GLAM School/Topics/Learning resources

Lots of learning resources exist for learning to contribute to Wikimedia projects or mastering open licenses around the world and across organizations. They are often distributed on several platforms, created in various languages, they are of varying quality and age. How can we we streamline what already exists, and what new resources should be created?

• Which kind of resources should be available and what types of topics should they cover?
• How could we collect a library of existing resources and where should it be maintained?
• How can we assure consistent content across several languages and how can we keep the materials updated?
• What should we create and what should we link to?

Peer network

Finding each other

The GLAM-Wiki community has, like movement actors in general, hard time finding each other for support. Having basic information about organizations, projects, contacts is a basic need for the communities. It needs to be very easy to find and update. A simple directory of members, skills and expertise would extend that to become a “free marketplace of exchange) (Butch Bustria)

Resources to make available

These types of resources are seen as important to make available. Many exist already, but need to be found and made accessible on something that is missing but that is often referred to as "the platform".

Managing the resources

The shared learning resources must be edited and maintained for them to become useful.

Past initiatives have produced large volumes of text, that become outdated, but they are still kept for archival purposes. Coupled with poor search functionality they are hard to find and there's little interest to make further use of them. (Wikimedia Poland/Łukasz Garczewski) A lot of effort needs to go into curating material, more time and resources needed to invest in this than the platform itself. (Anna Torres)

Info pages

Wikimedia Belgium provides a project page for every event, campaign, and project in the Wikipedia namespace of the language wiki. Multiple languages are supported and interlinked via Wikidata sitelinks.

Documentation and best practices

Documentation of workflows, results of projects as well as managerial choices in partnerships.

Compile a structured list of common tasks and what common tools would be suitable for solving the task. Making sure workflows are set up to lead users to the tools that would help in the situation.

Setting up community support packages with recorder and computer to allow for recording languages for Lingua Libre. Also need to find a quiet environment to get good audio when recording.

Glossaries

In order for the GLAM community to share a common understanding about the GLAM issues, and to make the vocabularies available across languages, we can maintain a GLAM glossary. The Open GLAM platform at Creative Commons will work on group efforts around GLAM issues. One of the groups focuses on a glossary and a bibliography of GLAM-related literature.

Several projects produce glossaries of their terminology. We could create a project model for a replicable glossary, that would be translatable and would interlink between Wikipedia articles and Wikidata entries, as well as authority records. (own)

Showcases

Displaying the effect of sharing openly is a powerful way to convince a potential partner. The showcase projects could also be more readily available in many languages. For example, a Wikibase of GLAM projects has been suggested. This Month in GLAM is currently the most important showcase of GLAM-Wiki projects. The Wikimedia Foundation blog, the Open GLAM and the Creative Commons Medium publications are also significant.

Printed material to showcase projects and what has been done before.

Lack of map or platform to showcase earlier successful partnerships and shared collections to potential partners. A great portfolio would help to open up conversations. Could be a global shared platform for all chapters/user groups to use. Repository for shared tools and documents to be used by GLAM organizers in the Wikimedia projects. Shared photos to be used in promoting partnerships.

Need experiences from others to show impact. Show stats and what has been done in other parts of the world to have new and potential partners see what works. Build a pool of examples. It’s hard for new contacts to know what will come out of working with the wikimedia movement, and if that can be compiled it will help. Setting up a bank of common resources to use for presentations.

Showcase material and good examples to show impact.

Topics

How to identify needs & capacities

There could be a guided assessment of capacity and needs and create a shared framework to think about this and ask the right questions so people will feel comfortable registering needs and assets. WMDE has developed a taxonomy of capacities and is currently developing the Capacity Exchange program as a peer matching platform. (Nicola Zeuner / The Capacity Exchange Concept)

Prepare a sort of roadmap or checklist for new organizations, based on the learnings and past growth patterns of more mature partners, could both: (a) help you assess where a particular partner is on the growth path, and (b) serve as a guide to partners on what to include in grant requests. Maybe we need more than one roadmap for different regions and/or areas of focus. (WMPL)

Principles of open knowledge and open licenses

Knowledge about copyright is a problem as some institutions are not really clear in what it is and how to put correct licenses on material. Best arguments for releasing material under free licenses and allowing for others to use as they want to.

Model workflows

Improved documentation would help GLAM cooperations. Finding out how others work and in what ways they are doing projects. Seeing and understanding the links between uploads, pages created, project pages where the results are documented.

Making the first contact

I submit a proposal outlining the value of having a clear Wikimedia strategy, the increased impact this would create, and some possible areas that would most benefit from having a Wikipedian in Residence. (I use this term, as Wikimedia and Wikimedian are meaningless to most organisations.) Then we discuss a budget, possible grant funding, and scheduling. I have different rates for on-site full-time Wikipedian in Residence contracts and for spending 1–2 days a month consulting.

See also Taking the first steps in Deepening engagement.

Managerial arrangements

Contractual arrangements are important to understand and apply to projects in varying circumstances. Wikimedia NZ signs a Memorandum of Understanding with an organisation making it clear their role is not just to improve their Wikipedia article, and the GLAM does not have final editorial sign-off on what the wikimedians do.

Preparing the imports and working with the materials

The steps to record could include ascertaining the size of photograph collection and determining who holds the copyrights. Getting the organisation to clear copyrights with photographers where possible. Asking the organisation for media files, especially media coverage not available online, and other publications they hold the copyright to. Negotiating a list of people/places/things most in need of improvement.

Technical workflows for image and data uploads

Technical solutions for how to upload images and metadata.

Documentation

logging all progress transparently on a project page in Wikipedia:GLAM space

Evaluation

When done create a final report with image galleries, do a GLAMorgan report to show views of Commons content, and recommend a Wikimedia strategy for the organisation.

OpenRefine

Better and more project and user oriented documentation of OpenRefine. More integrated course material of OpenRefine.

Wikidata

Most partners and institutions in Rwanda lack knowledge about Wikidata. Partnerships could use education in structured data to move on in that area.

Support for defining and creating new properties in Wikidata: example: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Property_proposal/uses_natural_resource (about the inflow of a process; different from made from that is used for a product).

Information about the open / Wikimedia movement

Material to get institutions to understand what the Wikimedia movement is all about.

Different strategies of doing GLAM partnerships and working with open access to cultural heritage

GLAM is most often seen as partnerships with memory institutions, where the goal is to produce and import content to Wikimedia projects. There are emerging and existing methods that should be highlighted, shared and developed together, such as open access advocacy, exploring co-creation and reuse, language documentation, pushing the boundaries of the projects and bringing new types of content into Wikimedia projects, such as geographic data, audiovisual material, oral history, or more technical approaches such as data roundtripping or exploring opportunities for interoperabillity between content resources etc. More about these in New formats and domains in Topics.

Features

Translatable

It would be important to localize tools to be usable by other countries/communities and institutions. Language support for communities spanning over several countries. These translations could live in Wikidata as lexemes.

Editable source files

Videos, brochures, info pages etc. need to be translatable to be useful in the international context. For that, the licensing must allow translating as well as modification to meet local conditions.

Accessibility

Accessibility issues must be highlighted when making materials available. Making accessibility guidelines available and easily understandable for producing learning materials as well as for general use would be a food objective.

With audiovisual material it is important to remember to provide material for RTL layouts.

Existing resources

Outreach dashboard

This is used in most collaborations to track contributions.

Tools

• Missing article lists with Listeria. Lists of potential articles can be added in the project pages based on items imported to Wikidata, and additional help for creating articles and subscribing to the project can be added.

WMF resources related to GLAM and capacity building

• Monthly GLAM conversation hours and newsletters: mapping similar projects amongst communities and connecting them through this space - i.e experiences in developing courses for GLAM professionals. Two time zones to get different regional groups, recorded sessions shared afterwards. However, there is a need for alternative spaces to focus on lessons learned through mistakes/failures, thinking of creating a space called “If I had known then..”. (FR). Also 1:1 spaces to discuss strategies with communities. Also learning spaces with GLAM professionals, which is a bit different to Wiki Communities. In 2022 will have a dedicated space on the Foundation site for library and cultural institutions to make case studies and resources available there.
• As part of the pilots, working with affiliates (Argentina, Mexico) to deliver professional development events. It will be interesting to see how these resources can be shared and scaled after. In Indonesia, Wiki stories pilot which is documenting heritage sites (ICOMOS).

Other programs

• Community Relations - Advancement: Meetings to share ideas around fundraising. Started as a WMF led idea to just share some knowledge and experience around this area and unexpectidely developed into an informal “community of practice” with regular sessions and growing participation of affiliate members working in this area (many European-based). It is hoped to continue in 2022 in more collectively-community led fashion.

• Learning patterns (on Meta - not been curated in 2 years).
• Resources Centre (on Meta)
• Program resources (not all on Meta):
  • GLAM: co-authored with the community, different to education where there may be more WMF-led resources around tactics. Hoping to produce some resources around accessibility next year. Also resources for GLAM partners which often have a different tone to adapt more to their needs (pedagogical, visual and institutional approaches).

Combining resources

How to make an effort for accessibility while making the best use of existing resources