Grants:APG/Proposals/2016-2017 round 1/Wikimedia Israel/Proposal form
Proposal by Wikimedia Israel to support its annual plan with Template:Usamountrequested/2016-2017 round 1/Wikimedia Israel.
Template:Summary/2016-2017 round 1/Wikimedia Israel
We ask that you please don't make any changes directly to this page after the proposal submission date, but comment on the discussion page.
If you need to review the edit instructions you will find them in the edit intro.
- Use this form if you are eligible to submit a proposal in the current round, to request funding in the current round.
- This form must be published on Meta by the proposal submission date for each round to be considered, and no changes may be made after the submission date without staff approval.
- This form complements your organization's annual plan, detailed budget, and strategic plan. It won't be considered complete without a detailed budget and strategic plan.
- Organizations may apply for a funding period that does not exactly match their fiscal years. Follow the instructions carefully to understand what time period each question refers to.
- Refer to the framework, guidance from the Board, and the FDC's recommendations before using this form, so you have an understanding of the Annual Plan Grants process.
- Please Email FDCSupport@Wikimedia.org with questions about using the form.
A few terms used in the form:
FDC proposal form terms Wikimedia terms Learning & Evaluation terms
Overview[edit]
- 1. In order to support community review, please provide a brief description of your organization's work in the upcoming funding period.
| 2015-2016 has been a year of stabilization and significant growth for Wikimedia Israel, seeing the expansion of our successful programs in education and the Academia, the hosting of the international hackathon in Jerusalem and, consequently, and starting out community development efforts. In all these efforts, we have put emphasis on being a learning organization, measuring and discussing our results, and so we’re strengthening working models (like our training tools and our work with gifted and excellent students, which will expand to Arabic speaking schools this year), and scaling back on things that weren’t successful (such as the Archivists’ wiki course). Following the board discussions on retention of editors who participated in Wikimedia Israel programs, we build a new plan for Continuous Editors of Hebrew Wikipedia (a new editor that participated in one of Wikimedia Israel activities and continued editing) in order to encourage them to become regular editors. |
- 2. Name, fiscal year, and funding period.
- Legal name of organization: Wikimedia Israel
- Organization's fiscal year: 01/01-31/12
- 12-month funding period requested: 01/01/17-31/12/17
- Currency requested: NIS
- Name of primary contact: Michal Lester Levy
- 3. Amount requested.
1 NIS = 0.26393 USD
Table 1
| Currency requested (NIS) | US$ (1=0.26393) | |
| Total expenses for the upcoming year | 1,328,400 | 350,605 |
| APG funding requested for the upcoming year | 860,000 | 226,980 |
| Amount of funding received from WMF for the current year | 834,000 | 211,944 |
- 4. How does your organization know what community members and contributors to online projects need or want? Does your organization conduct needs assessments or consult the contributors and volunteers most involved with its work?
Wikimedia Israel engages with the Hebrew Wikipedia and Hebrew Wiktionary communities in several ways.
The Wiktionary community works tightly with us. We plan together social meetings, the annual course for new editors, contests etc.
We maintain open channels with the Wikipedia community: at least two face to face meetings that WMIL organizes together with community representatives. We announce important events, mostly in the village pump or on appropriate pages. When we plan a special events or activities, we create a project page and invite the community to take part in the planning and / or carrying it out. For example: the writing contest about women - Wikipedians helped in creating a list of names and integrating videos into Wikipedia articles in various languages.
In the beginning of 2017 HEWP will celebrate 200,000 articles, we are already involved in the planning of the celebration.
- 5. Please provide a link to your organization's strategic plan, and a link to your separate annual plans for the current and upcoming funding periods if you have them.
Financials: current year[edit]
The purpose of this section is to give the FDC an idea of how your organization is receiving funds and spending funds toward your current plan. Your current funding period is the funding period now in progress (e.g. 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 for most organizations).
Table 2
Financials for the current funding period Revenues or expenses Planned (budgeted) Actual, until one month before the proposal due date Projected Currency requested US dollars Currency requested US dollars Currency requested US dollars Revenues (from all sources) 1,062,100 269,911 913,399 232,121 990,400 251,700 Expenses 1,062,440 269,997 625,296 158,906 980,400 249,149
Table 2 notes:
A grant of 77,000 NIS already approved.
Programs: upcoming year's annual plan[edit]
This section is about your organization's programs. A program is a defined set of activities that share the same objectives and a similar theory of change. Please share the general goal of each program, and then list the specific objectives that the program will meet. Please do not include information about your organization's operating activities in this section. You may provide information about activities like administration, staff and board training, fundraising, governance, and internal IT in another section or in a supplementary document, but please do not include these activities here as programs.
- 1. For each program, and overall
- Include targets for each of the three shared measures for each program, and overall. If one or more of these required metrics are not relevant to any of your programs, please consult your program officer.
- Also choose at least two grantee-defined metrics to highlight in this section, and include targets for each of these grantee-defined metrics for each program, and overall. (Other program-specific metrics may be included in your program objectives, in the detailed program sections below.)
Table 3
- Participants: The number of people who attend your events, programs or activities, either in person or virtually. This definition does not include people organizing activities, social media followers, donors, or others not participating directly.
- Newly registered: The number of participants that create new accounts on a Wikimedia project. These include users who register up to two weeks before the start of the event.
- Content pages: A content page is an article on Wikipedia, an item on Wikidata, a content page on Wikisource, an entry on Wiktionary, and a media file on Commons, etc. This metric captures the total number of content pages created or improved across all Wikimedia projects.
- Additional Metric A:
- Additional Metric B:
Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Additional Metric A Additional Metric B Community support: Hebrew Wikipedia 615 205 WikiGnomings - 10K instances of wikignoming, 500 new or significantly improved articles, 50 images 50 continuous editors 300 unique participants in face-to-face activities Hebrew Wiktionary 123 20 400 7 continuous editors 7 editors to take leading positions Developers' meetups 90 6 Ladino Wikipedia (lad-wp) 15 10 50 5 continuous editors 2 partners Education: Hebrew-speaking high-schools 2300 750 510 articles, 100 images 60% of the articles to be defined as "quality articles" according to this guide: Article Assessment for Student Assignments – For Teacher 2 umbrella organizations and 7 educational organizations maintain their collaboration with Wikimedia Israel Education: Arabic-speaking high-schools 100 50 50 articles, 10 images 5 schools to join the program 3 schools continue to the next school year Higher education 1100 650 650 50% of the articles to be defined as "quality articles" according to the article quality indicator 15 professors continue to the next academic year Volunteer Team of Instructors 16 4 new volunteers to join the team of instuctors TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 4,366 1,695 12,320
Table 3 notes:
In WMIL’s work plan for 2017 there are continuous and new programs. We decided on metrics that suitable for each program and measure the impact we wish to achieve.
The education program in Hebrew and the higher education program are successful and continuous projects. There is a significant increase in the number of articles created over the last three year in these programs and now we are ready to learn about the quality of the articles too.
Long standing partners are key for WMIL growth of activities. Teachers, schools, professors, etc. who work with us year after year need less training and support and they are great ambassadors too. Working closely with them enable us to deepen and broaden (recruiting new partners) our programs.
Continuous Editors is a shared metric for all community programs. The retention of new editors is one of WMIL biggest challenges for 2017.
We created an unique metric for our work with the Wikictionary community: Leading positions - editors who take upon themselves roles in content creation activities or in social activities. Currently there is a small number of very active volunteers that take part in all online and offline activities. If we wish to expand activity, it is very import to engage additional active volunteers.
- 2. Please list your goals and objectives for each program. Please be sure your objectives meet all three criteria for each program
- The objectives listed are each SMART: specific, measurable, attainable and relevant, and include time-bound targets.
- Include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets, and remember to highlight your baseline metrics.
- Provide any additional information that is important to our understanding of this program. For example, you may include needs assessments, logic models, timelines, tables, or charts. Share how this program will contribute more broadly to movement learning, or explain how your program aligns with important Wikimedia priorities such as increasing participation and improving content on the Wikimedia projects.
Community Support[edit]
Hebrew Wikipedia[edit]
| Program | Participants | Newly registered | Content pages | Continuous | No of unique participants |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Community support: Hebrew Wikipedia | 615 | 205 | WikiGnomings - 10,000; New or improved articles 500 | 50 | 300 |
Continuous Editor - A new editor that participated in one of Wikimedia Israel activities and continued editing for two months after being recontacted.
Number of unique participants in face to face activities.
Goals and Objectives
Support face-to-face activities of the Wikipedia community with the participation of at least 300 individuals, of which at least 30 are new participants.
Establish contact with 70% of participants in the chapter’s activities (excluding high school students), 20% of participants will continue taking part in further activities and will continue editing for two months after being contacted.
Support 20 new and veteran editors, Wikimedians and other active contributors, through providing expertise, financial or other resources.
The chapter supports the WikiWomen project through local assistance in organizing activities and providing support for participants, providing office space for local WikiWomen meetups, etc.
The Current Situation
Since December 2015, the position of Community Coordinator has not been filled. The ED and the board have invested precious time in recruiting the best coordinator but the right candidate has not yet been found. This lack of staff called for a reevaluation of the work plan for 2016: some components have been removed, others have been divided among the rest of the staff and volunteers. Social gatherings and other social activities took place as planned. The leading volunteers who run initiatives (WikiWomen, photography tours and contests) got all the support they needed. We found it difficult to organize new activities without a dedicated coordinator who will encourage the editors to take part in new enterprises. During 2016, Wikimedia Israel staff took upon themselves more tasks and duties than was planned. But the ongoing communication with the Wikipedia community was not affected.
In September 2016, following publications in the press about two deletions, a heated discussion carried in the village pump. Wikimedia Israel was very positively mentioned several times by some Wikipedians:
- I must say that lately (since User: Lester took on the management of the chapter) [the] relations between the chapter and Wikipedia have greatly improved and I saw a lot of constructive activities that Wikimedia Israel carries out in favor of Wikipedia. I guess if we turn them or even if Michal could see a debate they already know how to treat it without our involvement.
- Itzik [Edri] is doing a very good spokesmanship about Wikipedia matters, and I do not see a need to reinforce it. [...] If there are more Wikipedians who would like to take part in interviews on Wikipedia matters, they should notify Itzik.
Due to almost a full year of searching for a suitable candidate, we redefined the job description and created a new position - User relationship coordinator, that will be responsible for executing the community work plan. We realized that the previous job description was not up-to-date and would not answer our needs.
Simultaneously, the board learnt the subject of “Survivals” (We like better the notion of Continuous Editing). Wikimedia Israel meets hundreds of participants that create new accounts in its different programs. Most of them do not become active editors, but some of them might, if they are given the proper encouragement. The ED gathered information using the Wikimetrics on this subject. We discussed it in two board meetings, and found that there is no clear pattern (namely, we could not establish that a specific activity brings more contributors than others). Although, there is some potential for contributors to keep editing when voluntarily participating in our programs. Wikimedia Israel community support will focus on contributors in the coming year.
Desired change
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During 2017, Wikimedia Israel will continue to support face to face activities such as social gatherings and tours. A monthly Wikiwomen meetup will take place at the WMIL office and we will work with their leading volunteer to run editing courses and social gatherings. We will continue to be involved in the Facebook page of Wikiwomen and invite women to be part of the group and edit!
Contest and improvement drives help to create content but also give us a chance to get to know active editors and contributors that can be involved in other activities of Wikimedia Israel. At least two contest and one improvement drives will come to pass during 2017.
Encouraging contributors to keep editing will be our biggest challenge of the the coming year. More than 1000 people start to edit in Wikimedia Israel programs. Some of them write an article as an assignment in high schools or universities, others participate in editing courses and so on. If 20% of them continue to contribute it will increase edits by tens of percentages. The user relationship coordinator will run special online and offline activities for new editors such as writing contest for new editors, meetups and acknowledgement of the best contributors in the WMIL newsletter. Additionally, the coordinator will encourage them also to take part in community gathering and online activities.
Hebrew Wiktionary[edit]
|
| Program | Participants | Newly registered | Content pages | Continuous | Leading positions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hebrew Wiktionary | 123 | 20 | 400 | 7 | 7 |
Grantee-defined metrics
- Continuous - A new editor that participated in one of Wikimedia Israel activities and continued editing for two months after being recontacted
- Leading positions - editors who take upon themselves roles in content creation activities or in social activities
Goals and Objectives[edit]
- Reinforce the sense of community of editors and contributors taking part in the Hebrew Wiktionary project through the support of at least three face-to-face meetings.
- Wikimedia Israel supports at least three content creation activities for the Hebrew Wiktionary, which include the creation or expansion of at least 400 articles, with the participation of more than 100 contributors.
- Recruit at least five editors to lead activities during the year.
- Retain 50% of the course participants and ensure their continued contribution, through integrating them with online and offline activities of Wiktionary.
The Current Situation
Two years ago, we began a process of investing efforts in strengthening the ties with the Hebrew Wiktionary community. The community was very small with a relatively low activity threshold (about 300 edits a month). The common goals we set were: expand the community of regular editors in the project and increase the number of articles. Our joint efforts started with the production of an ongoing course (10 weekly sessions) teaching how to write dictionary entries (lexicography), in cooperation with the Academy of the Hebrew Language - the body responsible for the study of the Hebrew language and its development. The course provided technical and lexical training for writing dictionary entries, and was professionally supervised by scholars from the Academy of the Hebrew Language and volunteers from the Wiktionary community.
The course was successfully completed and half of its participants continued editing for the project (on different activity levels). Following our successful experience with the course, we went on to train an additional cohort in cooperation with the Academy of the Hebrew Language and the National Library in Jerusalem in order to allow access to various databases. Additionally, we organized community gatherings, in cooperation with the editors, dealing with formulating the project policy, mobilizing volunteers, organizing writing contests and award programs and performing improvement drives on various topics.
As a result of the offline activity, we observed an increase in the online activity as well, including some 2,000 edits per month (an increase of 78% 2016 from the previous year [August 2016]); a number of active editors who contribute content on a daily basis and an increase of 200% in the number of very active editors. Since project activities increased significantly, and new editors joined the project, new technical needs emerged. Therefore, with the help of the forming group of developers (will be elaborated in the chapter discussing gatherings for developers), we have compiled a list of tasks and bots needed for the development of the Wiktionary project. Currently, there is a number of developers who are primarily engaged in improving the infrastructure of the Wiktionary project. We are currently busy with producing the third cohort of the Wiktionary course; in the coming months we expect to hold two community gatherings, a writing contest and an improvement drive to enhance the Wiktionary help pages in the benefit of new editor.
Desired change
- Strengthening the leading editors participating in the Wiktionary project: currently there is a small number of very active volunteers that take part in all online and offline activities. In view of the expanding activity, it is of prime importance to engage additional active volunteers who will take on roles in leading project activities, such as: become instructors in editing courses, establish contact with the new editors etc. this objective is necessary for the continued expansion and growth of the community on its path to become a thriving and independent one.
- Enforcing the sense of community – this year we will put a special emphasis on building social networks among editors in our social gatherings; to that end we will add facilitated training time to our courses for new editors. Together with the regular editors, we will integrate a social activity with various project activities that will allow for more social cohesion and will lead to stronger independent social bonds among community members.
Community Support: New directions[edit]
Desired change
Developers Meetups[edit]
During April 2016, we hosted the international Wikimedia Hackathon in Jerusalem. This event helped us to set-up meetings for developers locally. 24 Israelis participated in the Hackathon, and they constitute the core group of the forming local community. The group meets once a month in the offices of Wikimedia Israel and works on advancing two main objectives: creating bots for Wiktionary and converting authority records provided by the Israel National Library into Wikidata claims. A number of developers, in coordination with prominent Wiktionary editors, are investing efforts in improving the technical infrastructure of the Hebrew Wiktionary project; moreover, one of the developers even participated in the last social gathering of the Wiktionary community.
- In 2017 we seek to continue holding nine regular meetings for developers, with the participation of some 10 developers in each meeting.
- We will make every effort to increase the number of participants in each meeting, engage new participants (with developing skills) from other Wikimedia projects, universities, and the like.
- We will engage at least six new developers in the meetups.
- By the end of the year we will hold an annual Hackathon in which at least 40 developers will take part.
Note: the metrics for the developers meetups program refer only to the participants and not to products because we are not familiar yet with software development outcomes.
Ladino Wikipedia[edit]
| Program | Participants | Newly registered | Content pages | Continuous | Partners |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ladino Wikipedia | 15 | 10 | 50 | 5 | 2 |
Grantee-defined metrics
- Continuous - A new editor that participated in one of Wikimedia Israel activities and continued editing for two months after being recontacted.
- Partners - Organizations that allow us to reach new audiences without them WMIL could not improve our reach.
Goals and Objectives[edit]
- Recruit one or two active editors and one to two offline volunteers to run an editing course in Ladino language.
- Build a partnership with one or two organizations for enrollment of participants and running a course.
- During 2017 50 articles are written by 10 new editors. 20% of them will continue editing two month after the course
Judeo-Spanish, commonly known as Ladino, is a language spoken by many communities of Sepharadic Jews (one of the main branches of Judaism). Originally a dialect of Medieval Spanish spoken by Jews in the Iberian Peninsula, it spread to Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands and America when Jews were forced to emigrate from Spain at the end of the 15th century. In Israel, there are attempts to preserve the language, including a state-sponsored institute that was created for this end.
Ladino Wikipedia is quite a small encyclopedia with less than 3500 articles and very few editors as well as a small number of very active editors. In Israel, like in most countries, many languages are spoken. We believe that our role is to reach out to communities, organizations and people who might be interested in editing Wikipedias in their languages. Many people don’t know about the option of editing Wikipedia. We would like to expose it to them. Wikimedia Israel has had a very good experience with expanding the activity in Hebrew Wiktionary and we intend to duplicate this success in Ladino Wikipedia.
The first step will be to contact Ladino Wikipedia editors and to engage them in the idea. We believe that they will join our initiative to call up for new editors. The next step will be to build a partnership with academic and local Ladino organizations. Together - editors, organizations and WMIL - will build a program for new editors. We already recruited the first volunteer for this exciting project!
Education[edit]
Programs in Hebrew (High schools)[edit]
|
| Program | Participants | Newly registered | Content pages | Article Assessment | Continued cooperation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education: High schools (Hebrew) | 2300 | 750 | 610 ; 510 articles and 100 images | 60% of the articles | Two umbrella organizations + 7 educational organizations |
Grantee-defined metrics
- Article Assessment - 60% of the articles are defined as "quality articles" according to the Article Assessment for Student Assignments – For Teacher
- Two umbrella organisations and seven educational organizations will continue the collaboration with Wikimedia Israel in the articles writing program. More than 50% of the classes we work with, are operated under the two umbrella organisations.
Goals and Objectives
- Create or expand 480 Hebrew Wikipedia articles by students from 40 classes.
- Recruit at least 20 additional teachers to the program of article writing by students for the academic year 2017-2018.
- At least 50% of educational institutions run the program for article writing by students will continue for another year.
- Some 200 teachers participate in the online training about the use of Wikipedia and its pedagogic implementation. 75% of them will testify that they integrated content taken from the training seminar into their teaching program or that they discussed some of the issues included in the training seminar material with their students.
- 40 teachers will continue to the advanced training seminar and will create or expand 30 Wikipedia articles.
- Creation and integration of 100 images in Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia by students from 4 classes.
The Current Situation
The educational program of Wikimedia Israel includes two main tracks, as follows:
The program for writing articles by students:
In the academic year 2015-2016 we worked with some 650 students from 22 classes in 16 educational organizations. Some 30 educators and 26 volunteers jointly led the program. Some 20 active Wikipedians were involved in the project online activities. During 2015 the activity took place in 15 classes an increase of 50% in the number of classes participating in the program.
Educators participated in training seminars in order to qualify for taking part in the program; they were provided with a variety of planning, teaching and assessment tools developed by Wikimedia Israel. In addition, they received continuous support from our Education Coordinator.
In the first half of 2016, 240 articles were created or expanded on Wikipedia Hebrew and 308 articles were improved using WikiGnome as part of the program. This is an increase of over 80% in the number of articles written by students compared with the number of articles written for the entire year 2015.
100% of the educational organizations we worked with during the academic year 2015-2016, are expected to continue working with us in the academic year 2016-2017. We receive many requests from educators and educational organizations interested in joining the program. These figures reflect the continued expansion of the program across the board, the increasing number of participants (groups and students), the growing amount of program outputs and the quantity and quality of training materials.
Wikipedia-related online courses for teachers in cooperation with the Center for Educational Technology and the Ministry of Education in Israel:
This year, we run two online training seminars for teachers: basic training for use of Wikipedia and its pedagogic implementation, and a more advanced training teaching how to actively create content. The basic training was launched in 2014, and was successfully taught to two cohorts of hundreds of participants in a variety of fields of study. The advanced training was first introduced in the academic year 2015-2016, as a pilot program.
In the summer of 2016 the basic training seminar was updated and improved with the help of our partners (Ministry of Education and the Center for Educational Technology). The update addressed the needs that arised from our researches, and we “tightened” the format of the advanced training before making it accessible to a wider audience of teachers.
Desired change
The program for article writing by students
Our feeling is that the program is stable and well established, we expect to maintain its current format, and expand the scope significantly in 2017. For example, we expect that in 2017, the program will include about 2,050 students and teachers (compared with 730 students and teachers in 2016, based on our forecast), and will produce about 480 new articles and significant expansions (compared with 300 articles and expansions in 2016, based on our forecast).
In fact, we are already in the midst of preparations for a significant expansion of the program: during the summer and autumn of 2016 we enriched the infrastructure for instruction tools available for teachers, we recruited 14 new educational organizations as new collaboration partners, we held training seminars to impart writing project leadership skills with the participation of 30 new teachers, and began assisting them with project planning to be carried out with their leadership in the academic year 2016-2017.
This year also we will put greater emphasis on the quality of articles written by students. Together with teachers, we will assess these articles using the Article Assessment of Student Assignments, wrote by us. We attach great importance to adding quality content to Wikipedia.
Online Wikipedia-related training seminars for teachers in cooperation with the Center for Educational Technology and the Ministry of Education in Israel:
In 2017, for the 3rd time, we will continue running the training seminar for teachers. About 200 teachers participate in continuing education programs. We expect a moderate increase in the number of participants in continuing education programs, due to organizational challenges experienced by our partners, hoping they will be soon resolved. The advanced Wikipedia editing training seminar for teachers is still in its experimental stages, therefore we have not yet accumulated extensive experience with running it successfully. Wikimedia Israel is in constant dialogue with Wikimedia Argentina, conducting consultation and learning sessions for the purposes of running the online training for teachers.
Although we set a modest objective for the number of participants in continuing education programs, we continue to set ambitious goals in two other areas in conjunction with these programs: (a) the implementation of training content in class - 75% of the teachers participating integrate training content in their teaching program; (b) content creation and integration into Wikipedia - 80% of the advanced training seminar participants continue writing articles. These objectives reflect the direct impact of training seminars on teachers participating in them, and the indirect impact on their students and their social networks.
Educational Photography Project
In recent years we have created educational programs aiming at creating textual content for Wikipedia. Now, we feel the time has come to develop activities encouraging students to create visual content for the online encyclopedia. In 2017 we will launch a competition among high school students studying photography, aimed at adding significant visual content to Wikipedia. As part of the competition, students will be asked to add images to articles that do not include images at all, or to gender-biased articles, that include only images of men, whereas their content does not warrant it. We expect that four classes from four different schools will participate in the competition and that some 100 high-quality images will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia. These figures will reflect a 10-fold increase of the number of pictures taken by secondary education students that were integrated in Wikipedia articles, in comparison with previous years.
Programs in Arabic (High schools)[edit]
| Program | Participants | Newly registered | Content pages | No. of school who join the program | No. of schools continued to the next academic year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Education: High schools (ِArabic) | 100 | 50 | 50 | 5 | 3 |
Goals and Objectives
- Engage 3-5 online volunteers and 1-2 offline volunteers to support the article writing project in the Arabic language.
- Recruit 6-7 schools to participate in the project. At least five schools join. At least one class in each school participates in writing articles.
- During the school year some 50 articles are written by 80 students.
- At least three schools continue participating in this activity the following year.
The Current Situation
"Students Edit Arabic Wikipedia" is a new WMIL's initiative. The program is based on the extensive knowledge and experience WMIL has gained during the past three years working with Hebrew-speaking gifted and talented students. We raised a special funding for this program for 15 months (10/16-12/17) from a private foundation.
In 2016 two volunteers have been running a small pilot program in two Arabic speaking schools and three training tools have been translated and culturally adapted into Arabic. Nowadays we are in the process of hiring a project manager.
Desired change
The first phase will be to engage online and offline volunteers that will support the project and call up for schools to participate in the program.
- At least five schools will join the program and one or two class of students (from each school) will edit in Arabic Wikipedia.
- The students will write at least 50 articles.
- During 2017 we will build strong connections with schools that will enable us to expand the program in the coming years.
Supplementary Information for the Education Programs
Wikimedia Israel and Wikimedia Argentina maintain continuous working relations for mutual learning, exchange of ideas and consultation on educational issues. Both organizations run educational programs with the participation of teachers and students. Every several months the respective teams from both organizations hold conversations to discuss learning and progress. We attach great importance to the joint work of the two chapters. We hope that this collaboration will be expanded to all the chapters which run education programs.
Higher Education[edit]
|
| Program | Participants | Newly registered | Content pages | Article Assessment | No. of professors continued to the next academic year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Higher Education | 1100 | 650 | 650 | 50% = 325 | 15 |
Article Assessment - Article Assessment - 50% of the articles are defined as "quality articles" according to the article quality indicator.
Goals and Objectives
- Run Wikipedia Assignment program in at least 15 courses in one higher education institution during the academic year 2016-2017.
- By the end of 2017, 15 lecturers from various higher education institutions, endorse the Wikipedia Assignment program in their courses.
- At least 15 professors request to continue participating in the program in the next school year 2017-2018.
- Students write or expand about 650 articles during the year as part of our higher education activities.
The Current Situation
Currently, the Wikipedia Assignment program is endorsed as an academic assignment in 20 courses (including 10 new) in 9 different higher education institutions across Israel. This activity is supported by volunteers and staff. This reflects an increase of 50% in the number of courses compared to 2015. In the first half of 2016, 583 new articles were either created or expanded and we expect the content contribution to increase by the end of the academic year. This number of outputs constitutes a significant increase (more than 300%) compared with the 150 articles that were created and expanded during 2015.
Presently, our academic relations coordinator with the assistance of board members are contacting department heads and faculty with a proposal to join the project for the upcoming academic year.
By the end of 2016, we will launch a website dedicated to faculty and students, that will contain guidelines, instruction manuals and auxiliary materials for writing on a variety of areas. The site will provide a complete support system that will allow students to work independently in additions to marketing materials and information to encourage new faculty to join the program.
Desired change
WikiCampus: new initiative by Wikimedia Israel and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center. This is the first time that an academic institution endorses the Wikipedia Assignment program. With the leadership of the Interdisciplinary Center’s Rector, teachers will integrate article writing into academic writing assignments in dozens of courses in one institution.The rationale of this initiative is a) writing articles for Wikipedia will be included in mandatory assignments in multiple courses whereby students will gain experience in writing and editing; b) faculty will consider editing articles for Wikipedia as a legitimate academic assignment.
- At least 15 teachers will join the project and successfully complete it and seven among them will request to continue cooperation the following year.
- In the academic year 2016-2017 the activities in colleges and universities across Israel will continue and expand.
- Ten faculty members will join the article writing project (in addition to WikiCampus project), at least three of them will be veteran lecturers from previous activities in 2015-2016.
- Major emphasis will be placed on our activity this year on retention of participating faculty.
- Team of volunteer instructors working with higher education institutions will continue their activities and we will continue supporting them.
- Within the framework of academic activities, 650 Wikipedia articles will be created or expanded.
Training Curriculum Development and Training Team[edit]
Goals and Objectives
- Develop and update at least six training tools to encourage editing on various Wikimedia projects.
- Grow the Wikimedia Israel volunteer team and provide them with support by:
- Training Coordinator continues to provide support and personal guidance to the team of volunteer instructors.
- Six training session for the team of volunteer instructors are held during the year, of which at least four online and at least one face-to-face. 70% of volunteers attend at least one meeting.
- Recruit three-four new volunteers to join the instructor team, during gatherings and other project activities.
The Current Situation
Through our training activities, we operate in two primary channels:
Training materials
We have a wide range of materials developed in the last two years, including four tools adapted for large audiences. Our primary tool is an interactive educational software that allows its users to acquaint themselves with Wikipedia’s editing interface and to simulate various editing activities.
Hundreds of users have already used the software, which was launched in September 2015. This tool revealed itself as most effective, as reflected in the positive feedback provided by our volunteer instructors. This creation of hundreds of articles (inter alia, some 450 articles during the first half of 2016) by the users of this software, further supports this positive feedback.
We are now preparing for the launch of an updated, improved and expanded version of the software. This version will continue focusing on editing using the visual editor, but it will also provide users with basic familiarity with the specific Wiki syntax used on talk pages.
Alongside tools for the wider public, we make use of some 15 specialized tools for teachers in the secondary education system. The vast majority of these tools were developed to support the program for writing articles by students, and using them allows us to regulate the activities in the program throughout the year, support and expand it.
Ahead of the significant increase of our planned school activities for the Arabic-speaking community across Israel, we made sure to translate the main tools for teachers to Arabic, and to make the necessary adjustments. The tools that were adapted and translated into Arabic, are integrated into a dedicated page on our web site, which received 3,000 hits since August 2016, thanks to its advertising using Google Ads. Moreover, we adapted and translated some of the materials into English and made sure to advertise them, together with the same tools in the Arabic language, in various outlets; The latter helped us to take an active part in the international discourse of the Wikimedia movement.
Finally, in light of the steady growth of the Hebrew Wiktionary community and the integration of the Visual Editor in the online dictionary, we feel that in 2017 the conditions will be ripe for developing a learning tool for Hebrew Wiktionary editing using the Visual Editor; we will focus our efforts towards implementing this goal.
Volunteer Team of Instructors
During the past two years, our volunteer instructors (15 volunteers) transformed from a small group of volunteers who hardly meet and exchange knowledge, into an established large group of volunteers who meet regularly to share experiences and knowledge, support and consult each other. The transformation was made possible, in part, thanks to video-conference sessions held once every two months in small intimate groups, allowing for active participation and full self-expression. These volunteers play a key role in delivering lectures, and conducting workshops and courses. In addition, we work with about 20 other volunteers that are active in online education projects only, on a less intensive basis.
Desired change (outcome)
Training materials
Although we possess an effective tool that teaches the technical aspects of editing on Wikipedia, we are aware that contributing content to the online encyclopedia is not a mere technical issue. Among other things, such participation involves understanding the guidelines for writing encyclopedic content, as well as the community dimension of Wikipedia (including community structure, talk pages spaces and their accustomed etiquette). Therefore, in 2017 we will strive to: (1) implement training tools on encyclopedic writing that will be launched towards the end of 2016, and (2) create additional training tools that will provide users with familiarity with the Wikipedia community.
The numerous training tools for teachers, provide teachers with comprehensive support while carrying out instructional activities with their students in the article writing program. Now we aspire to emphasize their common features and to make them available in a user-friendly and convenient manner. To this end, in 2017 we will create a uniform design for these materials and make them available to teachers as one toolkit on a specific landing page. Furthermore, we will continue adapting, translating them into Arabic and English, and publish the results to the international community. This is in keeping with our efforts to meet our objectives to expand the Arabic-language educational activities, and continue taking an active part in the international educational discourse of the Wikimedia movement.
Volunteer Team of instructors
The consolidation of the training staff was launched successfully but is still in progress. In 2017, we aspire to continue this process using proven working methods that we used so far: ongoing contact between the Education Coordinator and volunteers and holding bi-monthly meetings. Our minimum objective is to have absolute majority participation (70%) of volunteer instructors in some or all of these meetings.
While we recognize that online meetings facilitate the participation of volunteers, we are aware of the importance of unmediated encounters. Therefore, we will ensure that at least one of the volunteer encounters, planned to take place in 2017 is held during a face-to-face gathering.
We see the expansion of the volunteer instruction team by 10% as one of our objectives for 2017; this expansion will address the constant expansion of our educational activities, and will provide a timely response to the possible dropping of some of the volunteers, as part of an acceptable turnover.
Some of the guides and the education materials created by Wikimedia Israel this year and has translated to English and Arabic:
-
A Guide to Writing Articles about Awards Winning Scientists -
Article Quality in WMIL Enterprises Measurement System and Assessment Indicator -
Wikipedia in Class - Teachers Guide -
Editing Wikipedia - Technical Presentation (Arabic version) -
Article Assessment for Student Assignments – For Teachers -
How To Write an Article (Arabic Version) -
Introduction to Wikipedia (Arabic version)
Free Knowledge Awareness[edit]
Goals and Objectives
- Engage two\three additional photographers for the Photographing Public Figures project.
- Photograph Israeli public figures and integrate their images into Wikipedia to raise the issue of free content and to enrich Wikipedia content. At least 200 images will be integrated into Wikipedia.
- Produce an annual conference and an event marking the Wikimedia Israel ten-year anniversary with the participation of at least 75 people. Raise awareness to free content through these events.
- Position Wikimedia Israel as a significant player in the campaign for the freedom of information in Israel. Participate in all parliamentary and public committees on the subject.
The Current Situation
The Photographing Public Figures project runs for two years already by two dedicated volunteers. In addition to contacting public figures whose Wikipedia articles do not include their images, and attaching quality photos to articles, they contacted various organizations (e.g. radio and TV stations) and photographed a number of public figures.
The current situation in Israel is that state-owned images cannot be used in Wikimedia projects (as reminder, 5 years ago Wikimedia Israel succeeded in change the law to allow noncommercial usage). In 2016, an attempt was made by volunteers as well as staff, to receive pictures of all Knesset members since it was first established, but without much success due to the inability to declare to Wikimedia that it has full rights to all photos. Request to photograph MKs in the Knesset building was turned down.
During 2016 Wikimedia Israel together with other Israeli NGOs, participated in parliamentary sessions of the Economics Committee in an attempt to prevent the copyright law amendment extending the protection period on the copyright of sound recordings and performing rights. Wikimedia Israel submitted a position paper on the subject. We will continue to be involved in this matter and others of its ilk in the coming year as well.
Desired change
The Photographing Public Figures project is a powerful tool in raising awareness to free content. During 2017 we will expand project activities by recruiting additional photographers and by appealing to publicly influential figures and groups to participate in the project.
Wikimedia Israel will continue to be involved in all events, committees and consultations relating to copyright and open-source information. Celebrating the ten-year anniversary event of Wikimedia Israel is an opportunity to involve volunteers and activists and to organize an event of public visibility.
Communication[edit]
Goals and Objectives
- Wikimedia Israel's positioning as a leader in the Israeli education system through participation in conferences and major debates in this field in Israel.
- Increasing the visibility of the organization’s activities through publicity in various channels during the year.
- Maintaining contact with Wikimedia communities and volunteers by publishing a monthly newsletter, local and international blog posts, and other relevant publications in village pump.
- Handling press relationship and press inquiries.
During 2016, we focused on the publication of our training tools for Wikipedia editing, that were translated into English and Arabic. We will continue publishing the tools and other activities to the international community.
This year we will work to increase the number of publications authored by Wikimedia Israel targeting the Hebrew-speaking and Arab-speaking communities in Israel, through a Facebook page and a newsletter; we will also enhance the use of Google Ads to raise the number of hits for our activities.
A newsletter will be sent at least once a month to members and we will continue updating the various Wikimedia communities in the village pump and in other channels.
Staff and contractors: upcoming year's annual plan[edit]
- 1. Please describe your organization's staffing plan or strategy here, and provide a link to your organization's staffing plan or organogram if you have one.
For most of 2016 WMIL has employed 2.8 FTEs: an Executive Director (ED), Higher Education and Finance Coordinator and Education & Instruction Coordinator. Since August 2015, we have been working with a fundraising consultancy firm that helps to diversify WMIL financial resources.
During the last ten months, several attempts were made to recruit a Community Coordinator with no success. A Community Coordinator is a very unique position. The optimal candidate might be an editor, but HEWK community is not big enough to yield several strong candidates. The position was advertised four times and we received more than 1100 CVs. Two of the candidates were Wikipedians but did not meet the requirements. Some “regular” candidates misunderstood the job description and thought that they were being offered the job of running the Wikipedia community. Others were intimidated by the aspect of community work. Unfortunately we have not found the right person yet. With the help of a human resources professional we examined the organizational needs and the interfaces with the communities and redefine the position: User relationship coordinator. The coordinator’s main roles will be to support new contributors and manage the editors’ face to face activities. Although we were one staff member short this year, our volunteers and dedicated staff worked extra hard and filled in the gaps caused by the absence of a Community Coordinator, and we've successfully carried out our work plan with little or no programmatic impact.
In August 2016, an Israeli foundation approved a grant for the program “Students Edit in Arabic Wikipedia”. It covers the cost of 1 FTE for 15 months. Mr. Mohamed Elhega Shoko will choosen as the education coordinator for the Arabic language and will join WMIL team in a few weeks. Nowadays we are in the finals stages of recruiting the user relationship coordinator. We believe that by November the position will be staffed.
- Responsibilities of Education & Instruction Coordinator: leads WMIL's Hebrew education program in schools and educational organizations. Builds up collaborations, trains the leading teachers and works closely with online and offline volunteers who support the education program. As an Instruction Coordinator, develops and helps implement training tools to all WMIL's programs and supports the volunteer instruction team.
- Responsibilities of Education Coordinator for Arabic language: Building and running the education program in Arabic. Recruit schools for the program, train the teachers, run editing workshops and engage Wikipedians in the program.
- Responsibilities of User Relationship Coordinator: work with new contributors to support their editing effort online and offline. Be the main contact person to all the Wikimedias communities in Israel.
- Responsibilities of Higher Education and Finance Coordinator: This role has two distinct parts. The first is running the Wikipedia assignment program in universities and colleges. She builds up collaborations and works closely with the professors. The second part is taking care of the finance and administration of Wikimedia Israel.
- The Executive Director is responsible for the management of the organization according to the strategic direction set by the Board of Directors. The ED’s duties are: plan and manage the human resource (volunteers and staff), finances and programs; and in collaboration with the Board of Directors, develop a vision and strategic plan to guide Wikimedia Israel forward. She also leads new partnerships and heads the fundraising efforts. In addition to the Chairperson, she acts as a spokesperson for the organization and for the Wikimedia Movement in Israel.
- 2. List of staff by department or function.
- You can use this table (or substitute your own list) to show us the number of FTEs (fulltime equivalents) for each department or function, where one person working at 100% time would be counted as 1.0. We need this information about the total number of staff (FTEs) you plan to have by the end of the current funding period, and staff you plan to have by the end of the upcoming funding period.
Table 4
FTEs Department or function End of current funding period End of upcoming funding period Explanation of changes Education & Instruction Coordinator 1.0 1.0 -- Higher Education and Finance Coordinator 0.85 1.0 Called Activities Coordinator. Reduced last year to 0.85 In favor of Master's degree. Will back to full-time position User relationship coordinator 0.8 0.8 Called community coordinator. A coordinator was hired but resigned after two weeks. The coordinator will start working on Novemer 2016 Education coordinator for the Arabic language 1.0 1.0 Will start working in October 2016 Long-term contractors (Fundraising) 0.2 0.2 ED 1.0 1.0 Total (should equal the sum of the rows): 4.85 5 --
Table 4 notes or explanation of significant changes:
- 3. How much does your organization plan to spend on staff by the end of the current funding period, in currency requested and US dollars?
- 535,166 NIS | $136,001 (NIS 3.935=1$ according to the 2016 rate)
- 4. How much does your organization plan to spend on staff by the end of the upcoming funding period, in currency requested and US dollars?
- 2017 staff Expenses: 781,000 NIS | $206,129
Financials: upcoming year[edit]
Detailed budget: upcoming year[edit]
- Please link to your organization's detailed budget showing planned revenues and expenses for the upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017). This may be a document included on this Wiki (Meta) or a publicly available spreadsheet.
Revenues: upcoming year[edit]
Please use this table to list your organization's anticipated revenues (income, or the amount your organization is bringing in) by revenue source (where the revenue is coming from) in the upcoming funding period (e.g. 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017).
- Use the status column to show if this funding is already guaranteed, if you are in the process of requesting funding, or if you are planning to request funding at a later time.
- Please include in-kind donations and resources in this table, as applicable, and use the status column to show that they are in-kind resources.
- Do not include money you plan to draw from your reserves during the upcoming funding period.
Table 5
Anticipated revenues for the upcoming funding period Revenue source Currency requested US dollars Status (e.g. guaranteed, application)
2016 Reserves 10,000 2640 Guaranteed. Foundations 365,000 96,334 Partially guaranteed, the rest is in process: An amount of 216,000 already guaranteed for the education program in Arabic. And 38,000 for Hebrew education and training Revenues from private donations 16,000 4,223 Planning to request, mostly guaranteed
Sponsorships 25,000 6,598 Planning to request. Wikimedia Foundation 860,000 226,979 In process Revenues from membership fees 1,000 264 Planning to request, guaranteed.
Revenues from collaborations 50,000 13,196 Partially guaranteed.
Revenues from courses 1,400 369 In process. In-kind donations [300,000] [79,179] In process, partially guaranteed.
Total revenues (should equal the sum of the rows): 1,328,400 350,603 -
Table 5 notes: If your organization has significant funding other than FDC funds, please note how those funds will be used.
Operating reserves: current and upcoming years[edit]
Please note that there is a policy that places restrictions on how much FDC funding your organization can use to build its operating reserves. If you would like to use FDC funding to for your organization's reserves, you must note that here. You will not be able to decide to allocate FDC funding from this grant to your reserves at a later date.
- 1. What is your plan for maintaining, building, or spending your reserves in the current year and the upcoming funding period? Please use the table below to show the amounts in your reserves at the beginning, year-to-date, and end of your current year, and the amount you plan to have in your reserves by the end of the upcoming funding period.
Table 6
Year Year start Year start (US) Year-to-date Year-to-date (US) Year end Year end (US) Current year (e.g. 2017) 0 0 0 0 0 0 Upcoming year (e.g. 2018) - - - - 0 0
- 2. How much FDC funding is your organization requesting to add to your reserves in the upcoming funding period? If you are not requesting any FDC funding to add to your reserves in the upcoming funding period, you can write zero. 0
- There are no expected reserves at the end of 2017
Expenses: upcoming year's annual plan[edit]
- 1. Expenses by program (excludes staff and operations).
- Program expenses are the costs associated specifically with your organization's programs, and do not include operating expenses or staff salaries, which will be described in separate tables. Program expenses may be the costs of an event, the costs of outreach materials specific to a program, budgets for microgrants and reimbursements, or technical costs associated with specific programs, for example. The programs listed in this table should correspond to the programs you have listed in the programs section of this proposal form.
Table 7
Program Currency requested US dollars Community Support (Hebrew Wikipedia) 91,700 24,202 Wikimedia Communities support 30,000 7,918 Promotion of the creation of openly licensed materials 10,500 2,770 Education and Higher Education 66,100 17,446 Training 65,200 17,208 Raising public awareness to open knowledge and open access 51,000 13,460 International Activities 56,100 14,806 Promoting activity in Arabic 15,000 3,959 Marketing and Advertising 20,000 5,279 Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 405,600 107,050
Table 7 notes: If your organization has significant funding designated for specific programs (e.g. a restricted grant), please make a note of that here.
- 2. Total expenses. Please use this table to summarize your organization's total expenses overall.
- These are divided into three categories: (1) staff expenses from Table 4 (including expenses for staff working on both programs and operations), (2) expenses for programs from Table 7 (does not include staff expenses or operations expenses), and (3) expenses for operations (does not include staff expenses or program expenses). Be sure to check the totals in this table to make sure they are consistent with the totals in the other tables you have submitted with this form. For example, your total program expenses excluding staff will be equal to the total in Table 7, while your total staff expenses will be equal to the total in Table 4 and your total expenses will be equal to the total in Table 1.
Table 8
Expense type Currency requested US dollars Program expenses (total from Table 7, excludes staff) 405,600 107,050 Operations (excludes staff and programs) 141,800 37,425 Upcoming staff total expenses (from Table 4) 781,000 206,129 Total expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 1,328,400 350,604
Table 8 notes:
Verification and signature[edit]
Please enter "yes" or "no" for the verification below.
- The term “political or legislative activities” includes any activities relating to political campaigns or candidates (including the contribution of funds and the publication of position statements relating to political campaigns or candidates); voter registration activities; meetings with or submissions and petitions to government executives, ministers, officers or agencies on political or policy issues; and any other activities seeking government intervention or policy implementation (like “lobbying”), whether directed toward the government or the community or public at large. General operating support through the FDC may not be used to cover political and legislative activities, although you may make a separate grant agreement with the WMF for these purposes.
I verify that no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation will be used
for political or legislative activities except as permitted by a grant agreementYES
Please sign below to complete this proposal form.
- IMPORTANT. Please do not make any changes to this proposal form after the proposal submission deadline for this round. If a change that is essential to an understanding of your organization's proposal is needed, please request the change on the discussion page of this form so it may be reviewed by FDC staff. Once submitted, complete and valid proposal forms submitted on time by eligible organizations will be considered unless an organization withdraws its application in writing or fails to remain eligible for the duration of the FDC process.