Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 1/Wikimedia Israel/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 grant 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.

Metrics and results 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 Grant Metrics. We understand not all Grant or grantee-defined 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/results 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 Grant Metrics.

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. number of total participants
2. number of newly registered users
3. number of content pages created or improved, across all Wikimedia projects
4. please report here on your grantee defined metric(s)
5. please report here on your grantee defined metric(s)


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

Overview[edit]

H1 2018 Highlights:

  • Preparations for GLAM-WIKI conference: in the first week of November we will host the GLAM-WIKI conference. The conference will take place in Tel Aviv and we expect participation of about 150 Wikimedians and GLAM professionals. During the past six months, the keynote speakers were invited to the conference, a unique cooperation agreement was obtained with the Municipality of Tel Aviv - Yafo which sponsors the conference, a designated website was created and registration for stipends and lectures opened. 92 lecture proposals were submitted together with 500 stipend applications! These days we are working with the Content Committee on the final program for the conference.
  • June marked the end of the school-year for high-schools in Israel, and we concluded the activity in the education system until the beginning of the next school-year in September. Activity in the Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedia yielded very nice results, and these days we start preparing the activity for the next school year. For the first time, a Wiktionary articles writing pilot took place in three classrooms. The pilot was quite successful and we intend to continue the project in the next school-year, commencing on September.
  • Wikidata - as part of inspecting new activity areas, Keren Shatzman, Academic and Projects Coordinator, started to learn the initiative and inspect data contribution options from Israeli organizations. Collaboration with the Israeli Film Archive already started. Also, Wikimedia Israel received a small grant from the Israel Internet Association to develop a program in Wikidata.
  • Strategic directions in 2019-2020: during May and June, the Executive Committee and the staff met for discussions to review Wikimedia Israel activity in the coming two years. The process will continue until the submission of the work plan for 2019, which will also include suggestions of new projects, to be approved by the Committee.
  • Changes to the audit committee: audit committee member, Adi Zamir, asked to terminate her position and Sandra Zonensein replaced her. Zonensein is an organizational consultant by training and has extensive experience in supporting business organizations. She brings to the audit committee organizational know-how and experience.
  • Manpower: during H1 2018, the Wikimedia Israel education staff stabilized. Alongside the blessed activity of Keren Shatzman in the academic field and Bekriah Mawasi‏ (who started in Q4 of 2017) in Arabic education, Shai Katz returned from maternity leave. Katz returned to a part-time position and will lead the field of training and courses (senior citizens and other groups). Itamar Nehama who replaced Shai Katz as Hebrew Education Coordinator decided to embark on a new road and in July, Dr. Ruti Alster‏ will start working as Education Coordinator.
Unfortunately, Ran Li-On, the Communities Coordinator, was forced to terminate his work for Wikimedia Israel due to health reasons in February 2018. Li-On worked in Wikimedia Israel less than one year, but in light of the previous, unsuccessful attempts to employ coordinators who were not part of the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community, it was clear to us that the Community Coordinator must be an active or former Wikipedian who understands the community conduct and can liaison with and connect to the community members. As the Hebrew Wikipedia community includes about one hundred active Wikipedians (over 100 edits per month) joined by approximately 600 editors with varied activity level (between 5 and 99 edits per month) we estimated it would be hard to find an appropriate candidate for the position in the community. Also, in the last two years the communication between Wikimedia Israel and the Hebrew Wikipedia communication was good, so we decided to reduce the position scope. In April, Eli Shany started working as Wikipedia Community Contact. Shany has been active in the Hebrew Wikipedia almost since its establishment. He is involved in the community and knows it well. Shany is employed one day a week.


Table 3

Shared metrics

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

Grantee-defined metrics

  1. Additional Metric A:
  2. Additional Metric B:
Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Additional Metric A Additional Metric B
Community support: Hebrew Wikipedia 650 200 500 new or significantly improved articles, 150 images,5.5K instances of wikignoming, 80 continuous editors 300 unique participants in face-to-face activities
H1 126 24 New or improved articles: 249‏, new images: 284 3 continuous editors 80 unique participants in face-to-face activities
Hebrew Wiktionary 25 18 150 30 continuous editors 18 editors to take leading positions
H1 n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a
Developers' meetups 80 20 3 completed projects
H1 21 1 1
Local Wiki-Arabic Group 15 15 15 Number of follow-up sessions / activities that participants will attend: 4 Number of participants who edit more than one article: 5
H1 50 45 42 references added Wikipedia editing course planned for Q3 or Q4
Education: Middle & High schools (Hebrew) 2500 1000 840: 510 articles and 330 images Content retention: Three months after upload, at least 90% of the content is kept, with only minor changes. Continued cooperation:
  1. Teachers’ training: both partners organizations (CET and MOE)
  2. 'Students Write Wikipedia': Three umbrella organizations + 7 educational organizations
  3. 'Students Photograph Wikipedia' and 'Students Write Wiktionary': at least 50% of partner organizations
H1 1630 teachers and students 1400 460: 386 articles, 30 images and 44 wiktionary articles. 98.7% kept. Teachers’ training (CET and MOE): 183 teachers finished the courses;

'Students Write Wikipedia': Three educational umbrella organizations and seven additional educational organizations continue to cooperate; 'Students Photograph Wikipedia': No activity in H1 2018.

Education: Arabic-speaking high-schools 140 60 110 4 schools to join the program 4 schools continue to the next school year
H1 149 77 99 5 schools join the program 5 schools continue to the next school year
Higher education 1100 650 650 12 newly-joined professors 15 professors continue to the next academic year
H1 638 437 371 (257 new, 114 expansions) 11 newly-joined professors n/a
Training (volunteer Team of instructors + trainig tools) 55 instructors 500 Wikipedia courseware users 400 new articles + significant expansions Developing and updating at least 10 training tools 45 volunteers and partners who have been exposed to training tools
H1 40 No information - see [note below] No information - see [note below] Tools developed or updated: 6 30 volunteers and partners exposed to training tools
TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 2018 - 4,565

H1 2018 - 2,654

2018 - 2,463

H1 2018 - 1,984

2018 - 2,340 articles; 480 images; 5,500 Wikignomings;

H1 2018 -

Articles - 1,149 Images - 284


Community Support[edit]


Hebrew Wikipedia[edit]


Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Continuous No of unique participants
Community Support: Hebrew Wikipedia 650 200 500 articles, 150 images, and 5,500 WikiGnomings 80 300
H1 126 24 249 articles (24 expanded), 284 images 3 80


Continuous Editor - A new editor that participated in one of WMIL's activities and continued editing for two months after being recontacted.

Number of unique participants in face to face activities.



Planned Activities:

  • Launching three writing competitions on Wikipedia during 2018 (in March, July and November). In each competition, at least 50 articles will be written, and at least 40 editors will participate, 20 of whom will be new.
  • Holding five editors’ meet-ups throughout the year with at least eight participants in each.
  • Launching the yearly “category drive” during May-June, in which 5000 articles will be categorized.
  • Holding the traditional summer and winter meet-ups of the Hebrew Wikipedia.
  • Managing the Wiki Loves Monuments competition in October/November 2018.

Article writing competition “Energy, Electricity and the Israeli Power Market” was conceived out of collaboration between Wikimedia Israel and the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC). This collaboration should also include guidance to the IEC employees and retirees on article writing and releasing materials from the IEC archive.

The list of articles in the competition was composed by the IEC personnel and Communities Coordinator. The competition opened on March 1st. Unlike in previous competitions, only 14 articles were composed in the competition even after we extended the deadline and published the competition extensively.

Low participation rate in the competition originated from several reasons:

  • There are not enough Wikipedians writing in the field of electricity and energy (this was the reason for holding the competition in the first place...)
  • Although the competition was published in higher education institutions, electricity students did not participate in it. This was not the case in previous competitions in scientific subjects, where students took a substantial part in article writing.
  • The list of articles was not sufficiently varied.

The writing competitions led by Wikimedia Israel seek to close existing knowledge gaps in the Hebrew Wikipedia. Over the years, competitions were held in physics, optometry and three writing competitions about path breaking women. This is an excellent way to create important Wikipedia content.

The Wikipedia community winter gathering was held this year, as usual, and this year despite the heavy rain, 59 Wikipedians arrived (out of whom, 9 new). In addition, several young participants were from the young editors’ meet ups and one of them even gave a lecture about this initiative.

Four Muslim editors also participated in the gathering. They came to introduce themselves, get to know the community and tell of their intention to write articles about Islam in the Hebrew Wikipedia. The group was welcomed and its activity is presented below.

WikiWomen[edit]

Planned Activities:

Wikimedia Israel Strategic Process Meet-Up - April 2017

  • Hosting 10 monthly meetings and two social gatherings throughout the year, in which at least 60 female editors will take part.
  • Starting an online course for women in coordination with the project’s leader (still under discussion).
  • In coordination with the WikiWomen group, we will hold on he-wp special content-creation activity for the International Women’s Day, which will produce at least 30 new articles.

During the first half of 2018 the WikiWomen group activity changed. The change resulted of decrease in the number of participants in the meetings and the departure of the leading volunteer. In order to continue holding face-to-face meetings beyond the fruitful discussions of WikiWomen’s Facebook group (which currently includes 880 members of both sexes), a new group of volunteers recruited, together with WMIL’s Executive Director and member of the Executive Committee, to formulate a new conception for the meetings.

It was decided to hold bi-monthly meetings, each focusing on a different subject and held in cooperation with another organization. This proposal was presented to the Facebook group members and received with enthusiasm. The first meeting in the new format will take place in mid-July and focus on women and literature. It would take place in the Central Library of Tel Aviv.

Another activity that started in 2018 in WikiWomen was the collaboration with Women and Their Bodies association, which deals in women’s health and sexuality. During 2018 two gatherings were held for the association members with 22 participants, including nurses, women’s health experts, a psychologist and active volunteers in the field of healthcare and sexuality. Important articles relating to women’s health were updated and expanded, including: induced abortion, contraceptive methods, tampons, monthly period, home birth, menopause and pregnancy.

The third meet-up of the group will be held at the beginning of August.

Magnus Hellgren, Swedish Ambassador to Israel, in conversation with high school students from Arrabeh, at the WikiGap Edit-a-thon, Tel Aviv

WikiWomen members continued to write Wikipedia articles although they did not meet in person. During H1 2018, 150 new articles about women were composed.

WikiGap

On March 8th, 2018, Wikimedia Israel organized an edit-a-thon to celebrate International Women Day as part of the #WikiGap events around the globe in collaboration with the Swedish Embassy in Tel Aviv. The event took place in Tel Aviv and commended by Magnus Hellgren, the Swedish Ambassador to Israel. The event was attended by veteran Hebrew Wikipedians, 12 students from al-Battouf High School in Arrabeh and their teacher, and Wikimedia Israel staff.

The edit-a-thon ran in both languages Hebrew and Arabic. While Veteran Hebrew Wikipedians wrote and improved 11 articles, the high school students wrote and improved a total of 10 articles in Arabic on women from diverse nationalities and fields: music, cinema, literature, visual arts, translation, research and academia. The students and the teacher were grateful and showed great excitement about the opportunity to take part in the event.

New Audiences[edit]

Senior Citizens[edit]

Planned Activities:

  • Training 100 senior citizens in six courses during 2018. They will improve 200 articles. Retention of 30% of the participants, who will join future activities.

The senior citizens’ courses we held towards the end of 2017 were a great success. Still, we did not open additional similar courses in Q1 2018 due to personnel changes in WMIL. In April 2018 one of the staff was able to start a position that includes coordinating courses for senior citizens, and therefore we continued handling this field.

Senior Citizens editing course, summer 2018

Towards the end of H1 2018 we opened a senior citizens’ course in WMIL offices, and it is now nearing conclusion. The course is based on the successful outline implemented in the previous courses, with changes made following the past lessons learned. The changes we introduced:

  • Quantitative changes: the course includes five meetings instead of four; each meeting lasts three, instead of four, hours; the meetings are usually held once a week, instead of bi-weekly.
  • Content changes: we added practice hours during the meetings; we enabled participants who wish it to receive personal guidance; we added a meeting with one of the alumni of the previous courses who continues to edit in Wikipedia, two talks with senior Wikipedians, meeting with WMIL Executive Director and receiving guidance from her, and a group meeting after one of the participants experienced deletion of content she created; and we removed lectures that have a theoretical nature.
  • Changes in tasks for participants: in the course of recruiting and screening candidates, stronger emphasis was placed on obligation to meet the course’s tasks, including homework; we created three majors for the participants to choose from, and they had to create at least one substantial output according to their selection (the three majors were: translation of articles from foreign languages into Hebrew, improving existing Hebrew articles marked as requiring editing and proofreading; and expanding Hebrew stubs); we added a task of writing in the talk page of a more senior Wikipedia editor; and removed the task of creating a new article.

The main goals behind these changes were:

  1. Putting more emphasis on receiving practical editing tools
  2. Strengthening the sense of efficacy due to completion of a substantial output already during the course
  3. Strengthening the interpersonal links within the group
  4. Strengthening the link of the group members to the Hebrew Wikipedia community
  5. Answering the emotional aspects of Wikipedia editing

In general, the course seems to yield nice results. For example, for the first time, all course participants experiment in creating substantial edits during the course, and many of them initiate editing beyond the course requirements. Still, we can assess the success of the course only after it is concluded with the help of the feedback provided by the participants.

Due to manpower changes at WMIL described above, there was no course coordinator to organize the follow-up meeting for the participants of the senior citizens’ courses that took place in November and December 2017. Therefore the meeting was postponed to H2 2018, when the new course coordinator has settled in her role and completed one course herself.

Young Wikipedians[edit]

Planned Activities:

  • Young editors’ meet-ups - 3-4 meet-ups during the year, with 6-9 participants in every meet-up.
    Avner Efendowicz at Dar AsSalam
  • Finding young editors throughout the year and inviting them to the meet-ups.

Young editors’ meet-ups were not held during H1 2018 since during that period there are few opportunities during school-year vacations. Also, the Communities Coordinator position remained vacant after the end of F 2018. In early July a first meet-up will be held with the participation of a representative from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the request of the participants. He will speak of Israel-India relations, Israel-Pacific relations and the role of the diplomat.

Meetings of Translation and Interest Groups[edit]

Planned Activities:

  • Launch of two article-translation courses in April and October 2018 (each includes two sessions). At least 10 articles will be translated in every course. At least 3 participants continue to translate at least one more article each.
  • 2-3 Wikipedia editing course for interest groups - 10 participants in each course. At least 10 articles will be written or expanded. 10% of the participants will continue to edit after the course.
  • Constant follow-up of the activity of editors who took part in WMIL activities.

Dar AsSalam Editors

Dar AsSalam editors, February 2018

A group of Palestinian editors (native Arabic speakers) from the village of Kofor Qari’ (Israel) joined the celebration of the 17th anniversary of Wikipedia on January 5th, 2018 in Tel Aviv. The group expressed their interest and enthusiasm to edit and improve content about Islam and Islamic culture, history and theology in Hebrew Wikipedia, as one way to contribute to reliable content on Islam to Hebrew Wikipedia readers. Wikimedia Israel organized an editing course which took place in Dar AsSalam center, in the same building of Nidaa’ Al-Haq Mosque in Kofor Qari’. The group was led and instructed by Avner Efendowicz, a veteran Hebrew Wikipedian and volunteer in the organization. Besides teaching the participants technical skills, Avner also focused on introducing the policies set by the Hebrew Wikipedia community. We were impressed by the outcome of the course, throughout the three-meetings course and once the course was finished, the group of 12 new editors edited 149 articles and created more than 50 articles on Hebrew Wikipedia.

In preparation of the translation meetings, the Training and Courses Coordinator began in-depth study of the translation tool, to prepare training tools. However, we found that the tool is still inappropriate for new users that have no previous knowledge of Wikipedia editing. One of the greatest challenges in translation of articles from English into Hebrew is transferring the footnotes. The footnotes templates in English often do not match the Hebrew temples, leading to unclear error messages when the translation is published. Fixing the footnotes requires inspection of each footnote in the English article. We assess that removing the error messages, testing the English footnotes and adding them in Hebrew are actions that are inappropriate for editors in their first steps.

Hebrew Wiktionary[edit]

Planned Activities:

  • Starting a Wiktionary editing course - beginning or middle of 2018, at least 18 participants. 80% will finish the course. 60 new entries will be written.
  • Inviting he-wp editors to take part in Wiktionary activities.
  • Supporting three social or professional gatherings.
  • Joining the he-wiktionary community with the developers’ community to work together on 2-3 technological issues.
  • Following day-to-day activity and sending welcome messages to newcomers by the community coordinator.

In the 2017 Impact Report we notified of the decision not to continue with the Hebrew Wiktionary activity. This, both for the reasons elaborated in the report and for changes in WMIL manpower and little activity of the lead Wiktionary editors. A principal question here is - what is the role of an affiliate in supporting and empowering small initiatives, such as the Hebrew Wiktionary?

After three years of Wiktionary activity, during which two training courses for editors, two writing competitions, editor meet-ups and more were held, there is no doubt that WMIL’s involvement helped increase activity in the initiative. However, nurturing new editors and building a sound community are the responsibility of the community itself.

Developers' Meet-Ups[edit]

Program Participants Newly registered Number of completed projects
Developers' meet-ups 80 20 3
H1 21 1 1


Planned Activities:

  • 10 developers’ meet-ups during the year at WMIL’s offices.
  • Forming a wishlist in full collaboration with the volunteers and based on the needs raised by the communities of Wiktionary, Wikisource and other projects.
  • Inviting more Wikipedians with technological orientation to join the meet-ups, based on the wishlist.
  • Participating in competitions and other free-content-oriented activities in Israel, while presenting WMIL and inviting people to join the community of editors.
  • Examining an option to cooperate with academic institutes - having programming tasks as student assignments.
  • Organizing a local Wikimedia hackathon in Q2, attended by at least 40 developers.

As noted above, in February the Community Coordinator left our team, which resulted in a diminished capacity to promote the stated goals. Despite this, we have continued to hold the monthly developers’ meet-ups (6 so far), and these are attended by a small core group of regulars, with other developers joining occasionally.

WMIL provided scholarships to two of the regular developers to attend the Wikimedia Hackathon in Barcelona, where they worked on developing the Telegram translation bot - a tool to make it possible to edit parts of MediaWiki sites without leaving one's favorite chat or messenger app. The tool is a text chat bot that can be used through Telegram, to translate messages on sites that use MediaWiki with the Translate extension, such as translatewiki.net, mediawiki.org, Meta Wiki, etc.

Following the progress made at the hackathon, the bot is currently running properly on a tool forge server (so it is no longer dependent on a local server), and can be used at any given time. The developers noted that attending the Wikimedia Hackathon was tremendously beneficial, specifically the other participating programmers who “helped us a lot and guided us in parts that were less clear to us or where we did not have the necessary knowledge. We estimate that without access to these people, the project would have been delayed by a month or two”.

Wikidata[edit]

A new initiative which was not included in our original goals for 2018 is to promote Wikidata activity as well as build a Wikidata community in Israel. We received a 50,000 NIS grant from the Israel Internet Association for a project to build a local Wikidata community of volunteers, editors and developers, and to integrate data from Israeli databases (e.g., governmental data from data.gov.il; the National Library etc…) by forging collaborations with relevant institutes.

One such collaboration that is already forming is with the Israeli Film Archive which holds over 30,000 screening prints, 20,000 video cassettes, and thousands of negatives of Israeli films. Since 1999 every film supported by an Israeli fund is required by law to deposit a copy of the film in the Israel Film Archive. The collaboration will entail making the archive’s catalogue available by importing its data to Wikidata so that it can be interlinked to other data sources. So far, 308 Wikidata items were created, more than 1,200 items edited, and almost 1.2M bytes added.

Local Wiki-Arabic Group[edit]


Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Number of follow-up sessions / activities that participants will attend Number of participants who edit more than one article
Local Wiki-Arabic Group 15 15 15 4 5
H1 50 45 42 references added Wikipedia editing course planned for Q3 or Q4
Seminar Invitation: Wikipedia: Libraries with a Wealth of Resources - ويكيبيديا: مكتبات غنيّة بالمراجع

Planned Activities:

Recruiting at least 10 adults for an Arabic-speaking Wikipedia editing course in Arraba.
Each participant will write or significantly expand at least two articles.
25% of the participants will continue to edit in the following three months.
At least 20% will take part in follow-up activities (editors’ meet-up, volunteering in schools etc).

In the last quarter of 2017, Bekriah Mawasi replaced our former Arabic education program coordinator. Due to this change it was not possible to arrange the editing course in Arraba. However, as part of the #1Lib1Ref annual campaign, Wikimedia Israel organized a one-day seminar for Arabic-speaking librarians in Israel in collaboration with al-Qasemi Academy and its library. The seminar’s objectives were: 1) introducing the campaign to librarians, information science specialists and students, educators, and affiliates, 2) training the participants to improve Arabic Wikipedia articles by adding footnotes to reliable sources, 3) exposing the audience to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, and WM Movement’s wide range of activities, 4) promoting awareness on free knowledge and contribution possibilities. A bilingual invitation (Arabic and Hebrew) was sent to public libraries, school libraries, educational institutions and Wikimedia Israel affiliates who showed great support and expressed their appreciation for the initiative.

#1Lib1Ref Seminar participants (March 7th, 2018)
Librarians adding references to Wikipedia #1Lib1Ref

Al-Qasemi Academy hosted the seminar on March 7th, 2018 in its main campus in Baqa al-Gharbiah. The program included lectures, guest talks, and a training workshop. Prior to the event, the participants were asked to fill out a form confirming their attendance and collecting their details. The registered audience, 70 in number, were contacted by the organization and were instructed to create a Wikipedia account, to choose a Wikipedia article they wished to improve by adding a reference to a citation, to bring a book or two with them to the training workshop, and to check out the tool for adding references (books, magazines, journals, and URLs) to articles in Arabic Wikipedia, which was designated to serve the purpose of the international campaign and Wikimedia IL’s key strategy of creating user-oriented instructional materials for multilingual audiences. In order to shorten and facilitate the procedure of search, the registered attendees were provided with the list of articles which appeared on the Arabic “Articles with unsourced statements” category, as the Citation Hunt tool is, unfortunately, not available for Arabic Wikipedia.

The seminar opened with a welcoming message from Michal Lester, Executive Director at Wikimedia IL, and Dr. Walid Abu Ahmad, Director at al-Qasemi library, who expressed his enthusiasm about the collaboration between Wikimedia and libraries, while putting an emphasis on the role of librarians in the midst of massive digitization representation processes, and the possibilities for contribution to human knowledge. The event was moderated by Bekriah Mawasi, Arabic education coordinator at WMIL, who introduced Wikipedia, WMF and WMIL activities and the campaign. Her presentation was followed by a talk with Samir El-Sharabaty, a veteran ar-Wikipedian and writer at the WMF communication dept, who joined the event through Skype from Cairo, Egypt. Samir shared his story of how he became a Wikipedian in the first place. His contribution to the program was remarkable and the participants were excited to hear from a Wikipedian about his experience. The WMIL team wished to have Samir participate in person, yet the plan was not fulfilled due to bureaucratic obstacles. The closing lecture was presented by Samira Mahameed, Head of Information and Guidance Department at Oranim Academic College, on her research which discusses choices of school students when writing content in Arabic Wikipedia.

In between the presentations and lectures, the participants were taken to a training workshop in the computer labs where they were instructed by the WMIL team and volunteer Dror Kamir on how to add a reference to an article that needs a citation. 42 references were added during the workshop.

A total of 50 participants attended the seminar, which was considered a notable success being the first large event WMIL organizes for an Arabic-speaking audience. The audience was inclusive: Palestinian librarians (school and public libraries), academics, educators, journalists and students, all came from different towns and villages in the Galilee, Nazareth, Haifa, the Triangle area, and Jerusalem. 25 librarians organized a group ride to attend the seminar.

WMIL finds libraries and librarians strong and fundamental allies to its mission of collecting knowledge and enabling access to it, and considers librarians leaders who could help unearth the treasures of knowledge found there. Thus, primary talks were held with Elham Halloun Hanna, librarian and founder of The Arab Librarians Forum in Israel, about a future editing course. The course is expected to run in September/October and it seeks to train 10-15 librarians to edit and write articles in Arabic Wikipedia and participate in follow-up meetings and events.

Education[edit]


Programs in Hebrew (Middle & High schools)[edit]


Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Content retention Continued cooperation
Education: Middle & High schools (Hebrew) 2,500 1000 840; 510 articles and 330 images Three months after upload, at least 90% of the content is kept, with only minor changes.
  • Teachers’ training: both partners organizations (CET and MOE).
  • 'Students Write Wikipedia': Three umbrella organizations + 7 educational organizations.
  • 'Students Photograph Wikipedia' and 'Students Write Wiktionary': at least 50% of partner organizations.
H1 1630 teachers and students 1400 460: 386 articles, 30 images and 44 wiktionary articles. 98.7% kept.
  • Teachers’ training: 183 teachers finished the courses, opened in 2017.
  • 'Students Write Wikipedia': Three educational umbrella organizations and seven additional educational organizations continued to cooperate; 386 new articles or significant expansions.
  • 'Students Photograph Wikipedia': No activity in H1 2018.
  • 'Students Write Wiktionary': 44 articles.


Online training seminars for teachers[edit]

Planned Activities:

Continue providing guidance and support for the training, striving to achieve the following goals:

200 teachers will complete the basic course

40 significant article expansions will be created by participants in the advanced course

The collaboration with CET in holding designated courses for teachers according to disciplines continues. The 5 courses which opened in 2017 in the subjects: geography, Hebrew, science, history and history for the Jewish religious sector ended in February 2018. These courses focus on knowledge consumption and other pedagogic uses of Wikipedia, together with general familiarization with the various spaces and different options available to Wikipedia users. A total of 183 teachers participated in the courses.

As reported at the end of 2017, the WMIL team was available to the courses’ instructors and helped by providing tools, solving technical issues and inquiries about the customary norms among the editor community. In three courses, a video-conference was held between all course participants and a Wikipedian volunteer, dealing with the communal aspect of Wikipedia and the volunteer’s personal experience as a senior editor. All three conversations were very successful and highly intrigued the participating teachers.

It is important to note that apart of the aspects noted, the courses were managed and led exclusively by the CET staff. The accrued experience of CET’s instructors and system enables them to lead the courses independently. Therefore, these courses require less and less input from WMIL.

At the end of these five courses the plan was to hold another course in Spring 2018 to continue and enhance the content, but this course was not opened this year due to the small number of subscribers.

Students Write Wikipedia[edit]

Logo of the "Students Write Wikipedia" program used in the template placed in discussion pages of articles created or expanded significantly within program

Planned Activities:

Students from 30-40 classes will produce or expand at least 430 articles in the Hebrew Wikipedia during the 2017-2018 school year.
Three educational umbrella organizations and seven additional educational organizations will continue to cooperate in the 2018-2019 school year.
The utilization of the program’s resources will be improved by the preservation and expansion of quality cooperation (such as those with a high cost-benefit ratio, and having social and educational added value).
Starting in the spring of 2018: Preparations for a moderate expansion of activity in the 2018-2019 school year

During H1 2018 we continued the school programs ‘Students Write Wikipedia’ and the teachers’ courses for working with Wikipedia in the classroom as an educational-pedagogic tool. In addition, for the first time, two initiatives of ‘Students Write Wiktionary’ were held. These initiatives take place in 48 classes in 43 different schools, and approximately 1400 students participate in them. Out of those, 8 initiatives have already concluded successfully with the creation of 460 substantial outputs: 386 Wikipedia articles or substantial expansions, about 30 photos and 44 new Wiktionary articles.


Output

Students from the Ort educational network visiting Beit Ariela libary as part as their Students Write Wikipedia project

In the interim summary, as part of the ‘Students Write Wikipedia’ program, 323 new articles and 63 substantial expansions were published on the Wikipedia article space. Out of those, only 5 articles/expansions were deleted due to little importance or insufficient level. 98.7% of the articles and expansions were fully accepted (without rewriting pattern or other problems that require continued editing). This high figure was obtained thanks to the full and significant support the writing students received from the teachers, and meticulous control of the Chapter team and volunteers throughout the process, specifically during work with the Wikipedia interface and article publication.


Continuity and Regeneration

At the end of the 2017-2018 school year, 93% of the participating schools expressed willingness to continue holding the initiative but in order to maintain high quality standards and after reviewing the output, the added value of the initiatives and cost-effectiveness, we expect to change between 4 and 6 initiatives as we approach the 2018-2019 school year. Our trend, as declared already in the 2017 Summary Report is to expand current high-quality initiatives to additional classes in the same school, on expense of lesser-quality initiatives. This model enables teamwork and mentoring within the school, which greatly assists the success of the new teachers, and requires less involvement of the Chapter in the initiative. When the collaboration within the school includes teachers from various disciplines, it also enables fruitful interdisciplinary dialog and leads to a richer, more significant research process with high-quality output. Anyhow, the collaboration with the 3 ‘umbrella organizations’ will continue, with the purposes of gradually passing the leadership to the senior teachers in these initiatives.

Graduation Ceremonies

WMIL coordinator Matan Golzman (R) with Kobi Shvarzbord Head of Science and Technology at Leo Baeck Education Center, Haifa, June 2018

Several schools which host an initiative of Wikipedia contribution choose to end the process with a festive event or ceremony. The event usually includes presentation of the research and writing process and the outputs to the students’ parents and different position holders, greetings and concluding words, and show of appreciation to the writing students and educational staff. We consider these ceremonies and our presence in them to be highly important for increasing the echo circles of the program and WMIL activity, and an important means for support and enhancing the leading teams and appreciation for their work. In some cases, the initiatives are relatively independent, our involvement is relatively limited and participation in the ceremony retains the relationship between the school and WMIL. Naturally, we are unable to be present in all graduation ceremonies, but we make an effort to be represented in them by a WMIL staff member or volunteer.

Matan Golzman, WMIL Marketing and Events Coordinator, has participated in graduation ceremonies of two article writing initiatives in Leo Baeck Education Center (Haifa), where the high-school students wrote articles about the Righteous Gentile and particle physics.

Article Writing Initiative about Jewish Towns in Lithuania

In Ort Municipal High-School D., Modi’in, this was the second year of the writing initiative about Jewish town in Lithuania, led by teachers Odelia Cohen and Galia Adiv. The 10th graders held research in their Hebrew studies and together with the history teacher about Lithuanian towns where significant Jewish communities lived prior to WWII. The students visited the Holocaust Teaching School in ‘Yad VaShem’ and gathered materials in various languages about the towns they researched. They translated the information they found, sometimes with the help of relatives they recruited to assist them, merged and created drafts that became excellent articles about the towns and their past Jewish communities. Apart of the significant research, writing and experiencing in creating common content, the initiative also included a unique educational-cultural component of commemoration and preserving memory and national legacy.

‘Yad VaShem’ organization which followed the process and output closely recognized the substantial contribution of this initiative to commemorate the Holocaust and education to Holocaust remembrance, and chose to award the school an important national award of its activity. The Ort Municipal High-School D., Modi’in writing initiative was included among the 10 winners of Yad VaShem Award of Education for the 2017-2018 school year, and the students and educational staff were invited during May 2018 to the ceremony of this important award.



Students Photograph Wikipedia[edit]

Photography students from at least three classes will upload 330 photos of their work to Wikimedia Commons and integrate at least 240 of them into Wikipedia (or other WMF projects)

The photography initiative for the 2017-2018 school-year was held in 2017. No activity in this initiative was held in H1 2018.

Students Write Wiktionary[edit]

● Launch a first pilot for the program (including evaluation, conclusions and adjustments)
● Students create 40 entries in the Hebrew Wiktionary (in the pilot itself and in the next round)

As part of the effort to expand the activity and enrich the article space of Wiktionary, we worked in H2 2017 to expand the program ‘Students Write Wiktionary’. After building a master-plan for the initiative which includes training tools and a pool of Hebrew idioms from the Jewish sources, the first cycle of the program launched in March 2018 in two schools. The work model was similar. The students chose idioms from the sources and investigated their origins and meaning under the teachers’ guidance. Later, they compared dictionaries and created a new Wiktionary article. However, while one school held the initiative during Hebrew classes, the other school held it during Judaism classes. In total, 44 new articles were created in the program and were well-received in the Wiktionary space.

The program also created important and significant collaboration between WMIL staff and Wiktionary editors, led by a very active and central system operator who supported the program from beginning to end. He helped review the students’ drafts before uploading them to the article space, helped with technical problems which arose and made contact between us and a volunteer who visited one of the schools and met the students as part of the process.

Due to the nature of Wiktionary articles, ‘Students Write Wiktionary’ has many advantages: the articles have a clear and defined structure, the central supporting books required for the research process - dictionaries - are usually available in schools and are identical to all group participants, the articles are short and focused and do not require extensive writing. These enable expanding the audience of WMIL’s education program in schools, and holding relatively short initiatives that require little resources from the schools and from WMIL. In addition, the task of writing an article on a proverb integrates naturally in the Hebrew curriculum for 10th grade and may contribute to enriching the language of readers and writers. On the other hand, it is important to note that the conditions of the Hebrew Wiktionary leaves plenty of room for students’ activity, but is not as attractive and “branded” like its “big sister”, Wikipedia.

To conclude, we believe that ‘Students Write Wiktionary’ has high potential to establish and expand and intend to expand it to additional schools already in the 2018-2019 school year. Apart for the impact it may have on the Wiktionary article space, it also has a unique educational val

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) 140 60 110 4 4
H1 149 77 99 5 5


Planned activities

  • The Arabic 'Students Write Wikipedia' will operate in at least 10 schools, and will result in the writing or expansion of 110 articles in the Arabic Wikipedia
  • Development and implementation of the Wikipedia Ambassadors Program in half the schools where the 'Students Write' Wikipedia operates

Students Write Wikipedia[edit]

During H1 2018, the education activities proceeded with the “Students Write Wikipedia” program in Arabic. During this quarter, the program was introduced and activated in 7 schools and 1 gifted students center. The program gained ground in 6 schools. The activity in some schools started at the beginning of the school year in September 2017 and continued throughout the first half of 2018. The chapter reactivated its activities in 3 (out of 5) schools which dominantly participated in the project in the previous school year (2016-2017). New schools were introduced to the project although some of these schools (2 out of 8) were not able administratively to adopt the program. However, the activity ran in 3 new schools which showed both commitment and appreciation to the pedagogical value of the project.

A total of 149 students were exposed to the program and the writing process workshops. 74 new articles were written and 25 substantial improvements (expansions) were made. The program is designed to involve students with adequate writing skills, and it was introduced to students of different ages from 8th grades to 11th grades. The program ran across the country in private and governmental schools in 6 cities and towns in Israel: Galilee (Arrabeh and Tamrah), Nazareth, the Triangle area (Baqa al-Gharbiah and Taybeh), and Jerusalem. The chapter wishes to include more Arabic-speaking schools and to expand its activities to reach other areas including the Negev throughout the school year 2018-2019. 5 schools out of 8 expressed willingness to continue holding the program, while initial talks were made with 6 new schools to engage in the program.

The activity in each school was planned to suit and follow the needs of the school and the students as the program offered a wide range of thematic tasks. Two groups (Al-Battouf High School – Arrabeh & The Salvatorian Sisters’ School [Al-Mokhalles] – Nazareth) wrote articles and participated in the program as part of their social involvement programs. As the Bagrut diploma requires social commitment units (measured hourly) which must be completed by high school students prior to their graduation, some students chose to write Wikipedia articles, to gain sustainable skills and to contribute to Free Knowledge as one way to be involved in a community project. The program in these schools consisted of three tasks at least: 1) beginner task (i.e. informative articles about successive Israeli governments and Knesset elections) 2) improving articles (i.e. flags) 3.1) translating articles from English to Arabic on a variety of topics (i.e. biographies, organizations, food) or 3.2) writing new articles (i.e. human rights, geographical and historical sites). Students in these groups wrote and improved 41 articles.

Wikipedia Ambassadors[edit]

One of the H1 2018 objective was to form a group of Wikipedia Ambassadors in schools. The summer program aims to motivate participants to contribute to the production of knowledge through digital and non-digital means in an environment of pleasure and safety through professional workshops, while experiencing the meaning of cooperation, sharing, differences, self-confidence and critical thinking. The program was designed to include Editing Wikipedia workshops and Capacity Building workshops. The general purpose of the summer activity is to prepare the participants adequately and professionally to become Wikipedia Ambassadors in their schools during the upcoming school year.

Plans were made to implement the activity during a three-days summer camp in Givat Haviva campus, allowing 20 excelling students who participated in the “Students Write Wikipedia” during the school to become Wikipedian leaders. Unfortunately, due to calendar obstacles and challenges such as religious holidays (Ramadan and Eid al-Fit and final high school exams [Bagrut] during the summer vacation), the majority of the nominated students were not able to register to the program although they expressed their interest. In spite of the chapter’s efforts in choosing a convenient dates range which does not overlap with school days nor with holidays, there seemed to be another restriction we tackled during the recruitment process: some students expressed willingness to become Wikipedia Ambassadors but found the camp format unsuitable due to sociocultural reasons. Another plan was set to organize the program as a continuous cross-regional activity through the upcoming school year.

Higher Education[edit]

Program Participants Newly registered Content pages No. of newly-joined professors No. of professors continued to the next academic year
Higher Education 1,100 650 650 12 15
H1 638 437 371 (257 new, 114 expansions) 11 n/a


Planned activities

  • Presenting the project in 3 institutions/faculties/departments
  • Integrating Wikipedia writing assignments in five courses in the framework of new organizational collaborations
  • Integrating assignments into 15 courses (collaboration at the lecturer level)
  • Retention of 50% of lecturers (at least 8 lecturers continue from year to year)
  • Writing 450 articles or significant expansions in WMIL-led courses
  • Writing 200 articles or significant expansions in courses led by volunteers

WMIL-led collaborations

Since the last quarter of 2017 we have been directing our efforts at developing collaborations at the departmental level and above all, promoting and familiarizing a broad range of instructors with the Wikipedia assignment, rather than approaching individual instructors. With this approach we had meetings with the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Ben-Gurion University, the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the Bar-Ilan University, the Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Vice-Dean of the Graduate School at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), the President of Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, the Dean and the Vice-Dean of the School of Economics at IDC Herzliya, the Director of Academic Social Development and Head of Pre-Academic Preparatory Programs at the Ono Academic College, and the Vice-Chair of the Council For Higher Education.

While the response of heads of departments/faculties/institutions to the idea of a Wikipedia assignment was generally positive, implementation proved to be more difficult. In several cases deans sent out an email to the whole staff, but this was mostly ineffective – there were very few reactions from instructors through this channel. The academic coordinator presented the Wikipedia assignment to groups of instructors at the Science Communication research group at the Technion, and to teachers of the “academic literacy skills” course at the Hebrew University, but in most institutions deans and heads of departments were reluctant to organize a meeting in which we would present the Wikipedia assignment to their staff.

Although eventually 11 new instructors joined the WMIL-led Wikipedia assignment project (in addition to 7 instructors who continued from previous years), we did not succeed in developing truly organizational (department level and above) collaborations. While it is possible that we will see the fruits of our efforts in the future – changes in academic institutions often take time – we nevertheless conclude that the time and effort invested in meetings with deans was not commensurate with the actual results of these meetings, and that a different outreach approach is required – one that is based less on persuading instructors to agree to include a Wikipedia assignment, and more on their own wish to do so. Based on our experience, instructors who take the initiative to approach us themselves are in general more motivated, adhere to the guidelines, instructions and timetables that we decide on, are more strict in their assessment of their students’ work, and more keen to see that the work is published (i.e., uploaded correctly to Wikipedia). As a result, we see more and better products from these courses.

The changes made to the working model in WMIL-led collaborations based on last year’s pilot project also seem to improve the overall results. The collaborations with instructors are more streamlined: the assignment tailored carefully to the course characteristics (e.g., taking into account other course assignments, the year in which the students are in, their average writing ability and experience etc…), milestones and deadlines are clear and agreed upon, and the list of topics to be written established in most cases beforehand. Consequently, in contrast to last year’s pilot, the majority of assignments written in these courses were uploaded and successfully incorporated.

In preparation for the next academic year, we therefore intend to have an ongoing marketing campaign that advertises the Wikipedia assignment program, but to reduce our efforts to reach and meet instructors, unless they approach us first. Similar to the Wiki Edu approach, we would like instructors to be well-acquainted with the assignment before they give it to their students, so we will require instructors to write or expand a Wikipedia article as a condition to join the program. Although this might increase the risk of less instructors joining the program, at the same time it will increase the quality and commitment of those who join, and ultimately to a more efficient use of our resources.

Volunteer-led activity

Academic collaborations led by WMIL volunteers Shani Evenstein and Hana Yariv continued in 2018. In addition to teaching four Wikipedia courses to students at the Tel Aviv University, Shani Evenstein also gave Wikipedia and Wikidata workshops to faculty members at the Tel Aviv University and at the Information Systems Department at Haifa University.

The Human Rights project at the Interdisciplinary Center in Hertzliya

Prof. Yaël Ronen is a law professor who specializes in International Law and Human Rights. Since 2013 she uses a Wikipedia assignment in her courses. Up until this year, the articles written in these courses – usually seminars with around 15 graduate students – were about important verdicts in Israeli and international law that set influential precedents. Through this activity Prof. Ronen has become quite an active Wikipedian, especially in those topics in which she is an expert.

This year, due to a change in the curriculum, Prof. Ronen has been scheduled to give a undergraduate course about “Legal aspects of Human Security”. Instead of the usual 15 students, around 120 students signed up to the course. Recognizing the opportunity, and wishing to continue with the Wikipedia assignment in her course, Prof. Ronen set about to adapt the assignment to the much bigger scale of the new course.

Together with WMIL’s academic coordinator and 3 teaching assistants, a list with dozens of article topics relevant to the course curriculum was created. Some were new articles on topics missing in Hebrew Wikipedia, such as the United Nations Convention against Torture, Right to work and Humanitarian intervention. Others expanded stubs such as the article about the European Court of Human Rights, War crime and Freedom of movement. Still others involved expanding an existing article with a section regarding the human rights aspect of this topic. For example, the international status of Northern Cyprus (in the article about Northern Cyprus), human rights violations in Transnistria (in the article about Transnistria) and the humanitarian international law regarding human shields.

All in all, more than 50 articles were created or significantly expanded, adding to Hebrew Wikipedia not only sorely missing information on human rights, but also supplementing the information with additional readings and quality references, for those who would like to learn more. This is an example to the immense impact that one teacher can have with Wikipedia assignments.


Support cultural institutions for free content release[edit]


The Israeli Film Archive, with which WMIL has begun an extended collaboration, holds the copyrights to Nathan Axelrod Newsreel Collection – unique historic footage filmed by pioneer of Israeli film director Nathan Axelrod between the years 1927 and 1958, documenting events before and after the founding of the state of Israel. As part of the collaboration, films will be uploaded to Commons and incorporated into relevant articles.

In the last quarter of 2017, WMIL received grants from the Wikimedia Foundation and from an Israeli foundation to host the international GLAM-WIKI conference in November 2018 in Tel-Aviv. The conference will bring together the GLAM-Wiki community, GLAM professional, Wikimedians, and leading figures from cultural institutions and from the GLAM community all over the world, to share and discuss the latest open GLAM developments, to increase awareness among GLAM professionals of the importance of accessible cultural heritage, and to inspire and motivate participants to start their own GLAM projects.

The main speakers at the conference are stellar: the opening talk will be given by Wikimedia Foundation's Executive Director, Katherine Maher, followed by the first keynote speaker Kate Zwaard – Director of Digital Strategy at the Library of Congress. The second keynote lecture will be given by Loic Tallon - Chief Digital Officer of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Other invited speakers are Ernesto Miranda Trigueros and Vania Ramírez Islas from the Mexican Ministry of Culture, who will present a governmental collaboration with the Wikimedia chapter in Mexico, and Alexandra van Steen and Michelle van Lanschot from the Netherlands who will give an example of a collaborative project at a small regional museum. We have asked and received sponsorship from the Tel Aviv Municipality who has agreed to donate the venue for the event – the Tel Aviv Cinemateque – as well as free tours of the city for the participants of the conference.

We also met with the staff of the Digital Diplomacy Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to ask that the Ministry supports the conference. Following our positive meeting we sent out a detailed support request and expect to receive the Ministry’s response soon.

November is a great time of the year to visit Tel Aviv and we have managed to arrange accommodation for the conference participants at the Leonardo Art hotel – superb location (central and on the seaside), and with a wide range of rooms so that it will be possible to host all the conference participants in one place. Online registration to the conference started in June, when the event page launched in Eventbrite.

The Program Committee for the conference, chaired by WMIL volunteer Shani Evenstein is currently in the process of finalizing the conference program, by reviewing and selecting out of 87 submissions. We are also in the final stages of reviewing more than 450 scholarship requests.

As part of the collaboration with “Kan”, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, an employee of Kan was instructed on copyrights and uploading materials to Wikimedia Commons. The Wikipedia Kan representative maintains regular contact with the WMIL team and receives inquiries and requests from Wikipedians. During the first half of 2018, 5 new articles were composed, 3 and articles and about 240 WikiGnomings were significantly expanded. Also, in the beginning of 2018 a ‘Thousand Words’ tour was held in Kan offices. The engagement with Kan is an optimal example for collaboration between a content-producing body and WMIL for sharing material in Wikimedia initiatives.

At the end of 2016 WMIL started looking into the option of operating a crawler in websites and uploading to Wikimedia Commons photos that are not copyright protected, and therefore there is no legal preclusion to copying them as they are in the public domain. After receiving legal advice and several discussions in the Committee it was decided to try operating a crawler in several Israeli websites: the Government Journalism Bureau, the State Archives and the JNF Archives. The contents cut from the websites were until 1946, so as not to risk a violation of copyrights (by the Israeli law, photos taken by public bodies are in the public domain 60 years after they were taken). Choosing to operate a crawler resulted from failure of all our efforts to engage the various bodies and receive photos. Public bodies in Israel are still not convinced of the importance of releasing free licensed content for the public benefit. Several meetings to create cooperation, release materials and create content in the Hebrew Wikipedia were held with all the bodies in which websites’ a crawler was activated, but for no avail. In H1 2018, a crawler was operated in the JNF website and the State Archives. So far, a total of 8,600 photos and 15,000 photos were uploaded from both archives, respectively. Out of those, around 200 have already been incorporated in articles.

Training Curriculum Development and Training Team[edit]



Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Number of training tools developed or improved Number of volunteers and partners who have been initiated exposure to training tools
Training Curriculum Development and Training Team 55 volunteers 500 Wikipedia courseware users 400 new articles + significant expansions 10 45
H1 40 No information - see note below No information - see note below 6 30

Note: In previous years, every half year, hundreds of new editors used the courseware and produced hundreds of products. Unfortunately, due to a technical malfunction, in this half of 2018 we do not have access to data on the courseware users and their products. As a result, we were unable to view data related to the courseware. We are working on fixing the technical problem and hope that we will be able to report the issue in the 2018 Impact Report.

Planned Activities:

  • Translation of training tools from Hebrew to Arabic, with adaptations, to support the 'Students Write Wikipedia' program in Arabic and the general public
  • Developing designated tools for the Wikipedia Ambassadors program
  • Development of an editing coursework for Wikipedia in Arabic
  • Continued development and improvement of the WMIL’s training tools in Hebrew:
  • Create a tool about free content and copyright
  • Editing courseware: implement minor changes due to changes in the visual editor interface in Hebrew Wikipedia
  • The Encyclopedic Writing Guide: adaptation to academic program target audience
  • 'Students write Wikipedia' tools: update some of the tools, and create uniformity among all the tools

An area that stood at the center of our training development efforts in the first half of 2018 is the development of tools for collaborations within the 1lib1ref campaign. In this field, we developed three tools in Hebrew and three in Arabic. In each language, we developed one general tool that gives users a general overview of the work stages and access to relevant links, and two more specific presentations: a presentation on how to use the Citation Hunt, and a presentation on how to add footnotes with references to Wikipedia articles.

One of Wikimedia Israel objectives in 2018 is developing and designing a multimedia editing courseware in Arabic which will introduce Arabic Wikipedia readers and users around the globe to the editing process and technical steps, and will promote editing throughout Arabic Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. The instructional kit is intended for teachers and instructors and trainers in our Arabic educational projects, Students Write Wikipedia, as well. The quest of finding suitable professionals who would assist in designing the platform began in May.

The structure of the courseware will focus on:

  • Getting to know the Arabic Wikipedia interface and the visual editor toolbar
  • Editing articles and user pages
  • Adding photos
  • Using talk pages

The Arabic courseware is based on characteristics of constructive learning where users construct knowledge and contribute content to Arabic Wikipedia, taking into consideration the particularities of Arabic Wikipedia and the policies of its community of editors. The layout of the tool will be flexible and support many devices. It will allow users to acquire the basic technical skills for editing in Wikipedia on any screen: their computers, their tablets or their smartphones. In addition to the wide range of designated instructional materials developed by the WMIL team and used in workshops, The Arabic editing courseware comes as a follow-up project to the Hebrew editing courseware that Wikimedia Israel launched in 2015. The Hebrew editing course has proven successful.

Throughout most of H1 2018, the WMIL Training Coordinator was on maternity leave. Therefore, the process for development of other tools described in 2018 objectives slowed down significantly. We plan to complete the goals set during H2 2018.

We are currently making special efforts to update our editing tools (presentations and courseware), due to minor changes in the interface of the visual editor in the Hebrew language. In addition, we are working on expanding the editing presentations so that they will provide additional editing possibilities, following the needs that arose from the field.

  • Continuing to nurture educational and training volunteers participating in face-to-face activities:
  • Providing professional and personal assistance as needed
  • Six physical and online sessions for enrichment, consultation, networking and recognition

In March 2018, a virtual synchronized instruction session was held with the participation of 5 volunteers and 2 staff members. The focus of the session was a presentation by one of the volunteers of the comics about reliable information, which he helped create. The participants discussed the possibilities of using it in training and supporting the students in the research process. The volunteers also shared experiences from various activities in which they took part as instructors, and shared ideas and thoughts about instruction.

A new member joined the instruction team and education program support during the academic year, and she greatly contributed to the success of the program. Dr. Dvora Harpaz, who directed the Grammar studies in ‘Ort’ school chain until 2017 and supported the school writing projects retired from her position, but continued in the course of the 2017-2018 school year to support the schools in the chain as a WMIL volunteer. Her rich experience as educator and professionalism as a linguist and manager greatly helped the success of the program in the chain and the expected continued development of the collaboration with ‘Ort’ in the future.

Free Knowledge Awareness[edit]

Active participation in coalitions working for freedom of information, freedom of the Internet and open information in Israel
Support the Public Figure Photography Project
Plan and implement an annual conference to raise awareness of the goals of Wikimedia

The Israel Internet Association established a forum of civil organizations to monitor legislation activity that infringe upon the freedom of the Internet. WMIL takes an active part in the forum. The organizations meet several times each year and maintain regular updates through a distribution list. Regretfully, several PMs submitted bills that harm the Internet freedom. Members of the forum participate in discussions in Parliament committees. The forum also deals with an amendment to the copyrights law. The amendment mostly relates to expanding copyrights on audio sounds. For the World Day against Cyber Censorship, March 12th, the Israel Internet Association together with WMIL published an information video about the implications of cyber censorship as manifested in case the bills are adopted.

Personal photography initiative continues to operate and during H1 2018, 12 photos were uploaded and integrated in articles.

This year WMIL will not hold an annual convention, as in early November we will host the Wikimedia Movement GLAM-Wiki Conference.

Communication[edit]


  • Positioning WMIL as a significant body in the education system in Israel through participation in major conferences, media publications and more.
  • 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.

In 2018, we will aspire to participate in major conferences in the areas of education, higher education and media conferences dealing with reliable information and fake news. We will also encourage volunteers, teachers and lecturers to present their joint activities with WMIL. In 2017, we significantly increased the number of posts we posted on WMIL’s Facebook page and began publishing Arabic posts as well. This trend will continue in 2018.

Promoting the #1Lib1Ref campaign (January – March, 2018) was a process through which our road intersected with partner organizations and institutions who adopted the campaign with sincere eagerness. Our partners and friends spread the word about the local #1Lib1Ref campaign activities which helped gain attention inside libraries and reach librarians and educators in different locations. The National Library of Israel workshops were organized by Orly Simon, head of public services in collaboration with the WMIL team. During the official campaign dates 15 Jan – 3 Feb, banners and posters were on display in the library, frequent updates on the campaign in the NLI circulated in mailboxes, and the event was celebrated in a closing workshop granting the participants symbolic gifts for their achievement: adding references and planting seeds of knowledge.

In Tel Aviv University, two editing meet-ups took place during January 2018 with the participation of over 30 librarians and information scientists. Each meet-up included an introduction to Wikipedia lecture and review of options for possible collaboration between Wikimedia and the library.

Itamar Nehama, WMIL Education Coordinator, in a lecture to educators in Tovanet conference.

Being the first large event organized for an Arabic-speaking audience by WMIL, the #1Lib1Ref seminar for Arabic-speaking librarians “Wikipedia: Libraries with a Wealth of Resources” was advertised in various ways in order to guarantee attendance and introduce our WMIL activities to the targeted audience before the event. In addition to the in-office efforts and contacting libraries directly, invitations were sent to partner institutions and friends of WMIL who spread the word about the event themselves. The event was also mentioned in the programs section on “fus7a”, an online culture magazine, and a summary report was published by the partner organizers, Al-Qasemy Academy, on their website.

In February 2018, ‘Tovanet’ conference was held concerning “School and the Civil Society - Give a Leaping Point to Life” organized by Insights in Education organization. About 200 leading educator participated in the conference and it included about 40 educational initiatives presented by the participants. WMIL’s Education Coordinator led a meet-up about ‘Wikipedia in the Classroom’ which included exposure to Wikimedia initiatives in schools and initial presentation of manners for using Wikipedia in teaching. Participation in the conference contributed to publication of WMIL’s activity among the Israeli education community and to making contact with various organizations and bodies that may yield important future collaborations.

Wikimedia Israel Website: In the beginning of 2018 the new WMIL new website was launched. It contains more information in Arabic and English. In addition, we aim it to be an effective tool for fundraising. The new website, increasing usage of google adwords for nonprofit intensified Wikimedia Israel visibility to new audiences and help us to lunch the micro funding campaign on June. Wikimedia Israel was chosen by Round-Up to be one the organizations that people can donate to them through a permanent standing order to round up each of their credit card transactions to the nearest round amount

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
Revenues from private donations ILS 30,000 14,940 15,257.14 30,197.14 8,355 8,410
Sponsorships ILS 20,000 0 0 0 5,570 0
Foundations ILS 458,000 30,200 121,800.00 152,000.00 127,558 42,334
Revenues from membership fees ILS 1,500 900 40 940 418 262
Wikimedia Foundation ILS 1,075,000 627,083 0 627,083 299,398 174,649
Revenues from collaborations ILS 50,000 60,000 1,464.37 61,464.37 13,926 17,118
Revenues from courses ILS 10,000 800 0 800 2,785 223
Revenues from collaborations ILS 50,000 60,000 1,464.37 61,464.37 13,926 17,118
In Kind In kind donations will be calculated at the end of the year
Total Revenues ILS 1,594,500 718,983 123,304 842,287 444,084

* 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 Support (Hebrew Wikipedia) ILS 241,520 44,831 26,632 71,463 67,266 19,903 30 Based on the 2017 Impact report, we added 30K to Wiki women, but during the year 5K were moved to Promotion of the creation of openly licensed materials (see text)
Wikimedia Communities support ILS 38,500 3,203 6,261 9,464 10,723 2,636 25 7.5K added for development of tools (crawler) for Promotion of the creation of openly licensed materials. Based on the decision in 2017 an additional 13K were diverted from Wikitionary for this purpose and as the year advanced, 5K diverted from Wiki Women.
Education - Hebrew ILS 213,700 47,188 48,946 96,134 59,518 26,774 45 In 2017 all educational projects were lumped under "Collaboration for free content". In 2018 these were split to specific projects. Operational costs such as rent which in 2017 were split between Collaboration for free content (30%) and Training (30%) were redistributed across projects accordingly. Thus 16350 ILS moved from Education Hebrew to Higher Education.
Higher Education ILS 160,600 42,811 51,224 94,035 44,729 26,190 59 16350 ILS added from Education Hebrew for operational costs
Education - Arabic ILS 274,000 52,291 47,008 99,299 76,312 27,656 36 40K for documentation, PR and marketing were scraped as the grant we received from another foundation was smaller than requested. 16350 ILS added from Training to redistribute operational costs across projects
Training ILS 135,300 7,152 5,483 12,635 37,682 3,519 9 75K instead of 90K for development of materials; 20K added to courses to interested group; 16350 ILS moved to Arabic Education to redistribute operational costs.

Shai Katz who was the education and training coordinator in 2017 was on maternity leave until April. In her absence Itamar Nehama filled her position as education coordinator but the post of training coordinator remained vacant, and there was very little activity during this time.

Free knowledge awareness ILS 79,000 16,184 22,113 38,297 22,002 10,666 48 42.5K for conference instead of 10K, 5K added for GLAM activities in anticipation of the GLAM-WIKI conference
Global engagement ILS 42,800 6,512 6,531 13,043 11,920 3,633 30
Communication and publicity ILS 20,000 483 1,963 2,446 5,570 681 12 1K added for website maintenance and social media
Management and Administration ILS 438,800 104,771 114,440 219,211 122,210 61,052 50 Budget reduced by 10K (ED's salary raise postponed)
TOTAL ILS 1,644,220 325,426 330,601 656,027 457,932 182,710 40

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


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Resources[edit]

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