Application or grant stage: grant in progress

Applicant or grantee: Wikimedia Belgium

Amount requested: € 43868 (39880 EUR + 10% contingency fee) ($52,000)

Amount granted: 15,000 Euro + 10% contingency fee, or 16,500 Euro ($20,500)

Funding period: 5 January 2018 to 31 December 2018

Application created: 27 October 2017

Recommended application date: 1 November 2017

Midpoint report due: 15 July 2018

Final report due: 30 January 2019

Application[edit]

Background[edit]

These two requests are required of first-time applicants. In future years, you can use reports to substitute for these requirements.

Link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements in the past year.
Seminar Sharing is Caring - Brussels Extension
See for other reports: Reports
See for an overview of activities at: Activities
Link to one learning story you have created or contributed to, that demonstrates how your organization documents and applies learning.
Organising a Wiki Takes...

Link to these documents, for the upcoming funding period, only if you have them.

Link to your organization's staffing plan, for the upcoming funding period.

Staffing plan 2018 (not funded)
Link to your annual plan, for the upcoming funding period.

Annual plan 2018
Link to your strategic plan, which includes the upcoming funding period.

Included in our annual plan 2018

Please add your grants metrics to this sheet. Note that requirements for shared metrics have changed for grants starting 1 January 2017 or later. Grants with start dates before 1 January 2017 should still use the old Global Metrics.

Please visit this worksheet to view global metrics targets and progress.

Programs[edit]

Please use the templates provided to add information about each program you are planning for the upcoming funding period.

More details of the programs can be found in the annual plan.

Writing weeks program

The writing weeks program consists out of a set of activities to organise two writing weeks in Belgium.

Writing weeks Brussels: In 2016 and 2017 we supported the initiative of a local user and organised together the writing weeks Brussels (2016 & 2017 info). The project is in its core online, but we notice at the same time that new users find it difficult to start on their own, alone at home, and we have found the local libraries open for collaboration with Wikipedia, and interested in growing their role of supporting local Wikipedia editors with their first steps. Together with local libraries, experienced volunteers from Wikipedia formed on site contact points where questions could be asked by new editors who have questions or wanted to learn more. Also there was space to work on articles under guidance. Our project was in 2016 and 2017 supported by the Flemish Community Commission (VGC) and provided us access to their network of libraries, as well as organisational support in communication towards both the participating libraries as the rest of Brussels. We start the project first with introduction sessions for library staff in Brussels.

Writing weeks Brabant: Noticing the success of the Brussels writing weeks, the province of Flemish Brabant wants to organise also writing weeks for their province in Autumn 2017. In 2017 we might only focus on one province, in 2018 we like to focus as well on the French speaking Walloon Brabant as well, which formed until 1995 one province with Flemish Brabant. We start with multiple sessions for library staff to introduce them to Wikipedia/Wikimedia, how to edit, and more. We also provide them with Wikipedia editing cheatsheets and info materials.

GLAM program

The GLAM program consists out of a set of activities and projects, all organised together with GLAM institutions. In this program we work intensively together with PACKED vzw, the Centre of Expertise in Digital Heritage.

Image & data donations: Wiki Loves Art provided us a nice introduction in museums and heritage libraries. Already starting it in 2016, more and more institutions are interested in collaboration, while we had about 15 cultural institutions we started with in Wiki Loves Art in 2016. The focus is on organising edit-a-thons and workshops to get more articles written in Wikipedia, on releasing images for Wikimedia Commons, on releasing data for Wikidata, and more. Meeting with the institutions creates a personal connection, gaines trust, and prepares them for the practical parts of the collaboration with Wikipedia/Wikimedia. With each partner organisation we always keep in mind what material is useful for the work of our community and for the growth in knowledge on Wikipedia, Commons, and Wikidata. We especially look for holes in the available materials, but more important, try to continue on the successful Wikidata project of 2015-2016 (link). For a part the institution will add the media/data to Commons/Wikidata, another part will be done by our community. As our community is limited, we only take up projects we have the voluntary capacity for. Specific focus will be for the performing arts in Belgium. Performing arts have Brussels said as being the contemporary dance capital in the world, but in Wikipedia the knowledge documentation is extremely limited. There are multiple projects ongoing to enrich Wikipedia/Wikimedia with more material from this scene.

Edit-a-thons: During the year we expect to give about 5 to 20 edit-a-thons and workshops around Wikipedia/more (open and closed) in collaboration with various institutions in Belgium, just as we did too in 2016 and 2017. We think it is important to reach out to the various organisations that are interested in learning more about Wikipedia, providing knowledge from their libraries and archives for the volunteers or institute members that participate in a workshop. Only those edit-a-thons and workshops are done of what we think they help to support the mission of the Wikimedia movement, as well as what we have the capacity for to do them. At each session we have one or two volunteers available to give the presentation and to provide guidance to the often new users writing articles. In principle we have the organisation who hosts the particular event pay for the costs for the used space, meals, drinks, guided tours, etc. WMBE will supply cheatsheets and info materials.

GLAM ambassadors: In the GLAM and arts sector, we want to educate ambassadors in the local knowledge institutions in how to use Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata to share materials with (data and media files), and have them serve as liaison for the museum towards Wikimedia. They then can themselves upload images to Commons and upload data to Wikidata

Education program

The Education program consists out of a set of activities and projects together with educational institutions in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Luxembourg: A class of students write in Autumn 2018 a Wikipedia article in the French, English, German, Dutch or Luxembourg language Wikipedia under the guidance/review of a teacher from the University of Luxembourg and some volunteers from the community, communicated with them on wiki and personally. An introduction in Wikipedia/Wikimedia is given in September and they need to finish their assignment in December. When they have finished their article, they are judged on their work on the article and get a mark by the teacher. Up to 3 meetups can take place. Further we provide basic info materials to enable the students to start better prepared.

Kortrijk: Two classes of students write in a year time a Wikipedia article in the Dutch language Wikipedia under the guidance/review of a teacher from the local college (Vives), supported by volunteers from the community. The students get a degree for the work they have done, based on the input and dedication they show. Up to 4 meetups can take place. Further we provide basic info materials to enable the students to start better prepared.

Louvain-la-Neuve: A team from the university wants to organise a university wide writing activity and or contest on Wikipedia around science. The goal is to get science better covered on Wikipedia in all the various fields the university has faculties in.

Ternat: As part of secondary education, classes learn about how to write neutral and how to critical research sources, do research to local heritage sites, take photos of them and write Wikipedia articles about local heritage. In this program we work together with our partner, the library of Ternat, and schools in the area. The project involves 10 classes with together about 250 students.

Wiki Loves program

The Wiki Loves program is a photo contest that is to be organised in the Summer month(s) of 2018. The volunteers from Wikimedia Belgium organise since 2011 various photo contests, at average one a year. It started in 2011 with the organisation of Wiki Loves Monuments, a photo contest to have the public take photos of cultural heritage monuments for the use in Wikipedia and beyond. Also in the years 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016 we organised this photo contest about monuments. In 2015 we skipped a year to be able to organise in 2016 the photo contest called Wiki Loves Art (info). In this photo contest we asked the public to come to the 13 participating museums and heritage libraries and to take photos of the art heritage for Wikipedia/etc. Thanks to our efforts, in the Summer of 2016 Freedom of Panorama was introduced in Belgium, meaning that people can now also take photos of modern buildings and artworks in the public environment and upload them for use in Wikipedia (etc), while this was legally not allowed before that time. To celebrate this change in the Belgian law, we organised in 2017 the photo contest Wiki Loves Public Space (contest page). In this contest we asked the public to take photos of buildings, artworks, monuments, memorials and other subjects visible from the public space.

Also in 2018 we want to organise a new photo contest to enable the photographers in our community to participate in an activity specially for them.

Staff[edit]

Please use the templates below to add information about each staff or contractor position you are planning during the upcoming funding period.

Budget and resource plan[edit]

Link to a detailed budget for the upcoming funding period. This budget should include all of your organizations expenses. Please specify which expenses will be covered from your APG. : {{{Budget}}}

Midpoint report[edit]

This is a brief report on the grantee's progress during the midpoint reporting period: 1 January - 30 June 2018.

Program story[edit]

Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

Some of the activities in first six months

Progress[edit]

Please add text or a link to a page with details on your program progress. This should including reporting against each of the SMART objectives form your proposal.

Writing weeks program

The goal of this program is to support editors in creating content about their region, as well as recruit and train new editors for Belgian community. The goal of this program is to ⁽¹⁾ organise two writing weeks ⁽²⁾ in at least two languages, all together ⁽³⁾ to get Brussels and Brabant better represented on Wikipedia, as these areas are worse described in comparison with similar areas in neighboring countries. We hope to have with each of the writing weeks over 300 new articles, 50+ articles improved and over 100 participating editors.

In 2018 we planned to organise two writing weeks. One in the first half of the year, one in the second half of the year. The one originally scheduled to be organised in the first half is moved to the second half of the year, as agreed on with our partner. Due circumstances it was already late to organise the one scheduled to take place in the second half in the first half, and instead the Mois de la contribution Francophone was organised with two on site edit sessions taking place. It resulted in 10 content pages being improved or created, with in total 10 participants. After the content part, there was also a social part: a wikimeet. This enabled the participants to meet, discuss future plans and resolve some issues.

GLAM program

The goal of this program is to ⁽¹⁾ support cultural institutions to collaborate with Wikipedia/Wikimedia to build trust, to create awareness about free knowledge, and to grow partnerships, all in the end to enrich Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia platforms with more materials, as well as to ⁽²⁾ have them share their knowledge in images, data and articles on the Wikimedia platforms, ⁽³⁾ having training sessions and workshops to inform them about how Wikipedia/Commons/Wikidata works, and ⁽⁴⁾ have them organise edit-a-thons to have more articles written about Belgian subjects.

The GLAM program is the largest program with a wide spread of various activities. It includes edit-a-thons, info sessions, presentations, workshops and more, all together somehow in collaboration with a partner organisation. Institutions in Belgium are often much bureaucratic and need a run-up before they come to action. Therefore we try since 2014 to enlarge the knowledge about collaborating with Wikipedia/Wikimedia, so they open step for step the rich cultural heritage we have in Belgium, resulting in more sources available online for use in Wikipedia articles, having images uploaded to Commons to be able to illustrate Wikipedia articles and more, and to have the metadata in Wikidata. The strategy we use slowly brings us the fruits, as even a government body supports our efforts (see Wiki Loves program). In all the activities in this program together we had this year so far 361 participants in sessions, workshops, edit-a-thons, etc. Even while this program stretches over the years, in the first six months of 2018 we had 45689 content pages created or improved, and this is just the part we were able to measure. In the second half of the year we expect a larger import of data and images, as in the first six months many small test uploads and imports have been done together with the institutions.

A few of the projects highlighted:

In 2017 we started with the project of Kunstenpunt, a database from the Flemish institute for performing arts that documents the history of Flemish performing arts, and started with the import from the data to Wikidata. The database consists out of multiple parts, and part by part they get imported and interconnected in Wikidata.

Each year on the first day of January Public Domain Day is celebrated as new works enter the public domain each year on this day. Public Domain Day and the works coming free serve as an incentive to have extra awareness of and attention for these authors and their works. This year we strongly promoted museums and other institutions to release materials of these authors. A part is still yet to come, a part already has been made available. One of the authors of whom the works became public domain is the Belgian architect Victor Horta. The Horta Museum is located in Brussels and various buildings in Belgium are designed by this architect. To raise attention for this particular author (and the other authors) we organised in February a new year's event in one of the buildings designed by the architect (photos event). Here we raised awareness in our community and our partners for this subject and we announced the Public Domain Month that took place in May. During the Public Domain Month we organised together with our partners a long list of activities. For us and our partners it is important to raise attention for this subject, as we need to have awareness in our cultural sector what public domain means. As part of the larger public domain initiative we work with various institutions that have materials of authors in the public domain and ask them to release those. For example the Horta Museum and CIVA who both released a part of their collection of materials on the Belgian architect on Wikimedia Commons. A second main author is Felix Timmermans, a much translated author of Flanders. The Royal Library released images from the books from this author and provided the files that have been transcribed in Wikisource.

One of the most successful edit-a-thons we organised was the GenderGap edit-a-thon in March 2018. This edit-a-thon was organised on International Women's Day, together with the Permanent Representation of Sweden to the European Union in Brussels and Wikimedia Sweden. To have attention for this subject of the gendergap is important for having a better coverage on Wikipedia as gaps lower the quality of Wikipedia. Before the edit-a-thon started, the ambassador of Sweden and Linnéa Claeson both spoke about the importance of the subject, after what an introduction was given how to edit Wikipedia. During the course of the edit-a-thon experienced Wikipedians helped the newcomers with questions.

With multiple art museums in Belgium we collaborate to have them donate metadata of their artworks as well as images of these artworks uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. The first smaller set of uploads have been uploaded and we are working with them to have a larger set donated and processed in Wikidata and Commons in the second half of the year.

To promote the release of data from collections of institutions to Wikidata, we are organising a Wikidata workshop open for various institutions in October this year, around the Wikidata birthday. The idea of this workshop comes from an earlier Wikidata workshop organised in the Netherlands that was very successful and overbooked. There is a growing interest from institutions in working with Wikidata, learning how to use it and share the rich heritage knowledge base with a wider audience than only internally.

Education program

The goal of this program is to ⁽¹⁾ support (at least two) educational institutions to collaborate with Wikipedia/Wikimedia and ⁽²⁾ to let students have a real-world impact instead of throwaway assignments. Besides the output created, we think it is important to create awareness about open access and open science and to build a long-term collaboration to stimulate a flow of scientific knowledge and materials flowing to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia platforms. We hope to have in Luxembourg that about 15 students each write an article (15 articles), as well to have in Kortrijk 2x about 15 students each to write an article (30 articles in total), in Louvain-la-Neuve 50 to 200 articles can be newly written or improved, and in Ternat each of the students can write an article and take one or more photos of the subject (250 articles + 250 to 500 photos).

In the first six months the school in Ternat had a wiki project in what the students wrote together on Wikipedia. Instead of each student writing a Wikipedia article, the students formed four groups which each worked on a part of the same subject. The students also took photos of the subject. The other projects are expected to take place in the second half of 2018.

Wiki Loves program

The goal of this program is ⁽¹⁾ to encourage and facilitate the capturing and uploading of photographs to have in this way a better coverage of heritage monuments, memorials, remarkable buildings, and artworks in the public space in Wikipedia, etc⁽²⁾ to ensure continuity in our activities towards our photographing community and stimulate them to upload their photos, and ⁽⁵⁾ further develop our relationship with the different collaborating organisations. We hope to have, similar to our past photo contests, over 100 participants, that upload more than 2000 photos, with in the end 10%+ used in Wikipedia articles and Wikidata.

2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage and as part of this year we were approached by a government body to organise together with them and other partners a photo contest called Wiki Loves Heritage. The goal of the contest is to enlarge the visibility of Belgium's heritage online (which is currently very limited), and to show how large and diverse the Belgian heritage is. The contest is also intended to create awareness among the many heritage organisations in Belgium about sharing knowledge online. For that purpose we organised five infosessions to inform organisations. The importance of sharing heritage is also promoted by the involved government body, as two ministers published each a video to promote the contest: video 1 & video 2.

We enlarged the scope of the photo contest to become nation-wide, with two photo contests organised as one, to be able to enable everyone in Belgium to participate and satisfy our partners in their wishes. Originally planned to start in the beginning of 2018 around February, but due to delays on the part of our partners the photo contest has started on 15 June. The contest will run until mid November. Since the start of the contest, already 87 people have participated and uploaded more than 450 photos.

Spending[edit]

Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.

Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Belgium/2018/Midreport/Spending

Final report[edit]

This is the final report for your grant, describing your outcomes from the period January to December 2018.

Program story[edit]

Please link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period.

Some of the activities in the second six months

Learning story[edit]

Please link to one learning story that shows how your organization documents lessons learned and adapts its programs accordingly.

Organising a Wiki Takes...

Results[edit]

Please add text or a link to a page with details on your program results. You should report on each of the objectives you included in your Simple APG application.

Writing weeks program

The goal of this program is to support editors in creating content about their region, as well as recruit and train new editors for Belgian community. The goal of this program is to ⁽¹⁾ organise two writing weeks ⁽²⁾ in at least two languages, all together ⁽³⁾ to get Brussels and Brabant better represented on Wikipedia, as these areas are worse described in comparison with similar areas in neighboring countries. We hope to have with each of the writing weeks over 300 new articles, 50+ articles improved and over 100 participating editors.

In 2018 we planned to organise two writing weeks. One in the first half of the year, one in the second half of the year. The one originally scheduled to be organised in the first half is moved to the second half of the year, as agreed on with our partner. Due circumstances it was already late to organise the one scheduled to take place in the second half in the first half, and instead another writing period was organised with two on site editing sessions taking place: the Mois de la contribution Francophone. It resulted in 10 content pages being improved or created, with in total 10 participants. After the content part, there was also a social part: a wikimeet. This enabled the participants to meet, discuss future plans and resolve some issues.

In the second half of the year we organised two sets of writing weeks, instead of one. In our community we asked which area of the country had the most preference to organise the writing weeks around, and this resulted in the topic of the German-speaking Community of Belgium. The second writing weeks had as theme the country Luxembourg, directly bordering the German-speaking Community of Belgium. Earlier in 2018 we did the project to import all the heritage monuments to Wikidata. With the reconciliation process of this project we noticed that many of the heritage monuments did not have an article yet in Wikipedia, as well as that also many other topics were missing too in the various language editions of Wikipedia. The same situation applied to Luxembourg. Both writing periods had a duration of about two weeks and were organised to get a better coverage of these regions in the various Wikipedias.

The writing weeks are mainly an online activity, but with the writing weeks about the German-speaking Community also offline activities have been organised. In the capital of the German-speaking Community of Belgium, Eupen, on one of the highest points of the city, we organised a public edit-a-thon where the participants coming from multiple countries worked together on articles about various subjects from the region. After the content part, there was also a social part: a wikimeet. On top of this edit-a-thon, a group of Wikipedia editors from a wikiproject organised a private editing session and also in Trento a smaller edit-a-thon was organised by local enthusiasts. As none of the writing weeks had a banner above Wikipedia, almost no new contributors participated in it and also less participants in general joined the projects. Also we had no partner that supported the event leading to having only one main writing session, while in earlier years various on site writing sessions were organised with the help of a sponsoring partner.

The writing weeks about the German-speaking Community resulted in 421 content pages being created or improved, with in total 35 participants. Some of the participants are still working on this topic and translate articles from one language Wikipedia to another. The writing weeks about Luxembourg resulted in 162 content pages being created or improved, with in total 11 participants.

GLAM program

The goal of this program is to ⁽¹⁾ support cultural institutions to collaborate with Wikipedia/Wikimedia to build trust, to create awareness about free knowledge, and to grow partnerships, all in the end to enrich Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia platforms with more materials, as well as to ⁽²⁾ have them share their knowledge in images, data and articles on the Wikimedia platforms, ⁽³⁾ having training sessions and workshops to inform them about how Wikipedia/Commons/Wikidata works, and ⁽⁴⁾ have them organise edit-a-thons to have more articles written about Belgian subjects.

The GLAM program is the largest program with a wide spread of various activities. It includes edit-a-thons, info sessions, presentations, workshops and more, all together somehow in collaboration with a partner organisation. Institutions in Belgium are often much bureaucratic and need a run-up before they come to action. Therefore we try since 2014 to enlarge the knowledge about collaborating with Wikipedia/Wikimedia, so they open step for step the rich cultural heritage we have in Belgium, resulting in more sources available online for use in Wikipedia articles, having images uploaded to Commons to be able to illustrate Wikipedia articles and more, and to have the metadata in Wikidata. The strategy we use slowly brings us the fruits, as even a government body supports our efforts (see Wiki Loves program). In all the activities in this program together we had this year so far 361 participants in sessions, workshops, edit-a-thons, etc. Even while this program stretches over the years, in the first six months of 2018 we had 45689 content pages created or improved, and this is just the part we were able to measure. In the second half of the year we expect a larger import of data and images, as in the first six months many small test uploads and imports have been done together with the institutions.

A few of the projects highlighted:

In 2017 we started with the project of Kunstenpunt, a database from the Flemish institute for performing arts that documents the history of Flemish performing arts, and started with the import from the data to Wikidata. The database consists out of multiple parts, and part by part they get imported and interconnected in Wikidata.

Each year on the first day of January Public Domain Day is celebrated as new works enter the public domain each year on this day. Public Domain Day and the works coming free serve as an incentive to have extra awareness of and attention for these authors and their works. This year we strongly promoted museums and other institutions to release materials of these authors. A part is still yet to come, a part already has been made available. One of the authors of whom the works became public domain is the Belgian architect Victor Horta. The Horta Museum is located in Brussels and various buildings in Belgium are designed by this architect. To raise attention for this particular author (and the other authors) we organised in February a new year's event in one of the buildings designed by the architect (photos event). Here we raised awareness in our community and our partners for this subject and we announced the Public Domain Month that took place in May. During the Public Domain Month we organised together with our partners a long list of activities. For us and our partners it is important to raise attention for this subject, as we need to have awareness in our cultural sector what public domain means. As part of the larger public domain initiative we work with various institutions that have materials of authors in the public domain and ask them to release those. For example the Horta Museum and CIVA who both released a part of their collection of materials on the Belgian architect on Wikimedia Commons. A second main author is Felix Timmermans, a much translated author of Flanders. The Royal Library released images from the books from this author and provided the files that have been transcribed in Wikisource.

One of the most successful edit-a-thons we organised was the GenderGap edit-a-thon in March 2018. This edit-a-thon was organised on International Women's Day, together with the Permanent Representation of Sweden to the European Union in Brussels and Wikimedia Sweden. To have attention for this subject of the gendergap is important for having a better coverage on Wikipedia as gaps lower the quality of Wikipedia. Before the edit-a-thon started, the ambassador of Sweden and Linnéa Claeson both spoke about the importance of the subject, after what an introduction was given how to edit Wikipedia. During the course of the edit-a-thon experienced Wikipedians helped the newcomers with questions.

In October we also organised a Women in Tech edit-a-thon to get a better coverage of women in the tech industry on Wikipedia. In the Forbes list of most important women in tech, are still many women without an article in Wikipedia and this edit-a-thon aimed to solve that for a bit. This edit-a-thon let to the organisation of Wiki Club meetings around the same theme, organised every two weeks since to have a more structural approach to close the gendergap on Wikipedia. In January 2019 this resulted also in a large edit-a-thon around this theme.

Another edit-a-thon was the Erbstuecke edit-a-thon at the Goethe Institut in Brussels that was organised that was organised as 2018 was the European Year of Cultural Heritage in Europe.

With multiple art museums in Belgium we collaborate to have them donate metadata of their artworks as well as images of these artworks uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. The first smaller set of uploads have been uploaded and we are working with them to have a larger set donated and processed in Wikidata and Commons in the second half of the year.

To promote the release of data from collections of institutions to Wikidata, we organised a Wikidata workshop open for various institutions in October, around the Wikidata birthday. The idea of this workshop comes from an earlier Wikidata workshop organised in the Netherlands that was very successful and overbooked. There is a growing interest from institutions in working with Wikidata, learning how to use it and share the rich heritage knowledge base with a wider audience than only internally. The Wikidata workshop was very successful, fully booked and not everyone could participate. After the full day of learning how Wikidata works and how to use and edit Wikidata, there was a Wikidata party with cake to celebrate the sixth Wikidata birthday.

During 2018 we organised the photo contest Wiki Loves Heritage aiming at individuals to go out and take photos of Belgian's vast heritage. In the background of this photo contest we also tried to stimulate institutions to join the spirit of Wiki Loves Heritage and having hem share images from their collections on Wikimedia Commons (outside the contest). This resulted in a few institutions that tried to have their collection being photographed through crowndsourcing, but this resulted only in a limited output (also due limited communication by the organisations themselves). A few others started to upload images from their collection, ranging from tens to thousands of images. Some other institutions tasted the spirit and are planning to start with uploading in 2019 as they need more time for preparation. Due the organisation of Wiki Loves Heritage, the focus of activities was changed more to info sessions and helping institutions, instead of the organisation of Wikipedia writing sessions.

Overall we learned that it is difficult to estimate if and when a cultural institution with a (large) collection is going to release and upload their materials to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. Institutions are relatively slow organisms that take their time, and usually they have a strong bureaucracy as well as time constraints with much work and limited staff. Thanks to our efforts, as well as the efforts from our partners, and also from the local government that approved an open culture data policy at the end of 2017, more and more institutions open up and share materials. In Belgium there is in organisations a relatively strong hierarchical structure, meaning that the management of institutions often needs to approve every step in the process of releasing materials, usually resulting in small bits at the time. With one institution we started working together with four years ago, this year the management finally approved it. A large proportion of the expected GLAM program output was related to the promise of an institution of donating over 50,000 images, but sadly due time constraints on their side this has not yet taken place yet.

In 2019 we continue with our partners to promote open knowledge and build upon the foundation we laid down with Wiki Loves Art and Wiki Loves Heritage in past years.

Education program

The goal of this program is to ⁽¹⁾ support (at least two) educational institutions to collaborate with Wikipedia/Wikimedia and ⁽²⁾ to let students have a real-world impact instead of throwaway assignments. Besides the output created, we think it is important to create awareness about open access and open science and to build a long-term collaboration to stimulate a flow of scientific knowledge and materials flowing to Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia platforms. We hope to have in Luxembourg that about 15 students each write an article (15 articles), as well to have in Kortrijk 2x about 15 students each to write an article (30 articles in total), in Louvain-la-Neuve 50 to 200 articles can be newly written or improved, and in Ternat each of the students can write an article and take one or more photos of the subject (250 articles + 250 to 500 photos).

In the first six months the school in Ternat had a wiki project in what the students wrote together on Wikipedia. Instead of each student writing a Wikipedia article, the students formed four groups which each worked on a part of the same subject. The students also took photos of the subject. In the second half of the year two writing sessions were organised in Ternat, with 20 people present, all together 7 articles have been written during the sessions.

In the second half of 2018 in four schools students have been writing an article in Wikipedia. For a part the articles already have been published, for a part the articles will be published during 2019. In some of the classes, each student wrote their own article, in other classes multiple students worked together on one article. In total more than 150 students have been writing on Wikipedia which resulted in more than 65 articles being created or improved. In dialogue with the educators, the feedback sessions did not take place and the feedback was only provided online. In 2019 we expect more articles from students that started in 2018 will be published and that the schools will continue with classes in what writing articles on Wikipedia is an assignment.

Wiki Loves program

The goal of this program is ⁽¹⁾ to encourage and facilitate the capturing and uploading of photographs to have in this way a better coverage of heritage monuments, memorials, remarkable buildings, and artworks in the public space in Wikipedia, etc⁽²⁾ to ensure continuity in our activities towards our photographing community and stimulate them to upload their photos, and ⁽⁵⁾ further develop our relationship with the different collaborating organisations. We hope to have, similar to our past photo contests, over 100 participants, that upload more than 2000 photos, with in the end 10%+ used in Wikipedia articles and Wikidata.

2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage and as part of this year we were approached by a government body to organise together with them and other partners a photo contest called Wiki Loves Heritage. The goal of the contest is to enlarge the visibility of Belgium's heritage online (which is currently very limited), and to show how large and diverse the Belgian heritage is. The contest is also intended to create awareness among the many heritage organisations in Belgium about sharing knowledge online. For that purpose we organised five info sessions to inform organisations. The importance of sharing heritage is also promoted by the involved government body, as two ministers published each a video to promote the contest: video 1 & video 2. Also a famous Belgian photographer Michiel Hendryckx published a video.

We enlarged the scope of the photo contest to become nation-wide, with two photo contests organised as one, to be able to enable everyone in Belgium to participate and satisfy our partners in their wishes. Originally planned to start in the beginning of 2018 around February, but due to delays on the part of our partners the photo contest has started on 15 June. The contest ran until mid November.

In October photography sessions were organised at the museum Maison Losseau. This resulted in 125 images by the 22 people present at the sessions.

The contest resulted in 4348 photos being uploaded by the 192 participants that registered for the photo contest. Most of the uploaded photos were about immovable heritage. In December already 975 of the 4348 (= 22%) uploaded photos from the contest were used on Wikipedia. Due the success of the photo contest we expect to organise a new edition of Wiki Loves Heritage in 2019, but then likely with a focus on the less photographed heritage like movable heritage‎.

Spending[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.

Spending report

Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period.

€ 15400