AvoinGLAM/AvoinGLAM Annual Plan 2024

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Living Heritage[edit]

Living heritage encapsulates the main goals of AvoinGLAM's activities. The activities with living heritage continue beyond 2023 Wiki Loves Living Heritage. See the Metrics page for 2023 activities to familiarize with the scope of the project.

  • We want to broaden the scope of cultural heritage that the Wikimedia community engages with to include materials outside institutions, with different modalities, with less written documentation, etc.
  • The work addresses several structural issues that we need to address to enable the inclusion of such content, such as linguistic representation, community protocols, (indigenous) data sovereignty, existing Wikimedia community practices, etc.
  • The activities bring new institutional partners to collaborate on using Wikimedia projects as a means to safeguard cultural heritage.
  • We demonstrate how data plays a pivotal role in bringing together digital materials, and reach out to partners to work on this together.
  • We continue promoting ethical sharing practices on Wikimedia projects as part of all our activities.
Activities Metrics
Support for local collaborations that aim to produce local activities of any kind. We are encouraging a pilot collaboration in West Africa, coordinated by the Dagbani Wikimedians User Group and the National Folklore Board of Ghana. One successful pilot started.

Altogether 3 new collaborations and their organizers globally

Continue supporting and facilitating data imports of ICH inventories to Wikidata to support content tagging, article creation, and media uploads. Minimum 5 new inventories imported including their elements.

The organizers of these imports.

Continue maintaining the Wiki Loves Living Heritage pages and developing the Living Heritage pages for living heritage elements on Wikimedia Meta. Increase in the coverage of the data & the pages by 20%
Transfer knowledge and responsibility to other movement entities. 3 actions carried out.

Partners[edit]

European Network of Focal Points for the UNESCO 2003 Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Dagbani Wikimedian User Group, National Folklore Board of Ghana, further focal points and Wikimedia affiliates and contributors. The data collection may take inspiration from the Finnish Wiki inventory of Living Heritage by the Finnish heritage Agency in using a wiki platform. This in turn creates new collaboration opportunities with the Wikimedia movement.

Projects for Wikidocumentaries[edit]

With Wikidocumentaries we are exploring new ways of experiencing Wikimedia content, and using the knowledge in Wikimedia projects to navigate and retrieve content in the interoperable, linked and open internet. It can be made to serve quick bites for the TikTok generation, search content on the networked web, create mashups and automate data visualizations on any topic.

In 2023 we worked with a Google Summer of Code internship to pilot an upload workflow from Finna, the Finnish national GLAM content aggregator to Wikimedia Structured Data on Commons.

In 2024 we focus on popularizing how Wikidocumentaries can highlight Wikimedia campaigns and contests. Data about campaigns can power upload banners on Wikidocumentaries. The same data can be used on Wikipedia articles or maps to allow uploading from the context of the heritage elements. This requires the data about the contests and elements to be modeled according to mutually agreed best practices.

We will create lightweight experiments with different partners for testing the integrations of content sources or tools for crowdsourcing. These experiments can be the basis of further projects, and can lead to larger projects.

Activities Metrics
Further develop the Wiki Loves campaigns banners. Pilot with organizers that have advanced structured data, as well as with international coordinators in bringing contest data to Wikidata. 1–2 campaigns

5 organizers

Explore and document the idea of bringing Wikisource to Wikidocumentaries with communities in India and France. 1 experiment

2 organizers

(On the condition that the partners are committed to the collaboration and contribute to it)

Use visualizations made in the Aalto student project in Wikidocumentaries. 2 new visualizations added to Wikidocumentaries
Brainstorm, draft, document or execute ideas with partners. Draft an extensive idea or execute a simple idea in a hackathon or workshop. 1–2 experiments

1–2 partners involved

Partners[edit]

To bring the idea of campaign banners forward, the idea needs to be discussed with Wiki Loves Monuments campaigns managers and the global coordination team. We wish to extend this to other campaigns as well. We are open to explore collaborating with the Wikisource communities in India and France for integrating Wikisource content in Wikidocumentaries. We are ready to expand the Structured Data on Commons image import workflow to other open repositories, such as Europeana, Flickr, Openverse, Smithsonian etc. Other possible collaborations include WMF innovation initiatives, hackathons, SDC, SDAW, Wiki stories etc.

Media Art History on Wikimedia projects[edit]

AvoinGLAM commemorates the work of Minna Tarkka (1960–2023) by celebrating the Media Art History in Finland (MEHI) project. MEHI is a major effort by Finnish arts organizations to record and publish the history of Finnish media art and to build information infrastructures for its documentation. The project uses Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons for open sharing of results. We collaborate with the Finnish and international networks in creating a local and an international tribute. Furthermore, we will ensure that the knowledge of media art in Wikidata continues to grow by inviting artists and organizations to contribute their knowledge directly to Wikidata.

Activities Metrics
Contribute to a Finnish seminar organized by the Media Art network in Finland on January 26, 2024 by presenting and inviting speakers. 1 Finnish event

50 participants

10 organizers

2 invited speakers

Presentations shared on Wikimedia Commons to the extent possible.

Co-organize a joint event with European partners. Coordinate a program committee for contributions in the scope of Media Art in Wikimedia projects. If we are the main organizer, we need to seek additional funding and consider merging it with the GLAM hack initiative. International program with 5 speakers

30 participants

3 organizer organizations

Program committee of 5

Presentations shared on Wikimedia Commons to the extent possible.

Contribute to a wiki project on Media Art. Contribute to a wiki project with data modeling guidelines and other shared resources.
Create, publicize and maintain a web page or a form to continue collecting archival information about media art and artists in Finland and internationally in Wikidata and Wikimedia projects.. Page for contributing media art documentation to Wikimedia projects

20 new contributions added.

Partners[edit]

The Finnish Media Art Network (AV-arkki,Käsityökoulu Robotti ry, Magneetti ry, m-cult, MUU ry, Piknik Frequency ry / Pixelache Helsinki, Suomen biotaiteen seura ry, Suomen valotaiteenseura FLASH ry, Valmed ry, Äänen Lumo ry)

Further partners in the context of the European event.

Visualizing Wikidata with Design at Aalto[edit]

The data visualization collaboration with the Aalto University Department of Art and Media explores combining Wikidata and other data sources to create compelling data visualizations. The activities include introductory lessons on Wikidata, and co-facilitating a study project.

Activities Metrics
Introduce Wikidata in the Studio study component. 1 workshop given on using Wikidata / 20 students

Learning materials created for students shared on Meta-Wiki.

Mentor in the production period. Mentorship with tangible results carried out.


Embed visualization into Wikidocumentaries. Inclusion of 2 visualizations into Wikidocumentaries.

We collaborate with the Information Design minor at Aalto University Department of Art and Media. The project is led by professor Rupesh Vyas and coordinated by Nicola Cerioli.

Advocacy for Open Culture in the global context[edit]

AvoinGLAM participates in community and capacity building in GLAM-Wiki.

We contribute to establishing an open and collegial forum involving the GLAM community of practice, the relevant Wikimedia Foundation staff and leadership, the various related groups and initiatives in the Wikimedia movement, GLAM professionals, and representatives of cultural heritage communities.

In our vision, it is the responsibility of a strong community of practice to co-create the agenda to guide the development of contribution functionalities (e.g. upload tools and metrics), structures (the hub).

Activities Metrics
Facilitate deliberations in order to come to consensus about the needs and priorities of the GLAM community. The deliberations may take the form of discussions or use discussion platforms.

The output will be documented on Meta-Wiki.

Participate in discussions beyond the GLAM-Wiki community, and try to bridge between the different communities by inviting participants and introducing topics across organizational boundaries. Log of events with links and/or brief notes on AvoinGLAM pages on Meta.
Invite members to AvoinGLAM global community. 20 new members globally (excluding members in Finland)

Partners[edit]

The GLAM-Wiki community and other advocates of open culture.

Local community, including advocacy and public policy[edit]

Locally in Finland, we will strengthen the Finnish community of Open Access advocates by joining forces with Creative Commons Finland, Open Knowledge Finland, Wikimedia Finland and other organizations. We will exchange ideas in joint discussions and participate in public policy efforts together.

We will strengthen advocacy of open culture within the Finnish GLAM sector by identifying ways in which the memory institutions can increase their impact and prepare for a resilient digital transformation, and offering our insights about what role open access to cultural heritage can play in that. Increase collaboration and pooled resources in tackling capacity issues.

We join the discussions in the GLAM sector by participating in the workings of professional GLAM networks, Finna consortium, Finto, Round Table for Digital Cultural Heritage, Time Machine Finland or the Legal Group of the Finnish GLAMs.

We make an effort to engage more with academic networks, especially in design and digital humanities.

We strive to build partnerships with advocacy organizations in cultural rights.

Activities Metrics
Make public policy intervention together with the peer organizations in Finland. 1 joint statement or activity on public policy issues.
Facilitate collaborative knowledge building among Finnish GLAMs by participating in networks and committees. Altogether 6 meetings by the Coordinator, 15 by all members.

Log of events and/or brief notes on AvoinGLAM pages on Meta.

Broaden our community by reaching out to academic partners in art, design and (digital) humanities and cultural rights organizations in addition to our peer organizations. 10 new members in Finland
Co-organize thematic meetups within the communities. 4 events arranged as a main or co-organizer in the Finnish context.

Partners[edit]

Open Knowledge Finland, Creative Commons Finland, Wikimedia Finland. Finna consortium, Digime, Time Machine Finland, AI Coffee Breaks, Finto steering group, Round Table of Digital Cultural Heritage. Further academic partners and NGOs.

Hacking AI with Finnish GLAMs[edit]

As part of our advocacy efforts, we will facilitate collaborative knowledge building and experimentation culture among Finnish GLAMs. We plan to organize a smaller hack event focusing on the impact and use of AI in cultural heritage in collaboration with these networks in the spring 2024.

Activities Metrics
Co-organize an in-person hack event in the spring to explore using AI with cultural heritage. One event organized with 30 Finnish participants from Finnish memory institutions.

Partners[edit]

Digime, AI Coffee Breaks, Round Table of Digital Cultural Heritage

Saami languages[edit]

AvoinGLAM participates in the partner network of the Support for Sámi languages in digital services by advocating the use of Wikidata for multilingual ontologies, and seeks further possibilities arising from the collaboration.

Activities Metrics
Participation in the project network meetings Log of events with links and/or brief notes on AvoinGLAM pages on Meta..

Participation in spinoff projects.

Planning and fundraising[edit]

International GLAM hackathon[edit]

We are preparing to create an international co-creation event for GLAM-Wiki and we are exploring different arrangements. We are exploring different location options between an event in Finland or as part of an international event elsewhere, and between different modalities between a busy side event and a concentrated retreat. We have started discussing this with the GLAM-Wiki community of practice to probe their interests. We would seek additional funding to create the event.

Wikibase for communities[edit]

We continue to pursue support for the concept of a community archival platform using Wikibase. We have collaborated with TIB and other partners on a project proposal to enable a Wikibase on which communities can share their data according to their preferences while being a part of the open web.