Grants:APG/Proposals/2019-2020 round 1/Wikimedia Armenia/Impact report form

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Purpose of the report[edit]

This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their results to date. For progress reports, the time period for this report will the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). For impact reports, the time period for this report will be the full 12 months of this grant, including the period already reported on in the progress report (e.g. 1 January - 31 December of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Global metrics overview - all programs[edit]

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

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

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Participants Newly registered Content pages Wikipedia Content pages Wikisource/Wiktionary/Wikicommons A B Explanations of Grantee-defined metrics*
Quality Content 0 0 A - 2 Wiki Loves Science trainings,

B - GLAM cooperation with 2 Armenian Diaspora cultural centers

GLAM training 11 11
Thematic edit-a-thons 498 28 1,679 477
WikiTeam 1+3 197 57 652
Wiki Loves Earth 84 25 4,848
Wiki Loves Monuments 83 15 20,217
Subtotal 873 (instead of 380) 136 (instead of 80) 2,331 25,542
Community Program 3 40 A - 4 community meeting-discussions,

B - 50 Workshops at WMAM office

Community editathons and discussions 505 13 2,600 15
Community meetup 41 - 74
Saturday workshops 566 144
Subtotal 1112 (instead of 860) 157 (instead of 50) 2,674 15
Education Program 4 3 A - 5 Wikicamps for different age groups,

B - 12 seminars for teachers

Universities/non-formal education 63 63 371
WikiCamps 181 23 1,998
Teachers' training/seminar* 255 237 2,118
WikiClubs 1,874 66 12,653 39,390
Subtotal 2,373 (instead of 960) 389 (instead of 300) 17,140 39,390
TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 4,358 (instead of 2,250) 682 (instead of 435) 22,145 64,947 7 (out of 11) 43 (out of 64)

* We planned to organize 12 seminars for teachers, however, in such extraordinary circumstances imposed by the pandemic when teachers had more free time in summer, we decided to organize several big trainings for teachers which are intended to include more participants than usual. For more information see the corresponding part of the report.

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) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Example Example Example Example Example

  COVID-19 and new opportunities

Wikimedia Armenia had a multi-faceted plan for this reporting period with various events, novel projects, and initiatives aimed at improving the quality and quantity of the content in Armenian Wikipedia. We also had ideas on how to engage new editors and raise active participation within the experienced ones, to improve the representation of Wikipedia in Armenia. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic became an impediment on the way to implementing our plans. Therefore, based on the requirement of the Wikimedia Foundation and the state of emergency announced in Armenia, Wikimedia Armenia had to cancel all its offline public gatherings, meetings, and projects. This caused several problems as we had to revise our initial plans and adapt them to the current situation.

However, over time it became clear that the new unusual circumstances provided new chances to us. If previously some projects were not inclusive, meaning the impossibility to engage more than 100 people in one activity, now it was more than possible because of the online format. For instance, the Wikipedia course for teachers that took place in Tsaghkadzor brought 50-60 teachers together at best, but due to its online format, we are able to conduct such courses with more than 200 teachers. We use all the possibilities that the pandemic and lockdown provide us organizing online trainings for various groups of people. At the same time, due to online activities, any borders, or restrictions are eliminated: if people were not able to participate in various events and projects because they lived far away, now everything has become much easier. Even though the pandemic deprived us of a lot of activities that can be carried out offline, it also created new opportunities and provided us with a new experience.

As the situation became better we decided to change some of the activities from online to offline, meanwhile maintaining the Wikipedia courses/training and edit-a-thons online so that a lot of people could take part in them. The only activities that we carried out offline at the end of the year were the Fall Wikicamp and Community meetup: before organizing both events we consulted with the WMF to find out whether we can organize the events offline.

Overall, the story of our activities provided below can be good proof that Wikimedia Armenia was able to overcome the challenge posed by the pandemic and even use it for its purposes in the best way.

  Quality Content

Quality Content is one of the three main directions of Wikimedia Armenia’s programs. The number of articles and overall content in Armenian language Wikimedia projects is gradually increasing and some actions are necessary to improve the quality of them and not only concentrate on quantity. We organize various activities and events which are aimed at increasing the quality of Wikipedia articles and content in other Wikimedia projects. Due to COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions on offline activities, we tried to adapt to the situation and plan online projects which will contribute to the enhancement of quality on Wikipedia and sister projects. For this reason, the best choice for online activities were edit-a-thons. Within twelve months Wikimedia Armenia organized twelve edit-a-thons, not including “Wikiteam 1+3” contest which is also an edit-a-thon, however it is a separate project.

  Edit-a-thons+Check-a-thons

Join, edit and check

The edit-a-thons were focused on different topics starting from arts and ending with history. The topics-oriented edit-a-thons play an important role in enhancing the quality content. First of all, due to edit-a-thons many people concentrate on one topic and create articles on that very topic. This method enables us to increase the quantity of articles on specific topics. Secondly, the edit-a-thons are a kind of contests, the winner of these edit-a-thons is the editor who creates the most articles with the highest quality. This provides an incentive for the participants to not only focus on quantity but also the quality of articles. In this reporting period four out of twelve edit-a-thons were about arts and museums. The number of participants in each edit-a-thon shows that Armenian wiki community is very interested in creating articles about arts. Some edit-a-thons are organized for Wikiclub members, however, they become so popular that people outside of Wikiclubs also participate in them. Besides arts, we had other topics as well - Oscar winners, historical topics, secret organizations, legal topics, weaponry, etc.

Besides the edit-a-thons for Wikiclub members, we have also organized several edit-a-thons for the community and also for some specialists. One of the edit-a-thons was dedicated to the Second World War. This project was suggested on Meta-Wiki and Wikimedia Armenia along with 7 other participating user groups, affiliates joined the initiative. Wikimedia Armenia had slightly changed the format of the edit-a-thon in order to enable more people to participate. As this edit-a-thon was organized during the time that Wiki Loves Monuments was taking place, we designated a separate prize for those who will take photos of monuments dedicated to the World War Second and upload them to Wikimedia Commons. As a result, besides creating 157 quality articles within the framework of “World War II… 75 Years After”, Armenian participants uploaded 477 photos of monuments dedicated to the victims of World War II to WikiCommons.

Let's Update Wikipedia

Besides the above-mentioned edit-a-thons, we also organized a separate edit-a-thon on “Art” and “Women in art” for the participants of online “Fall Wikipedia training”. Even though the participants were quite new to Wikipedia, they created articles with high quality. This is because within the framework of their training, the wiki trainers check their articles before publishing them so that no low quality article is published on Wikipedia. Such initiatives also give a chance to the newcomers to feel the atmosphere of the wiki community, to understand how responsible it is to participate in such events.

Finally, within the framework of edit-a-thons, we organized a similar thing, however, calling it differently - “Check-a-thon” and “Let’s Update Wikipedia” (or “Updating Wikipedia”). The purpose of these two initiatives was to improve the quality of those articles which were created years before. Many articles written previously have outdated or insufficient information. Over the years some of the articles were improved, however, a lot more were left in the same condition. Thus, “Check-a-thon” paid attention to the following actions:

  • Checking and correcting grammatical errors, misprints, and syntax,
  • Adding pictures that are important for the article and are available in other languages ​​in the corresponding Wikipedia articles,
  • Checking and adding categories,
  • Checking the availability of sources, in case of absence, finding and adding as much as possible.

Meanwhile, “Updating Wikipedia” was concentrating on the articles written in the period of 2013-2014 and were mainly based on Armenian Soviet Encyclopedia which contains very outdated information. As a result of these initiatives, 66 editors contributed to the project by checking 46 and updating 225 articles.

  Projects intended to enhance the quality and quantity of articles in Armenian Wikipedia

Wikimedia Armenia was planning to restart active cooperation with various museums, galleries, and libraries within the framework of GLAM, however, it was not possible to carry out because of the situation. However, again using this chance that people are staying home and do not have much to do, we decided to teach employees of various museums how to edit in Wikipedia and create articles. This is also quite important because it is easier to cooperate with GLAM institutions when they do understand the importance of free knowledge and are familiar with the principles of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. In this case, they are more inclined to trust Wikipedia and other projects. Before the pandemic broke out, in cooperation with My Armenia program Wikimedia Armenia organized training for employees of 9 regional museums. The participants were introduced to the editing process in Wikipedia, adding photos in Wikimedia Commons. After the two-day training, we informed the participants that they can keep in touch with us in case they have questions. The follow-up meetings with those that had questions were carried out online.

Various institutions and organizations contact us to organize courses and trainings for their workers or various specialists. Wikimedia Armenia collaborated with Enlight Public Research Center and organized a Wikipedia course for 9 members of this center. These participants had different specialties - international relations, economics, philology. After learning the tools of Wikipedia, they started creating and enhancing the quality of articles on economics, philology, and international relations.

A similar Wikipedia course was organized by Wikimedia Armenia for several lawyers who wanted to enhance the quality of the articles related to their field and most importantly to create articles about various laws and legal norms that exist in Armenia which were missing from Armenian Wikipedia. At the end of June, we also started a Wikipedia course for another group of lawyers "Article 3" club with which we had a chance to collaborate previously.

  Wiki Loves projects

Wikimedia Armenia participated in two “Wiki Loves” projects: “Wiki Loves Earth” and “Wiki Loves Monuments”. Armenian wiki community is very much interested in participating in these contests so Wikimedia Armenia always tries to organize them in a way that a lot of people can be involved in. However, in 2020 because of the pandemic, we had to change the format of small group tours in case of “Wiki Loves Earth” as the pandemic was new and everything was uncertain. Meanwhile, we did organize several group tours of 2-3 people to take pictures of monuments during the “Wiki Loves Monuments” contest. But the latter was carried out cautiously and by following the regulations provided by the RA government.

Wiki Loves Earth

“Wiki Loves Earth” contest was organized by Wikimedia Armenia for the first time in the last six years so a lot of people were interested in participating. We even collaborated with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) which announced the opportunity of participating in the contest on its social media pages. As animals are a part of wildlife, they also announced that the best photos of animals will receive awards from WWF. Overall, 84 people participated in the contest, out of which 25 people were newly registered participants. As a result of the contest, 4848 photos of various natural monuments, animals, and wildlife were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. With the number of photos uploaded Wikimedia Armenian ended up in 6th place in the international competition.

Wiki Loves Monuments

In 2020, we continued the tradition of organizing a “Wiki Loves Monuments” contest for our wiki community. Overall, 83 people participated in the contest; 15 out of 83 participants were newly registered who just joined the wiki community. We organized several group tours (2-3 people) to various places of Armenia and Artsakh following the rules and regulations of our government. As a result of the contest, 20,217 photos were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. It should be noted that more than 11,000 photos were uploaded by one person who is always the most active participant of WLM contests organized in Armenia. This year Wikimedia Armenia ended up in second place with the number of uploaded photos in the international competition. The winners of Armenian contest were announced during the 20th birthday online celebration of Wikipedia on January 15.

  Internship opportunity at Wikimedia Armenia

Wikimedia Armenia has started a collaboration with the Birthright Armenia organization which provides volunteering experiences for the youth in Armenian Diaspora trying to strengthen the ties between Armenia and the Diaspora. As the pandemic became an obstacle on the way of hosting volunteers from the Diaspora in Armenia, Birthright Armenia decided to contact us to take several interns who should work on articles on other-language Wikipedias and Western Armenian Wikipedia and enhance the content on topics concerning Armenia. Currently, we have 4 interns, two of which translate articles about Armenia from English to French, a volunteer does translations from Armenian to Russian and another one translates and created articles on Western Armenian Wikipedia. This opportunity is a good way of being represented in the Diaspora and to various audiences. Moreover, as topics about Armenia, its culture, history, and people are underrepresented in other-language Wikipedias, this is a good chance to have interns, whose native language is English, Russian, or French, to create and improve Wikipedia articles on those topics.

  WikiTeam 1+3 contests

Purpose

In 2020, Wikimedia Armenia has started a new project called “Wikiteam 1+3” which is a project aimed at developing the group work inside the Armenian wiki community. Participants create a group of 3-4 including both experienced and beginner editors, choose a leader for them and start the competition. The purpose of the contest is to create a great number of quality articles, create new ones which are absent in Armenian Wikipedia, to improve the existing ones and to develop teamwork within the community. Participants working in one group have to divide articles among them, help each other in case of difficulties, share their knowledge of Wikipedia tools, teach and help the beginners included in the group, check each other’s articles. All these things contribute to the purpose of developing group work and group thinking in the wiki community. Regarding the quality of the articles, the participants check each other’s articles; moreover, the organizing team also checks and proofreads the articles created by the participants providing high quality on Armenian Wikipedia.

Target groups

Everyone, both experienced editors of Armenian wiki community and beginners, can take part in the contests. This competition is for everyone regardless of their gender, religion, race or age. The only precondition is to create groups and have a team leader. As a result, we had mixed-age groups, e.g. teachers and their students being in one group.

Format

“Wikiteam 1+3” is a contest based on group work. Groups should consist of 3-4 people. As the project was launched during the pandemic, the groups work online. They had a team leader whose job is to coordinate the group’s work and to teach the newcomers. The team leaders also kept in touch with the organizing team using Zoom app to discuss the rules of the contests, to receive updates, etc.

We have organized 3 “Wikiteam 1+3” contests from June to December. During each contest we used different formats to understand which one is the most productive. During the first “Wikiteam 1+3”, the contest lasted two weeks; the groups worked on their articles for two weeks and after the end of the two-week period, we gave them 5 days to check and proofread the articles. During the second “Wikiteam 1+3”, we introduced a new format - the contest consisted of 4 phases; in each phase, the groups created articles for several days and then checked and proofread them at the end of the phase. The last “Wikiteam 1+3” had almost the same format, the only difference was that it consisted of two phases and it lasted less than the other two contests. The analysis of each “Wikiteam 1+3” contest displayed that the last one was the most productive in terms of ratio of participants and the number of created articles taking into account that the last one lasted less than the other two contests.

The last contest was also unique with its format because 3 experienced active editors from the community were included in the organizing team as volunteers; they participated in the previous “Wikiteam 1+3” contests and their job was to coordinate the work of several groups. This was done in order to engage community members in organization of various projects and contests.

Several factors were counted while evaluating each group’s work. The major factors of the competitions were:

  • the quality of the articles
  • the involvement of each team member
  • teamwork on each article
  • beginner editors in the teams
  • the size of contributions

Based on these factors the group received points and the winners were chosen.

Results

Header text Number of participants Number of groups Bytes Articles
“Wikiteam 1+3”, May 105 (30 newcomers) 27 15,6 mil 420
“Wikiteam 1+3”, October 45 (15 newcomers) 19 1,276,063 57
“Wikiteam 1+3”, December 47 (7 newcomers) 11 4,938,564 175

Impact

The impact of these contests was noticeable after Teacher’s Wikipedia courses when teachers also wanted to take part in the contest. The first “Wikiteam 1+3” was an experimental contest to see how it would work out. However, the results were so remarkable and the participants were so interested and enthusiastic about the contest that we decided to organize several similar ones later in the year. Due to these contests our wiki community learned to work together, to coordinate their group work, to engage newcomers themselves and to teach them. “Wikiteam 1+3” enabled us to expand the Wikimedia movement and to engage new people.



  Community Program

The Community Program which is one of the most important programs is aimed at developing the Wiki community in Armenia. The program is not only intended to engage new people in community affairs but also to enhance the abilities of those inside the community. The enlargement of the number of active community members is one of the core ideas of the program, on the other hand, we are also aimed at improving the capabilities of the community members so that they can initiate and organize various activities and programs by themselves having their contribution in the Wikimedia movement as a whole.

Initially, Wikimedia Armenia decided to regularly organize various workshops in the office of Wikimedia Armenia as it is quite spacious and it is possible to organize several workshops for several target groups simultaneously. At the beginning of 2020, we were able to accomplish some of what we had already decided, however, after the pandemic broke out, we had to change our strategy and transform some activities and adjust them to an online format.

  Community Meetup 2020

Purpose

Community meetups aim to gather the community members together, where more than 40 participants have the opportunity to communicate, know each other better and share their ideas for development of Wikimedia movement. Every time these meetups are organised in various topics depending on the season, ongoing and upcoming programs. Wikimedia Armenia has been organising Community meetups since 2014. All of them have been held better than expected. The results have always served the purpose. Most community meetups are open not only for the members of Wikimedia Armenia NGO but also for active community members - Wikipedia editors, Wikidata editors, photographers who usually participate in photo contests by uploading photos on Wikimedia Commons, etc.

Community meetup December 2020

On December 18-20, 2020, Wikimedia Armenia organized a two-day Community meetup in Tsaghkadzor. The event was attended by 41 active members of the wiki community aged 18-59. Thanks to the Community meetup, the wiki community had new members who, being new to the community, had never participated in offline meetups. For the newcomers, the meetup was a great way to get to know the active processes within the community, to get acquainted with its activities, structure, and members.

We used cautious methods during the whole event because of the pandemic. On the way from Yerevan to Tsaghkadzor, we used several vehicles instead of our usual two so that the participants could sit far from each other as much as possible. Arriving at the hotel, the participants were accommodated in their rooms. Throughout all the events, except while eating, the participants wore masks and changed it every 2 hours. They strictly maintained social distance. Sometimes the windows were opened for ventilation and fresh air. We have provided disinfectants in all the halls, the hands of all the participants have been disinfected before meals by the doctor, who was also responsible for the two-day event. She measured the temperature of all the participants 3 times a day and registered them in the register.

Two days of the meetup were quite busy and full. Two seminars on topics of the Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia Armenia strategy and Wikidata were organized, editings, group discussions also were a part of the agenda (during all these events the participants were sitting far from each other in two large and separate halls).

Wikimedia movement strategy discussion[edit]

The first seminar on the Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia Armenia strategy was held on the first day of the meetup (18 December). Participants had discussions on the Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia Armenia strategy. The purpose of the strategy is to address challenges and seize the opportunities for the Wikimedia movement, to understand what do we want to achieve and what do we work for, to determine how the movement needs to update its programs, structures, and goals.

During the discussions the purposes of the strategy of the Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia Armenia were introduced. First of all, the ten principles of the Wikimedia movement were presented; after discussing each principle we tried to localize them and see the projections in Armenian Wikimedia movement. After that some of the recommendations created by the movement were discussed. The participants shared their ideas, asked questions depending on the points being discussed.
Wikidata seminar[edit]

The second seminar was on the topic of Wikidata which was held on the second day of the meetup (19 December). As editing Wikidata is gradually progressing more and more in Armenian wiki community, we “invited” Shani Everstein to join our meeting to present the basics of Wikidata. Besides, she spoke about the World Wide Internet, its creation and development with Powerpoint presentation. Shani also touched upon the importance of Wikidata for other Wikimedia projects. So, the participants interested in Wikidata learned more ways of Wikidata usage and understood that they can perform more productively on Wikipedia due to the tools provided by Wikidata. Those who had never used Wikidata got interested in the topic, tried editing, using information provided by Wikidata.

In addition to discussions and meetings, over the course of 2 days, users contributed 1,442,607 bytes to the Armenian Wikipedia and created 74 new articles. No extraordinary cases or COVID-19 cases, above-normal temperatures or any other problems occurred.

  Saturday Workshops

Wikimedia Armenia frequently organises Saturday workshops. The workshops used to be held in the Wikimedia Armenia office. Every Saturday one of the staff was on 6 hour duty in the office. Thus the community members, new editors came to the office to edit, to learn editing, to share their skills, communicate and also meet their Wiki friends. One of the first activities that successfully adjusted to the online format after the outbreak of COVID-19 is the Saturday workshops. About 30 participants usually participated in each workshop. But because of the war the number of participants decreased. Even active community members sometimes were absent. Some of them even asked for the recording of the Workshops.

Steps taken to make the workshops more interactive

The topics of Workshops were chosen according to the interests of the editors and newcomers Introduction of new gadgets were included in almost every workshop, so even the most experienced editors had something new to learn Not only Wikipedia tools but also ongoing and future events were introduced In order to make the workshops more interactive, creative and productive we summarized a competition during some workshops. So on 4 July the Saturday workshop was dedicated to the project called “An article per week”. The newcomers learned about the competition, became more interested and motivated in editing Wikipedia. The experienced editors, especially those who had participated in the project were so excited and impatiently waited for the results. Another example is the Workshop on November 21. During the workshop the articles created during “Secret Organizations and Art” edit-a-thon were introduced. One of the active community members presented her articles, and spoke about the motivation that led her to choose the topics. Another workshop was dedicated to Media literacy. The meeting was very interactive. Video on the creation of the World Wide Internet, spread and development of the internet was introduced.

Workshops during COVID-19

Since spring 2020 when the first case of COVID 19 was announced we started organizing these workshops online by using the Zoom application. If previously both experienced and beginner editors gathered together in the office at the same time, now we prepared a more productive format for newcomers and experienced editors. Till August on Saturdays, we used to organize two separate workshops - one for experienced editors and the other one for the beginners. We preprepared Google form for registration where the registrants selected their status - an experienced or a newcomer.

The workshop for experienced editors is meant to deepen their knowledge about various Wikipedia tools or other Wikimedia projects․ Every Saturday an active member of the community presented the topic prepared for the day. The topics were mostly dedicated to the Wikipedia tools, ongoing and future projects. Then an hour later the workshop for newcomers started. More than 15 newcomers participated. The basics of editing Wikipedia were shown to them in detail.

The community became more passive and disappointed after the war. The online workshops were not canceled, so they had the opportunity to participate and change their mood, forget about the hard situation in the country.

  Lessons learned/Results
Lessons learned
  • Since the outbreak of COVID19 it has become more difficult to make the community active. The main reason was the mood, the sadness in the country. But we tried our best to deviate people’s attention.
  • Reminding the participants about the pandemic, hard situation in the world and in the country is not a good idea. It will make them more disappointed. While organising an event one must try to concentrate the participant's attention on the topic of the event.
  • Though offline events are more interesting for participants, every little step must be taken to make the online version more interactive. Giving the participants the opportunity to know each other well is a very good idea in such situations. For that reason:
    • The participants, especially the newcomers should introduce themselves and speak a little about their experience in Wikipedia.
    • The organiser should also introduce himself/herself before the topic presentation.
  • Videos, pictures, animations etc. must also be used during the presentations. In that way the participants become more motivated and interested, they learn and remember the topic easily.

  Community's engagement in local initiatives

Already during the previous reporting period community members have become quite active, they initiated and supervised various projects by themselves which already shows that the community is becoming mature. The same practice continued starting from the beginning of this year. Some active Wikipedians organized edit-a-thons and projects in which editors with different interests and from different age groups participated, including Wikiclub members. Some of these activities were carried out in the office of Wikimedia Armenia before the pandemic and after that everything was organized online. The edit-a-thons and projects covered various topics - Armenian history, music, monuments, human rights, women’s rights. Besides the community edit-a-thons and projects, we give a chance to our community members to organize seminars on various topics so they can improve their knowledge of different aspects. One of our active Wikipedians organized a seminar on the topic of legal awareness. Such initiatives are welcomed by Wikimedia Armenia because they are also aimed at improving the community's capabilities.

As a part of our Community program, we initially decided to organize meet-up discussions with community members to discuss problems and issues in the community, ongoing projects, and programs in Wikimedia Armenia, what they would like to change or improve. All these things are done to make the community a part of the organization and engage them in the decision making process. Based on this notion, Wikimedia Armenia facilitated several meet-ups to discuss the new Charter. During these discussions, some community members suggested their ideas and opinions, made recommendations so that the new Charter will reflect and correspond to the needs of the community. It was initially decided that the General Assembly to vote on the new Charter would be held in the middle of March, however, it was not possible to organize because of the pandemic. After assessing the situation, Wikimedia Armenia decided to solve the problem by carrying out the voting online (more about the Assembly can be found in the part of Organization development).

Taking previous experience into account, Wikimedia Armenia continues to discuss internal organizational and programmatic issues with the members of the organization and representatives of the wiki community. To understand the future programmatic directions of Wikimedia Armenia we suggested our community members get together and discuss the annual plan of 2021. Several members of the organization, the staff, Board members and wiki community representatives discussed the future activities of the organization, some people made suggestions regarding what kind of projects they would like Wikimedia Armenia to implement. The participants were divided into two groups using the Zoom’s feature of separate rooms. The two groups discussed their ideas with each other and they presented their views to the others. Such meetings enhance the relations between the members, the staff and the community, also they enable us to understand what our members and community wants and how they picture the future of the Wikimedia movement in Armenia.

This year Armenian Wikipedia turned 15 and Wikimedia Armenia decided to organize a unique event to celebrate it. What is the greatest gift for Wikipedia if not articles? So Wikimedia Armenia organized an offline two-hour edit-a-thon (this was before the pandemic) in which around 50 Community members participated by creating and improving around 23 articles. Similar thing was done for Wikipedia Day as well. But this time the community members wrote articles as a gift prior to the day. As a result, around 110 people wrote approximately 250 articles as a birthday gift for Wikipedia. All these results show that the Wiki community has become more engaged and more active than it was before.

  Thematic seminar-meetings

Wikimedia Armenia usually organizes thematic meetings for community members and all interested people. Continuing this practice, we organized two thematic meetings in 2020. One of the meetings was held during the Wikicamp on October 30. The second meeting was organised by one of the active members of our wiki community, as well as a member of the Supervisory Committee Norayr Baghdasaryan.

Meeting with Ruben Safrastyan

The online meeting-discussion with Ruben Safrastyan, a specialist of Oriental Studies and Turkic Studies, Doctor of Sciences in History, took place during the Fall Wikicamp. Dr. Safrastyan introduced to the participants of the Wikicamp the geopolitical situation in the region, historical background of the region, and the desired steps to be taken towards peace building in the region and all over the world.

The Zoom link of the meeting was published on our Facebook page, so everyone could participate. Besides the participants of the camp, more than 10 people also joined the discussion to hear the expert's ideas and explanations. The meeting was also a part of a series of thematic meetings organized by Wikimedia Armenia aimed at assisting Wikipedia editors in writing articles on regional topics.

The participants listened to the speaker with great enthusiasm and asked him various interesting questions. The meeting video is uploaded on our YouTube page, so those who could not participate have the opportunity to be involved in the topic.

Seminar on Human Rights

Norayr Baghdasaryan is an active wiki editor of Wikimedia Armenia, as well as a member of the Supervisory Committee. He is a student studying law and he usually organizes seminars on human rights or similar issues. This time he decided to organize a seminar on the topic of human rights at the office of Wikimedia Armenia. The number of participants in the seminar was limited due to the coronavirus pandemic. The participants present at the seminar wore masks all the time. The Wikimedia Armenia office is quite large, which allows us to freely organize events for a small number of people, observing all the rules of social distance.

During the seminar, the Norayr presented the generations of human rights and some concepts, the challenges of protection of human rights in modern legal-democratic states. After Norayr’s presentation a Q&A session began during which the participants addressed interesting questions and received answers to them.

Usually such kind of thematic meetings enhance the capacity of the community making them knowledgeable and helping them while writing articles on such topics.

  Community's participation in international activities

Wikipedia for Peace

One of the important things for the development of our community is participating in various international activities, projects, and events. Because of the pandemic, there was no chance of such engagement, however, whenever it was possible we informed our community members of the opportunity. Such opportunities were provided by the “Wikipedia for Peace” online camps organized by the SCI and Wikimedia Switzerland. Three such online camps took place from June to December. Five active editors of Armenian wiki community participated in the online camps. The topic of the first camp was “Wikipedia for Peace: No More War” which was about anti-militarism, fight against nuclear weapons, violence, and disarmament; the second camp was dedicated to the Service Civil International Switzerland organization which celebrated its 100th anniversary. And the last camp was on the topic of climate justice. Participants from Armenian wiki community were quite active during the camps; they presented their culture, their country and traditions, learned from others. All five participants were experienced editors, meanwhile, many of the participants of the camps were beginners. Thus, our participants created a lot of new articles on Armenian Wikipedia - in total, they created 22 articles during the 5 camps.

CEE Spring 2020

Like every year, this year as well Wikipedians from the Armenian Wiki community actively participated in the CEE Spring 2020 annual contest. Around 43 participants took part in the article writing contest. This year Armenian participants were very active taking into account the fact with the pandemic and the demand to stay home. One of the participants from Armenia wrote more than 200 articles, while two others wrote more than 100 articles each.

  Lessons learned/Results
Lessons learned
  • The changing conditions sometimes make you adjust your methods to the situation. The pandemic helped us understand that sometimes just writing and translating articles isn't enough, deep knowledge of Wikipedia and its tools is very important. Thus, using the situation we changed the format of Saturday workshops into focusing on one topic at a time improving the knowledge of our experienced editors.
  • Engaging the community members in organizational work is efficient in the sense that they keep up with the information about the work done inside the organization and having a chance to be not only a consumer but also an initiator.
  • The seminar with Shani Everstein presented that we should organize similar meetings with international wiki community members as frequently as possible because it helps our community members to gain knowledge from outsiders and share their experience and ideas with them. Especially because of the pandemic, our wiki community has been isolated from the international one so as soon as we should try to reconstruct the connections and links through online seminars and meetings.
Results
  • Having the support of the organization, the community members have become more proactive and are not feeling alienated from the organization as before.
  Useful links

  Education Program

Wikimedia Armenia pays close attention to its Educational program organizing various workshops and courses for various target groups (teachers, students, people of different professions) and ages. Besides the courses, we cooperate with different universities or educational institutions to engage them in the Wikimedia movement and especially in enhancing Wikipedia on different topics. An important part of this program is the Wikicamps which are specifically designed for three age groups involving both teens and adults. Finally, the development of Wikiclubs is the core of the educational program in the sense that the club members are the most active participants in different projects and initiatives. As they present the school-age children, due to them it is much easier to be engaged in school activities and involve both teachers and pupils in the movement: one of the results of Wikiclub+school cooperation is the Wikiclassroom which is gradually becoming more demanded as an interactive way of teaching and learning.

  WikiCamps

During this reporting period, Wikimedia Armenia has organized 2 Summer Wikicamps, one Winter Wikicamp and one Fall Wikicamp. One of these camps were intended for children aged 9-14, two of them were organized for teenagers (15-18 age group) and the other one targeted the youth - aged 18-35. Overall, 181 participants took part in the camps. The selection process for the camps was strict as always - we paid attention to participants’ activeness and productivity for the past couple of months before choosing the best candidates for the camps. The Youth Wikicamp was organized offline because it happened before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the two summer camps were online and the Fall Wikicamp was offline again because of the somewhat improving conditions in Armenia and taking Wikimedia Foundation’s confirmation to organize it offline into account. It should be mentioned that it was the first time that we have organized online Wikicamps. Even though we were sceptical that the online camps would be as much success as the offline ones, our expectations were exceeded.

  Winter Youth Wikicamp
Youth Winter Wikicamp 2020 group photo, Tsaghkadzor, Armenia

Winter Youth WikiCamp is one of the most anticipated events for the youth aged 18-35. More than 123 people had applied for the camp. But due to the strict selection process, only 56 people had the chance to participate in the camp. This time the selection of the participants was quite strict, we took into account editors’ activeness and paid close attention to the fact whether they were continuously active before the camp or not.

Lately, Wikimedia Armenia is organizing mainly thematic edit-a-thons and events (Wiki Loves Science) as it turned out that concentrating on one main topic is much more effective than complicating everything with bringing people of completely different professions together. Based on this lesson learned from previous experiences, Wikimedia Armenia decided to try the same thematic format on Winter Youth Wikicamp thinking that it will be more productive as the participants will focus on three main topics during the camp: economics, medicine, and history. Even if it was mentioned in the progress report, we consider it extremely important to mention once again that if we compare last year’s Wikicamp with this one, the results have improved providing more outcome. This year the participants had 10,631,894 bytes contribution to Armenian Wikipedia while last year it was 7,925,916.

Youth Winter Wikicamp 2020 working time

As always there were newcomers in the camp - 23 people. To quickly prepare them for the work in the camp, we organized a two-day intense workshop to engage them in the editorial process, after which newcomers joined experienced editors, evenly distributed in 5 teams. Even though usually newcomers need some time to keep up with the experienced editors, this time some of the beginners were outstanding: two of them made a total of 300,000 bytes contribution in Armenian Wikipedia.

Wiki team is has a vital role in the camp: helping the editors with problems on Wikipedia, teaching newcomers, and checking the articles to avoid technical issues. This time we decided to try something new by reducing the number of the Wiki team. This change was intended to find out whether it has any influence on productivity or not. Formerly the Wiki team included 10 people - 2 for each group. However, this new method turned out to be not very productive as the checking of all articles was concentrated on four people. So this experience helped us understand that the Wiki team plays quite an important role and we will keep the number of Wiki team members the same as we usually did previously.

Continuing our practice of having not only editorial work but also sports and cultural events, campers learned Armenian folk songs and national dances and songs from different countries. The most impressive part of the cultural events was the violin concert. During the Fort Wiki game organized at the end of the camp, each group had to walk around the city and perform different tasks. One of these assignments was editorial work. Within an hour one person from each group had to translate an article of about 10,000 bytes which was about a settlement. All groups successfully completed this assignment, creating a total of 5 articles during the game. The cultural and sports part are also very important because it is just impossible to sit all day in front of the computer and these activities help to relax and work more efficiently.

  Summer online Wikicamps

During the peak of the pandemic Wikimedia Armenia decided to organize summer Wikicamps online. As Wikicamps are the most important projects which motivate both children and adults, we decided to change the format from offline to online, at the same time, keeping all entertaining activities. First of all, to create the Wikicamp’s atmosphere for the participants we made a decision to send camping hoodies/T-shirts and badges beforehand several weeks before the start of the event via post office. Besides the T-shirts and badges, we also prepared some other necessary things that comprised a part of different games which were also delivered to each participant. In rare cases, participants were provided with computers.

Besides the participants, there were also Wikiteam members and organizing team+team leaders. The job of the team leaders was to always keep in touch with their groups, inform them about the agenda, coordinate the group’s work during various activities. Wikiteam’s job was to coordinate the participants’ editing process and workshops and check the articles created or improved by the campers. Editing workshops were held three times a day, overall 4 hours (with breaks). During the breaks, the participants had a rest or played different educational or sports games planned by the agenda. All activities were carried out by Zoom video communication service. We provided our team leaders with licensed Zoom services so that they could contact their teams without interruption.

The emphasis of the second Summer Wikicamp was put on the quality of the articles. The Wikiteam focused on the quality of articles, reviewing and proofreading them in order to provide high quality. As a result, a great number of quality articles were created on Armenian Wikipedia which is the result of participants' cautiousness and Wikiteam’s effort. The first Summer Wikicamp was designed for experienced editors aged 9-14. As this age group is not always good at creating articles or improving them, some of the campers contributed to Wikisources, the others to Wikipedia. During both online Wikicamps we suggested a list of 50,000 vital articles from which they could choose the ones they wanted to improve or create. For those participants who contributed to Wikisource, we suggested the works of Armenian famous poets and writers: Petros Duryan and Shirvanzade's Collection of Works.

As always besides editing hours, we prepared various games both educational, intellectual and sports games.This included puzzle gathering, Brain Ring, Fort Wiki (also known as Wikisearch), song lessons, morning gymnastics and many other interesting activities (everything was adapted to online circumstances). The participants also had online meetings with WikiTatik (the president of Wikimedia Armenia known as Wikigrandmother (WikiTatik)) who talked about the Wikimedia movement, the future of Armenian Wikipedia and other projects.

Continuing the tradition of collaborating with various institutions, we cooperated with the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia. An online meeting was organized with Hovhannes Khachatryan, Associate Professor of the Faculty of Rescue Operations of the Crisis Management State Academy, Aram Zakaryan, journalist of the "MES 911" online newspaper, Liliana Margaryan, Head of the Information Department of the Information and Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The meeting was dedicated to emergency situations, how should campers deal with emergencies and how they should protect themselves in such possible situations. Another online meeting was also educational; it was with Artsrun Hovhannisyan - the Press Secretary of the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Armenia in 2012-2020, military analyst-expert, the Head of Military Education Department of MOD. The main topic was peace, how to maintain it in the world and in the region, how to stop hostilities so that peace can be preserved. Overall, both online Wikicamps were very successful. Our organizers did a great job transforming the offline Wikicamp into online. However, the influence of offline Wikicamp is different. The participants have the chance to interact with each other, to create stronger bonds as friends, to actually work as a team developing various skills. The vibe and success of the Wikicamp are visible in these incredible photos which display the enthusiasm and energy of every teenager.

  Fall Wikicamp

After a long discussion and reasoning, we decided to organize an offline Wikicamp in October. Before starting the preparations, we contacted the Wikimedia Foundation to clarify whether we can organize an offline camp following all regulations and laws by both Wikimedia Foundation and the Republic of Armenia. After receiving a confirmation that we can organize such an event, we started our careful preparations which included a lot of work because we had to decide everything thoroughly taking every possible risk into account.

To ensure the safety of the campers, we asked the hotel to close the venue and provide it only to us, meaning that no other people can be on the territory of the hotel, even the staff of the hotel did not go home. The transportation of the participants was carried out by spacious vehicles so that campers can sit far from each other keeping the social distancing rules. After reaching the venue, everyone took a COVID-19 test. The first day of camp, everyone spent in their rooms, no one was let out. After receiving the results, it turned out that we have 4 positive cases. As we already had a plan for such cases, we immediately isolated them in separate rooms. It should be mentioned that these participants were classmates and they were infected before the camp. Four other participants who contacted the contracted ones (even though they were wearing masks all the time) were also isolated.

The other campers also wore masks taking it off only while eating and active sports games; they changed their masks frequently. We constantly disinfected their hands and all the surfaces of the hotel. We also had a doctor who measured the temperature of all participants at least 3 times a day and recorded it in the register.

As a result of all these precautions, at the end of the camp we double tested the infected participants and the ones who had contact with them. We had no new cases within 8 days of the camp, moreover, the 3 out of 4 infected participants recovered and their tests were negative, while the other camper recovered 2 days after the camp.

This camp had the same format as our previous offline camps; only everything was done cautiously by preserving social distance especially while eating when the participants did not wear masks. The campers created and improved Wikipedia articles during the editing hours. This time we had a day and a half dedicated to Artsakh in our agenda. The participants created or improved articles about monuments, bridges, settlements of Artsakh. The campers used the pre-scanned book and a dozen articles as a trustworthy source to create their articles.

Besides the editing process, we also had intellectual, cultural and sports games; Brain Ring, Fort Wiki, Sportlandia, the participants made interesting and funny videos, and did handicrafts. We also had a thematic meeting-seminar with Ruben Safrastyan who presented some historical aspects of our region. The campers asked questions that interested them. We also had two other seminars - one dedicated to war psychology taking into account that we had participants (from Karvachar and Stepanakert Wikiclubs) who had to flee their homes because of the war. Another seminar was about media literacy. At the end, a bonfire was organized during which our talented campers sang songs with a guitar.

  Yerevan Brusov State University students' internship at Wikimedia Armenia

Working with university students have been a part of the Educational program for a long time. Previously Wikimedia Armenia worked with various universities. We especially had a good experience with the students of Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences who became interns at Wikimedia Armenia. Continuing this experience and greatly improving it we cooperated with the same university deciding to host 30 students from the Faculty of Translation as interns. Previous experience with the same university had its problems, especially connected with teaching the students how to edit on Wikipedia which was done separately with every student and was quite time-consuming. Also, there were problems with checking the articles - it was the responsibility of the staff members - which resulted in a situation where a lot of articles were left in the sandboxes of the participants never being published on Wikipedia. Taking all these lessons into account, we modernized the method of teaching the students and completely changed the format of their internship.

The internship lasted 6 weeks; during the first weeks, the students were introduced to activities and projects organized by Wikimedia Armenia, Wikipedia, and other Wikimedia projects: mainly WikiCommons, WikiData. After learning all the tools of Wikipedia, they started translating articles and adding them to Wikipedia. One of the most important things about the updated format was that the students visited the office of Wikimedia Armenia every day altogether.
They both worked on their articles and in case of questions or problems directly asked their supervisor and trainer. Another unique and novel thing was added to their internship. After working on their articles for 3-4 weeks they had to check and proofread their articles. The participants were divided into groups consisting of two people in each, they chose articles randomly and started checking them. As a result, only in one day students checked around 40 articles. Unfortunately, the sixth week of their internship coincided with the announcement of the state of emergency in Armenia, so the students continued their work online. Students had the chance to ask questions during the video calls that we organized for them. Overall, 30 students did their internship in Wikimedia Armenia and within 6 weeks they created 153 new articles and improved 7 articles, in total 5,198,252 bytes. After completing their internship, the students decided to write a newsletter article about their experience and impressions at Wikimedia Armenia which was published in the Educational Newsletter of Wikimedia Foundation.

  Collaboration with Armenian Educational Foundation

In December last year, Wikimedia Armenia restarted its collaboration with the scholarship holders of the Armenian Educational Foundation. However, it was not very productive because of the students’ exam period coinciding with the start of the program. As we have already started the internship program with the students of Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences and had already good experience of efficiently working with students with a new format, we decided to use the same method with the students of the Armenian Educational Foundation. The program started in March and it should have lasted 4 months ending in July, however, taking the situation regarding the pandemic into account, we decided to extend the duration making it 5 months.

As the program started before the pandemic we were able to organize three offline training during which the students got acquainted with Wikipedia, its tools, and the editing process. They were also introduced to Wikimedia Armenia and Wikimedia movement. After the COVID-19 broke out, the training was successfully transformed into offline meetings during which the students continued learning the tools of Wikipedia. During the following 2-3 months, they worked on the articles they chose. In case of problems and questions, we organized a weekly Zoom meeting with them. According to the plan prepared beforehand, the students should have 500,000 bytes contribution to Armenian Wikipedia to complete their volunteering work. Currently, 6 out of 17 students have already completed the amount we have decided and others are very close to the destination. Understanding the possible impediments created by the pandemic we decided to prolong the volunteering of the students for a month (until the end of August) so that they are able to complete their work without being under time pressure. This collaboration will be continuous.

  Online Wikipedia Training/Courses

Purpose

Wikipedia training courses organized by Wikimedia Armenia for years have become one of the main sources of new editor involvement. The courses aim at

  • Community expansion with newcomers of different professions
  • Creation of vital missing articles or improvement of the existing ones by specialists
  • Involvement of teachers in the Wikimedia movement which will spill over to their students

Due to the Wikipedia training courses more people get the chance to learn more about Wikimedia movement, editing Wikipedia, sharing their knowledge while self-educating.

Target group

Everyone may apply for the courses. There is no age, gender and other restrictions. There are specific Wikipedia courses for teachers and for other professions. However, as teachers are the most interested in these courses, the majority of participants of all courses are teachers from mainly the regions of Armenia. In 2020, three Wikipedia training courses were organised - one of them was specifically for teachers, the others were mixed. Overall, 681 participants applied to three courses, 454 approved their participation. As a result, out of 265 active participants 97 got certificates.

Teachers in Wikimedia movement

This diagram shows how due to Wikipedia courses, trainers teach teachers, the latter teach students and finally, after some time both students and teachers may become trainers themselves.

Wikipedia training courses are more focused on involving teachers in the movement. Teachers are the ones who share their knowledge with lots of children and adults. So editing Wikipedia and using it in their classes makes the learning process more creative, unique, and not boring. Due to integrating Wikipedia into classroom activities, the learning process becomes easier. Besides that, teachers and students obtain another platform for communication and a platform for self-education and teamwork.

Due to the Wikipedia training courses teachers get the chance to open Wikiclub in their school, so the students improve or create articles on geographical, biological and different other topics with the help of their teachers becoming part of our Wikimedia community. More than 100 articles are created every month by a club. So teachers can also be considered one of the main sources of development of Wikipedia and dispersion of the Wikimedia movement.

Wiki trainers

Active editors of our wiki community are involved in Wikipedia courses as well. As the courses are very popular we prepare wiki trainers who hold the training with teachers and all participants of these courses. The number of trainers for each course depends on the number of applicants and groups.

Each of the trainers has his/her own way of work. Some of them use quizzes when working with teens, some concentrate on editing techniques, all depending on the participants' progress.

After the outbreak of COVID19 Wikipedia training courses are organised only online via Zoom application. So screen sharing, online quiz applications have become the best way for easing the learning process for participants. Sometimes additional videos, screenshots are needed and the format of the courses enables both to take screenshots and record meetings and later send them to participants upon request.

Besides sharing their knowledge with the newcomers, trainers also get additional knowledge, skills and learn how to work with different people of diverse backgrounds.

Training for the trainers

During the online Wikipedia training courses a special online training for trainers was organised. The training lasted about a week.

One of the most experienced editors and active community members introduced some new tools that would help them during courses. The trainers shared their knowledge, ways of organising their lessons and some useful materials like videos, screenshots etc.

The format of these training was a seminar during which each trainer presented a topic (e.g. gadgets, sources, infoboxes, etc.) and then a general discussion unveiled on the topic adding to what the trainer had already told or what was missed.

Trainers’ meetings

Besides special training for trainers, online meetings and discussions between the trainers were also constantly organised. The meetings aimed to give the trainers an opportunity to develop their skills, recall some tools if needed, and share what problems or successes they had while working with their groups․ These discussions and meetings also helped us to understand what can be improved in the course format, what topics need to be addressed more and which ones should be eliminated.

  Wikiclubs

Wikiclubs are an important part of Wikimedia Armenia; they are the “branches” Wikimedia movement in faraway regions of Armenia. These Wikiclubs expand the Wikimedia ideology and continuously engage new people. Wikimedia Armenia currently has 12 Wikiclubs and 11 smaller Wikigroups in Tavush region. Taking the COVID-19 pandemic and later the war into account, the activeness of the Wikiclubs have decreased. Some of the Wikiclubs continued to work online, however, there were some others which could not even work online because the club members did not have computers or Internet at home. Despite that, Wikimedia Armenia tried to support the Wikiclubs as much as possible. To maintain continuous activity of the Wikiclubs, Wikimedia Armenia had organized various edit-a-thons, check-a-thons, projects and contests so that club members could take part in them. As the club members had more time than usual because of the pandemic, they began actively participating in all projects initiated by WMAM.

Especially the edit-a-thons and “Wikiteam 1+3” contest became very popular among the club members. Having no opportunity of interacting with each other, due to “Wikiteam 1+3” contests the club members had the chance to keep in touch with each other, to spend time together (even though online) and to work together on articles. The club members also participated in summer online Wikicamps organized by WMAM. These camps were also an opportunity to spend more time on Wikipedia and communicate and interact with their friends living in different parts of the country. In September Wikimedia Foundation presented a guide for organizing public events and gatherings during the pandemic. Wikimedia Armenia evaluated the risks and decided that the clubs can operate offline by strictly maintaining the rules and regulations of WMF and the Republic of Armenia. Wikimedia Armenia provided the clubs with hygiene supplies and created a special guide for Wikiclubs which they should follow.

It should also be noted that some of the Wikiclubs located in Artsakh had to stop their activities because of constant shelling and the war. Besides the clubs of Artsakh, the other clubs also did not work properly during the war because of the overall situation and the mood in Armenia. We should also mention that two out of the three Wikiclubs in Artsakh will not operate because those territories are no longer under Armenian’s control.

We constantly keep in touch with the Wikiclub coordinators. For this reason, Wikimedia Armenia organizes meetings with Wikiclub coordinators. Such a meeting was organized in January. The purpose of the meeting was to present the annual results of the Wikiclubs and think of future plans. These meetings help us to understand how Wikiclubs are working and what they need to improve. Also, the new automatic way of receiving monthly results of each Wikiclub proves to be efficient as we now completely imagine what club is working productively and which one has to improve its work.

As the work in Wikiclubs changed because of the pandemic, Wikimedia Armenia organized separate meetings with members of each Wikiclub to find out in what activities the club members are engaged, what problems they face in this new situation and what they should do for the future development of the clubs. Such meetings help not only understand the situation in Wikiclubs from the members’ perspective but also show them our support and care in such unusual circumstances. As of the end of the 2020, the Wikiclubs were operating offline and many of the club members returned to their usual active engagement in Wikipedia.

  • Zoom meeting with Wikiclub members
    Zoom meeting with Wikiclub members
  • Editors editing Wikisource before the pandemic
    Editors editing Wikisource before the pandemic
  • Workshop after the pandemic
    Workshop after the pandemic
  Lessons learned
Lessons learned
  • During the Winter WikiCamp we tried to reduce the number of Wikiteam members, however, some problems raise from it, thus, we will keep the number as usual
  • Thematic youth WikiCamp is more productive than mixed ones because the participants focus on just a few topics which helps to increase the number of quality articles on specific topic.

Wikipedia training/courses

Due to three courses it became obvious that

  • Based on the period of the year, the number and activity of the participants may change and this should be taken into account before starting the organizational process
  • The experience of some of the groups showed that it is important to include some experienced participants in all groups as they motivate the others
  • More experienced participants should be involved in the courses as trainers in order to keep the wiki community active and also have the opportunity to organize as many online courses as possible without having a lack of trainers.
Results
  • Successful collaboration with educational institutions and universities: Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences, Armenian Educational Foundation.
  • 237 newcomer teachers joined the Wikimedia movement.
  Useful links

  Organizational development

First of all, because of the fire that occurred in January in the building where the office of Wikimedia Armenia is located, we had to renovate some parts of the office that were damaged.

As it was stated in the proposal Wikimedia Armenia accomplished some reforms to improve the productivity of the work inside the organization. Especially, a warm and respectful atmosphere was created for the staff to work adequately and efficiently. Even before the audit conclusions were provided, there was a transparent atmosphere in Wikimedia Armenia concerning the members of the organization, the community, and the staff. Despite that, some staff members preferred to quit their jobs.

To further improve the functions of the organization, we started drafting the new Charter by inviting various stakeholders, organization members, and community members to participate in the discussions, to present their point of view and make recommendations. The process, unfortunately, halted because of the pandemic but we decided to restart it online. And on 6-8 July the online General Assembly was organized to vote on several questions:

  • adoption of the new Charter
  • selection of new members to current Board
  • selection of new members to current Supervisory Committee

  Outreach

Being represented in various platforms and having a chance to present our work to different audiences is a good way of letting people know about us and our mission. One of such opportunities was the Edcamp Armenia 2020 educational conference organized by Paradigma Educational Foundation. Initially (before the pandemic), we wanted to cooperate with them and organize some part of the conference, however, the pandemic situation changed our plans. We had only two speakers during the online conference - president of Wikimedia Armenia Susanna Mkrtchyan and one of the Wikiclub coordinators Narine Muradyan. They presented the work that Wikimedia Armenia is doing in the educational sector trying to engage both school students and teachers in the Wikimedia movement and to suggest Wikipedia as an innovative method in the teaching and learning process. Narine Muradyan also presented the importance of Wikiclubs in education and personal development based on the example of Alaverdi Wikiclub. Around 300 teachers from Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh participated in this seminar. Most of them were very interested in our programs and the mission we are following. As we have already started the second "Online Wikipedia course" for teachers and people of other professions, a lot of teachers (around 120) participating in the seminar registered to take part in the course.

The second opportunity to present our work and the mission was Susanna Mkrtchyan's online interview with AMGA TV from Los Angeles. The president of the organization presented the history and ideology of the organization. During the interview, the main activities of the organization were presented: WikiClubs, Wikicamps, Wikiclassroom, and, of course, the most important educational program - Online Wikipedia course for teachers. The importance of Wikimedia Armenia in preserving the Armenian language and the Western Armenian community around the world was also discussed. The host of the interview was interested in whether it is possible to organize similar online courses for teachers of Armenian Diaspora and stated his willingness to contribute to Wikimedia Armenia in various ways.

  Useful links


December 2022 - June 2023 funding period[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.

  New Beginning

After a long period of inactivity, suspension and recovery efforts, Wikimedia Armenia resumed the successful experience of focusing on three major directions - quality, education, and community. In this reporting period the plan was to restart all projects which were left in the middle and restore the Armenian wiki community. For this purpose, Wikimedia Armenia started its activities with a community gathering on the occasion of Wikipedia Day.

  Quality Content

Wikimedia Armenia has always put an emphasis on the quality of created and improved articles or uploaded files. For this reason, several activities and collaborations were envisaged and implemented during this reporting period.

  Medical Wiki Gathering

As a continuation of the medical wiki projects, which started in 2018, and proved to be very successful, leading to the creation of medical articles - a gap that Armenian Wikipedia faced then, Wikimedia Armenia decided not only to work with specialists in medical but also pharmaceutical areas. As a result, training was organized for these specialists, which actually had a high demand - around 100 people showed interest in the training, and most importantly, 75 out of them were newcomers.

Due to this new approach which enabled newcomers to get to know about the wiki movement, Wikimedia projects, Wikipedia, its rules and principles, editing tools, etc., participants of the next Wiki Gathering, which concentrated on medical topics, were selected from the best and outstanding newcomers. Consequently, 23 newcomers joined 12 experienced editors for the Medical Wiki Gathering and the outcome was impressive - in total, 170 quality medical and pharmaceutical articles were created with a volume of 5,463,166 bytes. Considering the results of the gathering, we understood that the new approach of training newcomers before letting them join major activities was succeeding.


  Lesson learned

One of the lessons learned during this period is that the newcomers should be trained (both offline or online training are suggested) before participating in major events and activities in order to provide higher quality.

  Collaborations with Scientific Institutions

Photo uploaded within the framework of collaboration

Collaborating and working closely with scientific institutions and communities ensures that the articles created on Armenian Wikipedia are trustworthy, created by experts, valid sources are used, and the quality is guaranteed. For this purpose, Wikimedia Armenia continued its practice of communicating with such institutions to start a long-term cooperation. Within this framework, Wikimedia Armenia worked with the Fundamental Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences.

In the first case, the idea was to create pages for all Armenian translators on their website and then create articles on Armenian Wikipedia. The staff of the library was introduced to Wikipedia editing tools, after which they created quality articles. Most importantly, the Library’s website became a valid source for information added to Wikipedia and vice versa. The difficulties of adding citations from one source to another were eliminated by joint forces.

In the second case, special training was organized for ten employees of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography. The training included not only topics on Wikipedia but also WikiData and WikiCommons. There is a gap in archaeological content on Armenian Wikipedia, thus, this was a vital collaboration as a result of which information obtained during the excavations was added to Wikidata, and photos of the excavated archaeological items were uploaded to WikiCommons and were added to Wikipedia articles.

Wikimedia Armenia envisages such collaborations to be continuous because they enable scientists and experts to be a part of the wiki community and create quality, trustworthy, and up-to-date content on Armenian Wikipedia and other wiki projects.

  Financial-Economic Month 2023

Wikimedia Armenia started a collaboration on creating and developing financial-economic topics on Armenian Wikipedia with the Central Bank of Armenia in 2019. It started as a small project with only 10 articles created and grew to one of the biggest annual projects of WMAM. Continuing this success, Wikimedia Armenia decided to bring this collaboration to a new level.

This year, as decided, before the annual competition "Financial Economic Month 2023" organized along with the Central Bank of Armenia, WMAM organized special training sessions for beginners providing a chance to participate in the competition with an equal starting point. This year co-organizers adopted a new approach - the active participants of the Financial-Economic Month spent the final days of the wikimonth (a two-day meetup) together in Tsaghkadzor. The idea was to provide the participants with a friendly, cooperative and competitive environment where they can get to know each other, share their knowledge and experience and compete fairly. The most important achievement of this year’s competition was the beginners, who not only learned all principles and tools of Wikimedia projects in just a month but also accomplished outstanding results. Mainly, one of the beginners won the competition, bypassing several experienced editors.

It should also be noted that the meet-up organized in Tsaghkadzor also had a critical impact. Only in those two days, around 95 articles were created by 15 participants making a contribution of 1,560,000 bytes to Armenian Wikipedia. To show the significance of the meetup, it is vital to compare it with previous years’ results: in 2021, 120 articles were created in a month; in 2022, 185 articles were created in two months.

The co-organizers from the Central Bank were astonished by the results and decided to not only continue the collaboration with this new approach but also to come up with new ideas and formats to make the project even bigger. Here is a quote from one of the employees of the Central Bank regarding the results of the project:

“I still don’t get the phenomenon of the success of this project. What motivates these people to spend hours in front of a computer? I don’t understand, but it inspires me.”

  Lesson learned

Gathering project participants in one place has a multiplier effect on the project's overall outcome and quality.

  Presence of Museums in Wiki Projects 2023

Wikimedia Armenia has always been determined to work closely with GLAM institutions. Even though WMAM had various initiatives with museums, libraries, etc. “Presence of Museums in Wiki Projects” has become an annual edit-a-thon competition that is organized along with the ICOM National Committee of Armenian Museums. This collaboration started in 2021 in line with International Museum Day and has become a tradition. This initiative, as in the case of collaborations with scientific institutions, ensures the creation of quality content by museums’ employees about their museums or exhibits. Before the edit-a-thon, special training was organized for the beginners, after which only they had the chance to participate. This year around 25 beginners took part in the training, and overall, there were six representatives from museums.

  Wiki Loves Earth 2023

Participation in international contests is one of the most exciting events for the Armenian wiki community. Wikimedia Armenia joined the Wiki Loves Earth photo contest in 2014, however, it did not participate in the next several years, returning to the contest only in 2020. This year WMAM joined the contest in order to upload quality photos of Armenia’s natural monuments to WikiCommons. We have learned from the past that photo walks are very effective in “Wiki Loves…” projects because the participants spend a whole day taking photos of natural monuments and then they upload them to WikiCommons. Keeping this practice in mind, this year as well a photo walk to Aragatsotn region was organized. There were 37 participants in the contest, out of which 10 or 27% were newly registered participants. Also, with the number of uploaded photos Armenian wiki community finished in the 4th place among 50 participating countries.

  Community Program

After the suspension period that Wikimedia Armenia went through during the second half of 2022, the Armenian wiki community was mainly inactive and unmotivated. In order to motivate the community and make them become engaged in the wiki movement as vigorously as before, Wikimedia Armenia decided to restart its activities with a small community gathering on Wikipedia’s 22nd anniversary to reflect the past events and to make plans for the future. As part of a tradition, there is a special edit-a-thon before the birthday in which community members actively participate and make their prize contributions to Wikipedia. This year the Armenian wiki community made an interesting contribution of 222 articles for Wikipedia’s 22nd birthday.

  Collaboration with Youth Organization

Wikimedia Armenia, as an organization that is associated with the youth, appreciates close collaborations and communication with youth organizations. Such opportunities make it possible not only to expand the movement and engage more young people from various backgrounds but also to enlarge the network of acquaintances/organizations for further cooperation. Considering the above-mentioned, Wikimedia Armenia’s team was invited to the city of Jermuk in the Vayots Dzor region in order to participate in the "Towards Jermuk" interregional event and to give a speech about the active involvement of the youth in wiki movement, dissemination of free knowledge, and development of Wikipedia. As a result of this event, the idea of opening a Wikiclub in Jermuk emerged and bilateral agreements were reached to make Jermuk Wikiclub a reality (this is covered in the “Education” section).

  Wikiexcursion

Community gatherings in any format are vital for the Armenian wiki community. For this reason, as in recent years, now as well Wikimedia Armenia is awarding the winners of different major projects an excursion to different destinations. This time the winners of the Medical Wiki Gathering organized in January chose the destination to Vayots Dzor. Such trips have multifold impacts:

  • The participants spend time with each other and get to know each other better,
  • They learn about new places and write articles about them,
  • They take pictures of natural monuments, as well as surrounding historical-cultural monuments and have the opportunity to upload them during the WLM or WLE photo contests,
  • During the long trip they also discuss various topics related to Wikipedia, wiki movement and sometimes suggest interesting new ideas.

  CEE Spring 2023

Wikimedia Armenia has always been actively engaged in collaboration between Central and Eastern European countries - CEE Spring - aiming to create articles about different CEE countries, their history, culture, language, traditions, etc. in Armenian. This year 34 participants joined the annual contest and altogether created 412 articles; moreover, participants also created articles about women - in total 67 articles.


  Education Program

  Collaborations with Universities

In spreading the notion of free knowledge, collaborations with educational institutions play a crucial role. Accordingly, Wikimedia Armenia continues to find common ground with different universities in Armenia, suggesting various formats of collaboration. In this reporting period, Wikimedia Armenia continued its productive work with the students of Brusov State University and the Ijevan Branch of Yerevan State University. Currently, the main format of working with university students is a graded internship.

  • Brusov State University - the students do their internship at Wikimedia Armenia and learn about the wiki movement, its principles, projects, and tools. During their internship, senior students from the Faculty of Translation and Intercultural Communication and the Faculty of Russian and Foreign Languages of Brusov State University pass special intensive training, after which they start translating articles. The students are graded for their internship, so they are encouraged to create quality articles corresponding to Wikipedia principles.
Brusov State University Internship Statistics 2019-2023
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Number of interns 35 30 60 32 50
Number of articles - 153 225 113 175
Contributed bytes - 5,198,252 8,036,132 4,167,70 8,229,95
  • Ijevan Branch of Yerevan State University - having the efficient experience of Brusov State University, in 2022, Wikimedia Armenia started its collaboration with the Ijevan Branch of YSU within the framework of “Wiki Loves History” edit-a-thon, which grew to become an internship for students. In contrast to Brusov State University, students of the Ijevan Branch of YSU do not have the chance to visit Wikimedia Armenia’s office because of the distance between the city of Ijevan and Yerevan. Nevertheless, the students were introduced to Wikipedia and sister projects with online classes. During the whole period, the students had the chance to ask questions in case they faced any issues while writing or publishing their articles. Closer to the end of their internship, the employees of Wikimedia Armenia organized an offline meeting in the Ijevan Branch of YSU, where the students presented their articles and WMAM staff discussed the common mistakes that new contributors make. This year not only students of the Faculty of History joined the internship, but also students from the Faculty of Armenian Literature - in total, 15 students created 50 and improved 42 articles making a contribution of 710,572 bytes.

Along with the above-mentioned successful collaborations, Wikimedia Armenia always continues setting the ground for new projects with other universities and educational institutions in Armenia. This time, the American University of Armenia was interested in the Wikimedia movement. The Quality Content Coordinator had an introductory meeting with a group of students from the American University of Armenia, presenting the movement, Wikipedia and other projects, editing tools, etc. Interested students decided to create articles in their sandboxes and, after that, wikify them with the help of WMAM employees. We hope that this collaboration will continue and expand to reach a new level.

  Teachers' Wikipedia Training

Teachers’ Wikipedia training is one of the most important projects that Wikimedia Armenia has been implementing from the very beginning of its foundation, varying in format or expansion. Teachers’ Wikipedia Training is a special training course for teachers from all around Armenia, providing a chance to teachers to learn about Wikipedia and other projects, create articles, and use wiki projects during their classes. This year, as was already mentioned, all beginners first passed a special training to gain a basic understanding of Wikipedia, wiki projects, and editing tools. Afterward, the best and most outstanding teachers were chosen to participate in the Teachers’ Wiki Gathering.

As always, the interest in the training was very high - a total of 280 teachers applied to participate in the gathering. 91 teachers took part in the special course before the gathering, out of which 30 participants were selected for the gathering, most of which were newcomers. It is important to note that Wikimedia Armenia especially pays close attention to creating a safe space for newcomers in order to feel engaged and not marginalized.

Once again, the training before major events and gatherings proved to be efficient. During the three days of the gathering, 190 articles with a volume of 2,121,101 bytes were translated from English and Russian languages. It is vital to mention that some of these teachers actively participate in WMAM’s other projects and activities, as well as act as ambassadors in spreading the wiki movement in different parts of the country, not only around teachers’ networks but also around their students.

  WikiClubs

Wikiclubs represent the complex idea of youth+volunteering+self-education+community belonging. Wikiclubs are one of the principal initiatives of Wikimedia Armenia, which was adopted by many other affiliates. Previously Wikimedia Armenia had much more Wikiclubs in Armenia, some of which shut down because of financial shortages during COVID-19. Despite that, the functioning Wikiclubs are actively participating in various projects initiated by Wikimedia Armenia and spreading the wiki movement among the teenagers and youth of their respective regions.

In this reporting period and for the future, Wikimedia Armenia decided to expand the network of Wikiclubs in Armenia because of their overall impact both within their local communities and the Armenian wiki community. One such achievement was the opening of Jermuk Wikiclub in the Vayots Dzor region. It should be noted that even during its peak, Wikimedia Armenia did not have any Wikiclubs in Vayots Dzor. As mentioned above, cooperation with various local organizations and initiatives brings new ideas and new interests. The result of one such cooperation became the idea of opening a Wikiclub in Jermuk. The space for the Wikiclub was provided by the Jermuk Youth Center. Hopefully, Jermuk Wikiclub will prove to be a worthy addition to WMAM’s Wikiclub network.

Overall, currently, there are 7 Wikiclubs operating. The club members contribute not only to Wikipedia but also to Wikisource and Wikidata. The Wikiclubs have coordinators who work directly with club members and promote Wikiclubs to engage new members. As of June 2023, there are 143 active members in 7 Wikiclubs. The number of members is gradually increasing considering the fact that Wikimedia Armenia restarted its normal activities and implements various projects, and organizes various events, which keep Wikiclubs motivated and active.

For the latter reason, Wikimedia Armenia organizes Wikiclub members' visits to Wikimedia Armenia’s office. In this reporting period, Mrgavan Wikiclub’s new members visited Wikimedia Armenia to learn about WMAM’s activities, goals, and events. We hope that visits to the Wikimedia Armenia office, as well as Wikiclubs will help the club members to feel themselves a part of a bigger community than their local Wikiclub and share their experience, ideas, and problems they faced.

  Organizational development

Wikimedia Armenia went through a very challenging period (2021-2022), which taught us some good lessons. In this reporting period, Wikimedia Armenia continued addressing various issues regarding its overall activities and communication with the Armenian wiki community and members of the organization. These have become the main focus of the WMAM Board. In several Board meetings that happened from December 2022 to June 2023, some vital decisions were made, and steps were taken.

Mainly, it was decided it is vital to keep the members of the organization and community active and engaged in Wikimedia Armenia's further activities. To organize better communication, it was agreed to keep in touch with members not only by writing emails and sharing information on social media and Wikimedia platforms but also by making phone calls always to keep them informed. Besides that, it was decided to organize an extended Board meeting to discuss the road map for Wikimedia Armenia's further activities. It was also decided to take certain steps to address the problem of passive and uninvolved members in order to make them more involved in WMAM activities.

Furthermore, during this period, another vital question was raised and discussed regarding the development of various regulations and procedures as an extension to the Charter. One of such regulations suggested was "About Membership" which is aimed to define a more regulated procedure of membership because previously it has been a subject to debate.

Overall, a transparent, open, and communicative approach has been adopted, and it will continue.

  Useful links

Global metrics for all programs[edit]

Participants Newly registered Content pages Wikipedia Content pages Wikisource/Wiktionary/Wikicommons
Quality Content
Wiki practice for specialists in medical and pharmacological areas 31 31 22
Medical Wiki Gathering 35 23 170
Collaborations with scientific institutions 12 12 16 25 Commons
Financial-Economic month + training 54 34 311
Presence of Museums in wiki projects + training 49 31 152
Wiki Loves Earth 37 10 3039 Commons
Subtotal 218 141 671 3064 Commons
Community Program
CEE Spring 2023 34 5 412
Wikipedia birthday community edit-a-thon 55 2 222
Subtotal 89 7 634
Education Program
Collaboration with universities 65 65 267
Teachers’ Wiki Gathering + training 36 26 285
WikiClubs 143 58 1860 422 WIkisource / 2706 Wikidata edits
Subtotal 244 149 2412 422 WIkisource / 2706 Wikidata edits
TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 551 297 3717 3064 Commons / 422 Wikisource / 2706 Wikidata edits

Revenues received during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)[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
Wikimedia Foudation AMD 127,185,688 30,710,400 - 5,748,130 22,227,100 58,685,630 264,970.18 121,826
Donations for Wikiclubs AMD 7,638,712 2,400,000 2,071,000 1,950,000 1,980,000 8,401,000 16,000 17,502
TOTAL AMD 134,824,400 33,110,400 2,071,000 7,698,130 24,207,100 67,086,630 280,970.18 139,328

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


* In 2019, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation owed us USD 4,000 which it returned in September 2020.

** From previous reporting period Wikimedia Armenia saved 27,296.70 USD, according to Wikimedia Foundations request, until the funds of this quarter were received.

Revenues received during this period (December 2022-June 2023)[edit]

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
Wikimedia Foudation AMD 13,027,100 13,027,100 - — — 13,027,100 32,980 32,980
Donations for Wikiclubs and other projects AMD 7,200,000 3,600,000 3,600,000 — — 7,200,000 18,277.8 18,277.8
TOTAL AMD 20,227,100 16,627,100 3,600,000 — — 20,227,100 51,257.8 51,257.8

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

* USD 1=AMD 395

Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)[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
Operations AMD 15,944,400 4,624,984 2,840,587 3,695,708 2,861,114 14,022,393 33,217.5 28,838 87.9%
Quality Content AMD 22,275,000 - - 542,322 566,900 1,109,222 46,406.25 2,240 4.9%
Community AMD 7,290,000 394,347 1,158,780 97,500 2,110,540 3,761,167 15,187.50 7,615.6 51.5%
Education AMD 44,839,000 8,654,820 - 6,322,490 11,636,804 26,614,114 93,414.58 54,109.8 59.3%
Organizational development AMD 1,500,000 481,700 - - - 481,700 3,125 1,003 32%
Staff expanses AMD 35,337,288 7,347,092 6,623,800 6,672,816 6,025,114 26,668,822 73,619.35 54,795 75.4%
TOTAL AMD 127,185,688 21,502,943 10,623,167 17,330,836 23,200,472 72,657,418 264,970.18 148,601.4 57.1%

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this period (December 2022-June 2023)[edit]

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
Operations AMD n/a 1,384,099 1,104,715 n/a n/a 2,488,814 n/a 6,301
Quality Content AMD n/a 3,262,822 205,000 n/a n/a 3,467,822 n/a 8,779
Community AMD n/a 191,350 n/a n/a n/a 191,350 n/a 484
Education AMD n/a n/a 1,439,350 n/a n/a 1,439,350 n/a 3,644
Staff expanses AMD n/a 4,456,425 3,884,635 n/a n/a 8,341,060 n/a 21,117
Wikiclubs AMD n/a 1,850,337 1,850,337 n/a n/a 3,700,674 n/a 9,369
TOTAL AMD n/a 11,145,033 8,484,037 n/a n/a 19,629,070 n/a 49,694

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

* USD 1=AMD 395

Compliance[edit]

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

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

  • Due to the COVID-19 pandemic we had to cancel some of the projects presented in the grant proposal and had to change others to adjust them to the online format.

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

  • Yes

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

  • Yes

Signature[edit]

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

Resources[edit]

Resources to plan for measurement[edit]

Resources for storytelling[edit]

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