Grants:Simple/Applications/Wiki Movement Brazil User Group/2020
- Application or grant stage: grant in progress
- Applicant or grantee: applicant
- Amount requested: US$ 76,921.00
- Amount granted: US$ 76,921.00
- Funding period: April 1st, 2020 - December 31st, 2020
- Midpoint report due: 30 August 2020
- Final report due: 30 January 2021
Background
[edit]Annual Plan
[edit]Budget Plan
[edit]Staffing Plan
[edit]- See pertaining section on this document.
Strategic plan
[edit]Introduction
[edit]Wiki Movement Brazil User Group (WMB) is an association of volunteer editors that have been acting on Wikimedia projects since 2013, being re-recognized by the Wikimedia Foundation in 2019 and currently being the only official Brazilian WMF affiliate. The group includes people from different profiles in several locations in Brazil, configuring a diversity-sensitive, goal-oriented and creative community.
Programs led by the WMB have been some of the largest ever developed in a Global South community, with over 100 programs, 62 thousand articles created and 100 million words added by more than 2,000 editors and students in education programs and activities led by us since 2014. Although there isn't a objective way to measure results of GLAMWiki initiatives, the ones that WMB has run are among the most successful partnerships with cultural institutions in terms of impact, innovation and learning processes, uploading more than 48 thousand files to Wikimedia Commons, reaching more than 61 million views in more than 100 wikis only in January 2020. Programs the WMB put forward have been showcased as success stories in most global and regional Wikimedia conferences and meetings and the external media. More context and details on programs, particularly on ongoing programs, is provided below.
The success of the WMB has happened in a progressively more adverse local context. Since 2016, Brazil has been facing the increase of severe public policies on budget for education, culture and science and, more recently, we are facing a strong conservative wave that puts activities on these areas under constraints that directly impact our Wikimedia user group. To give some figures, culture, education and science went from a combined budget of USD 23,48 billions in 2016 to USD 1.59 billion in 2020 (reduction of 93% and from which only USD 279 thousand are reserved to cultural outreach and USD 926 to preservation of all the historical, artistic and archaeological heritage of the country). This has happened in a context in which there has been a natural development of our community, that is craving for expansion for better performance in support of Wikimedia objectives, particularly aligned with the strategic direction and recommendations the Wikimedia Movement has crafted.
With that, as a group, we have reached a moment of necessary structuring of activities. WMB has more and more members in our community and more partnerships with institutions, especially in the context of GLAM, and we already have members who actively are at the forefront of the organization of projects and events. But to account for all the opportunities and better manage our human resources, we need to establish a more professional structure to our performance in project coordination - ranging from GLAM to education projects throughout Brazil to several outreach activities -, our internal and external communication that is key for keeping the community engaged and for representing Wikimedia image in Brazil, and our management tasks (coordination, fiscal and finance support, administration).
As a civil society organization recognized in the terms of the Brazilian law as a "social association", WMB often finds itself acting on public-policy gaps, which is why we often focus on projects with public cultural institutions, particularly those facing budget constraints or facing calamitous, emergency situations. An example remains the task force the WMB has set up and sustained in the context of the fire at the Museu Nacional, in Rio de Janeiro, which has been systematically referred to as an example of Wikimedia strategy in cultural emergency context in the Wikimedia movement.
The group knows it does not act as a representative of the community of editors, because it knows no group or individual may speak as the representative of an abstract entity, with a large number of heterogeneous people and organizations that are the core of the Wikimedia movement. We are deeply committed to respecting the community sovereignty, and our activities will target the improvement of the projects, never indicating to the community what it should do. More than that, we know our initiatives, programs and activities would have never been successful with direct participation of community members, which is why outreach activities have remained so relevant to our activities.
The grant request that follows is based on the 4 axis the WMB plans to work in 2020: GLAM Outreach, Education Programs, Community Support and General Outreach. The first axis focuses on cultural institutions, mostly supporting our current partners and working to connect with new GLAMs. The second axis focusses on expanding our outreach in universities and other educational settings. What we call Community Support, our third axis, puts forward activities to promote capacity development and support the empowerment of local Wikimedia communities, with a particular focus on expanding diversity in our movement. The fourth axis is rooted on the idea we need to expand awareness of our movement and thus reach a general, broad audience, not yet part of the ecology we sustain as a movement. The document below describes our planned activities for 2020 (April through November). Our UG has been working on an annual plan of activities to be published on March 1; this document orients this grant request. The methodology to develop this grant proposal has rested upon iterations with members from the user group.
Recent reports of activities are provided below:
Previous reports are available here.
Programs
[edit]GLAM Outreach |
WMB has led the largest GLAM-Wiki initiatives in Brazil and more generally in the lusophone community, with more than 48 thousand files uploaded and 31,2 million views. Collections of museums from the best university in Latin America --the University of São Paulo-- have been systematically brought to the projects. One of these initiatives has become a case-study reference for the community. These GLAM initiatives have been associated to outreach and education activities --the largest and most successful outreach and education programs in Brazil, with more than 62 thousand articles created and more than 100 million words added.
For instance, the Paulista Museum GLAM-Wiki initiative has alone been the context of the inclusion of 23,005 file uploads, 47,231 itens on Wikidata, 700 articles created or improved on Wikipedia in Portuguese. Aspects of this case have been presented in the last two Wikimanias, GLAM-Wiki Conference, Education Conference, WikidataCon. It has also been featured in academic events and journals, and in the general media. Training sections associated to this GLAM-Wiki initiative and technological resources have been awarded the 2019 WikidataCon prize.
We are extremely confident we have reached a very high level of success in our GLAM-Wiki initiatives, but we can do more, and this is why we request support for this line of action. We can do more in terms of keeping regularity on uploads, documenting processes, improving outreach and managing our team, as well as diversifying the cultural institutions we work with.
WMB has achieved incredible results so far given our conditions in Brazil, but we do not believe it is enough to portray and encompass the wealth and variety of Brazilian culture in the Wikimedia movement. As we consider GLAM Wiki an important resource for preserving, disseminating and, in many moments, even saving our heritage from national policies of cultural dismantling, we dedicate a specific program for professionalizing this set of activities.
GLAM-Wiki initiatives we lead are automatically tracked on Wikidata and are normally associated to specific portals and Commons category. There is no functioning Wikimedia tool to measure or even track GLAM activities globally, so the table below documents efforts from our user group specifically:
GLAM-Wiki initiatives and GLAM wiki-projects led by the WMB include:
This list is generated from data in Wikidata and is periodically updated by a bot.
Edits made within the list area will be removed on the next update!
Objectives:
- Establish an efficient workflow model to each type or instance of GLAM Wiki partnership or activity, considering the needs of each of them and local contexts, so we don't have to do everything from scratch each time, but simply adapt the workflow model to the specifics of each GLAM;
- Provide capacity resources in Portuguese for institutions and their related professionals on GLAM Wiki, wishing to increase the autonomy of these institutions and better spread the methodology of how to and why adopt the Wiki;
- Focus on strengthening ongoing partnerships in Rio de Janeiro and bring more partners from under-represented locations in Brazil when possible, so we can increase representation of Brazil culture and preserve knowledge that otherwise can be lost due to cascade budget cuts;
- Document processes to effectively share with the local and global community our knowledge and experience on GLAMWiki initiatives that might help them surpass problems we might already solved;
- Support the creation of content on Wikimedia platforms using GLAM collections, so we can increase the access to Brazilian culture;
- Integrate GLAM activities on community support, general outreach and education programs in order to better disseminate GLAM in Brazil;
- Develop a strategic plan for GLAM Wiki initiatives, bringing together the Brazilian Wikimedia community and partners (GLAM professionals, open knowledge activists, scholars) - document it and make it publicly available so we have a specific guide, focused on the reality of Brazil, especially to small GLAMs.
Planned activities:
Thematic edit-a-thons and training for institutions
Since WMB has reached a point of expertise on GLAM Wiki initiatives using Wikidata, it is time to spread more efficiently our knowledge with museologists, librarians, archivists and related professionals so that they can bring into their institutions and projects the necessary skills for managing metadata on Wikimedia platforms and become GLAM Wiki evangelists themselves. To do that, activities included are thematic edit-a-thons to use images/data from GLAM on Wikipedia; specific technical training for our GLAM partners and take part on their campaigns and events. There are several activities being discussed.
Uploads in continuous flow
We expect to keep a high level of uploads in 2020. Our goal is 5,000 files to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons with a similar level of item-feeding on Wikidata. In 2019, WMB was responsible for supporting the upload of 8,000 files on Wikimedia Commons from GLAM Wiki initiatives. The figure decrease is associated to specific needs of curatorship to collections our partners want to work with in 2020. We will also intensify work with new partners, including the Instituto Moreira Salles, and to bring new actors in will require a momentary slower pace. Our three-year goal is to bring to Commons over 50,000 files.
Process documentation
After meeting people in Brazil and in international Wikimedia events, WMB has received demands from the community to have access to structured materials on our GLAM processes since they are just as important to be shared with the community as the uploaded collections themselves. Due to lack of time plus multi tasking on several projects, WMB members haven't been able to properly document upload processes and tool development as they go on and now we need to focus on this activity to better provide resources such as tutorials and study cases for the community.
WMB members attended the latest editions of GLAM Wiki Conference, Wikimania and WikidataCon with relevant contributions to the events programs, sharing the Brazilian experience and expertise on GLAM-Wikidata-Education projects. Even though those activities are positive for our relationship with the broad community and internal learning, they aren't enough to supply our network formed by wikimedians, GLAM professionals and scholars in Brazil with good practices manuals and general GLAM outreach strategy in Portuguese.
The group organized a symposium for GLAM professionals and researchers in Brazil last year called “Information Curation and Semantic Web” that took place at a partner university in São Paulo and the academic community was thrilled to hear more about our activities, specially given that the Digital Humanities as a study field is getting attention in Brazil now. With that, we need to document our processes on and off wiki in order to better contribute with the knowledge ecology with our wide network.
GLAM Wiki Conference 2018:
- Working with government for GLAM projects
- What can we do when a museum burns down? Managing GLAM crisis and opportunities for protecting knowledge
- GLAM belong in education!
- What are the good models for GLAM pages on-wiki?
Wikimania 2019:
- GLAM: mini keynotes
- GLAM: The process of upload, disseminate and report a GLAM and how wikidatifying it improves it: a Brazilian experience
- Integrating Wikidata into Education
- Challenges when going on photo-walks
- Wikidata infoboxes
WikidataCon 2019:
- Structuring GLAM-Wiki initiatives with Wikidata
- Education panel
- Mbabel tool: Automatic articles on Wikipedia with Wikidata (Lightning talks)
Meetings with partners
Considering that many major museums and cultural institutions are located in Rio de Janeiro and that we are planning to support the launching of GLAMWiki initiatives in under-represented regions of the country, we need to create a structure to decentralize activities. This will require planning meetings outside São Paulo, particularly in Rio de Janeiro where we have major institutions interested in developing initiatives with us. We already work with three very large cultural institutions located in Rio de Janeiro, including the Brazilian National Archives, and we want to strengthen our ties. The meetings will be key for us to teach them technical processes, to establish engagement and upload goals, discuss dissemination strategies and organize events focused on GLAM for the local community.
Metrics
We understand that in a GLAMWiki initiative the process and documentation is as important as the actual tangible result, so metrics below should be considered within the scope of our continuous effort to create an environment for Wikimedia and GLAMs in Brazil.
Program | Program activities | Goals |
---|---|---|
GLAM Outreach | Edit-a-thons, campaigns and training | At least 4 events to be organized with GLAM institutions |
At least 2 different institutions to host the events | ||
At least 10 people per event | ||
Improve/create 50 Wikipedia/Commons/Wikidata entries at the events | ||
Uploads in continuous flow | 5,000 items uploaded to Commons | |
Process documentation | At least 2 detailed documentations on WMB's GLAM Wiki processes published on community channels | |
Meetings with partners | At least 4 meetings with partners in Rio de Janeiro | |
Reports for each meeting to be provided for the community |
Risk assessment
- Considering goals and metrics above, the main risk to be assessed is the fact that we depend on external actors to be able to develop our GLAM-Wiki plan. This risk is mitigated by our very strong tie with this cultural institution.
- We have mitigated this risk by having a priority to work with institutions we have already been working with. This is important as we can take the expected structure a sAPG can grant us to speed up and make more efficient processes with these partners. It is worth reiterating we already work with some of the most relevant GLAMs in Brazil.
- Our outreach focus will mostly be geared to initiating negotiations with new cultural institutions. In this, we think we should focus on preparing the political and legal structure necessary to launch upload and data-feeding processes in a next round. Digitization in Brazil is not well established, so we need to gather intelligence in finding the right partners to contact --this is helped by our very strong tie with a research group that has supported technology for collection digitization, called Tainacan. In 2019, this group and ours co-held a workshop on data curation, web semantics and cultural collections; we expect to strengthen this tie.
- In the outreach strategy, we want to focus on Rio de Janeiro, where some of the most important GLAMs are. This was the capital of Brazil for several centuries and became a cultural capital of our country. It hosts the National Library, the National Fine Arts Museum, the National History Museum... We already work with three very large institutions in this city, and expect to initiate negotiations with others. Risks are manyfold.
- Most cultural institutions in Rio de Janeiro are state-managed, and they require from us an incredible level of bureaucracy and contract-signing, which has normally taken over a year to be completed. And it can be required to be re-started when there is a governmental change.
- Rio de Janeiro has gone through a collapse of public budget. This has meant for cultural institutions low capacity for launching new initiatives --particularly when they face immediate emergencies, like fire hazard and building collapse. As we have presented in several conferences, we believe we need to act fast to prevent the disappearing of cultural knowledge these institutions hold, as we have witnessed incredulous the largest scientific collection in Brazil burn out in the National Museu fire. We understand the task of working with cultural institutions in a harsh social and economic context is complicated, but it is for a priority.
- Rio de Janeiro has unfortunately become a dangerous city, so we will develop a risk management plan to guarantee safety for our members to attend meetings in this area.
- We have brought our expected upload result to a lower threshold, as "easy-to-upload" files from our partners have already been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Any new batch will mean more effort from their team and ours, as our main focus has been to guarantee very high quality of metadata structuring, sometimes having several iterations with employees of the cultural institution to work on modeling data feeding. To lower our threshold is already an understanding of potential risks we face.
- Edit-a-thons have definitely not been an issue for our group --and we have taken into account previous figures to come up with this goal. The risk is not so much about organizing an event, but rather having it successful. From our experience, they are more successful when we are able to connect this kind of event with an existing network or affinity group. This means we need to sustain a strong relationship with staff members and habitués of the cultural institutions we want to work with.
- It is very important we find time --and this sAPG is an opportunity for this-- to document our processes. This has been a request from the community. The clearest risk here is that we fail miserably in achieving this goal, because it proves too hard, or we develop resources that unhelpful for the community, because of some sense of ad-hoc aspect to this material. One strategy to overcome this risk, which we hope to be able to fulfil, is to take advantage of attending movement conferences and discuss with affiliates and Wikimedians on drafts. This kind of discussions can also happen online, though on-site discussions tend to be more efficient when there is an actual product to be assessed.
Education Programs |
WMB has organized the largest education programs in Brazil and in the lusophone community. At least three UG members are university professors and have led the education program in Brazil; at least 100 education programs were run or supported by them since 2014. These programs rank amongst the largest of the world; among programs listed on the general, global program list of the Outreach Dashboard, WMB ranks #6 in terms of the number of programs run, #2 in terms of articles created, #4 in terms of articles edited, #2 in terms of words added to the projects, and #2 in terms of references added. Our involvement in education is a priority, as Brazil has ranked among the worst countries in the world in terms of numeracy, literacy and scientific knowledge, which has strongly impacted how our society has evolved. And we plan to do more than what we have done and therefore present here a proposal for scaling up our education-focused outreach.
From our experience education programs that are done without our guidance or support have often caused community disruption and frustration from the perspective of the instructor, or very small and erratic results. We believe it is urgent we improve the education set-up in our community. We have worked on resources that are already available to the community, but need to improve this content, as well as to be able to support --sometimes in loco-- instructors and ambassadors. We are very closely working with the Wikipedia & Education UG to envision how Wikimedia and education belong together, and we understand we can improve how this is practically done in Brazil.
Beside using Wikipedia where education programs already take place, the Brazilian user group advocates for bringing other Wikimedia projects as pedagogical resources. For 2020 the idea is to work with other affiliates and Wikimedians to start the development of a plan to creating a program for Wikidata and data literacy. We are also supporting among university professors the use of Wikiversity, connecting this particular project to the Open Science movement in Brazil. We expect to write a showcase for academic use of Wikiversity, for instance.
One example of recent success is the use of Wikidata with Social Communications students at Faculdade Cásper Líbero, which is pioneer on teaching Computational Journalism techniques while directly contributing to a deep representation of Brazilian elections and the killed and disappeared during the Brazilian military dictatorship on Wikimedia projects. Also, we highlight here an education program on Wikiversity that is being developed on Digital Humanities, a theme that is getting more and more relevance in Brazilian academy.
With a wide range of themes and approaches on education programs, WMB believes it's necessary to better document and spread our experiments with Wikimedia as educational resources - especially considering the diversity of Brazilian educational contexts. Professors need training / brochures to enlighten on Wikimedia methodologies as many institutions still consider Wikipedia as not trustworthy on educational environments. The need of resources that can be handed on is especially relevant in areas where internet access is rare, like in the Northeast region where we want to improve our outreach capacity.
Activities developed by WMB and their results can be consulted here.
Objectives:
- Provide resources in Portuguese for teachers and professors on Wikimedia given the Brazilian educational context, as language and context are always barriers in applicability of resources;
- Support activities from education programs throughout Brazil, such as debate educational activities with professors, help with Outreach Dashboard, Mbabel and other tools, create tutorial videos for students etc.
- Launch a national campaign on Wikimedia + Education to popularize this type of activity that is still relatively unknown in the country, with a special focus to marginalized communities in the Northeast region.
Planned activities:
University programs
WMB will keep its presence on universities that have already implemented Wikimedia activities to their courses and we intend to sustain a network for discussion on best practices and innovation. Currently, WMB is supporting education programs on Multimedia Journalism, Sociology and Political Sciences at Cásper Líbero (FCL), Visual Communication at Belas Artes (BA), General Ecology at Santa Cruz State University (UESC), Audiology and Urbanities at Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), History at the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) and Speech Therapy at the University of São Paulo (USP). WMB is also present at the Research, Innovation, and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics (RIDC NeuroMat) in São Paulo and USCS in São Caetano do Sul. The case at UNIFESP has recently been featured in an academic journal, as this university is located at an impoverished community and the use of Wikimedia projects has been described as a developmental strategy for this community; the user group is directly referred to in this paper.
WMB action on education programs is marked by the strategic use of the Outreach Dashboard. Two of our members are administrators of the tool, and we have continuously supported its development. The dashboard was used to monitor the progress of the activities and, from the tool, we can also start monitoring and supporting the students involvement in Wikimedia projects after the course ends. Automated edits based on the tool has also been developed in Wikipedia in Portuguese with the support of the WMF and Wiki Edu.
On the cutting edge on exploring Wikidata potentialities as an education resource, the group took part on the Social Communication course at FCL with lectures and practical activities that involved the Mbabel tool and structured data on Commons. Journalism students created articles on Brazilian elections using the Mbabel tool that was developed by WMB and has been used on other education programs and events promoted by the user group. Mbabel creates articles stubs from Wikidata entries and was used as resource for this practical activity on Computational Journalism, being the students first contact with editing Wikipedia. Students were also assigned to create Wikidata entries people related to the Brazilian dictatorship and to use Structured data on Commons on an activity with pictures of students protests during the same historical period.
Lectures/talks are an important part of our outreach strategy, as we can think of them as a possibility of bringing together a potential community of users in an educational setting and create momentum to launch the idea of Wikimedia and Education. We intend to connect to two partners per month to give these lectures/talks.
For 2020, the group expects to bring at least more two high level universities to our the education programs.
Resources in Portuguese
It is fundamental to have educational resources written in Portuguese - both online and offline - with adequate content to our local educational contexts to support professors and students on their endeavors. The content should serve both as a Wikimedia outreach resource - introducing what are Wikimedia projects and why they can be used in education - and as a guide of good practices for professors beginning to implement wiki on their courses.
Printed brochures are also a good resource to be delivered for professors and institutions as they are easy to circulate, are friendly reading and reach professors where normally the wiki discourse online wouldn’t reach.
This has been identified as a need by one of our key members who works as a university professor in the Northeast region and has an ongoing Wikimedia awareness program to impoverished rural communities in the region. This member of the UG was recently featured at the Education Newsletter.
Metrics
Program | Program activities | Goals |
---|---|---|
Education Programs | Outreach activities | 15 lectures, talks or outreach attendance (i.e., posters, panels) in educational settings |
Printed resources | one outreach brochure on education in Portuguese to be handled to 250 people | |
Video resources | 4 videos to support educators in their use of Wikimedia projects |
Risk assessment
- Considering goals and metrics above, the main risk to be assessed is the fact that we depend on external actors to be able to develop our Wiki-education plan. This risk is mitigated by our very strong tie with universities, including having university professors among our members.
- The broad risk identified above can be manifested as lack of interest in our outreach attempts. Educators --as we know-- might have prejudice against Wikimedia projects, particularly Wikipedia, and do not want to engage with us. We understand we have been able to overcome step-by-step this anti-Wikipedia culture in several environment, and the strategy we lay out is to provide awareness resources like the ones we are suggesting.
- Another more specific risk that is associated with working with external actors is that we will need to adjust to their pace and speed. Partners have joined the movement with different capacities, including technical capacities, and we need to take this case-by-case circumstances into consideration. We are very proud for having supported a successful education program in a university in an impoverished region with low-income students in Brazil [38] (searching for "Grupo de Usuários Wikimedia no Brasil" on this article published in a top academic journal in Brazil), so we have built capacity to support programs even in more adverse circumstances and believe video resources adapted to these circumstances are key for success.
- On our very own end, it is very important we provide coaching to our lecturers, particularly if we support independent Wikimedians to act as ambassadors. Brazil is a very large country, so we might mobilize and support experienced Wikimedians for outreach activities in universities and other educational settings. An idea to mitigate this risk of badly prepared speakers is to standardize a presentation, based on our past experiences and in direct contact with partners like the Wiki Edu Foundation and the Wikipedia + Education UG.
- Printed and video resources for which support have requested might end up being of poor quality. This would be unacceptable, as our user group has a long tradition of producing high quality materials. UG members that we expect to work on these materials are experienced on this kind of task, for instance having worked with the WMF itself in the production of printed brochures.
Community Support |
Community support is considered here in two dimensions. Firstly, it is understood as the capacity of our group to establish a diverse, fruitful internal environment. Secondly, it relates to our relationship with the Wikimedia Movement, especially the lusophone community.
Considering the current socio political scenario in Brazil, it’s important for WMB to develop strategies not only to bring new members to the group and join forces but also to maintain the current members collaborating actively, avoiding that they feel overloaded or working isolated. A structured community support must keep it integrated/united, diverse and engaged. It’s key to understand the community necessities and address them. A significant part of the community support comes from systematic communications to keep people informed and deepen channels for interaction.
As of January 2020, WMB officially gathers 19 members in several Brazilian states. We have three foreign members who bear a direct a connection with Brazil. Our online communication resource, through a Slack channel, brings together 60 members and supporters.
As a group, WMB advocates for the representativeness of different regions and locations in Brazil (diverse as a continental country can be), and has been focusing especially on the disproportion of gender in the Wikimedia movement. For this proposal, we’re explicitly broadening our concern to the inclusion of other political minorities in our activities in order to better represent and look diversity in Brazil and create relevant content on its related subjects on Wikimedia projects. This concerns has been directly addressed in our Diversity Plan.
Also, it is necessary to address performance barriers within the community and work on capacity building on subjects such as technical competences on tools and platforms related to the Wikimedia projects. This has been an ongoing line of action by WMB.
WMB also plays a key role within the Wikimedia communities. We have established a strong connection with affiliates, with which we work together in a regular basis. For instance, we have worked very closely with Wikimedia Portugal in several activities, programs and initiatives. We want to improve our role in the Wikimedia ecology of affiliates now, particularly improving our participation in Latin American collaborations.
The WMB also wants to support the development of our communities. We have planned to have regular, open online meetings in which members of the lusophone community can come and discuss with us. The WMB has sustained periodic internal meetings, and the idea is to open up more broadly these meetings and involve more people in the Wikimedia Movement.
Objectives:
- Increase quality content on people, organizations and concepts related to social minorities with encyclopaedic relevance on Portuguese Wikipedia in order to reduce knowledge gaps on Wikipedia;
- Work on a welcoming and healthy environment for people from different backgrounds to equally have the opportunity to participate on and lead projects in the community (see diversity plan);
- Effectively communicate the local and broad Wikimedia community on WMB’s projects and activities through different channels, such as monthly newsletters and blog posts on our website;
- Strengthen WMB unity through social events and discussion spaces, as this helps align objectives and improve communication and debate skills;
- Increase the number of active members to keep activities running - and if not possible to expressively expand the community, at least maintain the current number of people active on projects, so no one is overloaded with too much work and gets worn-out;
- Provide training and learning materials on topics that the community is interested to develop their capacities and spread the knowledge we obtained.
Planned activities:
Wikidata Labs
At least 4 Wikidata Labs to be organized throughout 2020 - one of which will be a training on Lua programming, which falls outside the scope of this grant request as this has been supported by the WMF via the community capacity development program, and another on data literacy and Wikidata for Education projects with Shani Evenstein (TBC). The Wikidata Labs are technical training (morning lectures with a invited Wikimedian from Brazil or from the international community + practical activities on the afternoon) organized in São Paulo since 2018 that gather Wikimedians, GLAMers and researchers. The Wikidata Labs are broadcasted live via YouTube. The project was recognized with an award last year at WikidataCon ([39]).
Diversity Plan
WMB is engaged on sustaining a diversity plan in order to understand how our community is currently built and what we can do in order to provide a safe and healthy environment for people from different backgrounds to equally engage on the group’s projects. Research, an action plan and reports on its the progress will be made public. The UG has been among the first affiliate to develop a Diversity Plan with the support from the WMF (here).
Edit-a-thons
At least 8 edit-a-thons to be organized on women and feminisms, sexual diversity and African-Brazilian and Native-Brazilian people, as well as on people with disabilities. Last year alone we organized 6 edit-a-thons on gender in partnership with local activists and institutions and the results for our community were very positive.
The focus on addressing themes that concern under-represented communities bring more diverse editors to the group and also helps to increase their very needed representativeness on Wikipedia. It’s important to stress here that only last year São Paulo hosted more than 20 edit-a-thons on different subjects alone - which is of course a great result, but the group believes that is necessary to plan resources for supporting edit-a-thons in other Brazilian locations with less structured volunteer force. As part of our diversity plan is to work on regional inclusion, we’re adding to this Simple APG travel resources for available WMB members to join forces in different states.
To provide a context on how power dynamic play out on Portuguese Wikipedia, this reading is suggested: The Life and Death of Marielle Franco on Wikipedia, by Adele Vrana.
Organic communications
What we have called here organic communications refers to systematically providing accounts for the Brazilian and global community about what we have achieved in programs and activities we expect to run throughout this Simple APG term. This is a set of activities we have already been running normally and though we do not expect specific funding for them we believe it is important to stress our commitment to provide general access to learning processes and results. Organic communication outputs are of three sorts: activity bulletins (or mass messages) that are disseminated on Wikipedia in Portuguese every other month; reports on Wikimedia newsletters (i.e., education and GLAM newsletters), Discuss threads or the Wikimedia blog; and posts on our blog. We’ll set a proper communications plan with a staff person in order to better inform and interact with the local and broad community on our projects and activities.
Offline meetup
The Brazilian community needs more social events for gathering, exchanging ideas and discussing the projects in person. Since Brazil is a continental country, until now we haven’t had the opportunity to gather in a large group with people from different locations. We’ll organize a meeting for the UG to reunite in São Paulo - where the majority of the group is currently located - to discuss strategies for our programs, set internal policies and keep the community motivated to contribute to our group. Some valuable WMB members aren’t from Brazil, so will be added to the budget their travel costs to attend the meeting as well.
Metrics
Program | Program activities | Goals |
---|---|---|
Community Support | Wikidata Labs | At least 4 events to be organized, one being a Lua training (not considered in this request as funding was already made available) and one other on Wikidata and Education |
At least 10 people per event | ||
At least 2 new editors engaged at the events | ||
Reach at least 800 people through video streaming | ||
Thematic edit-a-thons | At least 8 edit-a-thons focused on diversity. | |
Improve/create at least 300 Wikipedia/Commons/Wikidata entries at the events | ||
At least 15 people per event | ||
At least 30 new editors engaged | ||
Create lists of content to be created for each event and keep the list available online | ||
Organic communications | Development of a communication plan for WMB | |
At least 2 media appearances of activities promoted by WMB | ||
Monthly reports on community channels | ||
Offline meetup | At least 20 WMB members at the event | |
Attendees from at least 3 out of the 5 Brazilian regions | ||
At least one technical training given by a volunteer on the event program | ||
Full report on the event activities and discussions to be provided for the community | ||
Diversity plan | Research on WMB demography | |
Advance on action plan based on research results |
Risk assessment
- We propose in this grant request a set of activities that should be considered within the hardening context of Brazilian culture. Our society has had higher social indicators of violence against the most vulnerable communities. A necessary risk to be taken into account is that events associated to diversity can be met with fierce opposition. We will organize these events with extreme caution, of course dealing with the necessity of cancelling an activity if we understand people might be at risk if they attend. At the same time, and in conversation with the WMF officer that has supported our Diversity Plan, we believe it is still important to organize this kind of event, as we can have people rely on Wikimedia projects to expand awareness on critical topics pertaining to diversity.
- As noted above, edit-a-thons have definitely not been an issue for our group --and we have taken into account previous figures to come up with this goal. The risk is not so much about organizing an event, but rather having it successful. From our experience, they are more successful when we are able to connect this kind of event with an existing network or affinity group. This means we need to sustain a strong relationship with staff members and habitués of the cultural institutions we want to work with. Expectations towards edit-a-thons in this rubric will have to be measured considering the specific topic that will be covered, which probably means we might work with smaller groups.
- Considering prior discussions around Wikidata Labs (i.e., Lab RG report discussion), we will host an introductory section --this will divert from what we have been doing and we have a harder sense to anticipate how this will work out. We have already included into our calendar other specific labs, to focus on more specific technical issues in the process of integrating Wikidata and other Wikimedia projects.
- One relevant risk is that, as usual, we expect to connect with people who would provide a talk remotely. This is a risk as we depend on the person. We have already contacted them and have received positive answers; eventual changes of plan will most probably lead to changing the topic (and speaker) not cancelling the event.
- We want to bring more people into our technical events, but we face some challenges to connect with computer science students for instance. One idea we will explore is to move at least one lab from where we have hosted them, at the University of São Paulo, to the auditorium of a partner, more centrally located.
- It is very important we find time --and this sAPG is an opportunity for this-- to plan a communications strategy for our group. There are infinite channels of communication available and we need to act more purposefully on them. The risk here, at the extreme end, is we fail to do this or do it poorly --this is definitely mitigated by the fact that several members of our UG are professional journalists and communications analysts.
- As we speak to external audiences, we need to be very cautious about messages we convey. We will establish a collective process of producing and reviewing content to make sure we preemptively reduce risks. Our communications practices will necessarily abide to our FSP and CC, already approved by the WMF. A document on our communications strategy will be produced in this or the next round.
- In this axis, we expect to organize an event for our group members and community. As any event, there are several risks involved.
- Lack of interest in the event: people have limited time to attend conferences, so it is possible some of our members won’t prioritize this event. We will have preparatory meetings online to call for the event and engage our members.
- Badly prepared speakers: to prepare who will speak at this event is key and we should spend time on this. Affiliates have offered their expertise in helping us on this task, and we look forward to working with them to help prepare speakers.
- Problems with internet connection: we will only consider places in which high-speed internet connection for participants is provided.
General Outreach |
This axis will encompass outreach activities that are not considered in other programs. Edit-a-thons, photo contests, events to “wikify” sites, hackathons, partnerships, etc. Although an affiliate organization (AO) is not the representative of the Wikimedia movement, it must be a true part of this movement, with long time and active members and channels to dialogue with this community at all times. As we are all long-time Wikimedians that have organically built an organization from within our community we have been able to develop relevant skills to understand challenges our community faces. A fundamental aspect we believe we must work on is being able to communicate successfully with our community, partners and potential partners, to develop stronger bonds and general network of interest. This is also important as we can proactively act to devise events to empower our community members; off-wiki events have the potential to foster our community bonding and the level of solidarity within our community.
In 2019, we organized dozens of general outreach activities, including our contribution to Open Data Day, Visible Wiki Women, Wiki Loves Monuments campaigns and several edit-a-thons, photo walks and miscellaneous activities that took place with partners.
For Open Data Day, we gathered to scrap several databases and create fully-described items with lots of props for all existing dams in Brazil on Wikidata after the Brumadinho dam disaster, occurred on 25 January 2019 when a tailings dam at an iron ore mine in Minas Gerais state. We realized the importance of the existence of data from all tailings dams properly structured on open platforms and with machine-readable data such as Wikidata that were used for the activity. A visual result of this activity is the map generated by Wikidata with all Brazilian dams. WMB also took part at the #VisibleWikiWomen challenge, organized by Whose Knowledge?. The campaign was aimed to address the lack of image representation of notable women on Wikimedia projects and we joined them to create awareness of gender gap on wiki in Portuguese and to bring more images for the campaign.
WMB worked on organizing Wiki Loves Monuments in September, with a pioneer use of Wikidata, and achieved great results for its first time as organizers. The group also worked on the local coordination and promotion of Wiki Loves Love campaign. The group also was responsible for organizing 13 edit-a-thon activities with different themes, ranging from women in football to rehabilitation sciences and librarian practices.
Objectives:
- Diversify the WMB network and resources so that more people have access to the activities promoted by the UG;
- Reach spaces that aren’t normally portrayed in Wikimedia projects in Portuguese to engage people from different backgrounds;
- Achieve partnerships with city governments, cultural centers and other local institutions that can facilitate activities / have synergy with the purposes of Wikimedia;
- Join a network of other local and international groups that advocate for free knowledge and actively support their campaigns / develop activities in partnership;
- Be available to the media as a reference point on Wikimedia projects in Brazil and related subjects;
Planned activities:
Wiki Takes a city
Following the successful experience with the Wiki Takes Santana de Parnaíba activity last year, WMB proposes a similar approach towards another important heritage location near São Paulo: São Luiz do Paraitinga (TBC). The event is aimed to activate local community (inhabitants, students, city hall and other institutions such as museums) on Wikimedia projects, mainly Wikipedia and Commons, while bringing experienced wikimedians to support the coverage of the city on different formats applicable to Wikimedia projects. Wiki Takes includes Wikipedia workshops, photo-walks, digital mapping and development of local GLAM in a short time. The event being an intensive effort to “wikify” a relevant site for the Brazilian heritage that haven’t been properly covered yet on the Wikimedia projects.
The project proposal is to bring a Wikimedian team that will offer training on Wikimedia platforms for the locals on an underrepresented site on Wikimedia. Training include a Wikipedia workshop, a session on how to take quality pictures for Wikimedia Commons and a practical activity on OpenStreetMap. That target public for the event is local associations, students, artists and city hall employees. The team will organize activities throughout the chosen city to properly engage participants with different backgrounds and cover the local perspective on the subjects related to the place. Communications with the local press will be necessary in order to achieve the event objectives.
Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Loves Monuments is an important campaign for raising awareness on cultural heritage in Brazil, for significantly increasing the volume contributions on this subject in regions that WMB isn’t present yet and for bringing new members to the Wikimedia movement. Last year we used Wikidata resources to help organize the campaign and with the lessons learned from this experience, we will run a contest with better results.
Being a photo contest, Wiki Loves Monuments is a great resource for attracting new Commons contributors spread throughout Brazil. In 2019, WMB had its first experience on organizing the campaign that activated more than 150 participants and received 4941 images. We were amazed by the good quality of the photos submitted and we organized an edit-a-thon for using the photos of the campaign to illustrate Wikipedia articles on Brazilian heritage. For the next year, with more time to plan ahead the campaign, we expect to outcome those numbers and keep addressing the image gap on Brazilian monuments on Commons.
We do not plan to organize Wiki Loves Earth in 2020, but have indicated we will support the independent editor who has subscribed as a potential organizer.
Projects with institutional partners
Partnership with local institutions, specially cultural centers, are valuable for diversifying the Wikimedia reach in Brazil while creating a strong support network. WMB is currently establishing a partnership with the main community center in Brazil called Sesc with a series of Wikipedia activities, lectures and photo-walks in their different units.
Sesc is a non-profit private institution, kept by businessmen in the trade of goods, services and tourism. It has operations in all Brazil with 40 units, aimed primarily for the welfare of their employees and family but open to the general community. WMB organized last year a pilot activity at the Guarulhos unit that led even to a local GLAM with the municipal archive. The event had media coverage and the activities were planned to portray the local knowledge on Wikimedia projects. We are currently organizing a second edition of the activity at the Sesc unit in Bauru, a city near São Paulo.
Also, we’re starting a partnership with Goethe Institute in Brazil - the main German cultural center in our country - in which WMB will take part on a hackathon for cultural institutions open data called Coding da Vinci. We’ll host lectures and workshops on Wikidata and GLAM Wiki initiatives for a wide audience of programmers, GLAM professionals and cultural actors. We’ll take part on the mentoring of the hackathon teams and help evaluate their projects.
Thematic edit-a-thons and campaign support
Beside the edit-a-thons planned for GLAM and community support purposes, we’ll also take part on campaigns such as #WikiForHumanRights with at least 3 events already being organized. WMB also intends to support again campaigns organized by other open knowledge initiatives such as WhoseKnowledge? and Open Data Day. As it is part of this General Outreach focus to support a local network related to Wikimedia purposes, we are also organizing a meeting for around 30 people from different projects in São Paulo involved in open knowledge initiatives to discuss partnerships and action plans.
We are also discussing the possibility of launching two on-wiki campaigns on topics pertaining to Brazilian history. These campaigns are still being discussed with potential partners.
- We want to highlight an RG from our UG was recently approved --not yet delivered. All the edit-a-thons will take place in March, before the beginning of this sAPG, if approved, so we don't overlap requests. More details: Art+Feminism 2020 Wiki Movement Brasil User Group.
Meeting with free knowledge community
WMB has active connections with free, open knowledge organizations in Brazil, and we plan to organize a meeting to develop a common strategy and joint actions. These organizations include Creative Commons Brasil, Open Street Map Brasil, Open Knowledge Brasil, etc. We have also sustained strong ties with university professors and independent activists who strive for open knowledge and support our mission.
This meeting is particularly important in a political context in which Brazil cannot expect much support from the national government, and civil-society solidarity ties have become a priority.
Metrics
Program | Program activities | Goals |
---|---|---|
General Outreach | Wiki Takes a city | At least one Wikipedia training for the local community |
At least 300 images from the photo-walk uploaded to Commons | ||
At least 50 entries on Wikidata on the city | ||
At least one mapping activity | ||
At least 20 people engaged at the event | ||
Wiki Loves Monuments | At least 10,000 images uploaded on Commons | |
At least 100 participants | ||
Projects with institutional partners | Projects to be developed with at least 3 different institutions and organizations outside the GLAM Wiki context | |
Thematic edit-a-thons and campaign support | At least 3 edit-a-thons on #WikiForHumanRights campaign | |
Improve/create 40 Wikipedia entries on Human Rights and related subjects | ||
Partner with at least 3 institutions related to Human Rights for the edit-a-thons | ||
At least 20 new Wikipedia editors | ||
Support as a group at least 2 external campaigns | ||
Meeting with free knowledge community | Organize 1 meeting with 30 scholars and activists on free knowledge and related topics to discuss a strategic direction for free, open knowledge in Brazil |
Risk assessment
- A potential risk we must consider --given the level of activity we are planning-- is burn-out. This can happen to our UG members and to the overall community. In order to avoid this circumstance, we need to keep very tuned to our mission, to foster the open knowledge community in Brazil through Wikimedia projects, and as importantly keep in mind we do what we do to have fun! We also understand the very nature of a sAPG is to establish a structure to prevent, or at least take more seriously into account, mental health of people engaged in sustained activities.
- As noted above, edit-a-thons have definitely not been an issue for our group --and we have taken into account previous figures to come up with this goal. The risk is not so much about organizing an event, but rather having it successful. In this case, we are building edit-a-thons within a global program led by several affiliates and the WMF itself, so we hope to be part of and learn from a collective building.
- In this axis, we expect to organize a Wiki Takes a City for our group members and community. As any event, there are several risks involved.
- Lack of interest in the event: people have limited time to attend Wikimedia events, so it is possible some of our members won’t prioritize this event. We will have preparatory meetings online to call for the event and engage our members. We will also engage with local communities to work on event planning and engagement.
- Badly prepared logistics: to mobilize and to transport resources and people are key for the success, and based on our prior experience with this kind of event --which ends up being tons of fun-- we have a pool of partners and third-parties we know we can count on.
- Problems with internet connection: as we will be in less central areas, we need to find solutions for getting people online, eventual renting equipment if no other solution is feasible.
- In this axis, we expect to organize a WLM. As any event --in this case, mostly an online event--, there are several risks involved.
- Lack of interest in the event: people have limited time to participate in Wikimedia events, so it is possible some of our members won’t prioritize this event. We will have a continuous campaign to have people onboard and as part of a global event massive communication, including central notice, mass message and outreach to former participants.
- Our general outreach focus in this axis will mostly be geared to initiating negotiations with new institutional partners (off GLAM and universities), and though we can put a lot of effort onto reaching out people they might not be interested in whom we are and what we have to say. A strategic approach will have to be devised, focusing on good practices. A good aspect is that as we already have a repertoire of important institutions we work with we can take this as an authority introduction and even build upon this existing network.
- In this axis, we expect to organize a meeting with other open-knowledge groups. As any event, there are several risks involved.
- Lack of interest in the event: people have limited time to participate in events, so it is possible some groups might not be interested. We have built progressively stronger ties with some key groups, like Creative Commons Brasil, Open Knowledge Brasil, OSM Brasil, and so on.
- Lack of collaboration: an event like this should be seen as a catalyst for progressively more ambitious joint activities, and though we cannot anticipate outcomes we will communicate very clearly to groups we invite what we hope to achieve. This can be an opportunity to create a new moment for the open knowledge community in Brazil with our group as a major player in this process among key partners.
Staffing Plan and Operational Expenses
[edit]Staff description and rationale |
WMB requests for the first time support from the WMF to structure a professional team to oversee the user group's effort in institutional advancement, including administration, fundraising, logistics, reporting, communications and partnerships. This is deemed necessary to bring our association to reach a new level of activity.
Since the inception of the user group, activities have been conducted voluntarily. As our affiliate has grown --becoming one of the largest and most active affiliates from the Global South--, to rely exclusively on volunteers has become a burden, and volunteers are getting exhausted and sometimes frustrated.
Our institutional capacity has been developed in recent years, and we know we can successfully set up conditions for hiring, managing and supervising contractors. The roles we have outlined below are in full accordance to the expected results we have described in this grant request.
We have built a very unambitious proposal for staffing at this early stage. Expected wages are significantly below market average given the position and no benefits are considered in this first round of staffing. We believe this is OK given the experimental aspect of this first experience with staffing. If the model we have envisioned is successful, we expect to provide in a next sAPG context more competitive compensations to our professionals and secure social benefits.
It is also worth noticing some major positions are not considered in this first-round staffing plan: technical management (for our IT infra-structure) and funding strategist (for launching funding campaigns and looking for financial diversity). We also think it is fundamental to have a trainee program ("programa de estágio", according to the Brazilian law), as this will be an opportunity to have our internal processes encompass learning dynamics to students taking up some activities in what we do. We are also not considering legal services in this first round. We have kept design as a third-party service and not a staff, though we believe this position could be internalized. We have included communications as a third-party service and not a staff, as we were advised by the WMF team; the understanding of our group and the WMF team is that this position should be included in forthcoming rounds These decisions were made considering: our need to adjust to budget constraints we have discussed with the WMF, and our need to go slowly to prevent disruption in how we work.
Our strategy to describe positions we have requested is to describe as clearly as possible what we expect from each one of them. These are thought as open-ended positions, in the sense that strong candidates will always be considered. We do not think it is a good strategy to limit ourselves to people we already work with and know, as nobody should be considered as irreplaceable in an organization (i.e., under the risk of failing if this person leaves if this was the case) and this thwarts diversity in the composition of the organization.
We have used as a reference for describing positions how the WMF describes openings. We would be interested in having a meeting with a WMF program officer to discuss our descriptions, if this is feasible.
Administrative manager
This position is essential for the smooth running of WMB projects throughout 2020. The administrative manager will be responsible for dealing with day-to-day management of the organization, setting up meetings, organizing logistics for events and programs, etc., under the supervision of the organization coordinator.
Main duties:
- Operation plan for WMB budget for events, travels and other activities;
- Distribute resources for WMB members to execute planned activities;
- Ensure the security of WMB fiscal data;
- Report on spendings for the coordinator and project manager;
- Communicate regularly with WMB accountant;
- Keep track of every WMB activity and ensure that resources are being well distributed and used;
- Ensure the acquisition of materials for the general use of the group;
- Produce expense reports, when necessary.
Requirements:
- + 3 years of work experience in administration or similar activity;
- Background as a treasurer or + 5 years of experience in managing resources;
- Background as a wikimedian in Brazil and commitment to Wikimedia’s purposes;
- Deep understanding of Brazilian fiscal law;
- English proficiency (at least B2 level). Other languages are a plus;
- Clear communication with peers;
- Easy coexistence with people from different backgrounds and self motivated. Eager to learn and collaborate!
Coordinator
This person will be in charge of overseeing WMB strategies, operations and general administration. The coordinator primary responsibility is ensuring organizational effectiveness by providing leadership for the organization and it’s a position that requires decision making, scenario evaluation and good relationship skills with different parties: staff, community and partners. This is an essential position, because it coordinates and connects the entire team, the external elements and all the activities together.
Main duties:
- Analytically monitor progress of various projects and identify areas needing adjustment or improvement;
- Set priorities for project manager and communications manager and supervise their activities;
- Actively communicate with administration manager and set strategies for varying fundraising;
- Maximize team building in meetings;
- Manage to identify strategically collaborative partnerships and networks;
- Edit and approve final version of reports;
- Represent the group and prepare presentation materials for strategic meetings;
- Organize WMB’s institutional memory, documents from the communication, projects and financial areas;
- Follow up and coordinate the relationship with multiple partners;
- Determine project changes when necessary;
- Assess project risks and issues and provide applicable solutions;
- Represent WMB interests at events and keep them aligned to Wikimedia objectives;
- Effectively communicate, the community’s and WMB’s mission and values;
- Communicate with other Wikimedia affiliates in order to express the Brazilian community needs and inputs;
Requirements:
- + 10 years of work experience with project/people management or similar activity;
- Solid background as a wikimedian in Brazil and commitment to Wikimedia’s purposes;
- Deep understanding of Wikimedia processes for GLAM, Education and Outreach projects;
- Deep understanding of Wikimedia policies;
- English proficiency (at least B2 level). Other languages are a plus;
- Good oral and written communication skills;
- Availability for trips;
- Experience with managing communities is a differential;
- Need to be a very organized and efficient person with good interpersonal skills;
- Easy coexistence with people from different backgrounds and self motivated. Eager to learn and collaborate!
Organizational Structure |
Most operational expenses for which support is being requested relate directly to sustaining an organizational structure for WMB. These expenses include:
- Bank maintenance and transfer costs
- Administrative material
- Administrative infra-structure
- General promotion material
- Server and domain costs
- Accountant
- Design
There are also two specific expenses that are detailed below: support for attendance to off-Brazil conferences and for a UG-wide General Assembly.
WMB plans to support its volunteers to take an active role within the international Wikimedia movement. We understand an active role in global meetings is relevant for sharing knowledge and establish worldwide Wikimedia connectivity. Thus, we request funding to cover four international attendances to global or regional conferences, including: Wikimania, Wikipedia & Education meeting, Wikidata Days 2020... Attendance will include one or two representatives of our group, based on our assessment of priorities for the conference.
WMB is mandated as a civil association under the Brazilian law to hold an annual General Assembly. Thus, we request support to bring together most of our members for this meeting, in which our fiscal and strategic plans are presented and eventually approved, and in which we set up action plans for the coming year. We request support for 10 national flights and 2 international flights, accommodation for attendees, and what to cover for catering and room rental. WMB has members who are active in the Brazilian community but who live abroad, thus the necessity of international flights.
Midterm report
[edit]Program story
[edit]Wikimedia in Brazil in times of pandemics
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemics, our user group had --like many other Wikimedia organizations-- to quickly adapt to a new, challenging reality. Team work time and expectations had to be adjusted. A thought-through Annual Plan had to be reviewed, with the postponement of some key events we had programmed (i.e., a WMF-supported training on LUA and a Seminar on Digital Technologies and Open Culture). We are thankful for the collaboration of the WMF grants and community support teams in making necessary changes in our activities. The new context was also an opportunity for experimentation and devising programs and activities we had not necessarily envisioned; in this report, I highlight some of these programs and activities.
A highlight in our work in the context of the COVID-19 pandemics is a series of edit-a-thons we have held in partnership with cultural institutions, especially Museu Paulista. The initiative with this particular museum, which was described on a previous edition, was listed as one of the few successes of museums amidst a widespread inability to adjust to digital audiences in Brazil, at an op-ed on the most important Brazilian newspaper.[40] Between March and mid July, WMB held eleven edit-a-thons, including six that were co-organized with Museu Paulista (digital posters below).
Normally, WMB has run edit-a-thons with an idea that we should go as quickly as possible to the magic moment of enabling, empowering newcomers to edit for the first time; in a remote context, we moved to an interaction in which we were able to present more deeply, thoroughly what the community is and does, then having several Wikimedians work as individual tutors for newcomers. Slides, videos, chats are available on the event pages. Over 2,000 people watched the videos and over 1,100 joined the campaign with Museu Paulista.
In parallel, WMB ran a three-month-long online initiative to improve contents broadly related to Museu Paulista on Wikipedia in Portuguese. A new initiative is about to be launched with the Brazilian National Archives; over 500 people have signed in this competition that focuses specifically on the Brazilian capital, Brasília.
New partnerships
[edit]Another highlight was the reorganization of the Wikimedia and Education community in Brazil. WMB systematically researched and listed education programs that were organized in Brazil since 2011 and sent out a call to all professors and education leaders that had been involved or were involved in these programs. A first meeting was held on June 17, with around 40 participants.
The work with educators is particularly important as they have faced the challenge of adapting to new technologies without receiving sufficient support from local governments, and to set up Wikimedia education programs is relatively straightforward and can be a means of engaging students to renewed experiences. Open meetings in the Wikimedia and Education community will be held monthly.
We are also happy to have recently celebrated the largest partnership with Brazilian academic libraries in our history, with the formalization of a joint initiative with several libraries from the University of São Paulo. (We hope to submit a full report soon!) We are also working to ratify partnerships with Musica Brasilis (one of the largest collection of musical scores from Brazil, with which we might bring to Wikimedia Commons around 5,000 media files of Brazilian music) and the Brazilian Society of Scientific Research to improve content on Brazilian science policies.
Program Progress
[edit]Wiki Movement Brazil in less than four months
This partial report covers the period April 1st - July 15th. During the first months of the Grant, the Wiki Movimento Brasil User Group has managed to carry out key activities that were foreseen in its 2020 Simple Annual Plan Grant, despite challenges that the COVID-19 have created.
GLAM outreach
In Edit-a-thons, campaigns and training, WMB exceeded expectations. In the period covered in this report, the group held 6 events, in which we gathered 1.009 participants, 752 new users, and 480 articles created or edited. We also had 6 institutional partners involved: Museu Paulista, Fundação Banco do Brasil, Fundação de Apoio à Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo, Sesc Ipiranga and Goethe Institut.
We had five edit-at-thons held remotely and one campaign, in the form of a contest. This campaign had impressive numbers results, but the edit-at-thons alone would also put us over the top expected for the entire Grant.
The events were:
- São Paulo fotográfica, edit-a-thon with 28 editors, 1 new editor, 90 articles edited, 6 articles created.
- As lutas pela independência do Brasil, edit-a-thon with 40 editors, 2 new editors, 19 articles edited, 2 articles created.
- As águas do Museu Paulista, edit-a-thon with 14 editors, 28 articles edited, 8 articles created.
- Os indígenas no Museu, edit-a-thon with 28 editors, 5 new editors, 45 articles edited, 6 articles created.
- Cartografias e territórios, edit-a-thon with 37 editors, 4 new editors, 5 articles edited, 1 article created.
- Wikiconcurso Novo Museu do Ipiranga, contest/campaign with 862 editors, 740 new editors, 269 articles edited, 1 article created.
In the Uploads in continuous flow, WMB has already exceeded the expected the result for the middle of the Grant, but has not yet reached the year-long metric.
In the period covered in this report, we have had the participation of three institutional partners and uploaded 3,949 images to Wikimedia Commons, with the involvement of four users: GiFontenelle, Joalpe, Sturm and Ederporto.
For the Instituto Moreira Salles GLAM-Wiki initiative, there was one upload with 595 images. For the Arquivo Nacional GLAM-Wiki initiative, there were two uploads, the first with 450 images and the second with 263 images. The Paulista Museum GLAM-Wiki initiative had 6 different uploads, accumulating 2.641 images in total.
The Process documentation and the Meeting with partners were not concluded yet. The former is being developed and, the latter has been postponed in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though the Meeting with partners in Rio de Janeiro had not yet happened in person, WMB members participated in remote meetings with institutions located in the city with, for example, Arquivo Nacional, Instituto Moreira Salles and Musica Brasilis.
Education programs
The Education programs in Brazil experienced an exceptional growth in recent months thanks to SAPG Grant, with a huge increase in activities involving the community, educators and educational or academic institutions. Due to the Grant, WMB managed to direct members to actively contribute to the improvement of these educational programs, promoting meetings and creating a network of connection and support between Brazilian Wikimedians and Educators.
Considering the Outreach activities, in less the four months, WMB held 2 workshops and participated in 8 different education-related events or presentations. In all of them together, the group had 153 participants, 68 new editors, 6 institutional partners involved and 3 resources developed (3 videos).
The first workshop organized by the group was the 1ª Oficina Wikimedia & Educação, with speakers from Universidade Municipal de São Caetano do Sul, Faculdade Cásper Líbero and Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, 40 participants and a video recording made available. The second was the 2ª Oficina Wikimedia & Educação, with speakers from Museu Paulista da Universidade de São Paulo and Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz. The group plans to hold these workshops monthly, to stimulate the construction of educational programs in Brazil based on an organic and self-sustaining community of educators. A portal for the events was also created in the Portuguese Wikiversity platform, in which a lot of materials are being made available.
WMB members also participated in external educational events, such as:
- Humanidades Digitais e as plataformas Wikimedia, by Universidade Municipal de São Caetano do Sul, with 10 participants and one video recording.
- Wikipedia & Education UG event, Tiago Lubiana, with 24 participants.
- Lecture "From Web 2.0 to Web 3.0, from Wikipedia to Wikidata", by the Tel-Aviv University.
- Lecture at the open meeting of No-budget Science.
- Lecture on Wikidata in education, LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group, with 67 participants.
- Lecture on education programs at Youth LACIGF 2020 Open Course, by the CGI Youth LACIGF, with 12 participants.
The separated Printed resources and the Video resources were not yet concluded. The brochure and the four videos are in the production process and will be made available soon.
Community support
Like the other sections foreseen in the Grant, this one had events and products produced as planned and others that were postponed due to COVID-19. However, in general, the group managed to perform well, even executing the expected metrics.
We held 3 of the 4 Wikidata Labs expected in the context of the Grant. Even remotely, we had good results.
We had planned to hold, within those first three and a half months, the four events. However, one of them, the LUA Training Workshop (Wikidata Lab XXII), which was scheduled for April 24th to 26th, had to be postponed. The event predicted the meeting of several Wikimedians, from different states of Brazil and with the participation of some foreign users.ts realization was not feasible due to COVID-19.
The three events held managed to reach 576 people through video streaming and brought together a total of 54 participants, 14 new editors and had 4.237 articles edited. We also developed 6 resources and had 8 institutional partners involved: Museu Paulista, Fundação Banco do Brasil, Fundação de Apoio à Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo, Sesc Ipiranga, Goethe Institut, RIDC NeuroMat and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo. Impact was improved with the use of the streaming technology StreamYard.
- WikidataLab XXI: Referências bibliográficas estruturadas, held on April 4, with 26 editors, 7 new ones, 126 articles edited and 87 created. There was also 21 viewers on WMB YouTube channel and 179 viewers on Goethe YouTube channel. This event also generated a set of slides.
- Wikidata Lab XXII: Wikiprojeto COVID-19, held on April 14, with 13 editors, 4 new ones, 3.910 articles edited and 114 created. There was also 163 viewers on WMB YouTube channel. This event also generated a set of slides.
- WikidataLab XXIII: Wiki-Education and Data Literacy, held on May 21, with 15 editors and 4 new ones. There was also 133 viewers on WMB YouTube channel and 80 on WMB Facebook. This event also generated one brochure.
The Thematic edit-a-thons are still in the process of implementation. During the month of March, WMB organized a lot of thematic edit-a-thons with Art+Feminism, in the Artes+Feminismos na Lusofonia 2020 campaign. For that reason and because COVID-19 crisis is not over yet in Brazil, WMB has failed to hold many other events.
For now, there was only the Editatona Artes+Feminismos - Arte & Trabalho, in May 23 and 24. The event was held remotely with 27 editors, 8 new ones, 19 articles edited and 5 articles created. It created one list of articles, 2 set of slides (Wikipédia e Conhecimento Livre and Oficina de edição na Wikipédia) and had 4 institutional partners involved: Instituto Moreira Salles, Coletiva NaPupila, Art+Feminism and Creative Commons Brasil.
The Organic communications is being developed during the course of the Grant. So far, what the group managed to accomplish already exceeded expectations. On the program, WMB planned 2 media appearances, but succeeded to make 48 appearances of activities promoted by the group.
A highlight is the involvement of WMB -- with the support of the WMF Legal Team -- to provide information and have an impact on policymaking in the context of the Bill Proposal 2630/2020 in Brazil. This proposal could be harmful to Wikimedia projects. A public statement was published.
The communication plan for WMB is still being developed and the monthly reports on community channels are being delivery as planned: April, May, June and July.
The organization of the Offline meetup and the Diversity plan are still in progress. The COVID-19 pandemics also hindered the planning of these events, but the group hopes to carry them out as soon as the public health crisis in Brazil is over.
General outreach
The General outreach section was the one that suffered most from the COVID-19 crisis. In some points, as in Projects with institutional partners, the group managed to exceed expectations, but many of the activities planned have yet to be carried out, due to the difficulty of promoting and holding events, campaigns and meetings that must necessarily be in person.
This is the case with Wiki Takes a city, in which the group is planning to enhance information on-wiki about the city of São Luiz do Paraitinga. It is also the case with Wiki Loves Monuments campaign, which the group intends to try to perform in October, if public health conditions in Brazil permit, or adapt to a situation in which no outdoor activity will be held.
In the Projects with institutional partners, WMB planned to have to new projects until the end of the year. In less than four months, the group reached and surpassed the goal. WMB managed to establish new GLAM partnerships with three new institutions (Biblioteca Carlos Benjamin de Lyra, Biblioteca da ECA and Musica Brasilis) and is in the process of making three more (Biblioteca da FAU, Instituto Hercule Florence and Sociedade Brasileira para Progresso da Ciência).
The partnership with the Libraries (Biblioteca Carlos Benjamin de Lyra, Biblioteca da ECA and Biblioteca da FAU) will result in only one GLAM, the GLAM das Bibliotecas da USP (São Paulo University Libraries GLAM), which already has a portal on Wikipedia in Portuguese.
The COVID-19 pandemics also hindered and stopped the organization of the Thematic edit-a-thons and campaign support. The group still hopes to carry out these events and campaigns, but was unable to develop the activities so far.
The Meeting with free knowledge community was an event that was about to happen, on April 14, when the COVID-19 pandemic started in Brazil. The gathering, called Seminário Tecnologias Digitais e Cultura Livre, already had participants, a page, promotional materials, location and partners such as Open Knowledge Brasil, Tainacan and Creative Commons Brasil. However, everything had to be canceled and, as the group understands that this event should take place in person, it could not be rescheduled properly just yet.
Spending update
[edit]Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the first half of your grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.
Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period:
- 12.429,62 USD / 63.055,47 Brazilian reais
Grant Metrics Reporting
[edit]Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.
Final report
[edit]Program story
[edit]Abre-te Código hackathon
[edit]The Abre-te Código hackathon was one of the most formidable opportunities that the unpredictable 2020 brought to Wiki Movimento Brasil. What at first would be a traditional in person event became a true network of Brazilian cultural institutions, open knowledge initiatives and professionals from different fields focused on creating solutions for the challenges and possibilities of sharing collections online in the Global South context. The initiative is the Brazilian edition of the cultural open data hackathon Coding da Vinci, organized by Goethe-Institut São Paulo, and soon become a formative program. The organization team reached out to WMB looking for Wikimedia insights and due to our expertise on GLAM-Wiki partnerships. After many meetings, we have cooperated in many aspects. For example, we suggested for them to use images from our GLAMs available on Wikimedia Commons to design the visual identity of the event and that they released every material produced under Creative Commons licences. They were amazed by it! We too produced two written materials: one on how to make a GLAM-WIki and one about Wikimedians in Residence, and a one hour and a half video explaining GLAM-Wiki partnerships and processes. We have also uploaded on Wikimedia Commons the formative videos with experts from the other cultural institutions participating in the hackathon. One video was a class on free licenses by Creative Commons Brasil -- a true treasure! After the formative phase that started in June, the hackathon gathered more than 150 interested participants from Brazil and Moçambique. They formed teams through a platform called Discord and received more formative inputs to inspire their creativity, including one on Wikidata by WMB. The participants had 3 intensive days of mentoring with GLAM and technical professionals (and a member of WMB, of course!) and finally were able to form teams and work on their projects during the month of November. At the end of the pilot prototyping phase, the jury (in which a member of WMB was invited to join) evaluated 15 viable projects using datasets from 14 different institutions. Three of them have received prizes to keep developing their solutions; interestingly, cases that were awarded are related to institutions with which WMB already holds partnership agreements. In the Abre-te Código process, WMB reached out to the cultural institutions proposing a joint GLAM-Wiki with the open datasets already curated by them. The Brazilian Studies Institute (IEB) promptly demonstrated interest in joining the Wikimedia movement and we recently formed a partnership with them. The event organization acknowledged that WMB was responsible for spreading out the open culture data even before Abre-te Código, which allowed them to easily approach institutions such as the Museu Paulista, Instituto Moreira Salles and Museu do Futebol, also providing datasets for the hackathon. Besides the creative ideas around open cultural data, Abre-te Código brought the attention of cultural institutions that now see themselves more than ever forced to rethink access to their collections online. WMB was responsible for shining a light on Wikimedia possibilities for them and for other people Abre-te Código reached out. This was a huge GLAM Outreach opportunity for us and is certain that there’s more to come from this partnership!
Wikidata Party
[edit]On October 24th, WMB hosted a ‘’’Wikidata Party’’’ (‘’’Festa do Wikidata’’’, in Portuguese), a hybrid event: online and in person. It was the first time since early March that the team from WMB gathered in person. Due COVID-19 preventive measures, we had only 7 people attending the event, hosted at one of the only certified spaces in São Paulo for holding corporate events. It was very emotional! Around 20 other people from the Lusophone community (mainly from Brazil and Portugal) attended the event through its online interface. The purpose of the event was to celebrate Wikidata and the work our community has been doing around it. The schedule of the event consisted of three live broadcasts and one practical activity. The first part of the event was an introduction to Wikidata. WMB has been organizing Wikidata Labs -- technical trainings on Wikidata related tools -- since late 2017, which means that it’s been a while since we presented some basics on Wikidata. As a suggestion from the Lusophone community, we organized this “back to the basics” presentation, available now on YouTube. Right after that, we did another live broadcast, this time focused on cultural institutions and on the participants of the Abre-te Código hackathon. The proposal was to present what a GLAM-Wiki is, how Wikidata is crucial for its success and how they can use this resource too. A final live was to celebrate the community’s work around Wikidata through 2020: we called that “Wikidata birthday gifts”. The practical activity - in which the online public could join us via Slack or Google Meet - was to model a dataset from the Museu Paulista.
Although we miss having in person events to celebrate the community and the Wikimedia projects, we’re glad that we had the opportunity to experiment with new formats that allow us to integrate people from different locations at the same time.
Learning story
[edit]Wiki Loves Monuments
[edit]The Wiki Movimento Brasil took over the organization of Wiki Loves Monuments in Brazil in the 2019 edition. Among the many challenges that came with this, the diversification of the lists of monuments and the outreach of the campaign remain as main challenges.
The participation in the event, both locally and globally, has shown a downward trend for several years. Despite this, 2020 was the edition with the largest number of images in the national phase, representing alone 47% of the total images sent in all editions and breaking the records of the 2019 edition.
In the beginning, our main challenge was the lack of diversity in the list of monuments, which previously consisted only of officially listed monuments at the federal level, which are generally prominent and well illustrated and are now much more diverse, structured and complete. For some years now the WMB has been optimizing its activities with the integration with Wikidata, so it was natural to organize this event using all the knowledge and features that that project provides. We created several items of monuments, arranged many others and jumped from 1.4K monuments in 2018 to 7.2K in 2020. This automation of the lists, and the work of diversification scrapping and uploading more monuments catalogs were the main responsible for the increase in the number of contributed images, which started to better represent the Brazilian heritage diversity, mainly from less privileged regions of the country.
In 2019, aiming to establish the contest as more than a beautiful photography contest, we established an award category for photographers that most illustrated monuments that did not have images in Wikimedia projects. The objective of the Wiki Loves Monuments, for the WMB, is to illustrate all the monuments of all Brazilian municipalities, classified or not, with free images. For this to happen, we need to not only increase the degree of completeness of the lists, but also overcome the challenge of publicizing the contest. We had to start practically from scratch with the promotion of the event when we took over and we have been working to build more efficient communication for the promotion of the contest, to shed light on the importance of documentation, illustration and preservation of monuments and to guide participants through the steps necessary to contribute.
Wikicontests
[edit]Throughout 2020, during the period in which our sAPG was held, we had the opportunity to organize two writing wikicontests. Both intended to encourage and recognize the development of articles in specific scopes. They were the Wikiconcurso Novo Museu do Ipiranga, organized from March 15 to June 15, and Wikiconcurso Arquivo Nacional, organized from July 20 to September 14. Although both were successfully completed and our experience was motivating enough for new contests to be scheduled for 2021, we believe that some of the challenges faced can serve as a learning story both to be understood and reported on.
Different enrollment models
[edit]Firstly, it is interesting to note that the fact of having a more permissive model of enrollment in the wikicontest, as occurred in Wikiconcurso Novo Museu do Ipiranga, or a much more rigorous and bureaucratic model, such as that adopted in the wikicontest Wikiconcurso Arquivo Nacional, did not change significantly final number of “heavy users” contributors, although there is a large discrepancy in the total number of people enrolled in each case. Wikiconcurso Novo Museu do Ipiranga had a total of 862 registered users, but only 8 users were responsible for 80% of the total points awarded. Looking at the Wikiconcurso Arquivo Nacional, for instance, talking about the 3.155 points validated during the contest, 2.661 points were generated by the top five editors. In this wikicontest, there were a total of 74 people registered.
Co-organizers and partners importance
[edit]One of the positive aspects that we can highlight in this learning story is the importance of co-organizers and partners in both cases. Museu Paulista, Brazilian National Archives and Fundação Banco do Brasil were important not only in the dissemination of the wikicontests, since we were also able to use their partners networks and communication channels, but the partnership also provided the possibility of allowing a wide award to a significant number of participants. Their co-participation also allowed the presentation events of the wikicontests, as well as the training workshops, to have a greater dissemination and participation of a larger number of people. The purpose of the workshops was to allow the contest not to be an event focused only on experienced users, but also to allow novices to have access in the face of a rapid learning curve.
Validations
[edit]To compute and to control the contribution numbers above remain a second challenge that we dealt with in both contests: the validation of the editions made by users who subscribed to the contests. Our default tool has been the P&E Dashboard: see both Novo Museu Paulista and Arquivo Nacional ones. But to assess a valid content is something difficult to do automatically, besides the matter of the project community's sovereignty to give the "last word" about what remains and what must be deleted of an article. So, this validation deals not only within the scope of the contest rules, but also with the decisions made by the community. Thus, both experiences served to have a more precise dimension of the effort that is to carry out this validation in a manner consistent with the community sovereign as a whole. Defining whether or not an edition marks points in a wikicontest must, in addition to being the most objective possible, bring the prerogative that the wikicontest organizers are sovereign in deciding unforeseen cases, even though the community continues with its sovereignty in what remains (and how) in articles.
Still in the context of control, validation and punctuation, no matter how much we have automated the control with the use of spreadsheets and dashboards, a daily human control was still necessary in both cases. This task consumed at least 1 hour daily to validate the edits made from the previous day, since we think it prudent to allow at least 24 hours for the editions made within the scope of the contest to be appreciated and validated by the community as well. It was a detailed and necessary work so that both controversial and negative editions do not unduly receive points.
So, two learning points for upcoming writing wikicontests are:
- Point 01: Ensure that in the next competitions there is a forecast of time for the human validation necessary to maintain the correct validation of the points, even with the eventual and desirable growth of ambitions and the number of participants in the upcoming competitions.
- Point 02: Ensure that the rules of wikicontests are even more objective, in order to continue respecting the sovereignty of the project community, but giving the organizing committee the final say on omitted cases.
Programs Impact
[edit]Wiki Movement Brazil in 2020
This report covers the full period of this grant, and incorporates information from the partial report published in mid July. 2020 was of course a challenging year in many dimensions (emotional, social, logistical, political…); nevertheless, we have strived to accomplish what we had planned to accomplish --and when we were unable to reach the expected results we were in direct communication with the WMF program officers. More details on our activities are available on our 2020 Report of Activities, which includes specific links to each one of the activities that are mentioned in this document. We note upfront that the support of the officers was not only essential for the results we present but also essential for our wellbeing as a team and group. Thank you!
GLAM outreach
In Edit-a-thons, campaigns and training, WMB exceeded expectations. In 2020, the group held 33 events. In the partial report, the group had held 6 events. We also have involved 8 institutional partners: Museu Paulista, Fundação Banco do Brasil, Fundação de Apoio à Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo, Sesc Ipiranga, SBPC, USCS, and Goethe Institut.
In 2020, we organized 24 edit-at-thons held remotely and 2 campaigns, in the form of wikicontests. These campaigns had impressive numbers results [41][42] and are a type of event we expect to keep organizing.
In the Uploads in continuous flow, WMB has reached the year-long metric. In the period covered in this report, institutional partners we work with have donated 5,459 images to Wikimedia Commons (in the partial report, we had reached 3,949 uploads). Uploads were done in the context of these initiatives: Instituto Moreira Salles GLAM-Wiki initiative, Arquivo Nacional GLAM-Wiki initiative, Paulista Museum GLAM-Wiki initiative and Musica Brasilis GLAM-Wiki initiative.
We have worked on four resources to document our processes working with GLAMs:
- Process documentation on GLAMs, disseminated as part of the Abre-te Código initiative;
- Process documentation on Wikimedians in residence, disseminated as part of the Abre-te Código initiative;
- Outreach Dashboard tutorial for GLAMs, also supported by a small grant from Creative Commons; and
- Process documentation on how to produce audio descriptions, with the support of the Museu Paulista education team and the organization Museus Acessíveis. This document was produced in the context of a workshop bringing together Wikimedians and educators.
In 2020, as already mentioned in the partial report, we postponed "Meeting with partners." Even though the Meeting with partners in Rio de Janeiro had not yet happened in person, WMB members participated in remote meetings with institutions located in the city with, for example, Arquivo Nacional, Instituto Moreira Salles and Musica Brasilis.
Education programs
The Education programs in Brazil experienced an exceptional growth in recent months in the context of the sAPG. Our focus has been on the creation of a community of educators and researchers on education, as well as Wikimedians who support education programs. Our strategy has included the organization of monthly meetings (Oficinas Wikimedia & Educação) and direct support to activities.
In 2020, WMB held 7 Wikimedia & Education workshops and participated in 15 different education-related events or presentations. On average, workshops were attended by 32 people; later views on YouTube videos have doubled and sometimes tripled this total. We have directly supported 12 education programs, bringing together 346 students. The production of subtitles for videos from these workshops was supported by a grant from Creative Commons.
We have created a revised version of the 2014 "Wikipédia de A a Z" brochure, with the supervision of three university professors. We have printed 1,000 issues of the 2020 brochure, which will be distributed in areas of lower connectivity in Brazil. This is as of today the best outreach document that is available in Portuguese. It is available on Commons. Alternative text on images for this resource was produced with support from a Creative Commons grant.
In 2020, the following videos were produced to support education and outreach activities:
- Como criar uma conta Wiki (How to create a Wiki account);
- Como carregar imagens no Wikimedia Commons (How to upload images on Wikimedia Commons);
- Como utilizar as imagens do Wikimedia Commons na Wikipédia (How to use Wikimedia Commons media on Wikipedia);
- Como usar a página de testes (How to use the sandbox page);
- Como adicionar referências em um artigo na Wikipédia (How to add references in a Wikipedia article);
- Como adicionar predefinições (How to add templates);
It is also worth noting that activities we organize and support often generate video resources, available on our YouTube channel and Wikimedia Commons.
Community support
In 2020, we held six Wikidata Labs. These events were seen 483 times this year in the aggregate, and activities engaged 76 people, including 24 new editors. (These figures do not include the last event, as data was not available at the time of the production of this report.) We also developed none resources and had nine institutional partners involved: Museu Paulista, Fundação Banco do Brasil, Fundação de Apoio à Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo, Sesc Ipiranga, Goethe Institut, RIDC NeuroMat, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, and Wikicite. Impact was improved with the use of the streaming technology StreamYard. We have also organized the Festa do Wikidata and Wikicite sessions, supported by e-scholarships from Wikicite.
Nine "thematic edit-a-thons" were organized. These events are specifically listed on the 2020 WMB Report of Activities. An important aspect is that they were supported by 5 institutional partners involved: Instituto Moreira Salles, Coletiva NaPupila, Art+Feminism, Creative Commons Brasil and USCS.
The Organic communications is being developed during the course of the Grant. So far, what the group managed to accomplish already exceeded expectations. WMB succeeded to make 65 media appearances of activities promoted by the group. Reports on GLAM activities were systematically reported on the "This Month on GLAM!" newsletter.
The UG General Assembly was held on December 5, as a hybrid event: six members attended in a COVID-19 secure environment and sixteen members connected remotely. In the event, we deliberated on applications for new members --six were accepted--, ratified our financial report and the report of activities for 2020 and discussed main projects for 2021. We also launched during the UG General Assembly the first draft of its Strategic Communications Plan. We also presented our Diversity Plan and a new diversity survey was sent out --results to be consolidated in the coming months.
General outreach
Wiki Takes a City has become a tradition in Brazil. We had originally planned to "take" São Luiz do Paraitinga, but for reasons associated with the COVID-19 pandemics we chose a city that provided a better infrastructure for the few volunteers who were selected to take pictures of and map the city. Results are available on the event portal on Wikipedia in Portuguese. It is worth noting that this Wiki Takes was organized in partnership with an independent group of Wikimedians, foto.wiki.br, which is currently applying for recognition as a Wikimedia affiliate.
The 2020 edition of Wiki Loves Monuments had to be postponed --as in many countries-- but has broken records for Brazil. It has reached its highest number of contributions ever and the highest number of used images.
In 2020, WMB managed to establish new GLAM partnerships with seven new institutions: Biblioteca Carlos Benjamin de Lyra, Biblioteca da ECA and Musica Brasilis, Biblioteca da FAU, Instituto Hercule Florence, Institute of Brazilian Studies and Brasileira para Progresso da Ciência.
WMB has engaged with the global #WikiForHumanRights campaign, by organizing a set of three events with a special focus on refugees.
The Meeting with free knowledge community was canceled in the context of the COVID-19 pandemics, as reported previously.
Spending update
[edit]Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.
Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period:
- spent: 349,349.14 BRL (not considering initial transaction wire costs) / remaining: 40,997.92 BRL
Grant Metrics Reporting
[edit]Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.