Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round1/Wikimedia CH/Progress report form

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Purpose of the report[edit]

This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their progress after completing the first 6 months of their grants. The time period covered in this form will be the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Global metrics overview - all programs[edit]

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees' programs. Please use the table below to let us know how your programs contributed to the Global Metrics. We understand not all Global Metrics will be relevant for all programs, so feel free to put "0" where necessary. For each program include the following table and

  1. Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
  3. In addition to the Global Metrics as measures of success for your programs, there is another table format in which you may report on any OTHER relevant measures of your programs success

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Community (metrics)[edit]

Metric Achieved outcome
(Annual plan target)
Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 157 out of 270 Let's fill the gender gap project (20) + Approved micro-grants (5) + New Year's Brunch (40) + Wikipedia Writing Ateliers (15) + Wikimania scholarship recipients (16) + Idea workshop's participants (14) + Zurich Stammtisch (16) + Support for 24th writing contests in DE:WP (31)
2. # of new editors 55 out of 1330 Let's fill the gender gap project (54) + Wikipedia Writing Ateliers (1)
3. # of individuals involved 404 out of 1700 Let's fill the gender gap project (74)+ Approved micro-grants (6) + New Year's Brunch (42) + Wikipedia Writing Ateliers (16) + Wikimania scholarship recipients (16) + Youth Hackathon (39) + Wikipedia Stammtisch Zurich (17) + Attendees of the Frontenders' Wikidata event (40) + Attendees of the training for Librarians of Italian Switzerland in Lugano (25) + Attendees of Wikidata trainings during Opendata Conference (30) + Support for 24th writing contests in DE:WP (31) + Community Village at Wikimania (32) + General Assembly of Wikimedia CH (36)
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 1063 out of 8000 Wikimedian portraits at Wikimedia (599) + Photos of Wikimania by Bobo11 (231) + photos of Wikimania "supported by Wikimedia CH" (200) + OSCAL 2016 (33)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 152 out of 2300 Let's fill the gender gap project (89) + Wikipedia Writing Ateliers (20) + Support for 24th writing contests in DE:WP (43)
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects (n/a) n/a (out of program scope)


Content (metrics)[edit]

Metric Achieved outcome
(Annual plan target)
Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 44 out of 210 Art+Féminisme à Genève (7) + Art & Feminism Basel (2) + Edit-a-thon sur le pouvoir des mots à la HEG Genève (6) + Wiki Loves Earth 2016 (28) + Photo accreditation (1)
2. # of new editors 123 out of 155 Art+Féminisme à Genève (11) + Art & Feminism Basel (9) + Edit-a-thon sur le pouvoir des mots à la HEG Genève (22) + WikiWeek at the University of Basel (30) + Wiki Loves Earth 2016 (51)
3. # of individuals involved 166 out of 400 Art+Féminisme à Genève (11) + Art & Feminism Basel (11) Edit-a-thon sur le pouvoir des mots à la HEG Genève (28) + WikiWeek at the University of Basel (30) + Photo accreditation (1) + GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group (11) + Rhaeto-Rumantsch GLAM (9) + Small GLAM (Italian Switzerland) (6) + Youth Hackathon (attendees & volunteers) (59)
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 17'346 out of 50'000+ Wiki Loves Earth 2016 (926) + Sailko's upload as Supported by WMCH (9'564) + Photographer project Lillehammer 2016 (658) + contribution thanks to photo accreditation (15) + Media uploaded by GLAM Wiki Collaboration group members (6145) + Curling Championship (13) + Pictures related to food (25)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 1'006 out of 2'900 Art & Feminism Geneva (10) + Art & Feminism Basel (27) HEG Edit-a-thon (21) + Texts uploaded in Wikisource for Rhaeto-Rumantsch project (845) + WikiWeek at the University of Basel (103)
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects n/a n/a (out of program scope)


Outreach (metrics)[edit]

Metric Achieved outcome
(Annual plan target)
Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 4 out of 215 Wikipedians attending at 1st event with ATED (4)
2. # of new editors 0 out of 20
3. # of individuals involved 395 out of 3000 Attendees at 1st event with ATED (40) + Open Energy Data Hackays (55) + Opendata.ch Conference (200) + Attendees at the ATED General Assembly (100)
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 34 Swiss Public Domain Music Records added to Wikimedia Commons (34)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects min 2000 n/a (out of program scope)
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 0 n/a (out of program scope)


Tools (metrics)[edit]

Metric Achieved outcome
(Annual plan target)
Explanation
1. # of active editors involved n/a n/a (out of program scope)
2. # of new editors n/a n/a (out of program scope)
3. # of individuals involved 413'000

out of 750'000

413'000 downloads of KIWIX
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages n/a n/a (out of program scope)
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects out of n/a n/a (out of program scope)
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects out of n/a n/a (out of program scope)


Telling your program stories - all programs[edit]

Please tell the story of each of your programs included in your proposal. This is your chance to tell your story by using any additional metrics (beyond global metrics) that are relevant to your context, beyond the global metrics above. You should be reporting against the targets you set at the beginning of the year throughout the year. We have provided a template here below for you to report against your targets, but you are welcome to include this information in another way. Also, if you decided not to do a program that was included in your proposal or added a program not in the proposal, please explain this change. More resources for storytelling are at the end of this form. Here are some ways to tell your story.

  • We encourage you to share your successes and failures and what you are learning. Please also share why are these successes, failures, or learnings are important in your context. Reference learning patterns or other documentation.
  • Make clear connections between your offline activities and online results, as applicable. For example, explain how your education program activities is leading to quality content on Wikipedia.
  • We encourage you to tell your story in different ways by using videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g.), compelling quotes, and by linking directly to work you produce. You may highlight outcomes, learning, or metrics this way.
  • We encourage you to continue using dashboards, progress bars, and scorecards that you have used to illustrate your progress in the past, and to report consistently over time.
  • You are welcome to use the table below to report on any metrics or measures relevant to your program. These may or may not include the global metrics you put in the overview section above. You can also share your progress in another way if you do not find a table like this useful.

Executive Summary[edit]

The last 6 months in Switzerland have seen quite a number of changes:

  • First of all, at the end of July 2015, the Executive Director left for personal reasons after a turbulent period of time
  • Afterwards, the association was led by volunteers which did not allow for launching any new sustainable project initiatives or strategies
  • The arrival of the new Executive Director only by mid-February 2016 (meaning an underspending of 15'000-20'000 CHF compared to planned budgets on salary and social contributions)
  • The on-boarding of the new management and re-organisation process as detailed below, very much needed before being able to look into the future and plan effectively ahead.

As a consequence, WMCH is now actively engaged in rendering its processes transparent and comprehensible as well as in producing strategies, plans and ongoing communications/reports that ensure impact and foster dialogue with the community. WMCH will by no means re-invent the wheel and follows a mind-set of "fixing the basis" rather than focusing on growth. Learning from and exchanging with other Chapters in Europe as well as our active community in Switzerland has proven extremely fruitful.

On a programme/project side, WMCH has chosen to engage in fewer projects and initiatives than originally planned in order to allow for strategic alignment. It is deemed wiser to invest in quality and sustainable development rather than in one-shot activities that would not lead to the desired impact and outcomes in the future. We realize that our planning process last year did not allow us to forecast realistic and achievable goals. You will see that a number of results in this report are not on target and that currently, we are only at a 32% of our annual spending. As much as possible, we will re-evalute targets and proposed activities as we go on this year, ensuring that what we do sends the right signal to our Swiss community and the Wikiverse in general. Thanks for your understanding and for reading our report!

Introduction[edit]

When the new Executive Director started in mid-February 2016, the whole WMCH organisation went through turmoil; not only in terms of the Swiss Chapter where:

  1. The whole Board got re-shuffled bringing in a majority of Swiss Germans
  2. Two Board members announced a possible conflict of interest; one of them did not stand for re-election while the other one got re-elected during the General Assembly.

But also on the international scene, at the Wikimedia Foundation, where a major organizational change happened within a couple of months prompting many senior figures to leave the organization and the Executive Director to resign.
All these events had an enormous ripple effect throughout the community in Switzerland, affecting trust on one hand and kicking off various waves of negative publicity throughout the web and wiki channels on the other.
In order to re-build WMCH and to re-gain the trust from its members and wider community, the following process was engaged in, adhering to the overarching principles that:

  1. The impact of programs/projects in Switzerland would need to be commensurate with spending (human resources included)
  2. Programs/projects to be focused on in future need to add value to the Swiss operations meaning that a volunteer or community member could not (or only with difficulty) possibly work on the project/program on his/her own.
Workflow of Wikimedia CH annual plan made by Jenny Ebermann, CEO of Wikimedia CH

Staff/Board Workshop[edit]

The objective of this workshop on June 22, 2016 in Bern was to creatively brainstorm around the vision of WMCH as well as the main directions of impact/focus for the years to come. 11 members of staff and Board attended the workshop which was conducted in a participatory and open format in Bern.

The first question to be addressed was: “Please draw a vision for the years to come; also think about three main directions of impact”. Participants received a flip chart paper and had access to a variety of colours; no talking was allowed. Once finished, all ideas were hung up on the wall as if in a gallery so that everybody could walk by and appreciate what the others had drawn. To continue, participants had to choose one (max. two) pictures that were not their own, observe what they’d see and write a number of appropriate key words, impressions, ideas around the drawing on moderation cards.

Finally, these cards were collected by the moderator and shuffled. Sitting down in small, pre-defined groups, participants would now receive a stack of these shuffled moderation cards and were asked to come up with a maximum of 10 key words/impressions per working group as a summary. These cards were then presented in the plenary and a final output drawn together by the moderator (regarding the directions of impact):

  • Partnerships (collaboration, networking, lobbying/influencing, linking, outreaching)
    • Volunteers
    • Institutions (i.e. GLAM) and authorities
    • Chapters
    • Like-minded organizations
    • Schools: enable and drive educational projects
  • Community (support, bridge, respect and train)
    • Volunteers
    • Members
    • Contributors
  • Content (sharing, curating, collecting)
    • Free knowledge

Another impact direction, directly linked to the WMCH as an organization was also identified:

  • Professionalizing the organizational structure
    • Financial tools and processes
    • Securing funding
    • Technical platforms and processes
    • Communication
    • Soft skills (environment)

To continue before going back into smaller groups, the essence of what participants’ thought a vision for WMCH should contain was gathered on a flip chart:

The WMCH board and the staff team participated to a workshop to support a vision for the association.


Now going back into small groups, the task was to come up with a concrete wording that would engage and at the same time represent the uniqueness of Switzerland in the landscape of chapters within the Wikiverse.
At the end of the workshop, the concrete vision wordings were presented and weighted by participants with coloured dots. The outcome reads as follows:
"As WMCH we are a stable collaborative multicultural and accountable association. We represent the interest of the communities in Switzerland, open doors and bring people together with the aim of disseminating free knowledge for a smart & open society. We do that on one hand by enabling our communities to share knowledge and on the other hand by connecting that various stakeholders of the Wikimedia Universe."[1]

[1] During its meeting of July 14, 2016, the Board decided on a final wording for the WMCH vision. It can be found below.

Community Workshop[edit]

On Saturday July 9, an open idea creation workshop was hosted in Olten to which 14 community members (German, French and Italian Speaking Switzerland), 2 Staff members and 1 Board Member attended.
The objective of this workshop was to consult the Wikimedia community about ideas, programmes/projects that could be taken forward by WMCH and thus inserted into its strategic plan for 2017. In order to set the stage for the discussions, the overall framework of the Wikimedia Foundation (Annual Plan 2017) as well as the impact directions and draft vision of WMCH (see chapter 2.1) was presented to the participants. Staff members and their percentage of work were introduced and emphasis laid on the fact that WMCH with its current resources and staff is not in a position – and also not intended – to support all projects/programs that the community values but rather that a prioritization will take place in order to be able to deliver quality and impact for Switzerland.
What is more, the overarching aim of the workshop was also to begin acting as “glue” for the communities in Switzerland, a goal prominently highlighted coming out of the vision finding workshop. It was indeed the first time such a workshop was conducted for the whole of Switzerland involving all major communities.
As format for the workshop, the “Open Space Technology” was chosen so that all issues/ideas could be addressed and tabled. A summary of the various discussions can be found here.

Participants felt grateful at the end of the workshop and definitely felt that such a format and gathering should be conducted again in a year’s time, when preparing the annual plan for the next year. They especially welcomed to reach out to participants from other parts of Switzerland and were astonished about the richness of ideas and projects conducted and put in place.

Another outcome of this day which will most certainly be implemented was the recommendation to hold either a public or a members’ only session during the General Assembly (as is currently done in Italy) to:

  • Promote the city in which the Assembly is held and reach out to/sensitize the General Public in terms of the purpose and projects of Wikimedia CH
  • Use the time of participants in a valuable way by engaging them in purposeful side workshops/discussions.

Board and Staff Meeting[edit]

On July 14, the Board met again in Bern to discuss good governance issues and the way forward. At the same time, the vision crafted at the vision finding workshop was refined and finalised. It now reads as follows:

As Wikimedia CH we open doors and bring people together with the aim of disseminating free knowledge for a smart & open society.
We enable our communities to share knowledge and connect them with the Wikimedia universe. We are a collaborative and accountable association representing the interest of our multilingual communities in Switzerland.

What is more, from July 19-20 staff met in Lugano to consolidate the diverse findings and inputs. This will lead to drafting a multiyear strategy that will form the basis for the annual plan, foreseen impact and budget that will be submitted in September. That being said and in order to align ourselves with the wider movement and in particular with the Wikimedia Foundation, it is of outmost importance to address the different priorities outlined in the WMF Annual Plan (2016/2017) while drafting our own plans. WMCH strongly believes that the growth and evolution of the movement as well as changes in global connectivity and knowledge seeking all underscore the need to develop a united strategy and ultimately a common vision for the future.

Community[edit]

Stories[edit]

On top of servicing our three respective language communities by providing them the utmost support for their projects, our intention was to push the enveloppe further this year and empower our communities. As already highlighted above, we have been faced with an unprecedented turmoil within our communities starting from early April onwards. Even though we have been dealing with a complex situation in which members of our communities deeply disagreed on the definition of paid editing and what it entails, we also witnessed strengthened collaborations and a variety of positive outcomes over the last 6 months. Also, several informal in person meet-ups were organized which suggests that we were able to maintain communication lines with the community, which given the circumstances is very positive for us. Within our community program, a focus on diversity remains a key component that we successfully drive forward. We hope to be able to pursue more projects in that field in the coming years. Indeed, we believe that the association provides an added value to the movement's mission statement by supporting projects that enable and engage with a diverse crowd of contributors and content.

Providing a voice to visually impaired and blind users
The visually impaired community has a natural obstacle to overcome in order to use or participate in the Wikimedia projects. Currently, we are on one hand unfortunately missing valuable content and knowledge from that specific community and on the other hand maintaining entrance barriers preventing it from becoming an active part of our movement. Wikimedia CH hence decided to attempt to tackle this phenomenon by providing a voice to the visually impaired community. Indeed, the idea is to ask the final endusers, either suffering from blindness or visual impairment to provide feedback on the issues they face when using or contributing to the Wikimedia projects. WMCH is right now working with a visually impaired expert called Simone Mignami to help analyze and understand what could be done in future to reduce this gap. We also would like to understand if the efforts that would have to be made to transform the Wikimedia projects into user-friendly platforms for blind or visually impaired people would be sustainable. The project planning phase establishing an adequate approach was kicked off during the month of June. The objective here is to have reliable statistical data to analyze and answers available by the end of the year 2016. Stay tuned for the outcomes of this exciting and innovative project!

  • Learnings
  • This project has been suggested after a presentation done by Simone Mignami to a group of frontenders (web developers) where he gave a different point of view to solve the problem of usability for blind/visual impaired users. After that presentation we assumed that the solutions suggested in the past by the Wikipedian community (i.e. the development of a text-to-speech) may not solve the final problem. We will explain a more general approach to the tools development in the related section, but this experience suggested us that a project must be started by a preliminary better analysis of the problem which involves the final users and not based on some assumptions which may be inefficient.

Wikisource, partnerships with small local alpine communities and institutions
Even though Switzerland is geographically speaking a small country, it is nevertheless composed of a large mosaic of different communities. Diversity is a major challenge in Switzerland and now also found its entry into the Association's vision statement. Indeed, with 3 official national languages we, as a chapter, already have to build many bridges for our Italian, French and German speaking communities to connect and develop initiatives around the Wikimedia community. All the languages spoken in Switzerland are also spoken (more or less) in neighbouring countries but there are also additional languages in our linguistic landscape that still persist in valleys and small towns in the South-East part of the country. Those local languages are twinned with similar languages spoken in some valleys of Trentino and South Tyrol and are categorized as the Rhaeto-Romance languages. They are of utmost importance for the safe keeping of our national heritage as they are direct derivatives from the Latin language and still work with an original collection of words which has been kept uncorrupted from external influences thanks to the isolation of these valleys. The local administrations are putting in considerate efforts to protect and to maintain these languages, but the pressure and the immigration from the neighboring linguistic communities is debilitating the strength of the Rhaeto-Romance community. Despite the fact that these languages are less used over time, a considerate amount of Rhaeto-Romance literature exists and is also of great historical importance. WMCH is providing support to help to save the heritage of small libraries and communities of the Alpine valleys by building the biggest Rhaeto-Romance on-line open library. Indeed, with the support of Italian WikiSource community and specifically Mizardellorsa), we are collecting all those texts in Wikisource and therefore saving the content of books that are now only to be found in specific local libraries which are under threat of closure because of the reduction of contributions by the local administration. At the moment the online library comprises 1'143 texts (845 uploaded during 2016) and we are projecting to add another collection of 500 texts following the donation of a research department of the Free University of Bozen (a formal partnership is being discussed). Eight additional associations and institutions have been contacted (Biblioteca Claudia Augusta of Bozen, Biblioteca civica of Bruneck, Biblioteca civica of Toblach, Istituto Ladin Micura de Ru di Tor of Val Badia, Istituto Cultural Ladin Jan of Val di Fassa, Istituto Ladin de la Dolomites of Borca di Cadore, Union de Ladis d'Anpezo, Union Generala di Ladins dla Dolomites) to check their availability to donate additional content and to invite them to collaborate and to help to prevent the dissolving of this alpine culture.

Bridging the Gender Gap: Piloting the French speaking Wikipedia
Already back in March 2015, Wikimedia CH participated in joining the international campaign Art + Feminism with the strong intent to focus its activities in the coming years on bridging the gender gap. In parallel to this WMCH initiative, Natacha Rault User: Nattes à chat was at about the same time looking for partners for a gender gap related project she was mounting at the office for Equality of the University of Geneva, on a mandate initially given by the Emilie Gourd Foundation. She was told that WMCH had an interest in the question too and registered at the Art+Feminism event in Lausanne to meet Gabrielle Marie. We quickly realized that there was a common interest in tackling gender related issues on Wikipedia, and that our different competences were complementary: Gabrielle Marie from WMCH was bringing the knowledge of the wikipedian movement and tech contributing skills, User:LaMèreVeille the knowledge to find information on internet, and Nattes à chat the managing, writing and coaching skills . A 14 months partnership emerged which resulted in “let’s fill the gender gap“ project. The initiative was structured around a conference and 4 (3 were initially planned) sessions of 6 workshops each spread out across 2015 and 2016. You may find all the relevant information about the project here. A detailed mid-review report is also already available here. Whereas until December 2015 the participation of WMCH entailed a heavy human resource investment in a train the trainer perspective, in 2016 WMCH retired from the workshops, which were then carried out by the two trainers until the end. The Chapter continued providing support through communication initiatives and occasional on site participation but did not engage in any more logistics or administrative activities in order to be able to invest the resources in other projects across the Romandie. Moreover, institutional partners provided their strengths to the project and supported the initiative by committing important resources. As a matter of fact, the University of Geneva as a teaching entity and the Emilie Gourd Foundation as an expert in the field of gender gap issues together with the Wikimedia Foundation provided important support through the Inspire Campaign grant: please find more information here.

  • Learnings
  • Firstly, we learned that there was a real hands-on role to play for our Chapter in the field of gender gap, helping the two trainers by providing professional knowledge and support to structure the workshops as well as providing relevant information and insights about the Wikimedia movement as such. Please be reminded that the workshops were free of charge and that in exchange we would only ask for the completion of an article on an important woman personality related to Switzerland. Participants also received a certificate from the University of Geneva at the end of the sessions. Thanks to this rule, participants had a clear objective and target to complete throughout the workshops which also provided a source of constant motivation for them. They were eager to learn and interestingly had very diverse background, horizons and ages. Indeed, between librarians, academics and field experts as well as the cultural blend of a variety of nationalities, we could tap into a wonderful pool of competences and skills within the workshops that of course also participated to its final success. The sessions as such were a wonderful opportunity for transverse knowledge sharing and enrichment within a diverse group of contributors.
  • It has proven to be extremely helpful to encourage participants who were keen on carrying on developing their contribution skills to mentor new contributors, a train the trainer approach. Now that he project has been completed and seeds sown we hope to see more initiatives in the third and fourth quarter of 2016 especially in the Geneva area.
  • The workshops were open to all, although our metrics mainly focused on reporting people who identified as women, 7 new contributors who identified as men were brought onboard the Wikimedia projects.
  • Although it took over 3 completed sessions, so over 18 workshops, to get active contributors involved in the project, we are delighted to report that we reached one of our initial targets which was to include senior contributors within the project. We can't possibly name all the usernames of the contributors who helped online for which we are very thankful but those who registered on the project page such as User: Tulipanos,User:Abbadon1337 and User: GastelEtzwane officially supported the initiative. A huge "thank you" to them!
  • Finally, great synergies were built online with members of the international community abroad such as for the "coolest project for Wikimania" and with the "Women in red" group on wikipedia and via their twitter account which now finds it's homonym in french, an initiative entitled "lessanspagEs" (meaning the ones without articles). This helped promoting the workshops and making them very visible. We hence learned that it is always worth expanding horizons and borders to find support in other language communities as there are often similar ongoing projects that can cross-fertilize each other.
  • One major challenge so far...
  • Reflecting back, it was indeed quite a challenge to accommodate the mind-set of the community as some members perceived the workshops as a potential threat to the quality and neutrality of articles. We were confronted with some members of the community being very uncomfortable with the ongoing "let's fill the gender gap" workshops and voicing their thoughts publicly, even questioning their value. Although the activities were open to both male and female registration, some contributors perceived them as feminist conspiracy. Both the trainers and the new contributors experienced some difficulties on their learning paths with certain scenarios that echoed harassement situations. As of today, some members of the community continue being pretty much against the concept of the initiative and in particular the WMCH's involvement with the project. So far, it took a lot of time and many exchanges with the community to reach a certain level of acceptance of the initiative. This still needs to be enforced in future and more efforts will have to be made in that direction. We believe that the Chapter has a role to play in supporting new editors to join the Wikimedia movement; however as we do not have any editing role on the Wikimedia projects, some volunteers may perceive the efforts as being limited when it comes to accompanying concrete change.
  • Impact
  • Quantitative metrics
The impact of this project exceeded by far our expectations both on quantitative and qualitative metrics. Out of 4 workshops, which include the data from the last quarter in 2015, 74 people participated in the courses, which in effect enabled the creation of 54 accounts. 704 pages were created out of which 89 biographies involving women in Switzerland: the language here was mainly in French but also English, Spanish and Hungarian. Hereunder you will find the detailed metrics that we have collected for each session:
Session Participants Accounts created Pages created Articles created Total edits 30 day retention rate
October/December 2015 (1) 27 17 203 21 6320 48%
January/April 2016 (2) 28 18 128 22 3950 22%
March/May 2016 (3) 13 9 89 11 3034 46%
April/June 2016 (4) 20 10 284 32 3940 Not available yet
Note: The 30 day contributor retention rates are impressive and WMCH will be calculating the 90 day retention rate during autumn 2016 to be able to analyse the impact of the workshops in depth.
  • Qualitative metrics
Following each workshop, a questionnaire was sent to the participants to improve the teaching approach of the program and its content from session to session. The learning curve was steep and most of the participants provided excellent feedback; here is a snap shot of their results:
Session Net Promotor Score Appreciation of the trainers (average) Intention to carry on contributing (average) Improved awareness on the theme of Equal opportunities (average)
October/December 2015 (1) 54.67 8.6/10 40% 7/10
January/April 2016 (2) 81.8 9.1/10 90.9% 7.7/10
March/May 2016 (3) 57.2 8.3/10 100% 7
April/June 2016 (4) 50 8.5/10 75% 7.8/10
Note: we decided to opt for the NPS as a qualitative metric in order to be able to compare the results from one session to the next, as it is a useful tool to provide a sense of growth. Participants had to answer the following question: "How likely is it that you would recommend our workshops to a friend or colleague? " on a scale from 0 to 10. A calculation is then required and the final figure, as detailed in the Wikipedia article, can be interpreted as such "NPS can be as low as −100 (everybody is a detractor) or as high as +100 (everybody is a promoter). An NPS that is positive (i.e., higher than zero) is felt to be good, and an NPS of +50 is excellent."
The project was contacted 21 times by media over a period of 10 months: not only written press but also radio and tv coverages were the result, thanks to an efficient communication strategy which of course also contributed to spreading the Wikimedia name in the local area. All the links to the articles, podcasts and videos are available on the project page.
We believe that the success of this initiative was on one hand due to the diversity of strong institutional stakeholders which invested financial resources and in kind contributions. On the other hand, without the hard work and dedication of the users User: Nattes à chat and User:LaMèreVeille this initiative could not have had such a high impact. Last but not least, a strong communication strategy also enabled the project to gain visibility. Following the completion of the project, we hope that the participants of the workshops remain motivated to carry on contributing to the Wikimedia projects on the long term. We are also confident that they will be joining future offline community get-togethers which will enrich the discussions and exchanges. A detailed official report is currently being compiled together with all the partners of the project. It will be included in the final 2016 impact report.

Learning patterns

Gallery[edit]

Progress table[edit]

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Microgrants:

Award a total of 20 micro-grants to 10 different users, resulting in the upload of 500 pictures and the improvement of 50 articles

14 5 out of 20
Slightly below target Each grant out of the 5 provided has been attributed to a different contributor, all of whom are active members of our community. Although we communicate about the financing option through a variety of channels (wiki projects, WMCH newsletter & social medias) only a few contributors apply to them. We will be communicating even more actively during the second half of the year in order to reach our targets. The impact of this supportive action will also be measured through our yearly satisfaction survey. Please consult all the micro-grants requests here.
Trainings:

Conduct four separate Wikidata (Q1, Q3, Q4) and bot wrangling (Q4) trainings, involving 20 active users in total. Several thousand articles impacted as a result (hard to quantify).

n/a 4 out of 4
On target. 4 Wikidata trainings/presentations took place during the first six months of the year. A total of 135 people (40 + 25 + 30 + 40) were reached during the following events: ATED conference to software companies, Lugano Cantonal Library presentation to librarians, Opendata.ch yearly conference to the association's members and Frontenders for front-end developers.
Writing ateliers and reunions:

12 meetings over the course of the year, involving a total of 150 contributors (15 new), 500 new pictures uploaded, about 40 articles created or impacted.

n/a 7 out of 12
On target. 2 New Year Brunches organized in parallel in Geneva and Zurich to kick-off the year, with a total of (30 + 12) 42 attendees.

3 Wikipedia ateliers with a total of 16 people attending (whereof 15 are existing editors and 1 new editor, a total of 535 edits and 20 new pages created).

Writing contests:

3 writing contests directly sponsored by WMCH (Q1 & Q4). Around 70 users involved, 200 to 300 articles created or impacted across three languages. We expect around 10 Good Articles and 20 Featured ones.

n/a 1 out of 3
On target. Wikimedia CH provided 3 prizes for the 24th writing contest in the German-speaking Wikipedia. 31 active editors participated and 43 articles were created or improved. Thereof, 7 articles were accepted as “featured articles” and a total of 3 as “good articles” (and 2 more articles are in the review process at the moment). For Q3 & Q4, we are going to support 2 more writing contests.
Gender-gap ateliers:

A total of 18 wikipedia trainings to teach people how to contribute on wikipedia, specifically women's biographies, over the course of October 2015 to June 2016. This project was carried in collaboration with the following institutional partners: the Emilie Gourd Foundation and the office for Equality of the University of Geneva. Around 100 new female users, 5 active contributors.

n/a 18/12
On target This is the continuation of a program we have started 18 months ago and that picked up momentum in 2016. The workshops were specifically targeted at increasing the editorship of women on Wikipedia as well as at building content on Wikipedia by providing visibility to women who meet the admission criteria. For better understanding, please note that one session comprising 6 workshops in total was already carried out in autumn 2015 and that 3 sessions of 6 workshops each were carried out between January and June 2016. Originally, only two sessions were scheduled in the first two quarters of 2016, however, with a high demand from participants, a third session was implemented at the HES-SO in Lausanne. Whereas our original target of 100 new users might not be completely reached, more than 7 active contributors could be gained and are now part of the community thanks to the workshops. We will be calculating additional metrics in Q4 to verify the 90 day retention rate of each workshop carried out over the course of 2015 & 2016. (Please see story section above for more information).
Community Surveys:

Run two separate surveys in Q3: one directed at Italian editors having left the movement, for which we expect a 20% response rate among those contacted. Another broader, Switzerland-wide (als, de, en, fr, it) which we will use to measure our impact vis-à-vis the editor community (150+ respondents, 80% satisfaction rate).

1 Community Survey in 2015 0 out of 2
On target The association has scheduled to carry out the surveys during the fourth quarter of the year. The reason behind this is to be able to connect the results of the surveys with the revision of the WMCH strategy following the conduct of internal and community workshops during the second quarter of the year.
Scholarships:

Award a total of 30 scholarships for users attending Wikimania (Q2) or the German Wikicon (Q3). 1/3 of these grantees will join the event for the first time. The impact of our support will be measured through a satisfaction survey for which we hope for a 90% satisfaction rate.

Example 21 out of 30
On target. Wikimania:
Wikimedia CH awarded a total of 15 scholarships to Wikimedians living in Switzerland and 1 scholarship to a Wikimedian from Ghana. 7 of the scholars attended Wikimania for the first time, which equals 46%.

WikiCons
The french speaking Wikiconvention taking place in Paris in August was not originally anticipated as our annual plan was already set but we decided to engage more actively over the course of the year and provide the opportunity to the community to attend the event. WMCH is supporting a total of 9 scholarships for members of our local community to travel to the event, including 2 contributors from Algeria and Sweden. With the upcoming German speaking Wikiconvention taking place in September in Stuttgart, WMCH will also be supporting the German-speaking community to attend the event. This will enable us to reach our targets for the year.

Wikimania:

7 to 800 attendees in Esino Lario in June 2016 which we will support with our full staff on site and a dozen volunteers. We will also help 20 to 30 Global South users (or 95% of demands) attend the conference through facilitating visa procedures with the Swiss authorities. The metrics collection rests with the organizing committee, but we'll stand by them. The qualitative impact will be measured through a satisfaction survey for which we hope for a 90% satisfaction rate.

n/a n/a n/a Wikimedia CH provided the possibility to support participants traveling from abroad with the processing of their visas. However, only a few participants requested that support, our initial target detailed in the annual plan is therefore no longer relevant and categorized as non-applicable. The staff time allocated for this service was re-invested within the organization of the event's Community Village and communications with a total of 32 booths, which attracted several hundreds of visitors throughout Wikimania.

Last but not least, by sending out press releases in three languages we were able to mobilize the Swiss National Radio as well as major newspapers and magazines in Switzerland to cover Wikimania. We also calculated the the estimated PR value, it corresponds to the price Wikimedia CH should have paid in order to get the articles published. As they are not advertising and offer added-value content written by independent journalists, their value is estimated to be 2.5 times higher than regular advertising spaces. This document provides you the clips of the 10 media coverages as well as a detailed measure of this value for each press coverage, the total PR value equals CHF 414 100.

Content[edit]

Stories[edit]

GLAM
Enable & facilitate a GLAM Network where institutions provide mutual support, coordinate and plan with - as well as learn from - each other

GLAM Wiki Collaboration Network 2016

In order to coordinate the wikimedia-related activities of GLAM institutions in Switzerland, a “GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group” was established at the beginning of the year 2015 by the Swiss Federal Archives, the Swiss National Library and Wikimedia CH. In order to guarantee a constant exchange among GLAM institutions who contributed to Wikimedia projects, quarterly meetings were institutionalized and are attended by the representative of each institution. Furthermore a GLAM Wiki was established and serves the purpose of exchanging best practices and learnings.
In the year 2015, the group consisted of the following members: Swiss National Library, Swiss Federal Archives, Cantonal Library of Thurgau, Central Library of Solothurn, University Library of Basel, Swiss Social Archives, ETH Library Zurich. In 2016, 5 more GLAM institutions joined the Network: Historic Museum Basel, SBB Historic, Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (DODIS), Swiss Economic Archives (Schweizerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv) and the Archives Cantonales Jurassiennes - which results in a total of 11 GLAM institutions participating in this Network in Switzerland. The common denominator of these GLAM institutions is that they contribute to Wikimedia projects and have one employee/person in charge of the activities related to Wikimedia projects. The idea behind this approach of a "GLAM Network of mutual support" is to enable GLAM institutions to learn from others but also to share their learnings and information. The connection of peers within a network has proved to be an effective strategy when it comes to knowledge transfer and the common tackling of future challenges. Furthermore, this network not only keeps our partners engaged, informed and motivated to continue uploading content onto Commons, they also provide a welcome support and credentials when we approach potential new GLAM partners.

Building relationships with GLAM of all sizes & profiles
The GLAM landscape in Switzerland is composed of many large institutions as well as a patchwork of smaller but nevertheless dynamic institutions. These small museums, galleries and cultural entities are very distinctive from the canonical GLAM as they help preserve a precious and singular heritage. Their organization is rather heterogeneous. For example, the ethnographic museums where the heritage displays the whole territory (in general the valley) and not what is preserved in the building of the museum. Churches, ruins, castles, lore and culture are considered part of the museum. This kind of GLAM is frequent in the Alps and in small towns of Switzerland and are protected and supported by the local government and have a strong link with the local population. The GLAM in this case is at the center of a network of several local entities like schools, churches, associations. The usual experience of GLAM in this case cannot be easily replicated because in general these entities have a small staff and limited resources, sometimes the GLAM is managed by a local association or foundation connected with a very old social entity like that of the "Patrician". The advantage is that these GLAMs are very flexible and open to experiment new format and new projects, they donate content easily and are very collaborative. In this case the collaboration with the local GLAM means a collaboration with the whole territory and valley. Wikimedia CH started in 2016 the collaboration with 4 local GLAMs in the Swiss Italian region (Museum of the Radio, Monte Verità, Swiss National Sounds Archive, Pinacoteca Züst) and there is an on going discussion with another 2 museums (Museo Plebano, Museo della Leventina). For some of them the preparation and discussion phase took more time than usual in order to define clearly the map of the content they can donate. The preparation phase has had as main critical aspect that to select the material which can be delivered with open license because the GLAM sometimes doesn't know the origin of this material and who owns some rights. In this case Wikimedia CH supported them also to analyze the ownership of the rights and to check what can be uploaded with free content, what cannot and what is unidentifiable. This has been an advantage also for the GLAM, which finally understands better how to put forward their content in the Wikimedia projects. This analysis was conducted from the end of 2015 to June 2016, we are now in the content uploading phase that will take place during the second half of this year thanks to three different GLAMs donating different kind of material: photos, metadata, biographies and audio files.

GLAM: an overview

GLAM Project Active
(before 2016)
Acquisition
(2016)
Contacted
(2016)
Type of collaboration
Swiss National Library of Bern GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donation, events
Swiss Federal Archives of Bern GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donation, events
Cantonal Library of Thurgau GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, events
Central Library of Solothurn GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donation, events
University Library of Basel GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donations, events
Swiss Social Archives GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donations
ETH Library of Zurich GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donation
Historic Museum Basel GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donation
SBB Historic GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network, content donation
Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (DODIS) GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network
Swiss Economic Archives (Schweizerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv) GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group X Network
Kirchner Museum in Davos GLAM on Tour X Events
Museum Strauhof in Zurich Art & Feminism X Events
Bibliothèque d’art et d’archéologie du Musée d’art et d’histoire Art & Feminism X Events
Bibliothèque de la ville de le Chaux de Fonds Wikipedian in residence X Content donation
Museum of the Radio of Monte Ceneri Small GLAM X Content donation, policy
Monte Verità of Ascona Small GLAM X Content donation, policy
Pinacoteca Züst of Rancate Small GLAM X Content donation, events
Museo Plebano of Agno Small GLAM X X Content donation
Museo della Leventina of Giornico Small GLAM X Content donation, events
Free University of Bozen Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X X Content donation, policy, transnational collaboration
Biblioteca Claudia Augusta of Bozen Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration
Biblioteca civica of Bruneck Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration
Biblioteca civica of Toblach Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration
Istituto Ladin Micura de Ru di Tor of Val Badia Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration
Istituto Cultural Ladin Jan of Val di Fassa Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration
Istituto Ladin de la Dolomites of Borca di Cadore Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration
Union de Ladis d'Anpezo Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration
Union Generala di Ladins dla Dolomites Rhaeto-rumantsch Project X Content donation, transnational collaboration

In order to see the full list of partners we collaborated with in Q1 & Q2 2016 in the areas of GLAM, Education and Community, please review the following list (consisting of several tabs) in this document: Wikimedia CH Partnerships 2016. For your information, we are currently considering those 3 impact directions as our main areas of focus in the preparation of our 3 year strategic plan (2017-2020).

EDUCATION
WMCH received a large amount of unexpected bottom-up requests from schools and Universities that approached us. Considering the importance of the field of education, we decided to focus our effort more in that direction and to provide resources to those initiatives this year. Following the idea creation workshop, the community members have also asked for the chapter to play a bigger role within educational related projects for 2017 so we hope to build up on this year's events and learnings to look into new opportunities for next year.

Experimenting a new formula for young people: Youth Hackathon
One month before Wikimania Esino Lario, we organized a Youth Hackathon in Esino Lario with the help of local volunteers, of SUPSI (University of Lugano) and ATED4kids, a group of volunteers who already organized several events for children and young people like Coderdojo or Devoxx4kids. The concept was to present not an event having only Wikimedia projects, but to associate the Wikimedia projects with other new and interesting technologies: drones, 3D printers, Scratch, Open Street Map. The young people loved the variety of topics and the possibility to move from one classroom to another to learn something new. The chance to experiment with these projects, apps and objects was the highlight of their learning experience. The event was a big challenge as it was the very time that Esino Lario hosted an event solely dedicated to technology. The trainers were happy to participate but there was the big question mark of connectivity because the date of the event was defined with the intent of testing the connection for Wikimania 2016. Over time, with banners in local newspapers, with flyers, we received 39 subscriptions and more than 20 confirmations for volunteers and trainers participations. The formula repeats basically that of the Devoxx4kids, several concurrent workshops, and some activities to apply what has learned. The pedagogical concept was as follow: acquire knowledge & competencies during the morning ("how to do something") and afterwards to use these abilities to solve problems. For this reason the workshops were during the morning, followed by a treasure hunt in the afternoon where the pupils started to discover QRcodes disseminated all over Esino Lario and in the school pointing to the keys to solve the questions of the treasure hunt. The discovery was physical and virtual, so some keys were in Wikimedia projects and the pupils started to use the functionalities of Wikimedia projects to solve them (searchbox, button modify, etc.). This event provided us a great learning curve about the importance of combining like minded entities to build beautiful synergies during offline events. The outreach section contains additional information.

Empowering teachers to contribute with their students on the Wikimedia projects
In 2016, WMCH held 4 Trainings (from 2 hours to a full-day) for practicing and future teachers in Switzerland, focusing on the secondary school level (age 13 - 18). We reached a total of 100 teachers in Zurich, Bern and Lucerne. The goal of these teach-the-teacher sessions were to enable and prepare teachers to work with Wikipedia in class using it as a tool for research as well as a tool where their students can collaboratively contribute content. Furthermore WMCH directed the teachers to supplementary resources and reference materials, such as specific course modules.
Picture: PH Zürich Teacher Education

  • Learnings
Teach-the-teacher models are very effective in order to reach as many students as possible in Switzerland using teachers as multiplicators. The success of the approach can be evaluated following the outcomes of the subsequent surveys. After every session, participants of these trainings are being asked directly by the educational institution where they took the course, whether it was valuable and should be continued in the upcoming years or not. All courses received very positive feedback and are already confirmed for a next round. For Q3/Q4 2016 and for 2017, we already have two volunteers who are interested in becoming engaged in teach-the-teacher trainings.
Last but not least we also supported one initiative directly at University level: The University of Basel held a "WikiWeek" where 30 students spent 1 week to write 30 articles on biology and evolution. The writing of a Wikipedia Article was mandatory and a fixed component of the course.
Picture: WikiWeek at the University of Basel

Contributing to Wikipedia, an official activity in the curriculum of a Bachelor degree in Geneva
WMCH participated in the global initiative of the French-speaking contribution month (le mois de la contribution francophone) by organizing an edit-a-thon on the theme of the power of words on the March 9, 2016 at the Haute Ecole de Gestion de Genève. The particularity of this school is that it officially teaches students to become tomorrow's librarians through a Bachelor degree in "Information Documentaire". This is the only school in Switzerland that provides this course in French. The focus of the edit-a-thon was for the students in their final year to create and/or modify biographies of Swiss authors on the online encyclopaedia.
From a quantitative perspective, out of 3 hours, a total of 28 people participated, with 22 accounts created which resulted in the drafting of 12 new articles and edits on 9 existing articles, adding up to a total of 692 edits. On top of those statistics from a qualitative perspective, this activity was officially incorporated within the students' curriculum as their contributions were graded following a specific point system as detailed on the project page in the "Critères de notation & conseils" section. What is more, an active contributor on the french speaking Wikipedia ( User:Ghoster) joined us for the event which was fantastic in terms of putting a face to the Wikipedia community for the students. He kindly explained how the "did you know" section on the welcome page functions and provided support to students' questions. This was a major help to WMCH's community liaison as many questions could be answered and addressed in plenary in front of a rather large group. We have been developing initiatives with the teacher Stéphanie Pouchot User:Spouchot within her module "Communication 2.0" over time. We intend to keep the relationship going and will continue to submit a topic for the students' group project entitled "produit documentaire" which will take place in Q4 2016 for the third year in a row. On top of taking part in the international contribution month campaign, WMCH was able to consolidate its growing relationships with this particular partner in the higher education sector.

  • Learning:
WMCH believes that it is fundamental for tomorrow's librarians to understand Wikipedia and how to contribute to the Wikimedia projects, especially considering the importance of the digital world in libraries nowadays. Please note that one of the qualitative impacts that cannot be measured, is how this activity actually affects the students once they enter the job market and work in cultural institutions. Our hypothesis would be that this early workshop opens them doors to Wikipedia that of course are highly appreciated for our movement as potentially this will mean more contributors and an accrued sensitivity in future.

Gallery[edit]

Progress table[edit]

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Support for photographers

Grant a total of 50 accreditations and travel expense reimbursement to as many events for 10 users. This will result in around 5,000 image uploads and 500 articles improved.

50 press accreditations 12,000 out of 5,000
Three times above target for image uploads The active photographers in our communities are very independent. We thus adopted a dual approach in their regard: 1. WMCH buys or rents photo equipment (i.e. user Sailko) which is then made available to other users. In this case, he/she uploads all their photos or other objects using the category "Supported by WMCH". 2. WMCH supports volunteers through helping with accreditations for events or financial support for travel and accommodation so that the volunteers may carry out their projects. In this case, volunteers upload photos only connected with the supported event using the category "Supported by WMCH". We have set up a wikimedia.ch address for some active users in order to facilitate their requests when contacting event organizers as we realized that it sometimes added another layer of bureaucracy when asking the community to contact us first. These particular members then only contact us when having received a negative answer from an event organizer or for support regarding major global events. Other than that, we do support the requests of newcomers but we receive very few requests. Over the last 6 months, we supported a total of 6 accreditation requests (6 in the French-speaking area and 2 in the German-speaking area). Although the number of accreditations is below target for the year, the expected content delivery is already twice over our expectations. This demonstrates that the contributions of those active photographers is efficient and impactful as the expected target has been more than doubled. We cannot compare with last year's data as different metrics for measuring the impact were used unfortunately.

For your information: we have only calculated the metrics for the photographic projects in which WMCH was directly involved either via financial or staff support or because volunteers used photo equipment from WMCH. Our local photographers sometimes carried out projects independently but as we were not directly involved in their activities, we decided not to include those metrics in our report. Some of the photographers projects are still ongoing, so we have not been able to incorporate all of their metrics yet, we will however be able to include them in the impact report.

Italian Wikivoyage writing contest

Around 200 articles with 10 active and 5 new users. We expect a 50% increase in total monthly edits.

n/a 0 out of 200
On target We realize that both Wikivoyage and the Wikivillage project on Wikipedia overlap so we have decided to merge the activities between the two. There are ongoing discussions with our communities as to see on which Wikimedia project it should take place. The project will happen in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Edit-a-thons:

1 edit-a-thon about Dadaism (Q1/40 attendees / 20 new users / 20 articles improved or created) 3 "Art & Feminism" edit-a-thons (Q1 / 60 attendees / 30 new editors / 60 articles improved or created) 2 edit-a-thons on Swiss Foreign Policy (Q4 / 80 participants / 60 new editors / 80 articles improved or created)

n/a 3 out of 6
On target. We adapted the topics of the edit-a-thons according to the wishes of the community. Therefore there will be an edit-a-thon about "Anarchy, Facts & Fictions" (instead of "Dadaism") and a three-days GLAM on Tour Edit-a-thon at the Kirchner Museum in Davos (instead of the 2-days Swiss Foreign Policy Edit-a-thon).

Art & Feminism Edit-a-thon in Basel: Total of 12 individuals involved (thereof 2 active editors and 9 newly registered users, 1 staff member). Total of 27 articles added or improved with a total of 510 edits over two days.
Art & Feminism Edit-a-thon in Geneva: Total of 11 participants involved (thereof 2 active contributors and 4 newly registered users, 1 staff member). A total of 9 articles were created with a total of 92 edits during an afternoon. The event received 3 press coverages. The most important outcome of the event was the development of a list of a 100 women artists who currently lack visibility on Wikipedia.
It was not possible to organize the third session during the international campaign's dates in the Italian speaking area as many events were simultaneously taking place.

Wikivillages

Expand the concept to four languages (als, de, fr, it). 80 participants, 60 of which are new users. 40 articles on Swiss locations improved and illustrated. 5 to 6 segments in local and national medias.

26 n/a On target Wikivillage will take place from the October 15 to November 15, 2016. The initiative has experienced some structural changes since last year. As a matter of fact, it will no longer solely be a contest dedicated to students in secondary education only but an online contribution theme that may tempt both new and active contributors across many generations. We decided to launch it at a national level for the first time. The concept is to improve an article of a village of an editor's choice in one or several wikipedias. The community liaisons will be hosting workshops across Switzerland to facilitate the learning curve for new contributors and several volunteers will support the writing-initiative on wiki. A partnership was established with Infloclic.ch to support the project, they are a non for profit specialized in developing youth projects. We saw that a similar Wikivillage initiative was launched in Cameroun: here which implies the concept could potentially travel within the movement.
Wikipedia meets X

200 high resolution pictures of 50 high-profile Swiss personalities, made by 3 users over the year. At least 800 articles impacted.

n/a 0 out of 200
On target Activity planned for Q3 and Q4
Wiki loves Y

Participate in one edition of the international contest, which will yield around 3,000 images and involve 200 individuals. We expect 600 articles to be directly impacted

194 79 out of 200
Below target Wiki Loves Earth 2016 produced 926 images out of 3,000 and 79 participants because of the bad weather in Switzerland during the contest. [1] [2] [3].
Wiki takes Z

2 events in Q2/Q3 to cover two Swiss cities. Outcome: 100 pictures meeting content needs (=100 articles impacted), around 15 users involved, 3 new ones.

n/a 0 out of 2
On target The activity has been moved to the Q3 and Q4 because of the same reason than Wiki Loves Y. This activity has been candidate also for substitution with other upcoming activities introduced during 2016.
GLAM Wiki collaboration group:

4 edit-a-thons, involving 80 participants, 40 new users and 300 articles impacted. 50,000 high quality images uploaded.

n/a 1 out of 4
Above the target for the number of edit-a-thons and below the target for content uploads.

We not only maintained this network in 2016 but increased the number of participants by 4 institutions, which now results in a total of 11 GLAM institutions who are part of this network. All 11 institutions actively contribute to Wikimedia projects (see next line "GLAM content uploads"and the story reported on this subject). In Q3 & Q4, a total of 10 Edit-a-thons will be hosted by these 11 institutions, all around the topic of trains and railways - on the occasion of the opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel in 2016 in Switzerland. To conclude: Besides media uploads to Wikimedia Commons, these institutions of the GLAM Wiki Collaboration group launch a common series of Edit-a-thons, called "Wiki on Rails" Edit-a-thons, which will be accompanied by common communication efforts and are aligned with regards to content and timing.

With regards to content uploaded, a total of 6'145 high quality files have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by the members of the GLAM Wiki Collaboration Group (Swiss National Library, Swiss Federal Archives, Cantonal Library of Thurgau, Central Library of Solothurn, University Library of Basel, Swiss Social Archives, ETH Library Zurich, Historic Museum Basel, SBB Historic, Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland (DODIS), Swiss Economic Archives (Schweizerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv) and the Archives Cantonales Jurassiennes) in Q1 & Q2 2016.

Small GLAMs follow-up

7,000 media files uploaded to Commons, 1 active editor, 6 GLAM partners

n/a 4 out of 6
On target 4 GLAM acquired ([4] [5][6][7]). Planned activity in Q3 and Q4 to upload 4'000 images and 40 biographies.
Alpine dialects Rhaeto romance languages

200 new texts added to Wikisource before the end of the year, 1,000 Rhaeto-romansh words to the Wiktionary, 50 biographies to ro.wikipedia, 6 contacts with local GLAMs

n/a 762 out of 200
4 times above target in terms of texts Uploaded 4 times more texts than planned, for the moment there was no possibility to proceed with Wiktionary because the rhaeto-rumantsch wiktionary is still in incubator and only in Rumantsch. Contacted 3 GLAM (local libraries) and ongoing agreement with another GLAM to upload 500 new texts (University of Bozen). 8 GLAM contacted (Biblioteca Claudia Augusta di Bolzano, Biblioteca civica of Bruneck, Biblioteca civica of Toblach, Istituto Ladin Micura de Ru di Tor of Val Badia, Istituto Cultural Ladin Jan of Val di Fassa, Istituto Ladin de la Dolomites of Borca di Cadore, Union de Ladis d'Anpezo, Union Generala di Ladins dla Dolomites)

Outreach[edit]

Stories[edit]

Ensuring a functional and sustainable environment for Wikimedia projects: playing a more active role in policy making processes
At the present moment in Switzerland, regulatory changes are being discussed; these could potentially affect Wikipedia negatively in the future. But before anything happens and Swiss law or the constitution gets changed, political parties and interested stakeholders are being solicited to provide written statements about their position on the presented propositions. This is a great chance for WMCH as those written statements will actually be presented to the parliament and therefore have the potential to significantly influence the decision making process. In 2016, Wikimedia CH submitted two written statements. First, a statement was issued with regards to the the revision of the Swiss Telecommunications Act which poses a threat to Net Neutrality. A second position was taken on the revision of the Federal Act on Copyright where the extension of the period of protection is a great danger for the use of media on Wikimedia projects. Last but not least, WMCH also provided advice to the parliament and Federal Council with regards to an ongoing discussion on whether it should be prohibited for Federal Employees to edit Wikipedia. WMCH was pleased that the community's voice was heard and that following its intervention, the Swiss Federal Council published a detailed statement allowing its employees to continue editing Wikipedia in the future. We believe that the Chapter has a strong role to play in representing the interests of the community when changes of legislation may endanger the possibility to use or contribute to the Wikimedia projects. It also puts the Wikimedia brand on the map which is also of great interest. Please find both written statements under the following links:
Statement Copyright Revision
Statement Net Neutrality

Developing strong synergies with like-minded associations
The Swiss context is very favourable for the implementation of non-profit associations. this situation has led to an astonishing network of NPO's or NGO's established in Switzerland, each having a high impact on social life in general. What is more, the local administration and the Swiss Confederation consider themselves as a big value for the country. Whereas this situation is very positive in terms of reaching out to potentially like-minded associations, it also bears a risk as the relatively high number of associations and organisations per inhabitant means that Swiss people, who are devoted to volunteerism, may be member of more than one association. It could also mean that their membership is highly volatile because of the vast offer of opportunities for volunteering across the country.
WMCH, considering those conditions, started to collaborate with like-minded associations like Opendata , the Swiss Public Domain Foundation or more locally oriented ones like ATED in order to have a higher impact and to support initiatives reciprocally. This means for example, sharing the effort for organizing events but also retaining volunteers through targeted campaigns. Joint events increased during 2016 and as a result, we've seen a greater number of attendees at events. A great case study here would be the Opendata conference with 200 attendees.

Wikipack Africa
The WikiPack Africa Digital Schools Project is designed to encourage school children and teachers to use the technology provided by Orange’s Digital Schools Project in order to collaborate on a digital environment whilst contributing local knowledge to a global platform.
It thus amalgamates the WikiPack Africa, a Wikimedia movement project, into the Orange Foundation’s Digital Schools Project and features a Wikipedia Article Writing Contest in African Schools that is supported by the Orange Foundation (and beyond).
Why is WMCH involved in this project?
WMCH truly believes in the dissemination of free knowledge especially in parts of the world where internet is scarce and access to knowledge thus limited. By acting as financial umbrella and active partner in this project, WMCH will not only have access to some external funds and interesting metrics (to be reported on for Q3 and Q4) but also to an attractive communication channel as two core elements of the project will require targeted communications campaigns (English and French) with varying degrees of intensity. These are:

  • Creating the WikiPack Africa and raising interest, excitement as well as support among the Wikimedia community
  • Launch, activation drive, ongoing encouragement and support of the WikiPack Africa Digital Schools Contest project among Wikimedia volunteers driving support, engagement and contribution

We are currently in the progress of revising the legal procedures to ensure that our name is mentioned wherever this project gets communicated. This will create further awareness within the general public of our activities and put WMCH centre-stage.

Gallery[edit]

Progress table[edit]

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Legal opinions

By Q2/2016, provide the Swiss Commons users with a series of clear answers on 10 to 20 of the most common issues listed in Commons:Copyright rules by subject matter. We will include this item in our satisfaction survey and expect a 90% satisfaction rate.

n/a n/a n/a So far, two answers provided to Italian Swiss GLAM (Monte Verità and Museo della Radio) in order for them to be able to select content which is not protected by copyright (or has a copyright which already expired).
Opendata.ch:

Pursue partnership (0.2 FTE financed by Opendata Switzerland). Help organize Opendata's general assembly, the Opendata.ch/2016 conference with 150 attendees and support Wikidata as a main theme. Potentially 30-50 new contributors and several thousand Wikidata items impacted.

Partnership existed already in 2015. The yearly conference was successfully planned & rolled out on the 14th June 2016, the program is available here. On target. Opendata.ch has been our trusted partner for several years and has been actively lobbying for the release of government data to the public domain. Opendata held its Energy Hackdays on April 8 & 9 with a total of 55 participants. Furthermore the annual open data conference took place on June 14, with over 200 participants, and Wikidata was officially part of the program with Lydia Pintscher' s participation.The program of the event is available here.
ATED

Co-host 9 events

n/a Partnership ongoing. On target WMCH is sponsor of ATED (Swiss Italian association of IT companies) and was present in several official communications. During the General Assembly of ATED, WMCH presented Wikimedia projects. 3 events have been co-hosted ([8] [9] [10]). However, in Q3 and Q4, it has been decided to reduce the co-hosting in order to be able to support the education field a bit more (which will be a top priority for our multiyear strategy to be released soon). The Youth Hackathon also has been organized with the support of ATED.
UNITAS / Frontenders

Build a process to monitor user accessibility of Wikisource documents by testing at least 100 items with blind/low sighted individuals. 10 new users.

n/a Selection of potential partners. On target The project will work strictly on a tool for blind people. It will be built around a partnership with an association of blind readers to be selected during the second half of 2016.
BIS conference

400 attendees, 1 address and 1 editing workshop, 10 GLAM partnerships initiated as a result.

n/a Accepted speech On target The conference will be held on September 1, 2016.
Swiss Public Domain Foundation:

300 rare music records digitized and uploaded on Commons. One active user. 30 articles impacted.

283 files digitzied in 2015 34 out of 300 On target.
This is where we strive for very high quality material - the relationship with the Swiss Public Domain Foundation has been ongoing for several years now. 134 songs have been digitized so far, whereof 34 music records have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The remaining 100 songs are still under revision for copyright status. More digitziation work is being foreseen for autumn 2016, where Wikimedia CH will directly support the process by collaborating with "specialisterne", an association of people with autism who are interested in digitizing old music records.

Tools[edit]

Stories[edit]

The need for improving processes
The information technology area underwent big and rapid changes in the last decades. Usually, the improvement of processes and the re-organization for becoming more efficient and effective are frequently connected with an introduction of good tools or by automated systems also controlled by tools. Whereas this is a major opportunity, it also poses a threat as the proliferation of tools and of software development creates a vast basket of things which are not always fully tested and well experimented. There is indeed a chance of simply developing tools without having concretely analysed a situation and without a thorough evaluation of the outcomes, potential value to end-users as well as other areas to be solved with these tools.
The stance that WMCH takes regarding new tools is different and follows a dual strategy:

  • We ensure preliminary planning and analysis in order to find out, if new tools are really required and if those thought will represent a real solution for a given problem. Within this analysis, a project plan will be drafted, in order to be able to decide if we'll proceed with the execution phase or whether we should withdraw. Indeed, in certain cases, problems might have been overestimated or could be solved in a more effective way. The cost/benefit ratio also plays an important part in this primary evaluation.
  • In a second phase, we investigate if a particular tool already exists and can match the specifications or could be re-used as part of a bigger tool. The approach of WMCH takes its inspiration from bottom-up activity within the community of developers and does not want to re-invent the wheels in any way. Only gaps which could not be closed otherwise will be addressed and needs taken into account that are identified and expressed directly from within the community.

We are thus introducing a very different approach and focus more on the problem itself as well as on the final end-user than on the tools' development. During the first half of 2016, we conducted some activities in terms of investigation and analysis, defining clear requirements, plans and possible solutions. The outcomes will enable us to enter Q3 and Q4 with reflected choices meeting concrete needs.

KIWIX: Make Wikipedia offline accessible by increasing content and decreasing costs
In 2016 WMCH continued its support for KIWIX - Wikipedia offline and major milestones were accomplished, such as the release of a functioning KIWIX Raspberry pi version which will significantly decrease the costs for hardware with regards to making Wikipedia and other HTML-content offline accessible. Besides this major improvement on hardware, we also broadened the variety of content which is accessible offline: For example during the KIWIX Hackathon in June, volunteer developers have achieved to build an offline version of the famous „PhET Interactive Simulations for Science and Math“

  • Learnings: We learnt that most of the developments happen on Android and the app(s) is/are well ranked on Google Play. Compared to that, the iOS global mobile market share is only 10% the size of Android. It’s also a fact that the iOS KIWIX app is still young and - although its good quality and intense development - not so well ranked on iTunes.
  • Challenge: We can see that desktop apps downloads suffer now from an old code base (~10 years for part of it) and lack of development.
  • Impact: In Q1 and Q2, the KIWIX software was downloaded 413’000 times (Win/OSX/Linux=280.000, Android=91.000, iOS=4.000, others=38.000) which represents a +15% growth in comparison to the same period last year (2015). Apparently the Android audience is growing whereas the other channels are stable.

Progress table[edit]

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) Projected (end of year) Comments
Kiwix

Roll out Raspberry pi (q1). 2 mini-hackathons (Q2/Q4); 750,000 downloads on various platforms; engage at least with two major donors for 2017 (for a total of USD 100-150,000); renew existing partnerships with at least two of our current partners; extend reach to more than 1,000,000 individuals.

Example 413'000 out of 750'000 downloads
On target.
  • In Q1 & Q2, the KIWIX software got downloaded 413'000 times (see story for more information). If we continue the effort to consolidating the project and align technical, communication, finance and management efforts, we are on a very good way to approach to our goal for 2016 and reach 750'000 downloads.
  • Thanks to the first KIWIX Hackathon in January, a functioning KIWIX Raspberry pi version was rolled out in the first quarter of the year 2016.
  • This said, two Hackathons took place in 2016, one in January and the other one before Wikimania in June, with a total of 15 persons participating. During the second Hackathon, the volunteer developers have achieved to build an offline version of the famous PhET Interactive Simulations for Science and Math“.
  • Preparation work is ongoing to assure that we will be ready for 2017 to engage with two major donors.
  • In terms of partnerships we were able to again collaborate with Google in Zurich: 5 Googlers invested one day of their work for fixing bugs of KIWIX. The activity was supported by one volunteer developer and one staff member.
Wikimini

Launch another language version by Q3; user count increases by 10% vs. 2015; Survey editors (Q4) to confirm transition to Wikimedia projects

n/a tbc tbc We have asked the volunteer for an update on the project and we are still waiting for his feedback.
Tools:

Gap analysis completed by Q1; First set of tools beta-launched by Q2-Q3; roll-out and sharing with other chapters by Q4

n/a 1 out of 3
Above target The gap analysis has been conducted, the development has been moved to Q3 and Q4 (development of prototypes). The project plan for two tools has been started conducting stakeholder interviews. The delay in the implementation is due to additional requirements that were voiced during the interviews. These now need to be reviewed.

Revenues received during this six-month period[edit]

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal. Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
APG CHF 294,000.00 294,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 294'000.00 305,113.20 305,113.20  
Fundraising CHF 341,000.00 111,831.87 8,830.73 0.00 0.00 120,662.60 238,694.00 125,223.65  
Membership fees CHF 15,000.00 9,392.87 1,044.64 0.00 0.00 10,434.51 15,567.00 10,828.93 second reminder to be sent in Q3 to 90 members
Opendata.ch CHF 22,000.00 0.00 9,573.25 0.00 0.00 9,573.25 22,831.60 9,935.12 invoice for June 2016 service not yet sent
Fundraising fee CHF 60,000.00 43,587.60 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 62,268.00 43,587.60  
conferences and workshops CHF 5,000.00 0.00 598.75 0.00 0.00 598.75 5,189.00 621.38 Q3: CHF 1,700.00 to be invoiced for conferences given in Q2
Pro bono / in-kind donations CHF 45,000.00 10,507.00 15,417.00 0.00 0.00 25,924.00 46,701.00 26,903.93 location provided for: meetings, workshops, ateliers, courses by National Library Bern (CHF 750.00), Universities and Specialized Schools in Geneva (CHF 5,934.00 + CHF 970.00), Bern (CHF 250.00), Basel (CHF 500.00), Luzern (CHF 250.00), Zurich (CHF 750.00), Social Archives (CHF 500.00), Google (CHF 250.00); hours for: website development (KIWIX, WMCH) by Y&R (CHF 6,400.00), KIWIX development by 5 Google developers (CHF 6,000.00), location and catering: 2 events by ATED (CHF 1,000.- each), museum in Geneva (CHF 870.00)
Merchandising KIWIX CHF 26,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 26,982.80 0.00 WikiPack Afrika - Orange Foundation Project
TOTAL CHF 808,000.00 D E F G H 838,542.40 J N/A

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this six-month period[edit]

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)
Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Community CHF 54,500.00 3,214.90 15,227,37 0.00 0.00 18,442.27 56,560.10 19,139.38 33.84 Scholarships WikiCon FR and DE in Q3, Scholarship Wikimania 2016 reimbursement still ongoing
Content CHF 33,000.00 342.45 641.90 0.00 0.00 984.35 34,247.40 1,021.56 2.98 small GLAM projects in Q3, due to similarity of projects merge WikiVillage and WikiVoyage in Q4, Wiki Loves Earth prizes in Q3, Alpine dialects ongoing in Q3 and Q4
Outreach CHF 18,500.00 3,468.92 5,773.06 0.00 0.00 9,241.98 19,199.30 9,591.33 49.96 -
Tools CHF 86,500.00 421.84 4,565.35 0.00 0.00 4,987.19 89,769.70 5,175.71 5.77 small tools planned for Q3 and Q4, KIWIX contractor as of Q3, wikimini.org invoice for CHF 15,000.00 in Q3
Operations (excl. staff and programs) CHF 93,800.00 16,441.37 15,858.93 0.00 0.00 32,300.30 97,345.64 33,521.25 34.44 ICT project as of Q3
Staff expenses CHF 379,372.17 83,368.84 101,110,20 0.00 0.00 184,479.04 393,712.44 191,452.35 48.63 -
Operating reserves CHF 100,000.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 103,780.00 0.00 0 Communication Consultant 20% as of Q3
TOTAL CHF 765,672.17 107,258.32 143,176.81 0.00 0.00 250,435.13 794,614.58 259,901.58 32.71 N/A

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Compliance[edit]

Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement?[edit]

As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

  • no deviations

Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • YES

Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

  • YES

Signature[edit]

Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.

Resources[edit]

Resources to plan for measurement[edit]

Resources for storytelling[edit]