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Application for Recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation

This is a template outlining the information that must be submitted by an organization applying for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation. In the sections that follow, please replace the instructions (identified by the word "TODO" preceding them) with the requested information. Please remember to include descriptive text along with any links shared.

Applicant Background

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History

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The idea for the thematic focus of what is now the WikiJournal User Group traces a long history through similar earlier proposals (former similar ideas), as well as valuable collaborations between academic publishing and wikis at RNA Biology,[1] Gene,[2] Open Medicine,[3] BMJ,[4] PLOS Computational Biology[5] and PLOS Genetics.[6][7] The WikiJournal User Group aims to expand on these formats by developing the concepts further and publishing a set of journals specialised in these formats.

The original WikiJournal was WikiJournal of Medicine,[8] established in 2014 and served as the nucleus for a community to come together and develop the necessary procedures, experience, and page templates. The successful proof of principle of WikiJMed lead to the expectation that the format could be extended to other subjects using WikiJMed as a template.

The community was recognised as a User Group in 2016 and registered as a non-profit in 2017. This laid the groundwork for the establishment of two journals with broader scope: WikiJournal of Science (initially "Second Journal of Science") and WikiJournal of Humanities in 2018.[9]

Leadership

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The group's leadership consists primarily of editorial boards for three current journals. These editorial boards work together to organise the project via monthly meetings, emails, and talkpage discussions. Board members are elected based on their experience in academic, publishing, and open access projects and each editorial board elects an Editor in Chief. Additionally, there are elected associate editors for each of the journals for organising peer reviews but without involvement in the strategic discussions. General voting membership is assigned to any participants with significant input to the journals (authors, reviewers, discussion page participants). Finally, there is an small administrative board that discusses technical admin items.

Administrative board

Editors in Chief

Editorial Boards

Associate editors

Membership

Eligible voting members are:

  • (a) Current members of the Administrative Board
  • (b) Current members of any Editorial Board of Individual WikiJournals
  • (c) Current associate editors of any Editorial Board of Individual WikiJournals
  • (d) Peer reviewers who have completed at least one peer review for an Individual WikiJournal
  • (e) Authors who have completed at least one article published in an Individual WikiJournal
  • (f) Registered Wikiversity users with at least 30 edits pages of WikiJournal, including Individual WikiJournals
  • (g) Not an individual voting for herself/himself

Discussion pages

Monthly meeting notes

Key Programs and Activities

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The WikiJournal User Group publishes a set of open-access, peer-reviewed academic journals with no publishing costs to authors. Its goal is to provide free, quality-assured knowledge. Secondly, it aims to bridge the Academia-Wikipedia gap by enabling expert contributions in the traditional academic publishing format to improve Wikipedia content.

WikiJMed is most indexed of the three journals:

The journal is also listed in:

WikiJMed milestones
WikiJSci milestones

Relationship with Other Groups

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Informal relationships with other user groups and thematic organisations:

  • Wikimedia Medicine - Several members in common and has provided assistance in promoting involvement with the journals to their membership
  • Wikipedia & Education User Group - Several members in common and has provided assistance in promoting involvement with the journals to their membership
  • MediaWiki Stakeholders' Group - Has provided advice in technical feasibility for journal-specialised features in mediawiki

Note, the WikiJournal User group is instrumental in proposing a Sister Project to provide a dedicated journal hosting platform, however the WikiJournal User Group would only be one of many groups that would use such a platform.

Criteria for Recognition

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In evaluating an applicant against these criteria, the Affiliations Committee is required to confirm that the applicant organization has demonstrated the two-year record of programmatic activity required of all potential Wikimedia chapters by the Board of Trustees, as well as the capacity to successfully carry out programmatic activities and operate as an independent Wikimedia chapter in the future.

Diversity of Activities

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to plan and conduct a variety of different programs and events; to balance online and offline projects; to strive for continuous activity; and to conduct programs and events at least once every two months.

The WikiJournal User Group's activities are primarily online and goal-oriented for academic publications (see guidelines):

  • Inviting article submissions from wikipedians and non-wikipedian experts
  • Contacting external expert peer reviewers to provide assessment
  • Organising the necessary infrastructure for academic publication

Additional events are primarily aimed at outreach to academic societies and universities via presentations, panel sessions, interviews, and workshops. Examples from past 2 years:

Future activities will focus on further professionalisation of the journal publishing group.

Complete:

In prep:

In future

  • Semantic Scholar
  • Web of Science
  • CLOCKSS

Planning and Evaluation

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to set specific goals and targets for programs, projects, and events before executing them; to measure the results of programs, projects, and events against those targets; and to report on those results to the Wikimedia Foundation and the wider Wikimedia movement.

The joint editorial boards perform annual plans and reports (linked to prioritising tasks for grant applications). More fine-grained planning and evaluation is also performed at the monthly conference call meetings.

The journals track article readership statistics via:

External Partnerships

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to engage in programmatic partnerships with external groups and organizations (for example, cultural, academic, or government institutions, and so on) to promote the Wikimedia movement and to add and improve content on Wikimedia projects.

The WikiJournal User Group has wide-ranging temporary partnerships with members from academic institutions who provide services for writing and peer reviewing articles.

The WikiJournal User Group has also had significant formal interactions with:

The WikiJournal User Group is also forming additional strategic partnerships with scholarly societies, universities, and not-for-profits such as ScienceForAll.

Aligned Mission

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to have a mission similar to the mission and vision of the Wikimedia Foundation, and to adhere to the guiding principles of the Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia movement.

Mission statement

The mission of the WikiJournals is to publish scholarly works with no cost for the authors, apply quality checks on submissions by expert academic peer review, and make accepted works available online free of charge, in perpetuity. WikiJournals emphasise transparency throughout the publication process, from peer review to the final version. Thereby, WikiJournals encourage editors to not only summarise existing human knowledge, but also to build upon it.

Geographic Focus (Chapters) / Thematic Focus (Thematic Organizations)

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Thematic Organisation must have a clearly defined cultural, linguistic, or thematic focus; and is expected to structure its activities around that focus.

Thematic focus WikiJournal User Group

Thematic focus for each journal in the WikiJournal User Group

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to be a legally incorporated entity; to be a non-profit organization (or have an equivalent legal status in its home jurisdiction); to be legally independent from the Wikimedia Foundation; and to follow all applicable laws and regulations.

Wikimedia User Group registration as a non-profit organization in Sweden on October 23, 2017

Open Governance

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to operate under a set of governing documents (such as bylaws) which have been approved by the Affiliations Committee; to allow new members to join; and to have a governing body that is elected by and responsible to their members.

Bylaws for WikiJournal User Group

Bylaws for each journal in the WikiJournal User Group

Membership

Eligible voting members are:

  • (a) Current members of the Administrative Board
  • (b) Current members of any Editorial Board of Individual WikiJournals
  • (c) Current associate editors of any Editorial Board of Individual WikiJournals
  • (d) Peer reviewers who have completed at least one peer review for an Individual WikiJournal
  • (e) Authors who have completed at least one article published in an Individual WikiJournal
  • (f) Registered Wikiversity users with at least 30 edits pages of WikiJournal, including Individual WikiJournals
  • (g) Not an individual voting for herself/himself

Publication ethics

Discussion pages

Monthly meeting notes

Active Contributor Involvement

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is expected to involve at least 20 active Wikimedia contributors (individuals with at least 300 contributions to a Wikimedia project under a registered account that has existed for at least 6 months and is in good community standing).

Editorial boards and associate editors (link)
WikiJournal Admin board (link)
Further information

Participants (editors, authors and peer reviewers) as of 2019-05-15:

Total: approx 300-350, including from all 6 inhabited continents

Estimate of editors active in any given month:

  • ≥5 edits per month on-wiki: 25
  • ≥5 email to mailing lists: 25
  • Monthly conference call meeting: 10

Notes: 1) a lot of work currently has to be done off-wiki. 2) Almost all peer reviewers only ever contribute once. 3) Many authors also only contribute once when depositing an article and once when responding to respond reviewer comments.

Capacity

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to demonstrate capacity to meet future responsibilities and expectations (such as organizing programs and activities; recruiting volunteers and obtaining funding; maintaining compliance with legal obligations, chapter and grant agreements, and movement best practices; and so on).

The WikiJournal User Group has been increasing in size and organisation. We anticipate being able to continue our current operations and to increase. One of our main constraints has been knowledge via word-of-mouth, so increased profile has the potential to also increase participation.

Please find our annual reports at the links below:

  • 2014-2016 (financial only)
  • 2017 (financial and activity)
  • 2018 (financial and activity)
  • 2019 (financial and activity; in prep)

The WikiJournal User Group defines its members as per the Open Governance section above.

The first three categories are involved in the overall organisation of the project. The boards hold monthly meetings (link) to discuss aims and strategy. There has been a steadily growing community in these roles:

Most authors and peer reviewers contribute a very small number very large (and quality) edits. The majority are also first-time wikimedians. There has been accelerating grown in these roles:

  • Authors: 172 (counting template)
  • Peer reviewers: 70
  • Additional on-wiki participants: approx 5-10

Rationale for Recognition

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An organization which applies for recognition as a Wikimedia Chapter or Thematic Organisation is required to clearly articulate how recognition will enhance its ability to further the charitable mission of the Wikimedia Foundation and the global Wikimedia movement.

Recognition as a Thematic Organisation will greatly enhance the user group's ability to more efficiently achive its current aims, and to upscale its activities (with accompanying economies of scale).

Communications, public policy support and public recognition of the group's WMF affiliation

Advice and assistance on communications (the user group is still limited by knowledge of its existence) and for best applying the WMF's reputation. E.g.:

  • Having the WMF involved when contacting national academies, scientific societies, and university institutions.
  • Crafting how best to increase visibility in key demographics
  • Crafting press releases and organising media contacts
Annual Plan Grants

The group has so far been funded by a string of rapid grants. Being able to apply for a more stable annual grant plan grant would allow for a variety of valuable partnerships to be developed that are not currently possible. It will enable significant expansion of activities and programs which will upscale value-for-money. E.g.:

  • signing longer-term contracts with partner agencies such as crossref, dimensions, altmetric, and various indexing and archiving services
  • organising partnerships with particular institutions such as scholarly societies with focus areas of interest to generate useful wikimedia content
  • organising short and medium term partnerships with other journals to assist them in generating useful wikimedia content
  • liaising with universities and other academic institutions to ensure that members are informed on how to
  • possible hiring of staff to facilitate and expand all of the above
Use of the Wikimedia name and brand.

In particular, use of the Wikimedia Licensed Marks when inviting support and endorsement as well as donations (in consultation with WMF). This will be especially useful in developing an additional WMF-independent funding stream.

Application Progress

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Stage Status
In Planning - New Application YesY
In Progress - Bylaws Submitted YesY
In Progress - Bylaw Revisions & Application Completion YesY
In Progress - Committee Review YesY
In Progress - Recommendation Drafting YesY
In Progress - Recommendation Submitted YesY
Complete - Application process complete

References

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  1. ↑ Butler, Declan (2008-12-16). "Publish in Wikipedia or perish". Nature. ISSN 0028-0836. doi:10.1038/news.2008.1312. 
  2. ↑ Tsueng, Ginger; Good, Benjamin M.; Ping, Peipei; Golemis, Erica; Hanukoglu, Israel; van Wijnen, Andre J.; Su, Andrew I. (2016-11-05). "Gene Wiki Reviews—Raising the quality and accessibility of information about the human genome". Gene 592 (2): 235–238. ISSN 0378-1119. doi:10.1016/j.gene.2016.04.053. 
  3. ↑ Maskalyk, James (2014-10-02). "Modern medicine comes online". Open Medicine 8 (4): e116–e119. ISSN 1911-2092. PMC 4242788. PMID 25426179. 
  4. ↑ "Wikipedia:BMJ/Expert review", Wikipedia, 2016-12-02, retrieved 2019-10-12 
  5. ↑ Wodak, Shoshana J.; Mietchen, Daniel; Collings, Andrew M.; Russell, Robert B.; Bourne, Philip E. (2012-03-29). "Topic Pages: PLoS Computational Biology Meets Wikipedia". PLOS Computational Biology 8 (3): e1002446. ISSN 1553-7358. PMC 3315447. PMID 22479174. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002446. 
  6. ↑ Contributor, Guest (2017-04-12). "Continuing to Bridge the Journal-Wikipedia Gap: Introducing Topic Pages for PLOS Genetics". PLOS Biologue. Retrieved 2019-10-12. 
  7. ↑ Shafee, Thomas (2017). "Wikipedia-integrated publishing: a comparison of successful models". Health Inform 26 (2). doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.27470.77129. 
  8. ↑ Shafee, Thomas; Das, Diptanshu; Masukume, Gwinyai; Häggström, Mikael (2017-01-15). "WikiJournal of Medicine, the first Wikipedia-integrated academic journal". WikiJournal of Medicine 4 (1). ISSN 2002-4436. doi:10.15347/wjm/2017.001. 
  9. ↑ Shafee, Thomas (2018-06-01). "The aims and scope of WikiJournal of Science". WikiJournal of Science 1 (1): 1. ISSN 2470-6345. doi:10.15347/wjs/2018.001. 
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