Grants:Project/John Cummings/Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO 2017-2018

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statusselected
Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO 2017-2018
summaryThe goals of the project are for UNESCO’s publication workflows incorporate sharing open license content on Wikimedia projects, to support other Intergovernmental Organistaions and the wider public to share content on Wikimedia projects and to support Wikimedia contributors are to easily discover and use UNESCO content and the documentation produced. The project will continue my work as Wikimedian in Residence at UNESCO from October 2017 - October 2018 with the addition of working with Navino Evans on data for one day per week.
targetWikipedia: primarily English but also other languages including the other official UN languages (French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese and Russian).

Wikidata: including descriptions in the six official UN languages

Wikimedia Commons: including descriptions in the six official UN languages
type of grantuncertain
amount€64,000 (51% of total project cost of €123651.22)
type of applicantgroup
contact• mrjohncummings@gmail.com
this project needs...
volunteer
affiliate
join
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created on19:53, 14 March 2017 (UTC)


Project idea[edit]

What is the problem you're trying to solve?[edit]

What problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Context:[edit]

I have been working at UNESCO as their Wikimedian in Residence for the last 18 months pursuing the following goals:

  1. Train UNESCO and partner organisations to contribute to Wikimedia projects.
  2. Make content available on Wikimedia projects from the archives of UNESCO and their partners.
  3. Create models and resources to encourage other UN organisations and their partner organisations to engage with Wikimedia.
  4. Disseminate and promote information on the project and its outcomes, open licensing and engaging with Wikimedia.

UNESCO has the will, mandate and ability to deeply engage with open licensing and the Wikimedia community in a way that can change institutional and government policy which would not be possible by WMF, Wikimedia Chapters or any other UN agency. UNESCO ability to influence organisations and individuals to contribute to Wikimedia through open licensing has already started to happen as demonstrated by both UNESCO and the UN promoting the Wiki Loves competitions on social media. There is both a huge amount of content and knowledge available in UNESCO and other Intergovernmental Organisations that can be made available under an open license.

Specifics:[edit]

UNESCO has started to invest significant resources in sharing content on Wikimedia, allocating existing staff time to the project and contracting additional staff. In the past 18 months we have achieved an agreement on open licensing almost all content produced by UNESCO, created a portal to share content on Wikimedia projects and promoted Wiki Loves competitions through UNESCO’s social media channels. However currently UNESCO do not have all the documentation and mechanisms set up to make sharing content on Wikimedia projects as part of their publication process a sustainable and long term activity. The tasks outlined in this grant proposal will get UNESCO to this point.

Without this grant this is unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future as it will take a significant amount of work, time, specialist knowledge and cooperation to achieve. Over the last 18 months I have developed a deep understanding of the content UNESCO has, the organisation’s processes. I have built relationships with people within UNESCO and other Intergovernmental Organisations to progress open licensing within the UN system. In addition to my own time I am applying for funding for Navino Evans to work with me on data projects one day per week. Despite significant effort to work with the community including setting up the Wikidata Import Hub and supporting pages a very small proportion of the data from UNESCO has been added to Wikidata. Developing a process to import data needs dedicated regular work to import data from UNESCO and other UN agencies and improve the documentation and workflow for importing data from all organisations with useful data.

What is your solution?[edit]

For the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem. We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We’d like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

This project leads on from my previous WMF grant and work funded by Wikimedia Sweden. A very brief outline of the work I have done is available as a presentation here. Most metrics and activities are included in the UNESCO Monthly Visibility Report, available in English and French here on the right hand side of the page (in the Social Media section of the reports). Most public work is done in Wikiproject United Nations with the exception of some documentation although this is linked from the Wikiproject pages.

This project has the ability to make a large amount of content available under an open license, raise the profile and respectability of projects through promotion on UNESCO social media and innovate models of contribution.

Previous grant outline[edit]

Most of the goals from the last grant period (originally written here) have been achieved or at a stage where I have I have completed my part of the work and the work is now finished or being reviewed before being made available publicly. In addition to the goals set others have been achieved including:

  1. Promotion of Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Africa by UNESCO and the UN social media accounts to 9 million followers.
  2. Hosting the 2017 European GLAMwiki Coordinators meeting at UNESCO.
Work at UNESCO, technical development, capacity building;[edit]

1. Get documentation and software for MediaBank up on GitHub

  1. This will happen in the next two months, it is currently under code review at UNESCO before being made public.
  2. UNESCO have employed a contractor to create all the documentation needed for Mediabank (user guide, legal page, reuse guidelines etc) which is currently under review.

2. Mediabank to Commons automation is complete and working. There is sufficient documentation for other organisations to begin using it at their org.

  1. The software has been written and the code has been reviewed, it will be implemented at the same time as the code is made available on GitHub.
  2. The process has been used to copy 2000 images from the World Heritage Gallery, this includes matching the categories of UNESCO to the categories on Wikimedia Commons.

3. Work out some of the technical challenges around tools to measure file use for GLAMs who have donated large collections.

  1. I have worked with User:MusikAnimal to create a metrics tool for page views of articles using open license text from an external source and     created instructions on the Adding open license text to Wikipedia page.   
  2. A request has been made that GLAMorgan incorporate MediaViews so that it more accurately measures media views from.

4. Evaluate how UNESCO social media coverage of Wiki Loves Monuments impacted contest (# of people who clicked links and from where).

  1. An full overview is available here in the September 2016 edition of the UNESCO Visibility Report (p22).
Socialization of documentation, tools and donated content:[edit]

1. Work with Alex Stinson and members of the GLAM community to share documentation and tools, and make it easier for people to find them.

  1. Sharing the Simple Media Reuse guide widely within UNESCO, it is attached to each of monthly visibility reports and shared widely with staff in the Culture department to reuse images from Wiki Loves Monuments.

2. Translate the text reuse guide and media reuse guide into French, Spanish and German.

  1. I am working with Wikimedia France to translate into French, it is not a simple task as it requires the template to be translated or rewritten to incorporate        

3. Share text reuse tools and documentation with editing communities who would find it useful, such as 100 Wiki Days, people organizing contests relating to WLM, or user groups in regions with content gaps that could be filled using UNESCO media and text. At the end of the grant period, you can measure how many times the template has been used.

  1. Shared with 100 Wiki Days, Wikipedia Weekly, GLAM-Wiki Global Facebook groups.
  2. A significant amount of work has been done by UNESCO contractors and staff to develop a list of possible additions to Wikipedia using open license text, see the Education publications and Science publications links on this page.   

Project goals[edit]

What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

The goals of the project have been adapted since the original goals set out in the first grant request to take into account the work that has been done over the past 18 months, knowledge gained about the publication processes at UNESCO and the previously unknown opportunities including social media promotion of Wikimedia projects:

  1. UNESCO’s publication workflows incorporate sharing open license content on Wikimedia projects.
  2. Support other Intergovernmental Organisations and the wider public to share content on Wikimedia projects.
  3. Support Wikimedia contributors to easily discover and use UNESCO content and the documentation produced.

Project impact[edit]

How will you know if you have met your goals?[edit]

For each of your goals, we’d like you to answer the following questions:

  1. During your project, what will you do to achieve this goal? (These are your outputs.)
  2. Once your project is over, how will it continue to positively impact the Wikimedia community or projects? (These are your outcomes.)

For each of your answers, think about how you will capture this information. Will you capture it with a survey? With a story? Will you measure it with a number? Remember, if you plan to measure a number, you will need to set a numeric target in your proposal (e.g. 45 people, 10 articles, 100 scanned documents). Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

UNESCO’s publication workflows incorporate sharing open license content on Wikimedia projects[edit]

This goal has the potential to make a very large amount of content available to Wikimedia projects, UNESCO holds 100,000s of images, 10,000s of hours of audio and video and a very large amount of data.

  • To continue to work with UNESCO staff member to set up processes to more easily share UNESCO images, audio, video, graphics and data with Wikimedia projects through Mediabank and to replicate these processes with other organisations.
    • Metric: At least 10,000 files from UNESCO have been added to Wikimedia Commons.


Examples of content already made available by UNESCO[edit]

UNESCO has released media under a Wikimedia compatible license making it free for everyone to reuse as part of its open access policy.

Click here to see where UNESCO images have been used and viewing figures for each month.


Support other Intergovernmental Organistaions and the wider public to share content on Wikimedia projects[edit]

  • The processes of open license text reuse created with UNESCO is used by UNESCO partner organisations including other Intergovernmental Organisations.
    • Metric: That all other IGOs producing text under an open license have a space on Wikiproject United Nations and have some level of involvement in reusing the text on Wikimedia projects e.g suggesting where text can be used.
  • UN agencies and UNESCO partner organisations have simpler ways to share media, text and data and to provide the organisations involved with an understanding of the impact of sharing content on Wikimedia projects. Wikiproject United Nations (which spans Wikipedia, Commons, Wikidata and Meta) has been set up to integrate content from any UN agencies.
    • Metric: More content is available from UN agencies other than UNESCO on Wikimedia projects.
    • Metric: That any IGO making content available on Wikimedia projects has a BaGLAMa 2 category set up to measure page views of articles carrying their images as I have done with the European Space Agency.
    • Metric: A Massviews link is set up to measure page views for articles that use their open license text like UNESCO does.
  • Reuse of existing open license text within Wikimedia projects is a more widely used mechanism to share knowledge from partner organisations on Wikimedia projects.
  • That the documentation created as part of this project is usable by both organisations and Wikimedia contributors. That the documentation can be easily be repurposed for other projects and translated into other languages.
    • Metric: That 10 other Wikiprojects use at least one of pieces of documentation that I have developed.
  • Documentation is of high enough quality to be easily used by busy people in professional organisations. UN agencies can chose to share their content with a number of sites to reach a large audience e.g Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. For UN agencies to be more willing to make their content available under an open license it is important for Wikimedia to have as close as possible level of documentation, ease of use and availability of metrics as these platforms.
    • Metric: Documentation that we have developed is used more widely including by other IGOs.
    • Metric: That the documentation is easy to find for external organisations and that other Wikimedians have started using it in their projects.
  • UNESCO continues to promote Wikimedia initiatives through social media promotion as was done in 2016/17 for the Wiki Loves competitions and hosting meetings like the European GLAMwiki Coordinators meeting.
    • Metric: UNESCO promotes the Wiki Loves competitions in 2017/18, with the hope of other UN bodies also promoting them.
    • Metric: At least one other Wikimedia meeting is hosted at UNESCO during this grant period.


Examples of images uploaded for Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves 2016[edit]

Click here to see where the images from Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves have been used and viewing figures for each month.

Support Wikimedia contributors are to easily discover and use UNESCO content and the documentation produced[edit]

  • Many more Wikimedia chapters, user groups and individuals are involved in the project and it becomes a multilingual project. The previous grant proposal received a lot of support from Wikimedia chapters and user groups, however I was not able to capitalise on that support as there was much more work needed on basic documentation and tools to share content than was previously expected.
    • Metric: That Wikiproject United Nations becomes available in 3 other languages, most effort will be put into the other official UN languages.
  • Wikimedia contributors have a greater awareness of the tools and resources created as part of the project.
    • Metric: That at least 3 blog posts are created for major Wikimedia blogs about the tools and resources created.

Do you have any goals around participation or content?[edit]

Are any of your goals related to increasing participation within the Wikimedia movement, or increasing/improving the content on Wikimedia projects? If so, we ask that you look through these three metrics, and include any that are relevant to your project. Please set a numeric target against the metrics, if applicable. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

All goals in the project are built around participation and content. To create a sustainable flow of knowledge and content from Wikimedia projects both UNESCO staff and Wikimedia contributors must be engaged.

UNESCO’s publication workflows incorporate sharing open license content on Wikimedia projects[edit]

This goal will make a huge volume of content available on Wikimedia projects and be a model for other Intergovernmental Organisations to follow. IGOs produce a significant volume of content that is unique, not available from other sources.

Support other Intergovernmental Organistaions and the wider public to share content on Wikimedia projects[edit]

Promotion of the Wiki Loves competitions by UNESCO and possibly by other UN agencies (as happened previously with the UN Twitter account sharing information 3 times to their 7 million followers) has the potential to not only engage the existing Wikimedia movement but to grow it.

Whilst focusing on Biosphere Reserves for Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves restricts the subjects of the images produced it widens potential for participation to 120 countries. Wiki Loves Earth Biosphere Reserves received contributions from 27 additional countries that did not take part in the national Wiki Loves Earth competitions.

Support Wikimedia contributors are to easily discover and use UNESCO content and the documentation produced[edit]

The documentation that has been produced as part of this project has been advertised widely on Wikimedia projects and social media.

Project plan[edit]

Activities[edit]

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

There is a significant gap between the date of application for the grant and the start date for the grant. I currently have funding from Wikimedia Sverigie until the start date of the project to work towards these goals, this may mean some of the work will be more or less progressed than estimated in this proposal. There will also be emergent opportunities within the project that will within the goals, similar to how UNESCO promoting the Wiki Loves competitions emerged.

UNESCO’s publication workflows incorporate sharing open license content on Wikimedia projects[edit]

John Cummings[edit]

  • Continue to work with UNESCO staff to reuse existing open license text (using the template and resources I developed) on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects on the Wikiproject United Nations open license text pages. The amount of recommendations for editors will significantly increase over the next 6 months as UNESCO are employing two full time contractors for several months to add content to these pages.
  • Set up reuse documentation and dynamic lists for text from the 100,000s of pages on the UNESCO website which will be made available under an open license in 2017. This will include official descriptions of all UNESCO inscription programmes in up to 7 languages including World Heritage, Memory of the World, Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity and Geoparks. Essential to this is Navino Evans work on importing data from UNESCO into Wikidata, e.g these Instructions for reusing official descriptions of Biosphere Reserves use a Wikidata map of Biosphere Reserves without English language Wikipedia articles to generate and track a list of work for Wikimedia editors.
  • Continue to work on the process of sharing content from UNESCO archives to Wikimedia Commons through Mediabank simpler. Mediabank, which will be sharing content with Wikimedia by the start of this grant period, Mediabank will become the main UNESCO media archive holding 70 years of images, audio, video, graphics (including from publications) and data.  

Navino Evans[edit]

  • Import data from UNESCO databases and publications into Wikidata including but not limited to inscription programmes, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and publications. This will include the following tasks:
    • Analyse data made available to assess which parts are within the scope of Wikidata and have sufficient metadata to be useful, liaising with the Wikidata community where necessary.
    • Clean and reformat the data to resolve any inconsistencies and prepare it for import into Wikidata.
    • Match items and column headings from the data source to Wikidata items, using tools like Mix'n'Match as well as processing the data locally.
    • Proposing new properties to be created on Wikidata where needed to describe the new data.
    • Perform mass import with the cleaned and Wikidata matched data.
  • Create work lists based on Wikidata queries to allow Wikimedia contributors to fill in missing data in Wikidata, Commons and Wikipedia (e.g. lists of World Heritage Sites without Wikipedia articles in a given language, sites without a Commons image entered on Wikidata displayed on a map).
  • Set up a process for UNESCO and other UN agencies to share the significant amount of data it collates for its publications (Global Education Monitoring Report, World Water Development Report, World Science Report etc) with Wikidata. Other agencies data will come from their own websites and the Humanitarian Data Exchange to much more easily import data into Wikidata. This process will be included in the professional development module described below. This will build on the work we did building the following resources, the work is outlined in a blog post on the Wikimedia blog: Wizards, Muggles and Wikidata: The Room of Requirements for structured knowledge including:
    • Data Import Hub: A central place to request, organise and record the import of datasets, the process is broken into stages requiring different skills.
    • Data Import Guide: A practical guide to learn how to import datasets into Wikidata which integrates with the existing Bot Requests page.
    • Partnerships and data imports: A page to discuss partnerships with organisations and work on data imports.
    • Data donation: A page to give for potential partner organisations an overview of Wikidata including the benefits of adding data and visualisation tools available.
    • Wikidata import archive: Records which datasets have been imported into Wikidata, important for understanding what data is in Wikidata and keeping data from external data sources up to date.
    • These pages are designed to work with the existing Bot Requests page where experienced Wikidata contributors can use tools to import the data once it has been processed.

Support other Intergovernmental Organistaions and the wider public to share content on Wikimedia projects[edit]

John Cummings[edit]

  • Continue to advise other IGOs including other UN agencies on adopting open licensing through IGO Open Access working group which consists of heads of publication departments and other similar staff members of UN agencies and other IGOs.
  • Advise other UN agencies on setting up Wikimedian in Residence posts as I have previous done with the UNESCO National Commission of the Netherlands.
  • Encourage other organisations to use and develop the Mediabank software to more easily share their content with Wikimedia projects, Mediabank will be available on Github here by the start of the grant period.
  • Work on an open license professional development course for GLAM professionals produced by UNESCO, myself, Navino Evans and Wikimedia GLAM organisers. This work will be done in collaboration with many chapters and build on existing exploratory work I am doing with Stuart Prior (WMUK) Alex Petterson (WMSE) and Alex Stinson (WMF) which is compiling a map of Wikimedia activities with external organisations, an outline of the mapping process is available here. This course will be an extension of the existing resources available for Researchers and Librarians that UNESCO currently offers. The first session to develop this module was run at the 2017 European GLAMwiki Coordinators Meeting held at UNESCO which was run by myself and Bhanu Neupane, Programme Specialist in the Communication and Information Sector. An early draft is currently being prototyped for use by Biosphere Reserve staff and may be distributed at EuroMAB 2017 to get feedback from Biosphere Reserve staff.
  • Presentations on the work I have done at various Wikimedia and UN conferences.
  • Run workshops on reusing UNESCO content and adding open license text on Wikimedia projects using the documentation and template I have developed and the metrics tool created by MusikAnimal.
  • Work with UNESCO to promote Wiki Loves Monuments (p22), Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Africa (p18)  in 2018, including if requested providing judging on the international judging panels as happened with WLM and WLE in 2016.

Navino Evans[edit]

Following on from our previous work on the process and documentation for importing data into Wikidata, we have identified significant issues that are still potential roadblocks for external organisations that must be addressed. Perfecting this process is absolutely critical to the future of engagement between external organisations and Wikidata. The solutions to must be found by gaining significant feedback through testing the data import process to identify improvements needed to processes, documentation and tools.

  • Run workshops and communicate with the community to encourage translations of processes, tools and documentation produced as part of the project. This would include working closely with Jens Ohlig from WMDE.
  • Promote the use of the Wikidata Import Hub data import process to make sure community members are aware of it's existence and using it as the primary work flow (many people are currently importing data from various sources without any track that others can follow, and without improving the process for future importers).
  • Improve the data import process based on user feedback to make it easier to follow, and more attractive for any external organisation wanting to add data to Wikidata. We already have a number of known issues to solve (e.g. extremely difficult to track the changing state of the imported data as future edits are made) but expect many more to come up.
  • Encourage other external organisations to import data using our improved system, primarily via the creation of data visualisations such as maps, timelines and charts that show the benefits of importing into Wikidata as a way of gaining insights and reaching new audiences.

Support Wikimedia contributors are to easily discover and use UNESCO content and the documentation produced[edit]

A large percentage of the time of the project will be spent on this section of activities, on communications, socialisation and outreach. Activities listed under other goals will also include a large degree of socialisation of existing work. The majority of this work with chapters will be based on showing the value of the work through presentations, reports, blog posts.

John Cummings[edit]

Much more of my time than expected during my previous grant was spent on documentation, creating some of the resources that were needed to run the project. High quality documentation on the benefits and practicalities of contributing to Wikimedia projects is scarce and often in hard to find places or does not exist in a form that is usable by external organisation. Much of the existing documentation was either too technical, not complete or did not fit the audience e.g was very in depth and required too much background knowledge to be useful to an external audience.

  • Start working with chapters and user groups to reuse both text and media content from UNESCO to populate Wikimedia projects. Identify Wikiprojects, user groups and chapters to work with to reuse text from UNESCO. I will be working with Wiki in Africa before this grant period to reuse text from Gender and Africa related UNESCO publications to build a model to engage with specific interest groups.
  • Run and host in person events at UNESCO, possibly similar to the 2017 European GLAMwiki Coordinators meeting I hosted in February 2017.
  • Encouraging translations of the documentation I have created by including:
    • Wikipedia:Adding open license text to Wikipedia
    • Wikidata Import Hub (and related pages)
    • Commons:Simple reuse guide
  • Create blog posts for tools created and content released as part of the project

Navino Evans[edit]

  • Work with John Cummings to set up the templates, Wikidata queries and other technical issues to allow Wikimedia contributors to reuse content from UNESCO and other UN agencies on Wikimedia projects in a structured way.
  • Collaborate with template creators on Wikipedia to encourage use of data from Wikidata, and make sure they are aware of the data structures in use for newly imported data.

Facilitate assistance with non-technical editing and matching tasks from the Wikidata volunteer community. This will include manual data entry in instances where mass import is not possible (assisted by the query based work lists mentioned in the point above), and helping match external data to Wikidata items using the Mix'n'Match tool. Helpers will be drafted by contacting participants of related WikiProjects (e.g. WikiProject Built heritage), and promoting editing projects on Wikidata Project Chat and social media.

Budget[edit]

How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. (You can create a table later if needed.) Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!

Budget Narrative[edit]

UNESCO is committed to offering significant in-kind and staff time contributions to the project cost as well as their standard programme support cost which is calculated as 13% of the total spend on the project delivery - please see explanatory note here. In addition to this cost UNESCO are investing over $10,000 of staff time between March - May 2017 to suggest sections of UNESCO open license publications that can be used in Wikipedia.  It is expected this level of investment will at least continue during the proposed grant period.

UNESCO are unable to offer direct financial assistance to me due to two reasons:

  1. the 22% post 2011 reduction in their funding caused by the US cutting all funding in response to UNESCO granting Palestine full membership. This has led to reduced project budgets and reduction in global staff levels.
  2. I am unable to enter into any kind of contractual arrangement with UNESCO until 6 months after my volunteer agreement finishes (the agreement that allows me to work in the UNESCO buildings).

My previous WMF funding expired at the end of February, I have secured further funding from Wikimedia Sweden until September 2017. I aim to secure funding before the end of the grant period from other sources to continue working on this project. I am requesting the grant amount in Euros but asking for it to be paid in £GBP because of the volatile and worsening exchange rate of Euro to £GBP due to Brexit.

UNESCO[edit]

UNESCO is investing significant staff time and funding to working with Wikimedia including:

  • Developing a Wikimedia Commons plugin for their Mediabank service which will be made available as an open source media repository on GitHub here in the coming months.
  • Employing consultants to work on sharing UNESCO Education and Communication and Information publication content on Wikimedia projects.
  • Existing staff time to work on sharing content on Wikimedia projects and developing the professional development module mentioned in Goal 3.
  • It is reasonable to assume that UNESCO will contribute $1000 in conference and accommodation costs, Conference fees, since I have worked at UNESCO they have paid for my attendance at the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere World Congress worth $1000 and will be attending EuroMAB 2017 which UNESCO will reimburse $800 in conference fee and accommodation costs.
Wikimedia Foundation[edit]

I would like to request the following resources for the grant from WMF:

  • €50,000 budget for my time: an 11% increase from the previous due to:
    • An increase in value of USD against the EURO
    • A difference in tax liability compared to how it was calculated compared to the previous grant request.
    • An increase in living costs in Paris.
  • €3000 travel budget
    • Having a flexible travel budget was invaluable in the last grant, it allowed me to attend conferences and meetings that were not organised until after the grant period had begun. The travel budget would be spent on:
      • Travel to international conferences
      • Travel within Europe to meetings including at UN offices in Geneva
  • €10,000 budget for Navino Evans time
    • In addition for my own time I would like to apply for funding for Navino Evans to work for one day per week for the period of the grant. I have been working with Navino since starting work at UNESCO on the technical aspects of the project, mainly focussed on Wikidata, he most often does in an hour what takes me several days. Wikidata is becoming the centre of much of my work especially considering the multilingual nature of UNESCO but uploading data to Wikidata and creating complex queries requires a very high skill level. Wikidata will become even more important when UNESCO make their entire website available under CC-BY-SA 3.0 later this year, including descriptions of all their inscription programmes. It is a much more efficient use of my time to work with Navino who is very technically skilled and has created the website Histropedia along with documentation on Wikidata and Sparql queries. The time needed to learn many of the skills needed would be a large proportion of the project time and in many cases the documentation to learn myself the skills needed does not exist.
  • €1000 travel budget for Navino Evans
    • Navino’s travel for conferences and workshops to present and run training on documentation and tools created as part of the project.

Budget table[edit]

Exchange rates calculated on the 14th March 2017, grant requested in Euros, not USD.

Item number Category Item description Unit cost Number of units for 12 months Total cost in Euros Total cost US Dollars Notes Source of funding
1 Venue Senior staff time including directors, staff time for meetings and research related to the project.

A large office, office services (printing, photocopying, etc)

Meeting rooms for internal and external meeting (e.g the rooms used for the GLAMwiki Coordinators Meeting were provided free of charge).

1 €15,450.56 UNESCO standard costing of 13% of project costs. UNESCO
2 Project management UNESCO Wikimedian in Residence salary and taxation €25.64 1950 €50,000 $53052.50 John Cummings This grant
3 Project management Wikidata expert salary and taxation €25.64 390 €10,000 $10,610.50 Navino Evans This grant
4 Project management Software developer time N/A N/A €9424.62 $10,000 Staff time and contractor time to improve sharing UNESCO content on Wikimedia Commons using the Wikimedia API UNESCO
5 Project Management UNESCO staff time for development of professional development module. €9424.62 $10,000 An estimated minimum investment of senior management staff time based on the current level of investment. UNESCO
6 Project management UNESCO Communication and Information sector staff time to recommend text and add information to Wikipedia. €9424.62 $10,000 An estimated minimum investment of staff time based on the current level of investment. UNESCO
7 Project management UNESCO Education sector staff time to recommend text and add information to Wikipedia. €9424.62 $10,000 An estimated minimum investment of staff time based on the current level of investment. UNESCO
8 Project management UNESCO Science sector staff time time to recommend text and add information to Wikipedia. €9424.62 $10,000 An estimated minimum investment of staff time based on the current level of investment. UNESCO
9 Travel Travel budget  and accomodation. 1 €3000 $3183.15 Travel budget for John Cummigs This grant
10 Travel Travel and accomodation 1 €1000 $1,061.05 Travel budget for Navino Evans This grant
11 Travel Conference fees and Accommodation 1 €2827.38 $3000 Travel and accommodation expenses for conferences and events provided by UNESCO. UNESCO
12 Travel International travel insurance 1 €200 $212.21 I have a policy in place through Countrywide. John Cummings
13 Equipment Canon 6D camera 1 €3000 $3183.15 Canon 6D camera and lens which will be used to document the residency and projects. John Cummings
14 Equipment Asus UX305 Laptop 1 €800 $848.84 Used by John Cummings during meetings, conferences and other travel. John Cummings
15 Equipment Acer Aspire V15 Nitro 1 €900 $954.94 Used by Navino Evans during his work. Navino Evans
16 Contingency travel Unanticipated travel expenses 1 €250 $265.26 Contingency travel budget

Risk probability: 25%

Project support obtained from UNESCO €68,900
Existing equipment and services €4,900
Project funding requested from Wikimedia Foundation €64,000
Contingency funding requested €250
Total project cost (excluding contingency) €134,301.04

Community engagement[edit]

Community input and participation helps make projects successful. How will you let others in your community know about your project? Why are you targeting a specific audience? How will you engage the community you’re aiming to serve during your project?

Explained in Goal 3 and Goal 4 of the Activities section

Get involved[edit]

Participants[edit]

Please use this section to tell us more about who is working on this project. For each member of the team, please describe any project-related skills, experience, or other background you have that might help contribute to making this idea a success.

UNESCO staff:[edit]

  • Ian Denison: Chief of the UNESCO Publications Unit
  • Denis Pitzalis: Web Architect and Lead Developer
  • Celina Recalde: Associate Publications Officer in the Education Sector
  • Bhanu Neupane: Programme Specialist, Communication and Information Sector
  • Additional staff to be contracted as part of the project

Wikimedia[edit]

  • Volunteer I can help to process the content related to the area of East Asia cultural region, especially mainland China and Taiwan. Liang(WMTW) (talk) 20:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Volunteer Wikidata-related assistance Spinster (talk) 09:34, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Volunteer I can be the translator for the project (Chinese/Russian/English). Venuslui (talk) 13:22, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Volunteer I am willing to advise the use of GLAMpipe tool for data and content uploads or participate in solving questions regarding those on a general level. I am interested in creating local or connected programmatic events based on UNESCOs topics and content. Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 06:30, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Volunteer Can make UNESCO archives content available on Wikimedia projects, and help disseminate information about the project. —M@sssly 15:19, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Volunteer Happy to help with things related to the S in UNESCO, particularly around Wikidata. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 00:13, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Community notification[edit]

Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc. Need notification tips?

On Wikimedia projects[edit]

On social media[edit]

Endorsements[edit]

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

  • I think the past year outcome is very powerful, and I want to see more from this initiative. Liang(WMTW) (talk) 20:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support I did a focused sprint in May-June 2016 creating and improving Biosphere Reserve articles using the UNESCO open licensed data and the tools built as part of this project. The process was well-structured, and the work was rewarding. I encourage WMF to continue to fund this project both for the intrinsic value of the UNESCO data and for the associated opportunities for editors to make high-quality contributions. - PKM (talk) 21:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support An impressive work has been done since this partnership was started. From what I know so far, nearly 5000 images were made available under CC BY-SA license via the mediabank portal of UNESCO, not to mention valuable reports published under the same license. This project should be funded again for its past results and its achievement yet to come. African Hope (talk) 23:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support UNESCO is a Key partner on our movement and both John and Navino have been largely shown its values. I like the outcomes so far from the previous grant and I'm looking forward to this one, specially interested in the reuse of open resources on Wikidata, and in setting standards so other projects can reuse them, as done before.--Kippelboy (talk) 03:43, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Some of the shared learning outcomes from this project are really useful to the GLAMWIKI initiative as a whole, particularly information and communication strategies for working with large organisations and demonstrating the benefits for them in joining in on Wiki collaborative projects. This project is well documented to date and the proactive sharing of information throughout the project has been very beneficial. The contribution of UNESCO content to the Wiki projects is also highly valued internationally. Aliaretiree (talk) 04:20, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Very impressed by the previous work with UNESCO, partly because John and Navino have made sure to transfer learning and outcomes to benefit wider GLAM-Wiki activities. User: Mbrinkerink
  • Support Support and including Navino Evans is a very very good idea. Cdlt, VIGNERON * discut. 09:11, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support UNESCO is a fantastic partner for our movement; with its worldwide relevance and coverage it helps us to show and bridge gaps in our own projects. Further reach of learnings and methods from this project to other organisations is highly useful IMO. John and Navino have already done an enormous amount of work and I totally trust them to continue to do so. It makes total sense to fund Navino's work as well. Spinster (talk) 09:39, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support I looking forward to using the 1,000's of UNESCO photographs. A ri gi bod (talk) 14:13, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support I am looking forward to seeing this marvellous collaboration continue and strengthen. It's value is immeasurable, as it stands as an example for numerous future partnerships. John and Navino have done remarkable work sharing the learnings from their work and I want to support it also in the future. – Susanna Ånäs (Susannaanas) (talk) 06:39, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support John has already done a huge amount of great work with UNESCO and this should be continued, developed further. Please keep this going! And with Navino joining as well, continuing this will be extremely valuable to Wikimedia and Glam-wiki from all angles. Marta Malina Moraczewska (talk) 09:23, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support John is a hugely experienced Wikimedian in Residence whose work set a bench mark for my own projects with the National Library of Wales. His work on documenting and simplifying Wikidata processes for non-coders has been hugely valuable to the GLAM community. John is always brimming with ideas and has a genuine enthusiasm for improving free access to knowledge. Jason.nlw (talk) 09:33, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support John's work so far has been impressive, but I think we only scratched the surface of what is potentially possible in this cooperation. I would very much like to see this important work continued - it is certainly an asset for us Wikimedia organisations. CDG (WMAT staff) (talk) 12:41, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support John and Navino are both outstanding in their abilities and experience for promoting Wikimedia-related tools to a wider audience, both capable of taking the initiative to improve processes on-wiki and in partner organisations. It's an ideal team, and UNESCO remains an ideal organisation to partner with. MartinPoulter (talk) 16:10, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support John's work in UNESCO is very helpful for Wikimedia projects, and I think that adding Navino to the team would be an asset. Personally I am working with John on Wiki Loves Earth outreach via UNESCO Biosphere Reserves network, and this cooperation generated great results by making WLE reach over 20 new countries. I have also seen impressive results in other areas, notably in GLAM. I am looking forward to seeing this cooperation continue in 2017-2018 — NickK (talk) 19:54, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Proven track record. Valuable outreach and great material. One of the better WiR projects around. -- BrillLyle (talk) 00:27, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Navino would make an excellent addition to the project and this would formalise a partnership that has already been delivering for Wikimedia and UNESCO. Continuing the work of the residency and building from the successes of the first 18 months makes perfect sense to me and will invariably yield further benefits for both parties.Stinglehammer (talk) 16:20, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support John's work over the past year or so has been extremely valuable to Wikidata and my team. He's been incredibly patient about helping with ironing out all the kinks Wikidata has when it comes to contributing data from a large institution. He's created great documentation and done very useful outreach for Wikidata. I am looking forward to seeing what he can achieve when teaming up with Navino. --Lydia Pintscher (WMDE) (talk) 17:29, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support John has been outstanding as WiR at UNESCO, working with a prestigious and influential organisation. Continuing the residency would have enormous benefit. Bringing Navino Evans into the project is an excellent idea, and his familiarity with Wikidata is well established. Richard Nevell (WMUK) (talk) 09:53, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Always love to see more data gets integrated with Wikidata, especially from the reputable ones. Fadirra (talk) 14:15, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Happy to endorse this proposal. Navino Evan's involvement seems like a valuable addition to the project. LornaMCampbell (talk) 10:56, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Per Jason nlw and Richard Nevell. Dr. Blofeld (talk) 17:26, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Great proposal to build on a solid foundation of existing work. Good idea to team up two Wikimedians with complementary expertise who have done great things in the past. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 00:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Support Impressive work in the past year and what I see here represents an exciting and most importantly sustainable programme of engagement with UNESCO on a global scale. --Mr impossible (talk) 15:27, 8 May 2017 (UTC)