Application or grant stage: grant in progress

Applicant or grantee: grantee

Amount requested: EUR 42,412.10

Amount granted: EUR 53,015.10

Funding period: 1 April 2020 to 30 June 2021

Midpoint report due: 15 November 2020

Final report due: 30 July 2021

Background

Annual Plan

Link to any outside relevant document around your annual plan

Budget Plan

Link to your budget plan - Budget plan

Staffing Plan

Link to your staffing plan - same plan as with previous years

Strategic plan

Link to your strategic plan if you have one

Introduction

We are carrying over our direction as outlined in our grant for 2019 to continue to inform our work:

Developing and promoting critical digital skills and information literacy, in both Irish and English
Advocating for knowledge equity within Ireland
Participating in the emergent conversations around open policies within Ireland

From our experiences in 2019, we will be adapting the work that we do to focus more on the sustainability of our work and foster community and volunteer independence, as well as looking to build capacity where we can. What this means in real terms is that we will shift our focus from metrics that are concentrated on event and partnership models in education, GLAMs and advocacy, to one that develops resources and supports for those wanting to engage with Wikimedia aligned or partnered work in their field. In creating materials specifically tailored to Irish communities, we aim to empower more people based in Ireland to work with Wikimedia projects with more independence than is currently possible.

The motivation for moving to this model comes from how the profile of WCI has matured in the past 3 years, and how we have become a recognised organisation within the Irish landscape for those working in education, GLAMs, digital advocacy, and in the Irish language. We have reached a point in our group’s development that we expend less energy on making connections and being invited into relevant spaces, and more time is now needed to create resources and materials that can help grow those connections and partnerships into more meaningful, complex projects and outcomes. With just one employee and around 10 volunteers proactively engaged in supporting Wikimedia work in Ireland in their own professional work and communities, now is the time to invest time into resources that interested communities, organisations, and individuals can use without being dependant on one of the members of WCI being physically or virtually present for any workshops, events, or programmes. We want to ensure that working with Wikimedia projects in Ireland is not contingent on one of the members of WCI having to be present to facilitate, allowing us to offer support in new and more adaptive ways.

There is and will continue to be a place for in-person support, and our metrics will reflect the drive to grow the number of events and partnerships that WCI support through training and resources. However, we are aware that not only may it not always be possible for us to support events in such a way, but that not all groups will want that kind of support.

Another motivation for investing time into developing resources and documenting our work is to make our work more visible to the wider, international Wikimedia community. As a group working in a small country, with a minority language, and without full internet penetration, we believe that our experiences could be of great value to other emerging and small Wikimedia groups. We have always engaged with Wikimedia newsletters and other documentation when possible, but have lacked the capacity to document, interrogate, and reflect more deeply our work within the wider context of the Wikimedia movement. In light of the strong themes on better communication across the movement that has emerged from the Movement Strategy, we strongly believe that now is the time to formally document the work we have done in the past 6 years. Focusing on both the successes and the failures, demonstrating how we changed our strategies and goals as time and capacities have evolved, as we firmly believe our experiences of what has worked, but especially what has not worked will be of great use and support to our fellow user groups across the Wikimedia movement.

Programs

Community Outreach

Working with allies

Description As our group matures, we now have a number of established relationships with partners in other not-for-profit and voluntary groups such as Amnesty Ireland, TOG Hackerspace, and Dublin Maker Fair. In the coming year, it is our plan to continue these relationships with these allies as well as developing stronger relationship with other groups such as Open Street Map Ireland.

Objectives

Continue to provide support and guidance to active editors in creating and expanding projects
Attend events run by allies to promote community and Wikipedia projects to continue to make new contacts, new collaborators or new partners for more Wikimedia events and projects
Continue to hold community events to introduce editors and allies to the community and our project base, while exploring new avenues to hold similar informal events in other venues such as Irish language spaces, libraries, and universities

Metrics and targets

Assist 5 editors to develop and run Wikimedia projects/events who have not run events previously

Activities

Attend 10 events run by allies
Hold 20 events to target new editors and allies
Look for a partner institution/group to convene a regular Vicipéid editing event similar to the TOG monthly meetup

Wiki Loves Monuments

Description Since the integration of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage sites into WLM, and the increase in the number of sites with no image yet, the level of participation has remained steady. This means that the Irish competition is not yet seeing the large drop off in participation yet. As long as we continue to see around 1000 images uploaded each year, we will continue to run WLM in Ireland. As we look to work with secondary school students (which would include students studying history) and increased interest in collaboration from archaeology group, we will look to how the images can be used as prompts for creating new or improving articles on both Wikipedia and Vicipéid.

Explore the possibility of the relevant maps associated with the Irish National Monuments and National Inventory of Architectural Heritage linking to the image sets on Commons through Wikidata integration. Each year, the bank of images of sites with no image on Commons has increased, as well as the integration with Wikidata. It is our plan to speak with Wikidata experts and other Wikimedia groups on how the National Monuments Service and the NIAH could draw in images hosted on Commons to be displayed on their mapping platforms.

Objectives

Maintain overall engagement with the competition and the images
Expand engagement to Secondary schools to utilise the images
Expand use of images and creation of articles around images

Metrics and targets

Have over 1000 images uploaded during the competition
Have at least 100 participants in WLM

Activities

Work with 2 Secondary school groups to use images or create articles around images
Host an editing event with archaeological or local history groups to use the images to create and enhance articles
Consult with Wikidatians on strategies and methods of the Monument Service drawing in images hosted on Commons into their platform
Hold a WLM upload event in TOG as part of our monthly editing events

Wiki Loves Earth

Description Having run Wiki Science 3 years in a row, twice in tandem with the international competition and once without, we have decided to run Wiki Science every 2 years. This is to ensure that when Wiki Science is run in Ireland, it benefits from the visibility and promotional support of the international competition. We noticed that we struggled without that additional on-Wiki promotion in 2018. In 2019, Wiki Science introduced a new category called "Wildlife and Nature". This was the most popular category by a long margin in the Irish 2019 Wiki Science competition - 59 entries in this category compared to 33 in the next most popular category, the general category. Reflecting on this, and given the recent publication of datasets relating to protected landscapes, national parks, and other areas of natural beauty, we have decided to bring Wiki Loves Earth to Ireland for the first time in 2020. Given the size of Ireland, the number of sites is quite finite (e.g. just 6 National Parks) depending on what designated areas we choose to include in this first edition. If the competition proves to be popular we can explore ways of integrating more specific sites into the competition in consultation with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Unlike WLM, which runs in September, WLE runs in May which may be a better time to draw in school and university groups to take part in the competition. We have found that WLM is too early in the new academic year for teachers or lecturers to get student groups out taking photos. May is closer to the time that schools will organise school tours or trips to areas such as National Parks for educational purposes, so WLE could fold more easily into the teaching schedule. WLE also covers protected species of flora and fauna, which makes it of interest to Science, Geography, and Civic, Social and Political Education at secondary level. We plan on using teacher networks such as the Irish Science Teachers Association to promote the competition to teachers and their classes. The timing in May could also facilitate photography lecturers at third level incorporating the competition's subject matter into their teaching, encouraging student participation while also using it as a tool to teach about open licencing in photography.

Like with Wiki Science, the competition is likely to be popular with scientists in relevant disciplines, so we aim on targeting universities, colleges and research institutions with an interest in landscapes, flora and fauna. There are also a number of networks that are dedicated to the natural landscape, such as the Irish Environmental Network, as well as government and non-governmental organisations such the EPA and Coillte.

Objectives

Create a database for use in WLE
Outreach to Secondary/Third level groups about competition

Metrics and targets

400 images uploaded
25 participants

Activities

Hold a WLE upload event in TOG as part of our monthly editing events

Irish language advocacy

Irish language education resources

Description

In our interactions with Irish language groups such as Gael Linn and Conradh na Gaeilge we have discovered that while there is a great interest in getting more Irish speakers of all levels engaged with Vicipéid, they don't have many resources or much time to dedicate towards developing materials around editing Wikimedia projects through Irish. Therefore, we have decided that in 2020 the best use of our time is in developing Vicipéid and other editing materials which we can then offer to these organisations to disseminate to their members and other interested groups. As these groups can work with numerous types of Irish speaking groups, from school groups to university societies to adult learners, we plan to develop a number of packs tailored to different needs but broadly themed on how to run a Vicipéid editing workshop, modelled on the Art+Feminism pack and drawing in some of the presentations and materials developed by WCI member, PhD researcher and lecturer Meghan Dowling. These packs would come in three levels:

Late primary and post primary students (ages 12-15): modelled on the Coder Dojo format of modules for Dojo trainers,WiciMôn Project, or the Wellcome Resources
Post primary school packs (ages 16-18): For use in the Gael Linn Galebrathach scheme or for Irish language societies to use for informal learning with students
Adult learning packs (ages 18+): Modelled on the Art+Feminism event pack, a guide on how to run your own editing event on Vicipéid

All of these packs would allow for either partnered events with WCI or to be run independently, to allow greater flexibility for editing events to happen in Ireland without the need for direct or in-person support from Rebecca or other members of WCI. This is not to discourage active partnership with WCI, but rather to allow motivated individuals or groups to undertake editing and other Wikimedia workshops with well resourced and comprehensive materials.

In 2019 we had hoped to develop a pilot pack that could be taken up by schools. Unfortunately this was more challenging than we had anticipated, and this did not come to fruition. However, based on our recent work with groups like the Computer Educators Society of Ireland, we believe that we are in a better position to have the contacts we need to start to develop, pilot and refine such a pack in 2020. With these new connections and avenues for collaboration in mind, we are bringing over some of the metrics from last year’s grant into this year.

Objectives

Improving engagement by translating resources into Irish
Support events across Ireland that there is no in-person support available by developing event packs
Developing more of an "On-Wiki" presence on Vicipéid, Commons, and Meta

Metrics and targets

Have 10-20 Secondary school students complete 25 hours of instruction and editing in Vicipéid. The programme will be evaluated after this first cohort
Engage with Irish language societies at 3 Universities/Colleges

Activities

Create a "How to edit Vicipéid" resource pack for primary school
Create a "How to edit Vicipéid" resource pack for secondary school
Develop a "How to run a Vicipéid editing event" for use by Irish language societies aimed at university or adult life-long learning groups
Create a "How to Upload to Commons" resource pack
Assist with 5 events run by Irish language societies

Celtic Knot

Description The Celtic Knot Conference 2020 will take place in Limerick on 9 and 10 July 2020. This will be the first time that the conference will take place outside of Great Britain. In its 4th year, the context of Celtic Knot 2020 will be strongly informed by the Irish context and how those working in Irish language education, culture or promotion can benefit from using Vicipéid and other Wikimedia sister projects in their work. Our partner institution for Celtic Knot is the Hunt Museum, who will be the central location and much of the setting for the 2-day conference. They will also engage with other cultural and educational partners in Limerick to provide space or facilities as required.

In preparation for the conference, we have been in talks with Léa Lacroix from Wikimedia DE to provide the Wikidata track. Given the increased interest in linked data integration with open data repositories in Ireland, we are planning to run pre and post conference events aimed at GLAM professionals and other sectors which would provide introductory workshops on Wikidata on Wednesday and Saturday (8 and 11 July). In 2019, we proposed the idea of a hack day for Vicipéid, getting users and experienced Wikimedians in a room (virtually or physically) to address problems on Vicipéid. This was not possible at the time but it is hoped to explore this at Celtic Knot 2020 to ensure we capitalise on the expertise present. We aim to have this event as part of these pre/post conference events, with specific targets like decreasing the volume of English that displays on the mobile Vicipéid site, or looking at issues around the porting of citations from English to Irish on the translation tool.

Following the model used in the last 3 conferences, we are hoping to provide a small number of travel scholarships to attendees of Celtic Knot. This would hope to cover the travel and accommodation of circa 5 attendees, and hopefully will be funded by a separate grant.

We have formalised our collaboration with Wikimedia UK though a memorandum of understanding. We will be working with them on further formalisation of some of the organisational, curatorial and thematic elements of Celtic Knot as it continues to develop and travel to new contexts.

Objectives

Utilise the Celtic Knot conference to improve and develop the understanding of Wikimedia projects within the context of Irish and other minority languages
Engage with developers of other small language Wikipedias for assistance with developing Vicipéid
Host a hackathon to concentrate Vicipéid editors on improving the platform over a day pre and post the Celtic Knot conference

Metrics and targets

Identify 3 areas for targeted improvement on Vicipéid
Host Hack your Vicipéid event as a pre/post conference event

Activities

Hosting Celtic Knot in Ireland

Education Outreach

Primary and post-primary level outreach

Description As both Wikimedia activities in Ireland and in the international Wikimedia community have developed over the last few years, a focus has emerged on teaching younger students (aged 12-18) about Wikipedia, including editing and otherwise contributing to Wikimedia platforms. We have had some ad hoc events run with post-primary student groups which were convened at the request of individual teachers. We have heard anecdotally that there are teachers who are using editing Wikipedia and Vicipéid in the classroom without any contact with WCI. Similar to rationale for developing Irish language resources, we want to be able to support as many teachers and student groups as possible by providing resources aimed at their teaching and learning outcomes. As there is obviously a number of different groups to which we could aim materials at, based on age, ability and desired outcomes. However, for this coming year, we are going to again focus on Transition Year (TY) students. These students are aged 15-17 and are taking part in a year of applied learning which sits outside of preparation for the two state Irish exams. They usually have less demanding semesters which allow for the incorporation of a module on Wikimedia. As outlined above, there are a number of jumping off points that we can use within these materials, such as the images from WLM waiting for articles, or taking part in Wiki Loves Earth. In the longer term, introducing TY students to Wikidata and other analytic tools may lead to student interaction at national competitions such as Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.

We will begin promoting the development of these modules at the annual Computer Educators Society of Ireland conference in February 2020. We will also target other teachers associations who could have an interest in incorporating Wikipedia editing into their TY teaching. In these metrics, we have included the development of modules or resources for primary and post primary students, as we will be creating these in Irish - these will be developed in tandem.

Objectives

Develop modules for use of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects

Metrics and targets

Test modules with 2 classes and collate feedback
Run 2 workshops in transition year classes with optimised modules

Activities

Create a "How to edit Wikipedia" resource pack for primary school
Create a "How to edit Wikipedia" resource pack for secondary school
Create a "How to Upload to Commons" resource pack

Third level outreach

Description

The Wikimedia Community in Ireland has built relations with multiple individuals, schools and departments in the third level educational spaces throughout the island of Ireland. To a large extent we find that new partner institutions and individuals working within them approach us regarding partnering on Wikimedia projects more regularly. Informal feedback revealed that these approaches are directly connected to our longevity in the education community as well as increased visibility through talks and presentations given by Rebecca and members of WCI. These resource packs will point users to the rich bank of images generated by WLM since 2014, as well as relevant initiatives such as lists of missing biographies from Women in Red and stub articles relating to Ireland.

In the Republic of Ireland there are two types of institutions that teach at third level and above:

8 universities, 7 of which we have held events in
11 institutes of technology, 1 of which we have held events in

In Northern Ireland there are two types of institutions that teach at third level and above:

2 universities, 1 of which we have held events in
7 further or higher education colleges, none of which we have worked with

Objectives

Continue current engagement with universities
Create a "How to Edit Wikipedia/Vicipéid" resource pack localised to Irish subject areas/areas of interest

Metrics and Targets

Create partnerships with 3 new third level institutions, focusing on the institutes of technology

Activities

Run or assist in 15 events held in universities or colleges
Assist with 5 events run by Irish language societies

GLAM Partnerships

Supporting Wikimedia work in the Irish GLAM sector

Description As with education, we are increasingly finding that we have developed a level of recognition in Irish GLAM sector and with associated cultural organisations.

The Celtic Knot conference will be a key element to developing capacity in Ireland for more complex and nuanced collaborations between Wikimedia projects and Irish GLAMS - with a particular focus on the use of Wikidata. We will begin the promotion of Celtic Knot to the Irish GLAM community at a Wikipedia workshop at the Irish Museums Association annual conference in February 2020.

In 2019 we had aimed to foster partnerships that would result in Wikimedian in Residence aligned work through internships in GLAM organisations. It has become apparent that as an organisation, we are not in a position to advance that in a meaningful way as we lack the personnel and funding capacity to further this as a project. We can still suggest such activities within GLAMs, and we can advocate for why WiR and how other Wikimedia aligned internships can be a powerful tool, but we cannot take it further. In 2020, we want to refocus on the sort of work and materials we can support and develop, which can then be offered to GLAMs when they approach us regarding Wikimedia projects.

The Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) became the Europeana Irish partner, following a number of years with Ireland having no such representation with the platform. Given the remit of Europeana and the DRI around the use of open licences with digitised collections, WCI can now play a supportive role in this work in Ireland.

Objectives

Promote understanding about Wikidata in Ireland
Continue to promote the use of open licencing in Irish GLAMs

Metrics and targets

Run 5 events with Irish GLAMs with 45 participants
Run Wikidata event at Celtic Knot with 15 participants

Activities

Run a Wikidata event for GLAM professionals as a pre/post conference Celtic Knot
Continue to support Irish GLAMs in their Wikipedia editing events during annual campaigns such as Art+Feminism and Heritage Week

Working with minority groups

Description There has been a movement by Irish GLAMs in the past year or more to better represent and reflect the wide range of communities in Ireland including the Travelling community, refugee groups, and LGBT+ groups. Following Rebecca's participation in an event held by the Archive Research Association in November 2019, we have begun to make contact with groups which represent such groups in Ireland to gauge interest. Many of these groups are engaged in GLAM activities, holding events around preserving and promoting their culture while bringing attention to issues around discrimination and equality. Much like Irish language groups in Ireland, these groups will suffer from the same lack of staff, volunteer time and capacity, but they have responded positively in initial conversations. Work in this area will most likely take a longer term conversation for it to develop into a more substantive events and engagement, but 2020 will mark the start of this work.

Objectives

Begin conversations with groups representing the Travelling community, refugee groups, and LGBT+ groups in Ireland regarding Wikimedia events or collaboration
Provide support and information on open licencing for new or existing photographic and other collections

Metrics and targets

Make contact with 5 groups working with minority communities

Activities

Attend 5 events/meetings organised or co-organised by minority communities

Grant Metrics Reporting

Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Midterm report

Program story

Please tell or link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period. This can be another meta page, a blog post or any other source that tells your program story.

Blog post on the Celtic Knot 2020

Program Progress

COVID-19

Like all parts of the world and Wikimedia groups, Wikimedia Community Ireland has been significantly impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic. There was a full lockdown in place from mid-March 2020, which was gradually lifted over the summer. Schools and some cultural institutions were allowed to reopen in September and parts of the country were placed under various forms of local lockdown in response to increasing infection rates. In mid-October, the whole country was again placed under a lockdown that has seen all non-essential travel and services suspended until early December. Unsurprisingly, this has affected the range and depth of activities that WCI have been able to engage in for much of 2020. Even when parts of the country went into more open phases of the lockdown, the appetite and capacity for the sorts of outreach and collaborative work we would engage in has been minimal at best. It did allow us to experiment more with online or virtual remote events in a manner that may have been difficult to garner the audience for in the past. While this has meant the amount of events we have held has been curtailed a great deal, the tone and level of engagement has appeared deeper and more considered.

In light of the curtailment of our outreach events, the group decided to use the time to focus on the development and publication of our group’s first multi-year strategic plan. Beginning in early November this year, the group is undertaking 4 meetings to brainstorm, collaborate and ultimately formulate a 3 year strategy for the period of 2021 to 2024. As of this report, we are halfway through this process, and plan to have the plan published by the start of 2021. This has allowed us time and space to consider the kinds of documentation we want to focus on producing, which was a key outcome we had identified in the grant application.

Earlier in the year we were able to complete the Irish user survey that had not been completed by the end of the previous grant. While all attempts were made to replicate the conditions of the first survey, the main difference was that users had to be logged in to see the banner inviting them to take part in the survey. In 2016, the banner was visible to all visitors to Wikipedia in Ireland. This resulted in a lower level of engagement than we had hoped for with the survey.