CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/CEE Newsletter Serbia/September - October 2024

Wikimedia Serbia in September-October 2024

By: IvanaMadzarevic

During September and October, Wikimedia Serbia intensified its work within the Education Program, thus establishing, expanding and continuing cooperation with several educational institutions. We participated in two conferences: the EPALE conference "Retraining and advanced training in the era of digital transformation" and "Information technology for e-education" held at the Pan-European University APEIRON in Banja Luka. The Wikipedian in Residence project in cooperation with the "Duško Radović Little Theater" has ended, and two are ongoing (the "Dobrilo Nenadić" National Library in Arilje and the "Bora Stanković" Public Library in Vranje). Wikimedia Serbia, in cooperation with Wikimedia Macedonia, applied for a European project for the first time. Several edit-a-thons and competitions were also held. Wiki Loves Sport stands out as the most successful project, during which 388 articles were written and improved.

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Education Program

Wikimedia Serbia participated in the national EPALE conference "Retraining and advanced training in the era of digital transformation" organized by the Tempus office in Serbia. WMRS' representative participated in the panel discussion "Digital transition and inclusion of adults in education and training: possibilities and limitations".
In September and October, several collaborations within the Wikipedia in schools project were established, renewed and expanded:
- Cooperation with Šabac Gymnasium continued and editing workshops were held for students of third, second and fourth grade. They will contribute to Wikibooks.
- Workshops were held for students of the Faculty of Geography at the University of Belgrade. Participants will write articles on Wikipedia.
- Cooperation with Alfa BK University in Belgrade has been expanded, within which students from the Faculty of Foreign Languages, the Faculty of Finance, Banking and Auditing and the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science participated in the workshop this year.
- It was agreed to continue cooperation with the Faculty of Economics and Philology of the University of Belgrade, so students will participate in a Wikipedia editing workshop this year as well.
- Cooperation with the Faculty of Contemporary Arts of the University of Economics Academy from Novi Sad was established. For the first time, students of this faculty will have the opportunity to participate in Wikipedia editing workshops.
Dragana Dudić and Ivana Firaunović, professors who collaborate with Wikimedia Serbia as part of the Education Program, participated in the 16th Conference on Information Technology for e-Education held at the APEIRON Pan-European University in Banja Luka. They presented a paper on the topic of Improving trust in information sources: Serbian Wikipedia use case.

GLAM Program

Over two months, one WiR project ended, while two were in progress:
- Wikipedia in Residence project in cooperation with the Small Theater "Duško Radović" has ended. During this time, the largest number of photos and other multimedia content were released and uploaded - 1,755 multimedia files, 61 new articles were written, 44 were improved, and 96 were illustrated.
- During the WiR project in cooperation with the "Dobrilo Nenadić" National Library in Arilje, 24 new articles were written, 11 were improved, and 463 files were uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons. Among those files are posters, issues of local newspapers, books on the history of the library and the city and numerous other interesting things.
- A memorandum of cooperation was signed with the Public Library "Bora Stanković" in Vranje. After that, the WiR was prepared, during which a detailed training on editing Wiki projects and copyrights was held and an activity plan was created.
A memorandum of cooperation was signed with the City Library "Vladislav Petković Dis" in Čačak and an activity plan is being prepared.
Global coordination of the #1Lib1Ref campaign is being planned.
Wikimedia Serbia, in cooperation with Wikimedia Macedonia, applied for a European project for the first time. This is done within the Cross-Border Cooperation Program of Serbia and North Macedonia of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Serbia and with the support of the European Union. The partners in the project would be the Public Library "Bora Stanković" and the State School Center for Education and Rehabilitation "Partenija Zografski".
During the Belgrade Fair, at the stand of the Library Association of Serbia, a round table and promotion of the Wiki librarians project was held, led by Oja Krinulović.

Diversity Program

In September, the Wiki Loves Pride project was held. During the edit-a-thon, editors were able to write and improve articles on Wikipedia about famous queer people, films, series, books, events, history and other topics related to the LGBTIQ+ population. In addition, the participants contributed to Wikimedia Commons with photos from Europride and other LGBT+ events. 7 editors participated in this campaign, 36 articles were written and 83 photos were uploaded.
Wikimedia of Serbia, in cooperation with the Paralympic Committee of Serbia, joined the global campaign Wiki Loves Sport for the first time. The edit-a-thon was organized from July 17 to September 22 and it was focused on writing or improving articles related to various sports topics such as athletes and sports events. During this campaign, 377 articles were written and 11 articles were improved, which makes this edit-a-thon the most successful on Wikipedia in the Serbian language.
The Asian Continent Wikipedia competition, which lasted from September 10 to October 10, has ended. The topics were diverse - history and geography of Asia, economy, technology, notable people, sports, cultures and religions. During the competition, over 36 million bytes were uploaded on Serbian Wikipedia, 11 editors participated, 123 new articles were written and 20 were improved.
The global results of the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos competition have been published. The Serbian Wikipedia community achieved the best results, with editors illustrating 13,086 articles. Editor Nikolina Šepić is the winner of this competition at the global level with her 12,885 contributions!

Organizational

In September, a call for WMRS’s volunteer projects in 2025 was announced. It was open to all representatives of organizations, individuals, cultural and educational institutions. Anyone interested could send a form for projects in the field of education, cooperation with cultural institutions and volunteering. We received 16 proposals and granted 9 of them.