Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2021 (Jan-June)/Report

WikiJournal User Group
Open access • Publication charge free • Public peer review • Wikipedia-integrated

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2019-20 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2021 (Jan-June).
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

The project did make substantial progress in all categories set out at the time of application.

Outcome

The outcomes are split into first and second halves of the year, to also be used for annual activity reports spanning June 1 to May 31 the following year.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome Jan 1 - June 30	Achieved outcome July 1 - Dec 31
Expand participation in the journals	Additional journal A proposal was put forward for a new journal WikiJournal of Psychology, Psychiatry, and the Behavioral Sciences So far 14 interested editors to initiate the journal: A plan is in place to develop and onboard for this journal after technical editors are in place Work in progress to help in influx of new users without Wikimedia experience' Increased submission of new articles (21 in first two quarters of 2021) Higher proportion of original research Higher proportion of spontaneous (i.e. not solicited by editorial boards)	-
Improve and streamline procedures	Technical editors Recruited 6 people interested in the position However, required significant HR set-up brought in new admin board member specifically for this Therefore began process of organising: insurance coverage, which has been procured contractor/employee structure True start should be possible in Q3 Extensive restructuring to use Wikidata for metadata Based on test cases from last year, now implemented for all articles Overhaul of Template:Article info Updates of Template:Review Updates of Template:Editor's comments Testing out its usage for greater stats gathering	-
Increase professional recognition of journals	Applications submitted to: WikiJSci SCOPUS (tracking) WikiJMed PubMed Central (tracking)	Presentation scheduled at APA2021

The new journal proposal has been the year's most significant item. Full implementation and onboarding of new members is awaiting until the technical editors have been properly started in order to ensure a smooth start. Onboarding of technical editors itself has required quite a bit of paperwork and setup and so was not completed in Q1,2. However, the groundwork was laid to achieve this in Q3,4.

The impacts of COVID-19 have had a delayed impact on the group, with several activities (particular peer reviews) being delayed. There have consequently been fewer published articles during 2021's first two quarters. Similarly, people approached for possible contribution or joining as editors have indicated that they are currently over-committed.

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?
- General article processing has been proceeding despite the COVID pandemic, although it is expected to run even smoother once technical editors are in place.

What did not work so well?
- We had initially thought that bringing on several part time employees would be the fairer way to handle onboarding technical editors to handle back-end tasks
- However, the HR requirements were more complex than envisaged
- We therefore had to hold up downstream projects, such as fully starting up the new journal in the group and some of the enhanced usage of wikidata.

___________

What would you do differently next time?
- Based on the learning from this experience, we'll have more infrastructure in place to be able to smoothly handle future contractor/employee requirements.
- The first half of this year has been particularly valuable in setting up what is needed for ensuring the annual planning grant is able to be effectively used.

_______________

Finances

Grant funds at beginning of year

$1028.27, in remaining funds from previous year. See Grant report for 2020
$1999.27, received for current rapid grant (Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiJournal 2021 (Jan-June))

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

$293: Crossref membership
$246.88 (171 GBP): Membership in Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
$24 (so far): Domain fees for WikiJMed.org (WikiJournal of Medicine), WikiJSci.org (WikiJournal of Science), and WikiJHum.org (WikiJournal of Humanities), each now costing $12 per year.
$211.39 Swedish tax.
$20 ($10 + $10) in bank fees
$3 for checks
Technical editor hiring

Lawyer consultation: $270

Total spent: $1068.27

Remaining funds

$1959.27

The funds remaining from this grant in the amount of US$1,959.27 were deducted from another grant payment for Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/WikiJournal User Group/2022.

We ask to use the remaining funds for the WikiJournal budget plan for July 1 to Dec 31, 2021:

Grants:Simple/Applications/WikiJournal User Group/2021/budget plan

Specifically, we request to use $959.27 for back-end-development and $1,000 for technical editor salary.