Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/WikiJournal User Group/2022/Midpoint Report
Report Status: Accepted
Due date: 2022-07-15T00:00:00Z
Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund
Report type: Midterm
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General information
[edit]This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Community Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.
- Name of Organization: WikiJournal
- Title of Proposal: WikiJournal User Group/2022
- Amount awarded: 103900 USD, 103900 USD
- Amount spent: 38128.11 USD
Part 1 Understanding your work
[edit]1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?
- - Technical editor services have been contracted with 13 individuals. They have been onboarded and introduced to the tasks where they can help out. (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Technical_editors).
- Back end development is ongoing in order to optimize article processing - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiJournal/Back_end_development
2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?
- - The hiring of tech editors has started to speed up the processing of articles, amending a backlog of a long list of article submissions that are still undergoing peer review or other required steps before editorial board decision (list of potential upcoming articles at https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Potential_upcoming_articles)
- Proper coverage of the project has enabled us to contract out necessary editorial tasks while minimizing liability.
- Finding and onboarding a volunteer CHRO has maximized our ability to work with contractors. Sarah Haggstrom is now an integral part of our admin board.
- The project has been able to continue its emphasis on volunteer contributions for its scholarly work (authorship, editorial board activities, peer reviewing etc), with paid technical editor tasks being assigned to technical and repetitive work that does not require particular academic expertise.
- Acquisition of the WikiJ.org domain (for $12 per year) works both as a short URL for the overall project, and allows tech editors to get @wikij.org email addresses for WikiJournal-related emails.
3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?
- - It has been difficult to find a payroll service that fits the need of the project. With the international scope of WikiJournal, the project contracts out technical editor tasks to individuals from multiple countries. Many payroll services only allow direct deposits for contractors with US bank accounts but being able to pay contractors without US bank accounts with direct deposits is essential for our operations. The project is currently in talks with ADP and believes that they have an adequate solution for our needs.
- The project has seen a steady amount of article submission (19 during 2022), yet has so far only been able to publish 3 articles. 9 additional tech editors were onboarded mid-July to address this backlog and we will assign them to process these articles. So far, most of the effort has been focused on developing the administrative platform to hire the 13 tech editors (including documentation and payment systems), as well as teaching them their responsibilities. We therefore expect to see our publishing numbers increase greatly in Q3 and Q4 with the addition of these additional tech editors, and having them learn to become more efficient in article processing. Which will in turn allow us to accept even more submissions.
4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.
- - Most editorial discussions are taking place through the email lists of the editorial boards, and corresponding email list for the administrative board.
- Project-wide and open meetings are being held every 1 to 2 months (minutes available at https://docs.google.com/document/d/12zNLAyqzHUajBTW29NE2hs2mNbgY9CVnh386UWodI-k/edit#heading=h.1c5vr7e3hwz0)
- Public discussions and updates are also continuously being held in wiki at: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:WikiJournal_User_Group
- There is also a public mailing list: https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikijournal-en@lists.wikimedia.org/
5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.
- WikiJournal has continued its activities with an international and inclusive scope, allowing authors and readers in both developed and developing countries to contribute to and read about scholarly developments, since the project reviews and publishes articles without any cost to authors and readers. It can be reflected in the various topics of published articles in 2022, spanning from the Kivu Ebola Epidemic to Parenting Stress, and potential upcoming articles including mental health, indigenous languages (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Potential_upcoming_articles). It is also reflected in the broad international distribution of editorial board members and other editors (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Editors)
6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?
- - We've learned how to introduce technical editors with various amounts of wiki editing background to participate and contribute to building the project.
- We've found a balance in the need for tech editors to disclose being paid editors when they make wiki edits, in the usage of a paid editing disclosure in the form of a Template:Technical editor template to be used in wiki edits by them.
- The project has also learned how to utilize and expand WikiData for scholarly articles, such as the linking editors and article topics to corresponding WikiData entries. Once entered in WikiData, metadata of articles, such as authors and publication date, can easily be used in external indexing databases, integrating wiki content in suh scholarly databases. including Scopus and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?
- - Continuing the reduction of the backlog of articles that are still in undergoing processing (https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Potential_upcoming_articles).
- Further expanding participation in editorial boards and peer reviewer duties.
- Outreach: WikiJournal will have representatives at in-person events of Wikimania, in New York, London and Nigeria. We are also planning on having representatives at the Open Access Week (https://www.openaccessweek.org/).
Part 2: Metrics
[edit]8a. Open and additional metrics data.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N/A | N/A | N/A | 3 | Number of new articles:
3 for WikiJournal of Medicine |
Main pages for each journal |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | 2 | Articles were adapted from the corresponding Wikipedia pages (Leptospirosis and The Kivu Ebola Epidemic), serving as expansion and scholarly quality control of the Wikipedia pages by scholarly peer review. | |
| 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 |
8b. Additional core metrics data.
| Core metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of participants | There are so far 15 articles published for 2021, and with approximately 2 authors and 2 peer reviewers per article it amounted to approximately 60 mainly new participants. The project hopes to at least double the amount of published articles with the help of the grant. | 120 | 25 | Number of new participants:
10 new technical editors 14 new authors 1 new editorial board member A high amount of new authors reflects an increased awareness of the wiki model of publishing among academics, attracting researchers and scholars to share their knowledge across wiki projects. |
Technical editors listed at: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Technical_editors
Authors: Automated spreadsheet generated from the author submission form hosted at Google Forms Board members: Editorial board applications are processed and archived at: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Editors |
| Number of editors | Each author or peer reviewer gets introduced to wiki editing, with the hope of continuing to contribute to Wikimedia Foundation projects in their areas of academic expertise. | 120 | 107 | Total amount of editors (number reflects that some are concurrently serving more than one role)
71 Editorial board members 21 Associate editors 13 technical editors 10 administrative board members |
Editorial board members listed at:
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_User_Group/Editors |
| Number of organizers | The projects hopes to expand its number of board members, associate editors and technical editors beyond the current number of approximately 100. | 20 | 3 | The project has one coordinator for each of the journals of Medicine, Science and Humanities. |
| Wikimedia Project | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikiversity | Published articles are displayed in Wikiversity. Content can then easily be used across Wikimedia projects, according to inclusion criteria by each project. For example, content from review articles that are written with reliable sources may be integrated into Wikipedia articles of the corresponding subject, potentially including dozens of pieces per WikiJournal article. | 200 | 3 | Articles published in WikiJournals in Wikiversity. | Direct view of corresponding pages in Wikiversity: |
| N/A | N/A | N/A | 2 | Articles adapted from the corresponding Wikipedia page (Leptospirosis and The Kivu Ebola Epidemic) | 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 |
9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?
- We currently do not have any direct method of measuring returning participants as mentioned above.
10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?
- Yes
10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?
- A majority of new publications are derived from existing Wikipedia articles, which have been improved and subsequently undergone scholarly peer review to be up to journal standard before acceptance. This combines the Wikipedia model of online editing with the more rigorous standards of scholarly publishing, which directly improves Wikimedia content, and raises awareness of wiki editing among scholars.
11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.
- Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).
- Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.
- Open meeting minutes:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12zNLAyqzHUajBTW29NE2hs2mNbgY9CVnh386UWodI-k/edit#
Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance
[edit]12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
- 38128.11
13. Local currency type
- USD
14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
- Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
- Provide links to your financial reporting documents.
15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?
- No
15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.
- N/A
16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.
- It has been a learning experience in the hiring, onboarding and education of technical editors to help out in the project. Up until now, the actual work of these tech editors has been limited, and therefore the salary expenses have also been limited, but we do expect an increase in activity for the remainder of the year, which will be reflected in a greater article publication rate as well.