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

Application or grant stage: Draft

Applicant or grantee: applicant

Amount requested: US$103,900

Amount granted:

Funding period: 1 January 2022 – 31 December 2022

Midpoint report:

Final report due: Jan 31 2023 (YEAR + 30 days)

Application

Background

Annual Plan

Annual plan 2022

Budget Plan

Budget plan 2022 (Note this budget plan applies to January 1 – Dec 31 2022. Thereafter, funding applications will be made in November to synchronise finances with the calendar year)

Staffing Plan

Staffing plan 2022

Strategic plan

The WikiJournal User Group is in the process of potentially becoming a Sister Project within the Wikimedia Foundation, as a platform to host journal content as one of its strategic goals:

Introduction

The WikiJournal User Group is a community of editors with a thematic focus on bridging the gap between the Wikimedia projects and academic communities. The primary method is through organising a group of peer reviewed scholarly journals. These journals have a strong focus in integrating content into Wikimedia projects, primarily into Wikipedia, Wikicommons, Wikiversity, and Wikidata, according to inclusion criteria and standards of the target wikis. These journals also follow a wiki way of working with a focus on openness, transparency, community input and decision, and zero-cost, open-access publishing. These activities draw input from users who would typically not contribute time and knowledge to Wikimedia projects (both providing content directly as authors, as well as giving deep assessment and feedback as reviewers). The user group is organised into editorial boards with constant email communication and frequent meetings who organise the peer review process, administrate the site, and develop strategy. In addition, members engage in outreach to the research and academic communities through training and editathons at academic conferences, symposia, and other meetings.

Programs

Content contribution and community growth

Summary & Relevance

A core activity of the User Group is the publication of articles in the academic journal format. This includes original research and case studies, as well as review articles. Review articles include from-scratch contributions and material submitted across from other Wikimedia projects.

In these activities, accuracy and thorough auditing of information through a formal process is prioritised over number of separate articles. Each new article is therefore typically quite long and highly audited compared to the average new page on a Wikimedia project.

For organisational strategy, this ensures that increased contribution from authors (typically first-time-users) is matched by growth in editors with Wikimedia experience to shepherd them and organise robust peer review. Constant growth in peer-reviewed content raises the profile of the user group and helps reach additional key thresholds for recognition (e.g. PubMed Central indexing).

For movement strategy, this strengthens the WMF's reputation for caring about quality and pushing new models of knowledge equity.

Attraction of content contribution

Objectives

Generate unique content from the academic and scholarly communities
Generate high-quality content of use to Wikimedia projects
Attract content input from contributors (usually one-off: authors and peer reviewers)
Attract engagement from repeat interactors (usually ongoing/repeat: editors, members, followers, readers)

Program metrics and targets

Number of content pages created and improved: ___
- Of which, those having content integrated into WP: ___
Number of new contributors (author role): ___
Number of new contributors (reviewer role): ___
Number of new contributors (editor role): ___
- Of those, outside of N. America + Europe: ___
All above metrics gathered via Wikidata
Number of new members (mailing list subscribers): ___
Number of new followers (soc. media): ___

Community support and administrative growth

There are number of essential and time-critical tasks that need to occur during article processing (e.g. DOI assignment, version-of record typesetting, data preparation, outside communications). Many of these are currently time consuming or fiddly, but ensuring consistent and reproducible handling is of high importance and ensures volunteer time isn't undermined by technical limitations.

For organisational strategy, this ensures a smooth and seamless experience, minimising unnecessary wait times for contributors. This will also build a reputation for timeliness which is particularly important for original research outputs.

For movement strategy, our metadata records on Wikidata can act as templates for best practice in open metadata. The practice of writing scholarly articles directly online, and the building of technical tools to link front-end wiki drafting to a back-end editorial management interface has the potential to see wider uptake in the scholarly publishing community (especially academic societies, and journals in lower-middle income countries).

Objectives

Smooth processing and technical handling
Updated automation and technology
Exemplar Wikidata records and monitoring

Program metrics and targets

Technical tasks able to be fully performed by technical editor(s)
- Recruitment of 1-6 people, corresponding to 1.0 FTE^{[notes 1]} distributed among them.
- Training (production of materials, and ability for existing tech editor(s) to train new)
Have Wikidata store all WJ article-level metadata
Have Wikidata sufficiently complete to autogenerate dashboard/reports on:
- Countries of editors, authors and reviewers
- Article processing times and stages (per-journal and per-editor?)
- Content themes
Back end editorial management integration of mediawiki↔wikidata↔OJS via APIs

Outreach, awareness and partnerships

The WikiJournal User Group needs to be highly visible outside of the Wikimedia community, since a key aim is to build bridges with international expert communities. It additionally needs to both learn from and share with the Wikimedia community, given its unique capabilities and perspectives.

For organisational strategy, continuously reaching additional potential participants is particularly important, as we rely on a large proportion of first time (and often one-off) Wikimedia contribution from people in author and peer reviewer roles.

For movement strategy, this forwards our shared goals in raising engagement amongst expert contributor communities, which are highly valuable to engage and brining into the movement.

Objectives

Awareness within the Wikimedia movement of group's activities
Awareness outside of Wikimedia movement of group's activities

Program metrics and targets

For non-Wikimedia expert communities
- Presentation at conferences, symposia,
- Indexing inclusion
- Professional memberships
Wikimedia affiliate connections (user groups, chapters and thematics orgs), either:
- have member of affiliate attend a WJ meeting
- have WJ member attend affiliate meeting
- Coverage of all affiliates: 50%
Wikimedia events, ensure presentaion(s) at:
- Wikidata con
- Wikicite
- Wikimania

Grant Metrics Reporting

Unified grants metrics spreadsheet

Needs Request

We have a quite a broad member skillset, and are primarily self-sufficient. However there are several items where the experience of the WMF would be very useful.

Requests for operational support

Public communications: It is always worth improving our professional communications and PR practices. It may also be useful to have WMF support when contacting senior leadership at some academic organisations.
Financial practices: Although we have several members with 501c3 experience, it would still be useful to have advice on best accounting software and practices

Midpoint report

Midpoint spend summarised in budget

Notes

↑ In WikiJournal, 1 FTE corresponds to 48 hours per week

[FTE-1] In WikiJournal, 1 FTE corresponds to 48 hours per week

[notes 1]