Grants talk:IEG/Health images for all

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Ideas for institutional partnerships[edit]

I regret to say that despite the GLAM project it is still not obvious how to manage institutional partnerships between Wikimedia projects and institutions. This is not to say that the problem is too complicated, but there are some basics to sort out. If this project goes forward, I propose that the following be done -

for background
  1. Identify as many donated media collections in the medical space as can be found among what already exists
  2. List these in a common place for use beyond this project - a WikiProject Medicine space. This is the "central catalogue" mentioned in the proposal. An example of such a catalog is at outreach:GLAM/Case studies.
  3. Have on-wiki discussions about what precedents exist and where gaps are in the relationship
In the project
  1. Take a position on Wikimedia account names for organizations. It still is not clear how organizations should identify themselves in Wikimedia Commons.
  2. There currently is little or no guidance on how institutions should present their image uploads. Probably following Commons:Commons:Galleries is the best place to start but I am unaware of good examples of organizations doing this. Current practice is putting files in a Commons category but non-Wikipedians cannot easily follow how this works.
  3. The proposal says, "CRUKs content was viewed 30,000,000 times during 2014". Going beyond this - providing metrics back to institutional partners must be a requirement. This proposal does not have to create the infrastructure to make this happen, but I would like the project to take the position that "organizations give media, Wikipedia gives audience views and metrics to prove it". This BaGLAMa variant is probably the easiest way to get metrics but still it is a baffling tool with no documentation, and there is not viable documentation about public tools for "metrics for images" anywhere.
  4. We need an in-wiki affiliation process so that organizations can fall back on community support if something goes wrong. I would like for this project to please make a presentation to Wiki Project Med Foundation that all external non-wiki organizations can, if they choose, have their collaboration ideas reviewed by Wiki Project Med Foundation and get any kind of light "memorandum of understanding" that says, "We are in communication with Wikipedians. We are trying to follow rules. Assume good faith." I am not expecting WPMF to defend everyone but with organizations, if there is not an established channel of communication then a lot can go wrong, and at least, there needs to be a communication channel in the Wikimedia community to register complaints and comments for any issues about any partner, and that communication channel needs to be able to confirm contact with the institutional partner.

Thoughts? I think none of this is so controversial and most people would expect that all of this has already been sorted, but actually, it has not been. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:38, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bluerasberry — Drawing on your suggestions I have redesigned this proposal to be a complement to GLAM — starting off within medicine, and possibly rolling over into other science topics as well. Your suggestions are very good, and I will be using them during the project as well. CFCF 💌 📧 21:01, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Most WIRs working on Commons are nowadays using the format m:commons:User:Marco Chemello (BEIC) like affiliates.
  2. Presentation is covered at commons:Commons:Guide_to_batch_uploading#Putting_it_into_action.
  3. A start of documentation is at wikitech:Analytics/Data/Mediacounts.
  4. I'd rather have all content partnerships go through an affiliate. It's not healthy to exclusively rely on an individual, although of course individual consultancy can sometimes work. Nemo 15:36, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Upload to Commons versus selling media licenses[edit]

Many organizations say that they expect to get revenue from their image collections. As this project goes forward, I know some organizations will ask, "Why donate images? We have plans in the future to get lots of money from licensing these." It might be at the edge of the scope of this grant, but if anyone is interested, I might join someone in compiling available information about how media licenses for images work.

The interesting part about this is that it is a common notion that licensing images is an easy way to bring in lots of money. However, I have been unable to identify any major organization that generates an amount of money that seems significant to me. Also, some organizations go wild when even asked about this. I think that it might be the case that misinformation is spreading around, and actually no one makes significant money from this except for third-party brokers like Getty Images.

Some Research:Freedom_of_Information_Requests have been published to weird blogs and other places reporting what major institutions make on their images. The data is ambiguous and needs to be interpreted, but at least some people could look at it and say, "the most prestigious institutions in the world try to license thee most popular media in the world and fail to do so in a way that generates significant money." The reality of the situation could be sharpened and eventually the Wikimedia community should publish some reflections on the issue. This project might arrange that. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:55, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we need to offer proper information on the different benefits of donating to Wikimedia — and I will be spending a large amount of time to create such resources — your input is more than welcome as I draft the pages. CFCF 💌 📧 21:03, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The first step is to stop saying that you are asking "donations". There is no donation, and especially no "donation to Wikipedia" as Wikipedia isn't an entity able to receive donations. Nemo 15:36, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Help sorting "model release" documents for patient photos[edit]

The Wikimedia community writes its own model releases and applies them to all kinds of photos for upload in Wikimedia Commons. The weird part about this is that there is no community guidelines about how model releases work. For lack of reflection on the issue, they are treated as copyright releases, because that is what the community knows.

If this project is interested, I would like assistance polishing Grants:PEG/Wikimedia New York City/Development of a model release process for photos and video for resubmission around January 2017, perhaps as a collaboration between Wikimedia NYC and any medical group. The goal of the project would be to produce a document which physicians might give to patients to sign to make a "model release" when a photo of a patient is to be uploaded to Commons or even used anywhere else.

I proposed this in the past and the idea got too complicated. There is already a precedent of physicians photographing patients and using model releases for Commons. I just want a lawyer to produce a standard text for this with Wikimedia Commons in mind, and offer this to the community so that the Commons community quits defaulting to homebrew legal agreements written by people with no legal expertise. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:00, 13 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This presents an excellent opportunity to branch the project in a new direction — and I really hope having access to the infrastructure I build will help you. Model releases are complicated, and differ between countries, but at the same time this is done for research purposes all the time — and are many good resources to point to. Creating a model release form for Wikimedia projects would be really helpful because I can imagine spreading them very widely. CFCF 💌 📧 21:05, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

About galleries - profiling partners[edit]

I mentioned above that one of the services provided to partners ought to be a system for presenting their content.

There needs to be a standardized sort of landing page for partners. As an example, here is a high-profile partnership involving an institution, some highly experienced Wikimedia volunteers, and Wikimedia Foundation staff.

This is one of the best examples the Wikimedia community has of documenting a partnership. Also it is poorly designed. The people who put this together only deserved praise, because things used to be worse and no one has ever proposed a better way to do things, but still, having a long list of unsorted files and a jargoning project notice page only meets minimal transparency standards and does not actually present a good face of usable content.

There are at least 10 other health organizations that need their landing page and file list sorted. The most difficult part of this is getting a 2-3 Wikipedians together to draft the presentation page, and then getting 5-8 to comment on the proposed model before rolling it out to a pilot for the ~10 organizations that need this.

Here are some partners which could start this project

It is a major problem that when organizations come to Wikimedia projects that if they do not follow community rules, then their content submissions are criticized to harshly. The difficult part about this is that there are not community rules to follow, even though some people imagine that there are. I listed the above because in all cases there have been procedural difficulties in uploading media. In my opinion, having a model to present uploaded media in a gallery and have a landing page for communication would prevent most of the common problems in institutional uploading. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:02, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree completely, with the addition that when these organizations donate to Wikipedia by uploading to commons and creating these rudimentary pages — nothing happends. The content is not used, and neither is it found by editors. I'd like to create a simple to use template, and have added this to the project description — so that organizations know how to make an impact with their donations. CFCF 💌 📧 21:09, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Eligibility confirmed[edit]

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for review and scoring. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period (through 2 May 2016).

The committee's formal review begins on 3 May 2016, and grants will be announced 17 June 2016. See the round 1 2016 schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us at iegrants(_AT_)wikimedia · org .

--Marti (WMF) (talk) 04:25, 28 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Health images for all[edit]

Scoring rubric Score
(A) Impact potential
  • Does it have the potential to increase gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, either in terms of content, contributors, or both?
  • Does it have the potential for online impact?
  • Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?
8.4
(B) Community engagement
  • Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often?
  • Does it have community support?
7.3
(C) Ability to execute
  • Can the scope be accomplished in the proposed timeframe?
  • Is the budget realistic/efficient ?
  • Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?
6.9
(D) Measures of success
  • Are there both quantitative and qualitative measures of success?
  • Are they realistic?
  • Can they be measured?
7.3
Additional comments from the Committee:
  • Improving medical coverage on Wikipedia is sorely needed (no pun intended).
  • This is massive problem that needs solving.
  • This proposal fits with Wikimedia's strategic priority to increase and diversify contribution of knowledge by facilitating/improving partnerships with institutions. The project has potential for online impact (resulting in an increased number of high quality images of medical topics for all languages, across all projects). The impact could be sustained as the resulting guides/tools would make it easier for individuals and institutions to contribute images.
  • This proposal is very well written. It highlights the problem and a realistic potential impact to be made within six months. It's addressing a real problem and also outlines ways to ameliorate the problem that are practical and sustainable.
  • Seems to be a reasonable plan.
  • Not so sure about the concept, or if there really is a concept beyond networking?
  • The applicant makes a good case of the need for this work. I also think it's good to continue supporting the coordinated approach for medical content that is currently taking place. Perhaps it will inspire or trickle down to other content areas. The risks are minimal and important lessons could be learned.
  • This project has distinct, measurable goals. I think that it also builds on a number of recent IEG projects that seek to engage communities outside of the Wikimedia community, making greater inroads in building content. I think that the potential impact is indeed quite huge.
  • While the description of the problem is great and detailed, the plan seems superficial and lacks details.
  • The scope looks good but I'd like to see more details on the budget (e.g. # hours/weeks for project management, and what travel is expected). The applicant has relevant skills and experience, and is a previous grantee with a good track record. Would just want to check that it wouldn't be too much work to take on as the renewal for the previous IEG (Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing) seems to be ongoing.
  • I believe the applicant is more than skilled enough in terms of both outreach and technical ability to complete this project. The applicant has also set realistic, manageable goals to build a sustainable project that can be adopted by other Wikipedians in the future.
  • Has support from some respected community members, and diversity is supported.
  • Some strong endorsements. It's also nice to see the Blue Raspberry stepping forward as another contact from a relevant organization.
  • In short, yes, yes, and yes. Because there's a language component, it supports the diversity of the worldwide Wikipedia community. Also, health issues affect all of us and Wikipedia is often the first place people go for information. Making that information more digestible to users is an excellent idea. The applicant already has significant community endorsement and I'm sure will only gain more as the project grows.
  • I love this idea. I would like to see the budget more detailed in some points (e.g. travel).
  • Go for it!
  • This proposal would need to be fleshed out, but the idea is great.
  • Good project, with a clear idea that addresses a problem to solve.
  • Budget is unclear to me. For instance, project management expenses and travel expenses are mentioned. What is the breakdown for these? With more clarification, I would be willing to support.

--MJue (WMF) (talk) 00:14, 3 June 2016 (UTC) on behalf of the IEG Committee[reply]

Clarification of Travel budget[edit]

To clarify what my travel budget is intended for I wish to meet with a number of organizations which have already expressed interest in Wikipedia as well as unapproached organizations that host image libraries. I've found meeting face to face gives immeasurably more understanding and impact - and also lets us easier discuss various problem areas. By also engaging the GLAM-infrastructure and Community (in for example Stockholm and Copenhagen) I will try to bring in medical libraries and museums which may make the step towards introducing modern organizations simpler. Some of the organizations I would like reach out to and visit:

  • Consumer Reports in New York City
  • OpenStax Connexions at Rice University
  • A number of anatomy labs in Europe
  • Cancer Research UK, London
  • The Hagstömer Library, Stockholm [1]

I would also like to attend the:

  • Connexions Conference 2017 [2] (But this may be too far in the future to book today, and may require additional funds for registration)

As I said I travel light and will try to coordinate any travels so that I can make the most out of the allocated funds, but to achieve maximum possible impact I believe these funds are needed in order to promote the project among academics and organizations. This list is also not complete and I will be adding and possibly changing which organizations I plan to visit as the project progresses. CFCF 💌 📧 12:20, 11 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Round 1 2016 decision[edit]

Congratulations! Your proposal has been selected for an Individual Engagement Grant.

The committee has recommended this proposal and WMF has approved funding for the full amount of your request, $10,000

Comments regarding this decision:
The committee is pleased to support your efforts to bring quality medical images to Wikipedia across many languages. We recognize the added impact you bring to this project through your demonstrated level of commitment and exceptional understanding of the issues at play in medical articles on Wikipedia. We look forward to working with you to realize the promising partnerships and structured workflows you’ve outlined in your proposals.

Next steps:

  1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement and setup a monthly check-in schedule.
  2. Review the information for grantees.
  3. Use the new buttons on your original proposal to create your project pages.
  4. Start work on your project!
Questions? Contact us.


I suppose you know about this extension as you mention SVG translation. Nemo 15:21, 19 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]