Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/SMALL GLAM SLAM Pilot 1 (ID: 22444585)

Endorsment from Alan Ang (WMDE) (talk)

Wikimedia Deutschland's Data Partnership team strongly supports this proposal.

• This proposal serves to provide a suite of free software solutions for small GLAM organizations, and it fits nicely with our goals.
• The potential to engage with other compatible initiatives such as the Wikibase Stakeholder Group as well as the Wikibase support and data modelling tasks are particularly exciting.
• The goals are realistic and will be implemented by an experienced team.
• A successful outcome of this project will, no doubt, create positive multiplier effects for small GLAM professionals in the Free Knowledge Movement.
• WMDE Data Partnership team's doors are open to provide support where required.

--Alan Ang (WMDE) (talk) 09:44, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Endorsment from Asaf (WMF) (talk)

I endorse this proposal wholeheartedly:

• It comes from an experienced practitioner who has the uncommon combination of deep wiki expertise and deep familiarity with GLAM practices and specifically with GLAM technology including contemporary and future-facing technologies, such as linked-data GLAM vocabularies.
• The proposer also has a proven track record with the free software movement, which gives me confidence that this grant's outputs will be practically re-usable by others.
• it builds on prior work done in the Wikimedia movement
• the solution suite it envisions could very well be the "missing link" needed by many prospective GLAM-Wiki practitioners who are insufficiently confident about either the wiki side or the GLAM side of things.
• it is very reasonably, even frugally, budgeted.

--Asaf (WMF) (talk) 21:08, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Endorsment from El Pantera (talk)

The proposal is interesting to reduce the entry barrier for many cultural institution in Wikimedia projects

--El Pantera (talk) 06:53, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Endorsment from Wikimedia España

1-Wikimedia España tiene una trayectoria y experiencia importantes en actividades GLAM y entendemos las complejidades de las instituciones para participar en las comunidades abiertas. También comprendemos las ventajas y aplicación de Wikibase, como nos consta que hay complejidades técnicas que podrían reducirse. La propuesta pone énfasis en atender y resolver esos problemas con un caso práctico.

2-Pareciera que el presupuesto es pequeño para unos objetivos tan ambiciosos. Pero entendemos que esta es la primera de varias fases y que la iniciativa madurará para ser capaz de conseguir sus objetivos con más experiencia y más presupuesto. El carácter experimental parece que responderá bastante bien a las cuestiones de aprendizaje que han planteado.

3-Como se ha dicho, aporta un enfoque cualitativo nuevo al entorno GLAM y al Movimiento Wikimedia. Por otra parte vemos con satisfacción que más organizaciones autónomas de España plantean iniciativas propias fuera de la órbita institucional de WMES.

4- Sí. Nuestro ecosistema de herramientas GLAM necesita mejoras, como se viene discutiendo en diferentes foros. En particular Wikibase tiene un potencial tremendo, pero necesita mejorar y debemos validarlo con casos de uso prácticos. Además, si el Movimiento Wikimedia puede ofrecer una solución para la puesta en marcha de nuevos proyectos GLAM por organizaciones muy pequeñas estamos favoreciendo la disponibilidad de futuros recursos digitales libres y la diversidad geográfica/temática de los actores interesados.

5- Como hemos indicado, creemos que es un presupuesto modesto frente a los objetivos declarados. En cambio, la propuesta se atiene a las condiciones de Rapid Grants y plantea una aproximación de bajo coste y unos resultados prácticos e interesantes acordes.

~~~~ Florenciac (talk) 16:08, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Tema importante por alguien técnicamente competente

No mucho más que agregar, quien presenta la solicitud ha desarrollado varias herramientas y tiene experiencia con el mundo wiki, la propuesta es pertinente. Scann (talk) 23:10, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Endorsment from Mauricio V. Genta (talk)

1. Está prueba piloto nos permitirá mejorar la colaboración con instituciones GLAM, poniendo a prueba herramientas ya desarrolladas por el Movimiento. Podría ser replicada a futuro en la región de LATAM.

2. La estrategia de implementación y evaluación se solida, especialmente por que es llevada entre Wikimedistas de trayectoria con una institución de igual manera. Al menos aquí en LATAM, podría cubrir un GAP importante en instituciones GLAM, y al mismo tiempo acercarlas al movimiento.

3. Si bien se genera en un país desarrollado como España, al igual que fue en su momento con los escáneres DIY que usamos en Argentina; a futuro la experiencia nos servirá.

4. Necesitamos seguir mejorando y desarrollando el ecosistema de herramientas GLAM dentro del Movimiento, así que es más que bienvenido.

5. La propuesta es coherente, y se mantiene dentro de un presupuesto super aceptable.

--Mauricio V. Genta (talk) 20:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Program Officer's Questions

Dear Olea,

Thank you for your interest in the rapid fund of the WMF. We have the following questions to clarify about your proposal:

1. How would other groups be involved (Wikimedia España, Wikimedia Portugal, or Wikimedia Deutschland) exactly? Is the Wikibase Stakeholders Group aware of and in accordance with this project already? Could you consider groups in LATAM, for example, especially as they also speak Spanish?

2. Could you please explain why did you select the Europeana Data Model (EDM), the Getty AAT & UNESCO thesauri versus other models to be used by more diverse (out of Europe/US only) organizations to use? In other words, how do you make sure that it would fit into GLAM practices around the world and their different metadata and items?

3. How is this pilot planning to serve as a model and be useful for the whole GLAM-Wiki community and the Wikibase development community exactly? How will everyone benefit? Could you elaborate more?

4. Can you please explain if the staff costs included in the budget are for paid personnel at LaOficina?

5. Why was/is this not part of WMES’s or WMDE's activities?

6. Can you involve a metric about community involvement (i.e. the planned number of stakeholders you aim to consult among the target groups), to make sure the community is aware, included, and actively providing feedback?

7. How would your plans be affected if you'd receive partial funding?

Thank you very much for responses! Kind regards, Agnes ABruszik-WMF (talk) 15:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi:

1.

• At this moment we have the moral endorsement of WMES.
• WMDE have expressed in this page also their availability for technical support.
• Just today we met with the WBSG to present the proposal. They should express their likeness or not, but informally the proposal has been well received.
• About LATAM, we will be more than happy to work with any stakeholder there. There have been at least one talk about this in GLAM Wiki 2023. But the best way to get into practice is having some practical outputs to share with those and any other, which is the goal of this pilot.

2. There are a lot of things to consider and verify. These are initial hypothesis to be validated by practice. To develop the rationale:

• The Getty AAT is one of the most important thesaurus in digital humanities in the world, in size, domain coverage and use. Also is mapped in Wikidata.
• The relevance of UNESCO seems completely obvious and is also mapped in Wikidata.
• About EDM, there three very important reasons:
  • it is an open standard, designed for the linked data world for describing digital artifacts, citing: Europeana will be better able to represent data which is closely associated to one and the same object, i.e. complex objects or bundles of resources curated by a provider;
  • we want to upload and tag our digital collection as soon as possible and seems reasonable to reuse an established data model. In this sense, in the today WBSG meeting we've been suggested to reconsider EDM because can be some way oversized for the task. We are open to reconsider this after a few practical tests. Maybe we'll just need a subset of EDM to achieve the first goal of setting up our digital archive;
  • finally, it will be a first interoperability step to open future federations of GLAM institutions with the Europeana network, if they are interested and accepted, another very popular open standard that would be required is OAI-PMH, which is very widely spread in archiving.
  • A final consideration: participating in the Europeana community (we have been accepted as member of Europeana PRO) would open an opportunity to participate/create in future Wikimedia related consortium projects funded by the European Commission, as a way to diversify funding outside the Wikimedia Foundation scope.
• As a colophon for «In other words, how do you make sure that it would fit into GLAM practices around the world and their different metadata and items?»: these (and many others) standards are domain transversal and there is no cultural restriction we could be aware about. Also, this project is so small we must reduce project risks by adopting the most off-the-shelf solutions we can.

3. How is this pilot planning to serve as a model and be useful for the whole GLAM-Wiki community and the Wikibase development community exactly?

• The expected results for this Pilot 1 are:
  • A running prototype system hosting our first iteration of digital archive, hosting, with data preservation quality, the first batch of digital objects (near 2 Tb) semantically tagged.
  • This implies an specification of the system, its configuration and recipes/annotations useful for third parties new own instances.
  • A set of identified project requirements useful to define next project iterations. Something like WBSG is doing now but probably more smaller in size practical goals. These could be documented in a wiki page or, probably better, in Phabricator.
  • A report of lessons learned and hypothesis validations to share.
  • And, hopefully, feedback about the practical results of modeling digitization practices using Wikibase.
• How will everyone benefit?
  • Everyone interested would be able to replicate the experience as test or as an internal solution. Or at least to set up their own digital preservation system for their digital assets.
  • Also, detailing a working scenario, would help interested Wikimedia Movement stakeholder to agree in new collaborations, contributions and developments.

4. Yes, the staff costs included in the budget are for paid personnel at LaOficina.

5. Why was/is this not part of WMES’s or WMDE's activities?

• Because we don't have that attribution. As organization we only can talk for ourselves. We are looking for deeper involvement with these and others organizations, but time is needed to develop the internal decision taking procedures and, first, to clearly identify goals and tasks to be agreed and developed in future actions.

6. Can you involve a metric about community involvement

• To be honest: no, there is no way to propose a sensible metric. We will be lying by saying otherwise. We are identifying and helping to conceptualize a new particular scope: the very small GLAM organizations. We hope the results of Pilot 1 would help to develop a community of practice with new actors identifying themselves as very small GLAM institutions and motivated to adopt project outputs and, hopefully, participate in future actions.

7. How would your plans be affected if you'd receive partial funding?

• It will slow down the work. The project vision is really big and we are doing a significant effort to obtain significant results with the proposed budget. As an example, personally I'm acquiring some of the hardware because we found we need two installations: one for the tests and another for the configuration validations. Obviously this spending is outside the proposed budget and will not be reimbursed.

Hope this help. Olea (talk) 19:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Endorsment from Jelabra (talk)

1. Why the proposal is important for your community and why you think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected?

I think the proposal can be interesting to help more small museums and archives get involved in Wikidata and wikibase based solutions.

2. Could you highlight any aspects that you think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc?

I was contacted by one of the project leader, Ismael Olea and I could see that he was very motivated to improve the current tools required to setup wikibase instances for museums and to engage more members in the community. I think the strategy of focusing on a small institution and expand from it can be positive.

3. Could you highlight if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities?

I think the proposal is aware of some inititatives like the Wikibase Shareholders group and they want to leverage on past projects.

4. Do you think the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy?

I think they can help with adoption from small GLAM institutions.

5. Do you think if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget and expected results (metrics)?

I think so...maybe the budget is not so big, but it can serve as a motivating starting point.

--Jelabra (talk) 08:03, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Endorsment from Tsaorin (talk)

1. Why the proposal is important for your community and why you think the strategies chosen will achieve the results that are expected?

The proposed "SMALL GLAM SLAM" initiative is crucial for our community as it addresses the imperative to expand demonstrative data projects using Wikibase. This expansion seeks to ignite a movement towards in-depth data exploration of diverse and community-centric heritages. Through a cost-effective, free software solution, trying to empower small GLAM organizations with essential tools for collection management, knowledge dissemination, and active participation in the broader Wikimedia Movement.

2. Could you highlight any aspects that you think are particularly well developed: for instance, the strategies and activities proposed, the levels of community engagement, outreach to underrepresented groups, addressing knowledge gaps, partnerships, the overall budget and learning and evaluation section of the proposal, etc?

The proposal excels in several key aspects, notably in reducing technological barriers to Wikibase adoption for small GLAM organizations, but not only. Through user-friendly interfaces, comprehensive tutorials, and targeted resources, the tactic is to facilitate a seamless onboarding process by offering practical demonstrations and quick solutions to common documentation and archiving issues. This approach ensures that the proposed suite not only empowers GLAM practitioners with essential tools but also actively promotes accessibility and ease of use, fostering widespread engagement and participation within the Wikimedia Movement.

3. Could you highlight if the proposal focuses on any interesting research, learning or innovation, etc. Also if it builds on learning from past proposals developed by the individual or organization, or other Wikimedia communities? Wikibase is still a german issue, and there is a lack of Wikibases facing real-world challenges faced by small GLAM organizations and Civic Organizations.

4. Do you think the proposal is going to contribute in any way to important developments around specific Wikimedia projects or Movement Strategy? It's fine-tuned with what Wikibase platform is demanding: living projects outside Germany and academia.

5. Do you think if the proposal is coherent in terms of the objectives, strategies, budget and expected results (metrics)?

Yes, the group of person at "La Oficina Producciones Culturales" has experience involving colletives and local communities, and araising results.

--Tsaorin (talk) 19:39, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Phabricator tag

For the record: we have set up a Phabricator tag to follow the project activity: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/verysmallglam/ —Ismael Olea (talk) 11:02, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Meta page

For the record: We have created a page at Meta as a central point of information: Very Small GLAM. —Ismael Olea (talk) 12:02, 30 April 2024 (UTC)