Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Alliances Fund/WikiGraphers-Visualizing Open Knowledge/Final Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 28 March 2023
Funding program: Wikimedia Alliances Fund
Report type: Final
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General information
[edit]This form is for organizations, groups, or individuals receiving Wikimedia Community Funds or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their final results.
- Name of Organization: Investigative Journalists NGO
- Title of Proposal: WikiGraphers-Visualizing Open Knowledge
- Amount awarded: 60000 USD, 28984356 AMD
- Amount spent: 29030320 AMD
Part 1 Understanding your work
[edit]1. Briefly describe how your proposed activities and strategies were implemented.
"WikiGraphers: Visualizing Open Knowledge" project aims to improve Wikipedia's visual content. With a wiki community that primarily improves or creates textual content, we need editors who create visuals to present Wikipedia content to readers in a more accessible way. For this purpose, some Wikipedians who are also part of the Investigative Journalists NGO came up with an initiative aimed at equipping a group of people with various visualization skills through a long-term educational program, instilling in them the values of Wiki ideology, open knowledge, and the importance of its creation and dissemination.
The project started on April 1, 2022. After two selection phases (shortlisting and interview), the selected 20 participants were divided into four groups according to their visualizing skills. Among participants, there were also members of the wiki community. The involvement of non-editor contributors helped the project to take a fresh look at the visuals created for Wikipedia articles.
The project activities also included hackathons as a platform for exchanging knowledge and experience between skilled wiki editors and project participants under one roof.
To understand and evaluate the effectiveness of the program, a monitoring evaluation was carried out during and at the end of the program, which made it possible to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the program, discuss the suggestions of the participants, and, accordingly, to make changes in the program.
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you felt were effective in achieving your goals?
As mentioned in the previous report, one of the keys to the effectiveness of the program was the collaboration of the project team and professional instructors who are experts in their field. Knowing well the peculiarities and needs of Wikipedia, as well as the policies and guidelines, the educational program was designed by combining the wiki experience of the project team with the professional expertise and practice of the instructors.
As an effective learning method, we chose the “learning by doing” method that enabled us to use the acquired knowledge and skills in practice simultaneously. The peculiarity of the method is that when students acquire a skill, they immediately apply it in practice, which provides an opportunity to strengthen the theoretical knowledge in practice.
Furthermore, we ensured that working in small groups (5 people in each) allowed the instructors to show an individual approach to each participant, discuss their work, and make the educational process more practical and effective.
To ensure and control the quality of the visuals, we worked with the following mechanism: idea generation for the given article → data collection and update (if not available in the article) → creation of the visual → approval of the visual by the instructor → quality assurance by visual production coordinator → the uploading of the visual to the Wikimedia Commons and usage on Wikipedia.
The surveys conducted during the project showed that the participants emphasized the importance of hackathons for getting to know the wiki community, establishing connections, sharing knowledge, and creating joint visuals in a collaborative environment.
3. Would you say that your project had any innovations? Are there things that you did very differently than you have seen them done by others?
"Wikigraphers. Visualizing Open Knowledge" project, as such, is the first attempt in the Wikimedia movement to equip participants with the technical knowledge to produce visuals. There are many projects in the Movement that focus on content creation or improvement and teach new participants how to edit the textual content of wiki projects, but initiatives that teach visual content creation skills are lacking. Therefore, well aware of the need and lack of visualization of knowledge in Wikipedia, this project was created, which aimed to fill that gap and give impetus to the creation of visualization-oriented projects.
Visuals in Wikipedia are mainly in the form of photos and videos. But there are phenomena that cannot be depicted with a photo or video. In this case, modern visualization tools and programs come to help, and in order to visualize knowledge, not only deep learning is needed, but also searching, updating, and adding data necessary for the preparation of the given visual. In other words, within the framework of the project, not only visuals were created, but also the articles of Armenian Wikipedia were updated with new data.
One of the innovations of the project is that, as a result, experienced participants with visualization skills joined Wikipedia, contributed to strengthening the visual component of Wikipedia, and will continue to add new visuals to Wikipedia.
4. Please describe how different communities participated and/or were informed about your work.
Having been active editors of Wikipedia and its sister projects for more than ten years, as well as being Wikimedians, it was easier to carry out the project (from the planning stage to its implementation) for the three team members of the project who have worked towards the development of the wiki community in Armenia for years. To increase the visibility of the project and to involve the wiki community members, the announcement was spread not only in the Village Pump of the Armenian Wikipedia but also in the groups of social networks that unite Armenian Wikipedians. To target the audience correctly, advertising was enabled on Facebook to engage the audience interested in visualization tools.
To increase the visibility of the project, as well as to contribute to the dissemination of the project, it was presented at various meetings and events held at Hetq Media Factory, within the framework of which the participants got acquainted with Wikipedia, its ideology, the essence and goals of the project.
Hackathons were excellent opportunities to strengthen our ties with the wiki community once again, making our cooperation with Armenian Wikipedia editors easier. The Wiki community got to know the goals, format, and participants of the project. During the first hackathon, several trainings were conducted for the wiki community by the instructors of the project—more details of those trainings you can find in the Mid-term report.
“Wikimedians of Western Armenian language” user group leader was also invited to the hackathon. She actively participated in the hackathon and trainings and transferred the acquired knowledge and skills to the Western Armenian Wikipedia community.
5. Documentation of your impact. Please use the two spaces below to share files and links that help tell your story and impact. This can be documentation that shows your results through testimonies, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, etc.) social media posts, dashboards, etc.
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- 1. Promotion video about the project
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiGraphers._Visualizing_Open_Knowledge.webm 2. Article about the Project on WMF Education Newsletter https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/November_2022/WikiGraphers:_Visualizing_Open_Knowledge 3. Social media posts about the first and second hackathons.
- https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.587827696171260&type=3,
- https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.506251955012390&type=3
6. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | Strongly agree |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | Agree |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Strongly agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Strongly agree |
| G. Increased participants' feelings of belonging and connection to the movement. | Strongly agree |
7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?
While designing the program, the organizing team did not introduce any restrictions that would prevent the participation of underrepresented groups in the program. We have tried to involve as diverse people as possible with different gender identities, sexual orientations, ages, social statuses, etc. The course was open to all interested people who wanted to acquire visual content creation skills within eight months, promote the creation and dissemination of free knowledge, and share its values. We designed the study plan in a way to engage equally in the education process of all the participants, regardless of their initial knowledge base.
Most of the participants of the program were female (17 female and 3 male). They lived not only in the capital Yerevan, where the program was implemented but also in the regions of Armenia. Participants varied in age. We had students, representatives of the NGO sector and various institutions, as well as Wikipedians. The socio-economic status of the participants was also different. Many of the participants wanted to use the knowledge and skills gained at Hetq Media Factory not only to contribute to the visualization of free knowledge but also as an advancement in their professional life.
Part 2: Your main learning
[edit]8. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What did you learn about these areas during this period?
By implementing the project, we have improved and learned the following:
- Our instructors constantly master methods of effective teaching skills, ensuring that students having various knowledge bases get equal attention. Anonymous surveys conducted during the program showed that students highly valued the quality of education received within the program. They also noted that their technical skills have significantly improved during the project.
- In recent years, we all have learned to live with COVID-19 and to design and implement our projects so that the pandemic affects their implementation as little as possible. During the project, we could avoid COVID-19 cases among students by keeping all the safety rules. In addition, military clashes were regularly registered on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, which did not affect the normal course of the project.
- The project made it possible to bring together all those people who were interested in the creation and development of the visual content of Wikipedia. We strongly believe that the continuation of the project will contribute to forming a community of volunteers creating visual content in Armenian Wikipedia, thanks to which Wikipedia will be enriched with various infographics, illustrations, and animations.
- Having received positive feedback on the project from the Wiki community, we can conclude that the community also understands and values the need to add visuals to Wikipedia and is ready to support and get involved.
9. Did anything unexpected or surprising happen when implementing your activities?
During the visuals uploading process, we had a technical problem while adding visuals to Wikipedia. The animations our students made in GIF format and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons sometimes appeared not as animations but as photos, which did not allow the animation to be inserted into the Wikipedia article. That's why students had to convert the gif to mp4 format to get around the problem, although it wasn't a solution to the problem anyway.
10. How do you hope to use this learning? For instance, do you have any new priorities, ideas for activities, or goals for the future?
During the pilot project, constantly monitoring and analyzing the implementation process, we identified some changes we would like to undertake in the future.
1. To keep the educational process more dynamic and to attract more participants to the Wikimedia Movement, we plan to divide the 8-month educational process into two phases, four months each, with 20 participants in each stage. 2. In the future, we would like to merge some courses to increase the project's effectiveness. 3. We will have some changes in the project team positions, not affecting the effectiveness of the teamwork.
11. If you were sitting with a friend to tell them one thing about your work during this fund, what would it be (think of inspiring or fascinating moments, tough challenges, interesting anecdotes, or anything that feels important to you)?
Imagine a world where every Wikigrapher can create a visual out of any data.
When implementing the project, our goal was to create such an environment where everyone, regardless of age, gender, level of knowledge, and professional orientation, would have the opportunity to get an education.
One of the project's features was sourcing data from reliable sources, classifying and filtering them, and extracting the necessary data, based on which the visuals were created.
Most of the participants were under thirty years old. One of them, who worked in a state institution, was older and took more time to master a tool than others. By not giving in to difficulties and working harder than others, she completed the program and applied the skills she learned in her professional career.
12. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Data Visualization_Infographics Creation presentation.pdf
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- N/A
Part 3: Metrics
[edit]13a. Open and additional metrics data
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Additional Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Diversity of participants brought in by grantees | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of people reached through social media publications | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of activities developed | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Number of volunteer hours | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
13b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | Students. 20 students will study at WikiFactory during one year.
Instructors and team. In the metrics, we count as participants not only the students but the instructors and the organizing team as well. We will have 4 instructors and 4 team members. Hackathon. It is planned to involve ten active editors of the Armenian Wikipedia in the hackathon to be organized after the first term of the classes. |
38 | 42 | 20 students participated in the project. For the successful implementation of the project, we had 4 instructors and 4 team members. We had 14 Armenian Wikipedia experienced editors participating in the Hackathons. | Attendance forms, Google spreadsheets |
| Number of editors | Students. WikiFactory admission call will be open for all the interested participants. 20 students will be selected to study at WikiFactory.
Instructors and team. Two of the four team members and one of the instructors are experienced wiki editors. Hackathon. The hackathon will be attended by 20 students from WikiFactory, 10 Wiki community members, 4 instructors and 4 team members. |
33 | 37 | 20 students participated in the project. Two of the four team members and one of the instructors were experienced wiki editors. Among the Hackathon participants there were not only the students, the team members, and the instructors but also 14 Wiki community members. | Attendance forms, Google spreadsheets |
| Number of organizers | “WikiGraphers: Visualizing open knowledge” project team will consist of program staff and instructors. The staff will include the Project Manager, Education Team Coordinator, Visual Production Coordinator and Accountant. Instructors will include Wiki instructor, Illustration/animation instructor, Data visualization instructor and GIS mapping instructor. More details about each team member and instructors can be found in section 22 (“Do you have the team needed to support this proposal?”). | 8 | 8 | “WikiGraphers: Visualizing Open Knowledge” project team consisted of program staff and instructors. The staff included the Project Manager, Education Team Coordinator, Visual Production Coordinator, and Accountant. Instructors included a Wiki instructor, an Illustration/animation instructor, a Data visualization instructor, and a GIS mapping instructor. | Project documentation |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Within the framework of the “WikiGraphers: Visualizing open knowledge” project, it is planned to visualize 200 of the most viewed educational articles on the Armenian Wikipedia. | 200 | 300 | Project participants have created visualizations for about 300 articles of Armenian Wikipedia throughout the project. | N/A |
| Wikimedia Commons | As already mentioned above, the 200 most viewed educational articles of the Armenian Wikipedia will be visualized within the framework of the project. Depending on the topic, articles can have a variety of visuals. Therefore, we give an approximate number of 500 visuals for all the 200 articles. | 500 | 523 | The number of visuals is 523 as of March 2, 2023. | The project category on Wikimedia Commons. |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
14. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?
No
15. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future.
N/A
16. Use this space to link or upload any additional documents that would be useful to understand your data collection (e.g., dashboards, surveys you have carried out, communications material, training material, etc).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- N/A
Part 4: Organizational capacities & partnerships
[edit]17. Organizational Capacity
| A. Financial capacity and management | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| B. Conflict management or transformation | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| C. Leadership (i.e growing in potential leaders, leadership that fit organizational needs and values) | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| D. Partnership building | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| E. Strategic planning | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| F. Program design, implementation, and management | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| G. Scoping and testing new approaches, innovation | This capacity has grown but it should be further developed |
| H. Recruiting new contributors (volunteer) | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| I. Support and growth path for different types of contributors (volunteers) | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| J. Governance | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| K. Communications, marketing, and social media | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| L. Staffing - hiring, monitoring, supporting in the areas needed for program implementation and sustainability | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| M. On-wiki technical skills | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| N. Accessing and using data | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| O. Evaluating and learning from our work | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| P. Communicating and sharing what we learn with our peers and other stakeholders | This has grown over the last year, the capacity is high |
| N/A | |
| N/A |
17a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Peer to peer learning with other community members in conferences/events, Peer to peer learning with other community members in community/ies of practice* (structured and continuous learning and sharing spaces), Using capacity building/training resources online from sources WITHIN the Wikimedia Movement
17b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build capacities? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Lack of financial resources
18. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your organizational capacity has grown, and areas where you require support?
The project team regularly participates in various skill and capacity development trainings, indirectly contributing to the more professional implementation and effective management of grant programs. In addition, investigative Journalists NGO greatly encourages the development of employees' organizational skills, regularly organizing trainings and meetings with foreign specialists. The team also shares the experience and skills gained during those trainings with his civil society partners.
19. Partnerships over the funding period.
| A. We built strategic partnerships with other institutions or groups that will help us grow in the medium term (3 year time frame) | Agree |
| B. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to bring in more contributors from underrepresented groups | Agree |
| C. The partnerships we built with other institutions or groups helped to build out more content on underrepresented topics/groups | Agree |
19a. Which of the following factors most helped you to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Permanent staff outreach, Institutional support from the Wikimedia Foundation
19b. Which of the following factors hindered your ability to build partnerships? Please pick a MAXIMUM of the three most relevant factors.
Limited funding period
20. Please share your learning about strategies to build partnerships with other institutions and groups and any other learning about working with partners?
For the cooperation of two organizations to be successful and to achieve the joint goal, these organizations must have the same or a similar mission. It makes collaborative work much easier, greatly prevents possible problems, and makes work flexible and more targeted.
Building partnerships with other institutions and groups allows for greater results with joint efforts. Besides, partnerships allow sharing of knowledge and expertise with each other. Partners can learn from each other's successes and failures and develop new strategies and approaches to tackling issues.
Partnerships are also opportunities to expand reach and access new audiences. It can help tap into new networks and communities and engage with people who may not have been aware of your work.
Part 5: Sense of belonging and collaboration
[edit]21. What would it mean for your organization to feel a sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement?
Being active editors of Armenian wiki projects for more than ten years, the project team greatly values and realizes the importance and necessity of free knowledge in making education accessible to all in the modern world. During those years, the project team not only edited but was also actively involved in creating and developing various wiki projects, organizing local and international wiki conferences, and spreading the Wikimedia movement in a number of rural and urban communities in Armenia. Being bearers of the Wikimedia values, the project team, using the skills of the Investigative Journalists NGO, set out to initiate the “Wikigraphers. Visualizing Open Knowledge" project to jointly enrich Wikipedia with multi-content visuals.
22. How has your (for individual grantees) or your group/organization’s (for organizational grantees) sense of belonging to the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?
Increased significantly
23. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.
Having been involved in various Wikimedia projects for years and strongly carrying wiki values, during these ten months of project implementation, the team spread the wiki culture within the Investigative Journalists NGO, introduced journalists to the wiki ideology and features of editing, and how to properly use Wikipedia in their daily work.
24. How has your group/organization’s sense of personal investment in the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement changed over the fund period?
Increased significantly
25. If you would like to, please share why it has changed in this way.
Investigative Journalists NGO, greatly emphasizing the creation and dissemination of free knowledge through the project, contributed to the project by providing resources (laptops, space) for the implementation of the project, as well as supporting the representation of the project in social networks (Social Media Specialist activities).
26. Are there other movements besides the Wikimedia or free knowledge movement that play a central role in your motivation to contribute to Wikimedia projects? (for example, Black Lives Matter, Feminist movement, Climate Justice, or other activism spaces) If so, please describe it below.
Since the three project team members are experienced wiki editors with many years of experience, the primary priority for them is the wiki ideology and values, free and accessible education, and knowledge. Furthermore, considering the fact that Wikimedia projects have different orientations: creation and editing of encyclopedic articles, creation and editing of word entries, and proofreading of books, they create an opportunity to edit within the framework of their interests.
Supporting Peer Learning and Collaboration
[edit]We are interested in better supporting peer learning and collaboration in the movement.
27. Have you shared these results with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?
Yes
27a. Please describe how you have already shared them. Would you like to do more sharing, and if so how?
1. Video calls with the Alliances Fund grantees. 2. Education Newsletter. 3. Posts in Armenian Wikipedia Village Pump and on social media.
28. How often do you currently share what you have learned with other Wikimedia Foundation grantees, and learn from them?
We do this occasionally (less than once a month)
29. How does your organization currently share mutual learning with other grantees?
During the implementation of the project, the team participated in various online meetings and discussions, including with Alliances Fund grantees and with CEE Learning Session participants. In addition, we shared our experience and success stories through the Wikimedia Foundation's educational newsletter, Mid-term, and Final programmatic reports.
Part 6: Financial reporting and compliance
[edit]30. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
29030320
31. Local currency type
AMD
32. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Report funds received and spent, if template not used.
33. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.
N/A
34. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
34a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
N/A
34b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
N/A
34c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
N/A
35. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund 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.
36. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
37. 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 Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
38. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.