Shared Knowledge/Annual plan 2022

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This is the Annual plan of the activities of Shared Knowledge for 2022.

Programmes[edit]

Education & Science[edit]

The educational program will continue generally until 2021. This will consist of cooperation, in old and new activities, with university staff like the professors, assistants, students. These activities will include editing at Wikipedia, with emphasis on creating new content but improving articles will not be excluded. Beside the covered articles that are very closely connected with education and their teaching and methods of presentation, we will cover a large number of new science experiments (see more below).

Education[edit]

University professors training, mentorship and workshop
A professor that teaches at the Faculty of Pedagogy, Skopje.

Just like 2021, again in the following years, we will directly involve the university professors to gain better academic content on the Macedonian Wikipedia. By doing this, we are bridging the gap between Wikipedia itself and the university professors that are sometimes counter positioning towards Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. After the basic mentorship of 40 minutes to an hour, the professor can freely edit, create articles, and in the future he can share his wiki experience with colleagues, students and/or other ordinary persons. Our metrics stay the same, that we want to recruit at least five university or faculty professors.

University and high school students training, mentorship and workshop

This is independent from the professors training, activity that reaches the youth. The youth are the demographic group that is more woke about the use of Wikipedia and its existence. So we will engage towards the young masses at spreading the grid of the wiki community.

Editing contest for students

This editing competition intended for the high school youth, will be the third one in row as of 2022. Traditionally scheduled in the second quarter of the year, it will additionally be concluded that the title would be i.e. the theme of the contest. Again, this activity will be co organized with our fellow user group - GLAM Macedonia.

Wikilectures

WikiTeacher will be a brand new activity consisting of video recording of a professor solving a math or physics equation. This is very helpful and much more illustrative due to the entire process being explained. These videos later will be put on proper articles and our organization will promote them among the teaching community for greater usage and implement of the made lectures.

Science[edit]

Wikiexperiments
Kirby-Bauer method.

Wikiexperiments will continue to be on our agenda. The productivity is high and there is a big interest of cooperation among the university professors that make the experiments program and present it in their respective videos. According to the statements of the professors and/or their assistants, these kinds of videos really ease the time and energy at the teaching of the students, and they admit the real need for a recorded presentation of experiments for the students. Considering the rate of video-shooting in 2021, we could record at least 55 videos of various natural sciences.

SMART objectives

The SMART objectives of the Education programme are the following:

  1. to have at least 5 professors included in mentorship programme during the year;
  2. to make at least 55 videos of experiments with at least two institutes
  3. to introduce Wikipedia as an educative tool and platform in schools, educational institutions and academic community to at least 20 people;
  4. to increase the number of content provided within the activities in education, creating at least 200 content pages.

Community[edit]

This is our most productive program because it is the most diverse in activities. It consists of physical or virtual involvement, indoor or outdoor contribution, and can interest a wide range of individuals due to the great number of different topics. The standard Editing Challenges such as Editing Weekends, Editing Days, Editing Contests, the international Week-a-thons will stay, and so does the Community support which is divided into Photohunts and two Photo Contests. The program also consists of Wikistands, International Translation Day workshop, Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos) and Expeditions (Wikiexpeditions, Veloexpeditions, Geoexpeditions, Archaeoexpeditions and Astroexpeditions).

Editing challenges[edit]

"Children's Rights" Edit-a-thon

The editing days are an activity that lasts 24 hour. They are held two times a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. They can cover various topics such as geography, history, Macedonian archaeology, music, art, literature, technology and others. Every Wikipedian that suits the current topic, can edit articles with no limitations in numbers within the time period.

The editing weekends are doubled in time period, compared to the ED, lasting from Saturday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59 every weekend of the year. They also vary in the given topics.

The editing contests are planned to be four throughout the year. These prized activities last 30 days, when it comes to ones editions that are held in a “league format” (including the international SIE Spring EC), and the last one would be in a knockout format called WikiCup..

The edit-a-thons are editing events that are held with societies, associations, and other groupations and organizations that are experts in their respective field so we can bring the gap down with their knowledge for better quality articles.

The editing weeks are editing challenges that last a week. These competitive contests will be held twice in 2021. Traditionally they are going to start/be active at an international Wikimedian initiative, in order “to keep up” our fellow Wikipedians from the other communities.

Community support[edit]

This sub-programme covers the activities, volunteers (editors or other participants), and their statistics that are within the range of pure (self)interest of the people to be in these types of engagements. These people are generally out of the circle of active Wikipedians and are more likely to be brand new users. This subprogram includes Photohunts, WikiSketch Lessons, WikiStands (new activity since 2021), WikiTours, Photo Contests, the one time International Translation Day Workshop and last but not least Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos (WPWP).

Panorama of the village of Crv Vrv.

Photohunts are an outdoor activity, well suited for people who are adventurists. They present an idea of something (rural or urban settlements, landscapes and scenery, wildlife and plants, etc) to capture with a camera, upload the files on Commons, edit at the new or improved articles and insert his uploaded images at the respective articles. The Photohunts make the coverage grid of Macedonia bigger. The expenses made by the “photohunter” are annulled after the upload, editing and passing his expense bills. We plan at least six Photohunts in 2021.

WikiTours are a new activity, according to the previous Wikimedian grants, but WikiTours were organized in 2020 within the the grant given by the Government of Republic of Macedonia. The activity consists of visiting urban places such as cities or towns. The one day tours will have a group of 6 to 12 twelve people who will photograph the most notable places, local institutions of the populated destination. The goal is to enrich Wikimedia Commons, and Wikipedia of course, with media for better illustration in the articles. Prior and after the tour itself, the participants will create and improve articles related to the chosen place of visitation, or other topic chosen by the participants. Four tours are planned to be held in 2022.

Sketch Lesson in June 2021.

WikiSketch Lessons are volunteer activities held in our office, but also via virtual connection. By this activity, brand new editors or relatively unskilled Wikipedians could get lectures on using and editing articles on Wikipedia, also lecturing in uploading images on Commons. When it comes to editing, the participants get the chance to choose their article to cover (for beginners, firstly we teach them with the WikiTranslate tool) on the basis of their field of interest, knowledge or expertise.

WikiStands are quite similar to WikiSketches, looking at the editors. This is a public event and has a larger reach among the people. WikiStands are held in malls, squares, and busy streets where many visitors/ pedestrians look at our stand, get interested, get a chance to edit article(s) of their choice, and spend some time.

Photo Contests are a great activity to reach out for new participants, especially when the topic is right for them. Throughout the years, Shared Knowledge has organized its topics after international photo campaigns/initiatives, but also we had some stand alone topics and in 2022 will be just the same. The topics will be decided by us in the new future.

International Translation Day workshop will be an one time event organized as an homage to the international day with the previously mentioned name, that is celebrated on September 30. Hence translation as a process is quite general, and there is no need for a specific group of experts in that field, we can invite the active and interested members of the Macedonian Wikipedia and that group will use the WikiTranslate tool in order to achieve the goal of the themed event. That way, the Macedonian Wiki community will bond even further.

The traditional Wikipedia Day gathering will not be excluded in our annual plan. In 2021, we were forced not to celebrate with a gathering because of the COVID pandemic, and we hope the pandemic will settle down prior and in January, so everything could be OK for holding a minor “celebration”.

Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos is in collaboration with GLAM Macedonia user group and this 2022 edition will be the third one. This is part of the international initiative, held for image lacking articles. From the experience of previous editions, the number of participants is high, also the number of covered articles, we want to continue this prized contest.

Expeditions[edit]

Map of the world showing the areas with most Wikidata items containing coordinate locations lit up.

Expeditions are adventurous wiki activities intended for covering the unexplored regions or micro regions by the Macedonian Wikimedians. These engagements are highly productive in images and content. With taking essential media/images, we are bringing closer the visited places and the Wikipedia visitors or Internet users in general. So, again, they will be our main focus.

Wikiexpeditions are the most productive type of expedition and they will be four in number. These engagements consist of four to five people exploring rural regions by SUV.

Veloexpeditions (lit. Bikeexpeditions) are the minor version of the upper mentioned expedition. They are exclusively organized by bicycle, and cover a handful of unreached villages by the Wiki community. This kind will be held twice in 2022.

Geoexpeditions, as the name says, are for visiting rivers, mountains, caves, land formations, rock formations, and other geographical features and capturing with camera. Just like in the previous year, in 2022 there will be one expedition.

Archaeoexpeditions will have two editions in 2022. Due to the great number of archaeological sites in the Republic of Macedonia, many places could be visited with the help of our collaborators that are archaeologists by profession. With this expedition, we make media of the lesser or relatively lesser known archaeological sites by the general population.

SMART objectives

The SMART objectives of the Community programme are the following:

  1. to increase the number of participants (at least 251) in all project within the Community support sub-programme during the year;
  2. to bring and engage 130 newly registered users from the Community support sub-programme during the year;
  3. to increase the number of content pages (at least 7,000) created or improved on the Wikimedia projects from the Community support sub-programme during the year;
  4. to increase the number and percentage of photographs (at least 70%) used in Wikipedia articles from the Community support sub-programme during the year;
  5. to increase the volunteer work (at least 9,000 hours) on the Community support sub-programme during the year;
  6. to include innovations, new methods, skills and knowledge in the programs and further work of the Community sub-programe.

Partnerships[edit]

Saray of Resen visit in May 2021.

This program consists of collaboration with institutions, no matter public or private, that are willing to contribute to the Macedonian Wikipedia and/or Commons, depending on the certain activity. The partnered institutions are able to show a glimpse of their quarters, work, exhibits, literature, and knowledge for better illustration on our Wikimedia platforms. Depending on the activity, we will capture images and/or edit articles with the participants of the respective institutions and other participants related to the engagement.

Cultural heritage[edit]

This sub-programme is aimed at keeping our general cultural heritage within the boundaries of Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons, via articles and especially images. Photographing the exhibits of the Museum “Nikola Nezlobinski” will be one of the Cultural Heritage’s main activities. This museum was established by the Russian emigrant that bears the museum’s name - Nikolay Nezlobinsky or known in Macedonian as Nikola Nezlobinski who was a natural history scientist and endo parasitologist. Our focus will be the Natural History Department because they hold a variety of stuffed animals collected from the regions of our country.If we have a possibility, we would do photography in the departments of archaeology, history, ethnology, and history of art. This will be the continuation of the visit of the Resen Saray and the House of Hristo Tatarchev in 2021, and the Museum of Prilep visit in 2020.

QRpedia[edit]

QR coded house that is listed as cultural heritage.

WikiVillage is about promoting village buildings listed as Cultural Heritage of Macedonia. This had an inaugural engagement in 2021, when we decided to transform the WikiStreets activity in mid year. Instead of QR-coding a small quantity of cultural heritage on some street, we reshaped the project on villages that have a higher number of buildings that are listed as Cultural Heritage of Macedonia. Such village is Galičnik that has 31 surviving houses that are Cultural Heritage. The houses were located, photographed, articles were created about them in Macedonian and English which were QR-coded. Then, QR plaques were made for installation in the proximity of the houses. Additionally, we arranged a map of Galičnik newsletter that shows the exact location of the houses. In 2022, we will cover one or two villages depending on the number of buildings listed as cultural heritage.

Open Government Data[edit]

The primary goal of this sub-programme is to conduct mass imports of open government data on topics related to Macedonia into Wikidata for further use across Wikipedia articles. Depending on the availability of government data, this sub-programme will include three main activities. Firstly, partnerships will be made with government and government-controlled institutions on getting access to government data which are not publicly available. Secondly, data will be processed and uploaded to Wikidata as part of WikiProject Macedonia, for which new items will be created and existing will be improved. Thirdly, templates which will extract data from Wikidata items will be created in order to make use of the data across Wikipedia articles. In 2022, this sub-programme will focus on importing data on the results from the 2021 Macedonia census and results from the past elections.

Census data will be extracted from the State Statistical Office’s MAKSTAT database in the first half of 2022, when the results from the 2021 Macedonian census are due to be published. Then, data will be processed and imported into the existing Wikidata items on settlements and ethnic groups by settlement. Finally, data will be extracted to update infoboxes and tables across Wikipedia articles on settlements.

Electoral data is planned to be obtained after extending partnership with the State Electoral Commission. Arrangements have already been made, and a memorandum of collaboration is expected to be signed. Then, data will be processed and imported into newly created Wikidata items on elections by polling stations. Finally, tabular summaries of the voting history with extracted data from Wikidata items will be added to Wikipedia articles on settlements.

Other partnerships[edit]

This sub-programme covers activities that are thematically diverse. But are more or less the same when it comes to their structure of activities and fulfillment. Such engagements will be Gathering images from the Youth Cultural Center Skopje and photographing at the Botanical garden at the Institute of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics Skopje.

Botanic garden photo shootout will be about taking pictures of many plants within the garden. This botanic garden has many endemic Macedonian species, nonexistent in Commons, but also has collected a significant number of allochthonous species. Additionally, editing will be conducted with the garden's staff and other people, about the lacking articles and improving the existence of the photographed species and everything related about them.

Image takeover from the Youth Cultural Center Skopje is a partnership that let’s us use the images made by the workers or partners of the YCC, who produced many photographs that are suited for Wikipedia articles. Such images include moments from traditional festivals and concerts, shots from band and solo artists.

Maksport photo shootout is about covering sports clubs in football, basketball or handball within Wikipedia. The articles of these major sports in Macedonia have a potential to be improved and many articles can be also created about the clubs, and their players. Many players do not have an image of them and we could bridge the gap by taking a photograph of them. The photographing of the rosters could be made with collaboration with the club’s officials. During the day of the photo capturing, an editing event could be made with the club's HQ staff and/or players, fans, and other enthusiasts.

Cinematheque of Macedonia collaboration is an activity that includes visiting the Cinematheque, photographing and wiki editing. The Cinematheque of Macedonia is a national institution that serves as an archive that holds important archived documents, literature, and database about the Macedonian cinema with it’s films, actors, directors, and other. They also own a number of exhibits in forms of major and notable movie awards received by Macedonian directors, and antique movie cameras and equipment. An editing event can be made with the help of the Institution and their network of people and film workers.

Exhibitions[edit]

"Japan Through Photographs" Exhibits.

Exhibitions are a way for individuals to learn new knowledge about a country that is being shown by seeing some different attractions and places relatively unknown by the wider Macedonian society. In order to diversify the choice of the represented countries (2017 Brazil, 2018 Poland, 2021 Japan), this time our attention can be towards a country from the continent of Africa, some nation that is quite exotic for a Macedonian commoner. Of course, alongside the exhibition, an editing event will be held, themed at the portrayed country, when new and old Wikipedians would edit for better content and representation of the country.

SMART objectives

The SMART objectives of the Partnership programme are the following:

  1. to include and involve 3 new institutions in the Partnership sub-programme during the year;
  2. to increase the number of content pages and photographs (at least 345) created or improved on the Wikimedia projects from the project cooperation within #the Partnership sub-programme during the year;
  3. to raise the awareness of the broader public, institutions and organizations for the possibilities of Wikipedia through the Partnership sub-programme.

Metrics[edit]

Priority levels[edit]

The following table grades the total sub-programmes of the three programmes on a priority scale with high, medium or low priority. The grading is mainly based on the metrics derived from the SMART objectives for each programme.

Level Sub-programme
High
  • Expeditions
  • Science
  • QRpedia
Medium
  • Editing challenges
  • Cultural heritage
  • Community support
  • Open Government Data
Low
  • Education
  • Exhibitions