktionary project has a goal to develop this Wiki project by establishing cooperation with the Faculty of Philology, but also by realizing the Language Laboratory project. All the program activities strive to increase free content on Wiktionary and enriching the word fund. Within the project, we held trainings, educated students, and started the Language Laboratory.
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1001 Arabic words, Charity dinner
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1001 Arabic words, Charity dinner
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1001 Arabic words, Charity dinner
Wiktionary - cooperation with faculties
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Goal:spreading and developing the Wiktionary, but also educating and including students and other enthusiasts in the projects |
- Success
- Student trainings were organized within the project, and they were working on the development of the dictionary.
- At the beginning of the year, an event was organized which gathered participants who work on the Wiktionary. The event was not only educative, but also humanitarian in character.
- Challenges
- Students were not very motivated to work this school year because the assistants did not grade them with points, which means that work was done voluntarily.
- Due to a large number of commitments of the students at the Faculty of Philology, and a small number of students, the department could not incorporate the Wiktionary into the pre-exam activities.
- Lessons learned
- Even though it is good to include students of the Faculty of Philology, we have learned that we need to look for a community which is interested in the work on this project without collecting points. This kind of motivation leads to better results.
Language laboratory
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Goal:creating a platform which will be significant for improvement and enriching the Wiktionary in the future. |
- Success
- The project was presented at Wikimania, and the laboratory was officially opened during 2016, http://lab.unilib.rs/. The registered users (editors) can now choose words, do declension, and look at the results, and the unregistered users were only allowed to view the results in the form of a dictionary or a cluster.
- A pattern for reducing the nouns in Serbian language to their nominative form was created, so they could be used in the search of different forms of words.
- In addition to the numerous failures, the project resulted in a large number of entered words.
- The project will continue without the funding from WMRS, it will be realized by the University library Svetozar Marković.
- Challenges
- We have had significant challenges in communication with the project leaders.
- There were delays in the realization of activities, which is why some of them were pushed to next year.
- Lessons learned
- Just like in some of the previous projects, we learned to choose reliable partners and project leaders, as well as not to rely on a single person, but several.
Wiktionary also has a humanitarian character
In order to increase motivation of the project participants, we organized a gathering in 2016 which had multiple purposes. It is called Delicacy Monday, organized in cooperation with Cultural center Grad. Bearing in mind that the 1001 Arabic Word project is the most active project on Wiktionary, we organized an event of the same name. The project volunteers and Libyan chefs participated in the organization and food preparation. The event was attended by more than 300 people, including members of the Wiki community, people interested in WMRS projects and Arabic culture, the media, as well as refugees.
Language laboratory’s long-term sustainability
The experience from working on the Language laboratory project in 2016 helped the volunteers determine that this concept yields better results in the long run, in a period of two years instead of one. The challenge they faced was coordinating the period of software development, testing, and setting up, with the commitments of the student-volunteers in the academic school year. For this reason, the project will continue in 2017 with a primary goal to expand the core of the dictionary and the available entered words, in order to realize the plan from 2016 of minimum 100,000 word forms. The work on the project will continue tounfold at the University library “Svetozar Marković”. In February and March 2017, four new editors who come from the lines of the employees at the library and the volunteers engaged in cooperation with the Department for librarianship and informatics of the Faculty of Philology will be included. We will continue to monitor the work and the development, include new editors if needed, and put the necessary improvements and fine tuning.
Sustainability of the project mirrors in the activities planned for 2017: at the expense of the University library, the employees and the volunteers will attend workshops where they will work on expanding the core of the dictionary.
Metrics | Planned | Achieved | Explanation |
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Number of words entered in the base | 10,000 | 16,273 | Nouns taken from the Wiktionary |
Number of entered word forms | 100,000 | 24,308 | Forms taken from the Wiktionary + entered at Wikicorner |
Detailed report about WMRS activities and programs can be found on these links:English, Serbian.
Community support
[edit]The goal of this project is to create and maintain a better and healthier atmosphere in the community, establishing a better communication with the community, and increase the members’ motivation. In order to realize these goals, the program has been divided into several segments, which are: animating the community, local conference of the Wikipedians, and Wiki South. Each of these projects is woven with the idea of decentralization and increasing the participation of the community in the projects.
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Wiki camp Wiki South
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Wiki South participants
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Wiki corner in Researchers' Night
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Wiki corner on Filmstreet
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WikiLive 2016 participants
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Winner of Branislav Jovanović award
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Wiki Dojo on WikiLive 2016
Animating the community
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Goal:Establishing a better communication with the community and bridging the gap between the Wikipedians and the Wikimedians. |
- Success
- We worked on raising the awareness of the members about the local projects of WMRS in 2016 through better communication, as well as the activities at the global community. We used different channels of communication in order to inform them as well as possible.
- We applied a proactive approach in engaging the volunteers and community members, and invited them personally to participate in the events and the project realization. Many of them attended WMRS’s and Wikipedia’s birthdays.
- Volunteers from other cities in Serbia came to the events in Belgrade and thus supported the idea of decentralization.
- The Branislav Jovanović prize was awarded for the first time in 2016 to a Wikipedian who greatly contributed to spreading free knowledge. This is going to be an annual award.
- The novelty in 2016 was the Wiki corner, realized during the Researchers’ Night and Filmstreet. The corner aimed to educate the public about Wikipedia, other projects and programs of WMRS.
- Challenges
- Due to the great number of activities, it was not possible to organize more community meet-ups.
- Motivation of the volunteers can always change which is why the attendance of the events can be scarce.
- One of the challenges is that it is hard to realize projects and train new volunteers who would participate at the events and the activities of WMRS.
- There is still a gap between Wikimedians and Wikipedians which WMRS is trying to decrease.
- Lessons learned
- To sustain the motivation of the volunteers and constant engagement of the Wiki projects, it is necessary to work constantly and form a team of volunteers who will dedicate themselves to that.
- The new volunteers have to be “hired” immediately and give them assignments in order to make them feel useful and be a part of the community.
- The community needs more meet-ups to be alive and to strengthen the bonds among the members.
WikiLive 2016
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Goal: introducing members of the community to one another, networking, and strengthening the bonds among them. |
- Success
- Two local Wikipedia conferences have been successfully organized so far, and they both consisted of two-day programs. The lecturers were Wikipedia editors, WMRS volunteers, project leaders, as well as GLAM and Edu partners. In addition to the lectures, the program is enriched with workshops and panel discussions.
- Besides the editors from Belgrade, 20 scholarship holders from various towns in Serbia participated at the event.
- The conference had a regional character, so the representatives of the Wikim/pedians from Macedonia, Republic of Srpska, and Bulgaria presented their experiences from their communities.
- After the conference, many of the participants started micro projects or became engaged in the activities in some other capacity.
- Challenges
- The presence of active Wikipedians could be greater. Even though they were personally invited, the response was not very good. The call was sent via different channels of communication.
- The newcomers were having difficulties following the program if the lecture was about a more serious Wiki topic.
- Internet often poses a problem at this kind of conference.
- Lessons learned
- We came to a conclusion that organizing this kind of event is very meaningful for the motivation of volunteers.This kind of events always offer new ideas for projects. The participants hear about the projects they had no prior knowledge of and want to get involved.
- We have to come up with a way to attract more active Wikipedians and how to include them in the program.
Wiki South
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Goal:Strengthening the community in the southern part of Serbia and creating a group which would work on realizing and promoting Wiki projects. |
- Success
- A group of volunteers from the Youth Club Ančiki (Leskovac) has achieved all its objectives. They have successfully organized wiki camp where they’ve attracted newcomers, then organized monthly thematic workshops on editing Wikipedia. The workshops resulted with an increase of a free content about their district, celebrities and history in general.
- This project is very significant in terms of decentralization. The group's sustainable and past activities were very successful.
- The project will continue in 2017. Activities have been extended.
- Challenges
- Control of activities is difficult because the volunteers are not in Belgrade. We regularly received reports, which helped in tracking activities.
- Volunteers have had problems in the beginning about editing Wikipedia articles, but exercises helped them overcome the challenges.
- Organizing camp was challenging bearing in mind that this is the first time for these volunteers to do that, but they’ve managed to overcome obstacles.
- Lessons learned
- This project taught us that decentralization is very important and should be strengthened through activities and events. A team of volunteers from Ančiki Youth Club represents a significant step towards expanding the network of Wikipedians in Pcinja and Jablanica districts.
- We have learned that sustainability of such projects are crucial. These activities are entrusted to people who want to continue their work in the following years.
WikiLive - motivation for old editors and inspiration for newcomers
WikiLive is a local Wikipedian Conference, first organized by Wikimedia Serbia in 2015 (report can be seen here). After interactive sessions and meetups, participants filled out evaluation forms from which it was concluded that their satisfaction was on high level as well as the desire to participate in the conference next year. Taking into account the satisfaction of participants, speakers, fruitful discussions and ideas that participants got at the end of the conference, it was decided that WikiLive should become a regular practice. Conference included various session about Wikipedia and other Wiki projects. In 2016 we added more interactive sessions in order to more involve participants and motivate them to give their contribution. So, beside lectures about Education program, Wikidata, Creative Commons licences, we had World cafe workshop as well as Wiki Dojo. Participants were very satisfied so 27 (84.4%) of 32 who filled out the evaliation forms rated program with 5. 96.9% of the participants said that the conference met their expectations, and they all said they would visit this event again.
WikiLive participants showed their satisfaction through involvement in various activities and even initiating new projects. It was the WikiLive that triggered Cultural heritage of Mačve and Pocerina micro project. Some of the participants have joined the competition on Wikipedia and some of them became Wiki ambassadors. All photos from the event are available at this link.
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Wikilive 2016 - participants' satisfaction
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Wikilive 2016 - participants' satisfaction
Detailed report about WMRS activities and programs can be found on these links:English, Serbian.
Microgrants
[edit]Through the program of giving microgrants, Wikimedia Serbia wants to encourage individuals and/or organizations to come up with new ideas and to implement them. Some projects do not require a lot of resources and with the good will of volunteers they can have great results. Quite often, they can grow to become annual projects with a greater amount of activities and participation of volunteers. Public education, decentralization, animating and increasing the participation of community and people who have not participated in activities of Wikimedia are just some of the goals of this program. Looking at the projects from previous years, it has been decided to divide microgrants to:
- standard grants, which were given to applicants of projects with different goals (projects which included GLAM, Education activities etc. or they had WMRS promotion and public education as goal)
- photo grants which were given to applicants of photo projects - collecting and uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons and illustrating articles on Wikipedia.
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Lingvopedia workshop
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Cultural heritage of Mačva and Pocerina
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Church in Kućani, Raška in the valley of the centuries
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Wild Wiki parks
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One photo - 1000 words, journey around Pirot
Photo grants
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Goal:Collecting free photo material and enriching Wiki Commons and Wikipedia. Involvement of new volunteers who get in touch with Wiki projects easily. |
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Aporia crataegi
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Beg's Bridge
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Banja Koviljača
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Monument in Bogatić
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Mural in Bogatić
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Church in Milatmović
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Flower
- Success
- All these projects accomplished their goal regarding the number of collected images and written/edited articles.
- Project leaders are still motivated and some of them continued their project in the year 2017.
- Thanks to a great number of collected images, Wikimedia Serbia announced the project “Cultural heritage of Mačva and Pocerina” as the most successful in the year 2016.
- Photo grants are an exceptional way of obtaining new volunteers who hadn’t previously participated in Wiki projects.
- Challenges
- In projects like these, there are difficulties that occur at the beginning, when the participants learn to use Wiki syntax.
- Overlooking can be difficult in cases of photo tours, which is the most common case with photo grants.
- In case there is no constant upload to Commons, the volunteers can be discouraged, since the upload takes up significantly large amount of time.
- Lessons learned
- Constant communication with the project leaders allows continuity in work and photo upload.
- We’ve learned that through these projects, many areas that aren’t already on Wiki Commons can be covered and illustrated.
- Photo grants are an exceptional way of obtaining new volunteers who hadn’t previously participated in Wiki projects.
- Majority of proponents are volunteers who are professional photographers, which results in good quality content.
Standard grants
[edit]
Goal:Increasing volunteer participation, quantity and quality of the free content in Wiki projects.
Active engagement in dissemination and activity expanding throughout Serbia, thus ensuring visibility and education that represent our goals accomplished by these grants. |
- Success
- Both projects accomplished their goals and easily learned to work on Wikipedia.
- Members of the Wiki Wild Parks team have also participated in other activities, such as Wiki Corner in the Researchers' Night in Niš.
- Dissemination of activities is present within these projects.
- Project Wild Wiki Parks continues to be active in 2017 under the micro grant program.
- Challenges
- Although many members are involved in the Lingoupedia project, the communication between them was not optimal, thus resulting in one person being in charge of all the work.
- There are frequent concerns in cases when the project leaders have no experience in Wiki syntax, but both teams have managed to learn and become proficient in their work.
- Lessons learned
- Smaller projects like these allow new volunteers to be involved in the community easily, and to improve their idea by expanding it into an annual project.
- Through micro grants we are able to reach many target groups and realise the real scope of interest that general public has for the Wiki projects.
- Through these projects we are also expanding the network of associates and partners.
Micro grants are enabling easier learning and retention of the participants
Micro grants have proved to be good idea-generators in 2016 as well. Bearing in mind the small amount of resources involved, these grants have a low risk level. On one side they attract new volunteers and, therefore, expand Wikimedia Serbia’s network of associates. On the other side, they can attract the members of Wiki community, and motivate them additionally. A good example for the latter is the Cultural heritage of Mačva and Pocerina project. Together with motivation, the micro grants provide encouragement for the participants to apply for the annual project, expand their activities and continue contributing to Wiki projects.
Detailed report about WMRS activities and programs can be found on these links:English, Serbian.
Media report
[edit]During the 2016, the activities of Wikimedia Serbia were strongly represented in the media. That was effect of WMRS`s proactive attitude towards journalists, carefully prepared press releases, the overall improvement of the existing relationship with the media, as well as cooperation with strong partners on projects that have provoked media attention.
The total amount of 697 disclosures about the projects and activities of the Serbian chapter of Wikimedia was recorded. Most of them were written on the Internet (497 disclosures), but a significant increase of a television (85), radiо (50) and newspapers (65) disclosures was noticed.
Photo contest Wiki Loves Earth took the biggest media attention. The winner of the international Wiki Loves Earth is from Serbia so it caused special media coverage. The biggest number of releases regarding WMRS activities, had the 15th birthday of English Wikipedia, and the 13th birthday of Serbian Wikipedia, then GLAM projects, Wiki-corner project activities, but also other WMRS projects. Media generally spoke about Wikipedia 70 times, and they mentioned Wikipedia 150 times.
Beginning of the year was marked by the celebration of the 15th anniversary of English Wikipedia, which caused a lot of media interest and resulted in 66 publications. Especially notable was hosting the morning program of Radio Television Serbia (public service), in the period when the average reach is about 1.5 million people. All leading daily newspapers with significant circulation published news of this success. It is important to emphasize that a big help around the media promotion of the event came from Foundation. Press releases full of interesting information, which community members and the PR department of the Foundation put together were precious, as well as guidelines from a conversation with Samantha Lien.
Equal attention sparked the celebration of the 13th birthday of Serbian Wikipedia in February. In addition to event announcements in the media and media appearances, the celebration was attended by several news crews and TV Pink (with national coverage and millions of viewers) devoted a lot of attention to the jubilee, through live stream, but also hosting WMRS Communication Manager in the morning show. Particularly significant was the interview for IT magazine with a long tradition in the "Computer World". This jubilee was mentioned in media 66 times.
In February the promotion of the project Digital Belgrade was organized, which included the presence of the Mayor of Belgrade, which was very followed by media and resulted in 23 media posts.
GLAM activities were present in Serbian media in March and April. Edit-a-thon organized on the World Mime Day and cooperation with the President of the World Mime Organization of mime and famous Serbian actor Marko Stojanovic has resulted with 52 media posts.
Wiki-librarians were also active, they were in media 13 times within the Week of open education. Eleven media distributed WMRS press release about successful GLAM activities.
Traditionally the most media attention in May was given to photo contest Wiki Loves Earth. In 2016 we were actively working on finding media sponsors, so the major media (Radio Television of Vojvodina, Studio B, Vecernje Novosti) officially accepted to be the media support. Radio Television of Vojvodina enabled broadcasting of a commercial (video) for 30 seconds, five times a day, in prime time during the first and last weeks of the competition. And almost all other media in Serbia have been very willing to report on this competition, so the outcome was 194 publications in media.
In particular, we could highlight:
- Hosting the show "Zikina sarenica" - announcement of the competition
- Hosting the winner of the competition
- Press release in the daily newspaper "Politika"
- Direct reporting from the event - TV Pink, Studio B
- Publication of the Wiki loves Earth photos in the weekly newspaper "Blic Woman“
Media interest in the photo competition Wiki Loves Earth, with the support of the official media sponsors, has not waned even during the summer months. Media in the city of Nis hosted WMRS Communication Manager during the last of the exhibition at Nišvil Jazz Festival, and announced the exhibition in Pozega. In addition, Wiki-corner was also very noticed in media (45 times), due to the cooperation with the manifestation Researchers’ Night. Press release regarding the photo competition Wiki Loves Monuments was published in the media 15 times.
In late August, the media treat for WMRS was the release in the “Politikin Zabavnik”, a newspaper for children with a long tradition, about EduWiki camp. However, the fall brought us the most media attention (one might say - media hysteria). The news about the winner photo from Serbia to the world competition Wiki Loves Earth dominated in almost all the news, journals, TV and radio shows, and there was almost no print and online media that has not been published it.
In addition to traditional media, the news was spread virally on social networks. The post on the Facebook page Wiki Loves Earth - Serbia was seen more than 30 thousand times, and almost all pages (with tourist and similar topics) reposted it, but also news portals with a huge number of followers.
The end of the WMRS media year was marked by the celebration of the 11th birthday of the organization. In addition to the publications in the online media and television hostings, a whole one hour show on the second channel of Radio Belgrade was dedicated to Wikimedia Serbia.
Other WMRS activities and projects were accompanied in the media, so the public also heard about the celebration of the project the 1001 Arabic word, two-day conference WikiLive, competitions on Wikipedia...
However, during the year there have been media announcements which had wrong information, such as a release on the review of the history of the region, in which WMRS reacted by sending email explanations of the differences between the language Wikipedia variations. On the other hand, the media made a progress in reaching the adequate persons for certain answers, which helped us get qualitative information for the larger public eg. about the procedures when someone vandalizes an article.
Some media prone to sensationalism tend to convey information about vandalism to articles on Wikipedia in other languages, or wrote about how Wikipedia got its name or how Wikipedia logo was created. One of the articles in daily newspaper presented the book "The explosion of knowledge. The encyclopedia to Wikipedia".
In addition to traditional media, Wikimedia Serbia blog was also frequently visited and widely read. During the year, 68 posts were written. The news, curiosities from Wikipedia, photos from the contest on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter were also shared.
It could be concluded that 2016 was successful in terms of media presence. Cooperation with media is getting stronger by making new contacts. It is noticeable that journalists are more familiar with the work, activities and projects of the organization, and they also express interest in new coverage.
Experience shows that they find quite useful commitment of WMRS in preparing all the materials for the reporting, which also ensures accurate reporting for the WMRS.
WMRS cares for the same approach to the representatives of all media, but it has been shown that carefully selected and targeted media (for every different project) enables most releases. Giving certificates of appreciation to media also resulted in getting more media attention for WMRS activities, as well as strengthening relations with the media.
Work of WMRS Board
[edit]The Board of Wikimedia Serbia was active during the 2016 in terms of financial, human resource issues, as well as project implementation and control. During the year, there were 13 formal meetings which resulted with 19 decisions on current issues of the organization.
On the seventeenth General Assembly meeting, Board was reinforced with four new members and now it has eight members. Strengthening the composition of the board helps in better controlling, projects monitoring and the work of employees.
A great part of the Board’s work is dealing with human resource issues. In 2016, one of the employees went on maternity leave which is why it was necessary to find a replacement and conduct a new call for Education Program Manager job position. Board members actively participated in this.
In addition, Board members have participated in the process of assigning micro grants and the creation of the annual plan for 2017.
Members also participated in various international conferences: Wikimedia conference, Wikimania, CEE meeting and national conference of Wikimedians in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Work of WMRS Board was presented on General Assembly in February 2017.
General Assembly
[edit]In 2016 Wikimedia Serbia had two meetings of the General Assembly. Members of the General Assembly talked about financial reports, election of the new, affiliate, and honorary members of the organisation and Board members. In addition, evaluation of the projects for 2015 was presented. Report from these meet-ups can be found here
Evaluation of the projects for 2016 was presented on the Assembly held in February 2017.
Revenues received during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)
[edit]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 Donation from WMF Euro 98,500.00 65,625.00 0.00 32,875.00 0.00 98,500.00 110,496.32 110,496.32 Donation from WMF - transferred from 2015 Euro 14,002.01 14,002.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 14,002.01 15,707.31 15,707.31 This amount was deducted from the second installment Donation from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development Euro 1,525.84 0.00 0.00 0.00 1,213.06 1,213.06 1,711.67 1,360.80 Although we did not get the full amount of funds requested (80%), our project was accepted among 232 projects that have applied for grants. Revenues from other donations Euro 631.95 162.01 148.11 305.63 16.20 631.95 708.92 708.92 Membership fees Euro 19.59 9.83 9.76 0.00 0.00 19.59 21.98 21.98 TOTAL Euro 114,679.39 79,798.85 157.87 33,180.63 1,229.26 114,366.61 128,646.19 128,295.32
* Provide estimates in US Dollars
In-kind donations
[edit]Donator | In-kind donation | Value (in EUR) |
---|---|---|
Interglider | Hosting and server administration service | 1,440.00 (120.00 monthly) |
Belgrade City Library | Membership fee for the Wikipedian of the year | 16.40 |
National Library of Serbia | Membership fee for the Wikipedian of the year | 16.40 |
Wikimedia Nederland | Hotel room and catering services for Marko Adam's participation on Board training | 218.00 |
Singidunum University | Providing space and catering for editorial marathon | ~230.00 |
Marko Adam | Professional photo shooting of employees | 20.00 |
Radio Television of Vojvodina | Commercial airing for the WLE photo competition during prime time | 303.00 |
Slobodan Stojičić | Edit and production of WLE commercial | 600.00 |
Snežana and Vladimir Đorđević | Sound recording of WLE commercial | 35.00 |
Printing shop "Propaganda Jovanović" | Printing of 300 pieces of WMRS leaflets | 54.00 |
StartIT Center | Providing space for the Wiki Live 2016 conference | ~400.00 |
Vila Selena | Weekend accommodation for 4 people in Golija | 147.00 |
National Tourist Organisation of Serbia | Providing space for the Wiki Loves Earth exhibition in Belgrade | ~700.00 |
Nišville Foundation | Providing space for the Wiki Loves Earth exhibition in Niš | ~700.00 |
The Cultural Centre of Požega | Providing space for the Wiki Loves Earth exhibition in Požega | ~700.00 |
Institute for Biological Research "Siniša Stanković" | Printing of promo materials (brochures and flyers) | 350.00 |
Institute for Biological Research "Siniša Stanković" | Donation of two promo tables | 155.00 |
Nikola Smolenski | Repairing of office table | 35.00 |
National Tourist Organisation of Serbia | Providing space for the Wiki Loves Earth global winner celebration | 200.00 |
Elementary School "Vuk Karadžić", Surčin, Belgrade | Providing space and catering for accredited seminars for teachers | 250.00 |
Gymnasium "Branko Radičević", Stara Pazova | Providing space and catering for accredited seminars for teachers | 250.00 |
Pharmacy and Physiotherapy College | Providing space and catering for accredited seminars for teachers | 250.00 |
Alma Quattro | Three billboards for two weeks in Belgrade downtown | 840.00 |
Babbler Media Group | Five billboards for four weeks in cities across the Serbia | 1,800.00 |
TOTAL | 9,709.80 |
Also, within the project 1001 Arabic word, "Deli Monday" event was organized in cooperation with the Cultural Center Grad. In this event, the organizers were preparing food portions which were purchased for a symbolic price. Due to the situation with refugees, all the money that was gathered (270.00 euros) was donated to charity.
Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)
[edit]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 Office Еuro 14,420.00 2,643.35 3,204.24 2,470.36 3,660.60 11,978.55 16,176.21 13,437.42 83.07% Staff Еuro 46,104.00 10,964.99 10,253.46 9,820.93 14,181.07 45,220.45 51,719.01 50,727.85 98.08% Services Еuro 2.926.00 593.41 540.84 559.92 541.83 2,236.00 3,282.36 2,508.32 76.42% Reserves and Board Еuro 5,000.00 1,129.46 45.13 108.29 78.74 1,361.62 5,608.95 1,527.45 27.23% Reserves were used for the costs of moving the office. Participation in Events Еuro 6,300.00 737.19 2,885.00 1,587.77 188.12 5,398.08 7,067.28 6,055.51 85.68% Educational Program Еuro 4,570.00 204.51 1,739.37 936.01 354.61 3,234.50 5,126.58 3,628.43 70.78% Free Photo Content Еuro 9,500.00 2,035.72 3,693.40 1,214.15 2,090.98 9,034.25 10,657.01 10,134.53 95.10% Free Content: GLAM Еuro 7,020.00 1,052.59 1,334.06 1,308.77 2,330.07 6,025.49 8,110.56 6,759.33 83.34% Wiktionary Еuro 3,000.00 1,432.96 149.90 1,250.00 -233.06 2,599.80 3,365.38 2,916.43 86.66% Community Support Еuro 8,660.00 2,734.87 3,560.85 194.61 211.33 6,701.68 9,714.71 7,517.88 77.39% Microgrants Еuro 5,000.00 203.92 445.50 1,327.83 -254.44 1,722.81 5,608.96 1,932.63 34.46% Loss on Foreign Currency Exchange Еuro 127.29 139.74 99.73 120.14 486.90 546.20 The margin that the bank takes for the purchase of foreign currency. TOTAL Еuro 112,500.00 23,860.26 27,991.51 20,878.37 23,269.99 96,000.13 126,437.00 107,691.99 85.33%
* Provide estimates in US Dollars
Official Financial Report
[edit]In this section you can also find the official financial report of Wikimedia Serbia for 2016 made by accounting service "Astra" from Sremska Mitrovica.
Compliance
[edit]Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement?
[edit]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.
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
[edit]- Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.
- IvanaMadzarevic (talk) 16:28, 31 March 2017 (UTC)
Resources
[edit]Resources to plan for measurement
[edit]- Global metrics are an important starting point for grantees when it comes to measuring programmatic impact (Learning Patterns and Tutorial) but don’t stop there.
- Logic Models provide a framework for mapping your pathway to impact through the cause and effect chain from inputs to outputs to outcomes. Develop a logic model to map out your theory of change and determine the metrics and measures for your programs.
- Importantly, both qualitative and quantitative measures are important so consider both as you determine measures for your evaluation and be sure to ask the right questions to be sure to capture your program stories.
Resources for storytelling
[edit]- WMF storytelling series and toolkit (DRAFT)
- Online workshop on Storytelling. By Frameworks institute
- The origin of storytelling
- Story frames, with a focus on news-worthiness.
- Reading guide: Storytelling and Social change. By Working Narratives
- The uses of the story.
- Case studies.
- Blog: 3 Tips on telling stories that move people to action. By Paul VanDeCarr (Working Narratives), on Philanthropy.com
- Building bridges using narrative techniques. By Sparknow.net
- Differences between a report and a story
- Question guides and exercises.
- Guide: Tools for Knowledge and Learning. By Overseas Development Institute (UK).
- Developing a strategy
- Collaboration mechanisms
- Knowledge sharing and learning
- Capturing and storing knowledge.
- Annual plan grant reports
- Annual plan grant reports for 2015-2016 Round 1
- Annual plan grant reports by Wikimedia Serbia
- Annual plan grant reports by Wikimedia Serbia for FDC 2015-2016 Round 1
- Annual plan grant impact report forms
- Annual plan grant impact report forms for 2015-2016 Round 1
- Annual plan grant impact report forms by Wikimedia Serbia
- Annual plan grants or proposals by Wikimedia Serbia for 2015-2016 Round 1