Wikimedia Armenia/Reports/2018-11

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2018
November

Conference at Ayb School

Hasmik Charkhchyan

On November 3, 2018 Wikimedia representatives participated in Ayb School annual conference. The conference was organized for Ayb School teachers from Yerevan Ayb school, Dilijan Central School and participants of Araratian Baccalaureate program aimed at training teachers with up-to-date teaching methods. Vanashen WikiClub coordinator Hasmik Charkhchyan, who is also a teacher at local school in Vanashen presented the methods she uses to integrate Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons into school education. The conference was a a great opportunity for us to present the Wikimedia movement, how Wikipedia works and how they can integrate the wiki editing into their curricula as a way to implement the school project based learning approach. We have reached an agreement, that conference organizers will compose a list of teachers that want to use Wikimedia projects in their classes and further work with them.

Collaboration with Yerevan State University of Languages and Social Sciences after V. Brusov

In October Wikimedia Armenia ED Gayane Vardanyan initiated a collaboration with Yerevan State University of Languages and Social Sciences. As a first step the ED and the Education program coordinator Lilit Tarkhanyan met the Head of the University Career Center - Levon Babamyan. The parties agreed on collaborating in several ways: include Wikipedia editing in the education process of the University, to create an opportunity for students to get an internship at WMAM and to pass their working practice at WMAM, as well as to participate in the events of the Career Center organized in different regions of Armenia introducing Wikimedia Movement to different ages school students.

The partners agreed on signing a Memorandum with the University which would allow to have an official, documented and more productive collaboration. The draft Memorandum was sent to Levon Babamyan for the University lawyers’ approval. Meanwhile the Career Center would announce the Internship opportunity at WMAM and as a result of the Internship announcement we now have 3 interns who help WMAM in the translation of different blog posts and communication materials. The interns also participate in the “I create a vital article” campaign translating articles from English and Spanish Wikipedias.

Thanks to the Internship announcement via University mailing list, the practice coordinator of the University contacted WMAM for further collaboration in November. As a result of the meeting with the Dean of the Faculty of Translation and Intercultural Communication, 20 students will pass their working practice at WMAM in February. The students will translate articles from English Wikipedia. As a next step of the collaboration we will work closely with the Faculty to include wikiediting in the education process as well.

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Edit-a-thon on Animation films

On November 5-22, Wikimedia Armenia hosted an online edit-a-thon at the Wikiclubs. The main purpose of the editathon was to create and improve articles on animation films in Armenian Wikipedia. In total, 102 editors have been involved in the editathon that have created or improved 270 articles. According to the Wikiclub coordinators, the topic of editathon is quite interesting and has been successfully admitted among club members because it is easy and engaging. In the following months, Wikimedia Armenia plans to continue this practice by organizing editathons on various subjects.

Community weekend

From November 16-18 Armenian Wikipedia community 38 members gathered together in Aghveran to enrich Armenian content on the online encyclopedia. This two day event was distinguished by the fact that 10 Yerevan State Medical University students joined the event. They were all newcomers who, with the help of experienced Wikipedians, learned Wikipedia editing tools during the weekend.

The majority of the participants were editing from the list of 1000 vital articles that each Wikipedia should have and from 1000 vital medical articles.

The event hosted Samson Khachatryan, a neurologist, somnologist, who conducted a session on the theme “Pathology of sleep and sleep disorders”.

	Community Weekend (November 16-18)
	Number of participants	Wikipedia
participants	38
created/improved articles/entries		44
edits		813
bytes (net sum)		1 513 158

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  Samson Khachatryan, a neurologist, somnologist, who conducted a session on the theme “Pathology of sleep and sleep disorders”

Western Armenian edit-a-thon

November 23-24-25, 2018

With its third consecutive monthly edit-a-thon, the Western-Armenian Wikipedia initiative turned this online event into a much anticipated one among its editors.

Organized over the weekend of 23-25 November, the third edit-a-thon mainly focused on improving already existing articles. However, it offered its participants the opportunity to edit new articles related to health and medicine.

Throughout the online event, 6 editors from Syria, Lebanon, Greece, and Armenia joined their efforts to create and improve a total of 18 Western-Armenian Wikipedia entries.

The next edit-a-thon is planned to take place in mid-December, 2018.

Newsletter

To increase the visibility of Western Armenian Wikipedia, and encourage members of the Armenian Diaspora in becoming involved in its initiatives, on 2 November, 2018 this interview published in the Armenian section of Torontohye, titled “Արեւմտահայերէնի Պահպանման Արդիական Ձեւեր” and published on , 2018.

GLAMWiki Conference 2018

Astrid Carlsen and David Saroyan at GLAMWiki Conference

GLAMWiki Conference 2018 was the international conference dedicated to the GLAM community, organized for and with the community. The Armenian community had 4 representatives at the conference, three of them funded by the chapter, one participant funded through a scholarship. I, Davit Saroyan, was offered a scholarship to participate in the conference and co-present our collaboration with Wikimedia Norge in the scope of Bodil Biørn project.

The conference hosted more than 100 participants from different affiliates, local and international cultural organizations. I was amazed with the diversity the conference offered. This allowed us to make many valuable contacts with representatives from different museums and archives. It was also a perfect platform for learning and sharing experience. I was inspired a lot from the experience of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Library of Congress. I learned many techniques on how to approach and talk to GLAM partners, also many tools which may be useful when managing a GLAM project - Lingua Libre, Pattypan, SPARQL, and more.

At the conference Astrid Carlsen, the executive director of Wikimedia Norge and I presented our cross-chapter collaboration. Wikimedia Norge and Wikimedia Armenia have been working together since 2016. The presentation called “In the footsteps of Bodil Biørn in Armenia and Norway” introduced how the photos taken by Bodil Biørn were digitized, transcribed, and publicized with the joined efforts of the National Archives in Oslo, Wikimedia Norge, and Wikimedia Armenia.

Visit to Spitak WikiClub

On November 16 Wikimedia Armenia ED Gayane Vardanyan, staff members Dato Abuladze and Armen Mirzoyan attended the opening ceremony of the Educational and Community Resources Center at Spitak N8 school after Anania Shirakatsi. The Center is opened with the help of the grant announced by Peace Corps Armenia and financed by the USAID Armenia. As a part of a grant proposal, Spitak WikiClub got a projector to make the editing process more effective and visual.

USAID Armenia Mission Director Deborah Grieser, U.S. Peace Corps Armenia Director Sonny Luu and the U.S. Peace Corps Armenia Small Grants Manager Hovhannes Stepanyan also attended the opening ceremony.

The School Principal Lusik Sardaryan stated that Spitak WikiClub has played a great role in receiving the grant as the U.S. Peace Corp usually does not provide computers to schools, but here they saw a proper use of the equipment during the class hours as the students edit in Wikimedia projects during school education process.

The initiative of applying for a grant belongs to the U.S. Peace Corp volunteer Max Malter who is a volunteer at Spitak school and is the Spitak WikiClub member. Max creates and improves articles about Spitak and neighbor residencies on English Wikipedia.

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Workshop with Yerevan Art Academy students

Workshop with Yerevan Art Academy students

On November 16, 2nd year Master students at the Art Academy of Armenia (AUAA), accompanied by senior lecturer professor H. Tairyrian, visited the Wikimedia Armenia office.

Mher Bekaryan introduced the students to the activities of Wikimedia Armenia, the cooperation with different cultural organizations, and the GLAM project.

Future art critics were introduced to the editing tools and the details of uploading images to Wikimedia Commons. They were explained how to use Wikimedia projects to introduce cultural values and make them more recognizable. Mher Bekaryan also presented the GLAM Wiki projects, the role of artists and museum staff in them.

Workshop at Yerevan N132 school

On November 20 a workshop was conducted in Yerevan N132 school after Admiral Isakov during which the 5th and 6th grade students, as well as the Head of the School Parents' Counsel were introduced Wikimedia Movement, Wikimedia Projects, wiki ideology, Wikimedia Armenia activities and the upcoming programmes. The students were mostly interested in the wiki editing process, the editing rules, etc.

As a result of the second meeting the students registered in Armenian Wikisource and began proofreading the Armenian writer Muratsan’s 6th volume.

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  20 November 2018 workshop
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  27 November 2018 workshop

Education Office Hours

Wikimedia Armenia Education program coordinator - Lilit Tarkhanyan received an invitation from Wikimedia Foundation to join November Education Office Hours and tell about WikiCamps project in Armenia. Office hours are a dedicated time and online space to have "real time" conversations about questions that educators might have, and also a space to hear about activities that are carried out in different corners of the world.

Lilit joined the discussion with Sylvia Seraydarian, a camper from Lebanon who has begun editing on Western Armenian since 2015. During the discussion the camp development history was introduced: how the idea came up, when we began organizing the camps and why, what types of camps we have, what wikimedia projects campers work on, how camps help in the retention of student editors, etc. Sylvia introduced the participants her wiki story, how she have joined the camp, how they have created the wikiclub in Lebanon, what the camp give students, etc. As the facilitator of the discussion said this meeting was the most diverse one during recent 3 months as we had education representatives from different countries - Taiwan, Armenia, India, Lebanon, France/UK, Indonesia.

The other participants introduced their ongoing projects, education initiatives and activities, like translation of WMF education brochures, working with Universities, etc. Also we learned that as most of the stakeholders think the previous logo is a black square that is not that friendly WMF Education team have asked the design team to redesign it. The new logo can be found in the Wikimedia Commons.

For more details please see the minutes of the discussion.

Talking about Photography

Wikimedia Armenia has launched a series of community development activities aimed at development community members' capacities in various fields. In order to understand the interests of the Armenian Wikimedia community, a survey was conducted on the interested topics. The top results were then analyzed which helped to plan the upcoming events. The first result in the list of interested topic was photography. The workshop entitled "Photography as a Documentary Instrument" was presented by photography tutor, RA Deputy Minister of Culture Vahe Budumyan, who first introduced technical aspects of photography, which part of the camera is used for what, how to take correct documentary photos and what to avoid. Since the subject was extensive, and the participants were eager to ask questions, Vahe Budumyan agreed t to hold another practical session where participants will learn how to take and edit photos.

Lilit Poghosyan, a discussion participant, mentions: "Wikimedia Armenia gave a great opportunity to listen to Vahe Budumyan. The meeting took place in a friendly and warm atmosphere. Direct and friendly communication, questions and answers during the lecture, the interesting discussions made the time to pass quickly. It was a very interesting presentation. I learned so much. I'm not a professional photographer, but it does not hinder to use the knowledge from the presentation in amateur photography. I feel the difference. "

Participants will use the knowledge gained in the event to take and use high quality photos in Wikimedia Commons.

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Summarizing “Wiki loves Yerevan” GLAM initiative

In October-November Wikimedia Armenia finalized the results of “Wiki Loves Yerevan” GLAM project aimed at replenishing Wikimedia projects with information about Yerevan. The project, dedicated to the 2800th anniversary of Yerevan, was held during April- September, 2018 and involved an active collaboration with 17 GLAM institutions, including 14 museums, 1 gallery, 1 personal fund and 1 architectural and design organization.

Since April, Wikimedia Armenia has initiated a number of edit-a-thons to promote the project and involved a great number of editors, both local and worldwide. As a result of those edit-a-thons and collaboration with GLAM Institutions, 233 articles were written in Armenian Wikipedia (see the statistics here) and 1165 articles in 45 languages (see the details of edit-a-thon here).

On November 29, a meeting was organized in Wikimedia Armenia office with the representatives from GLAM institutions. Khazhak Drampyan, Coordinator of Wiki Loves Yerevan project, briefly presented the entire work done since the start of the project. The representatives were issued certificates of appreciation for their active contribution and efforts. After that, a discussion started on further collaboration opportunities and perspective projects. Representative of Yervand Kochar Museum happily mentioned that the number of their visitors growed recently and that is thanks to Wikipedia articles about the museum and the works of Kochar. There was a suggestion to hold wikiseminars for the whole staff of each GLAM institution to have more people to contribute in Wikimedia projects.

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Submissions in the Newsletters

This month Wikimedia Armenia had several submissions in 3 Newsletters:Education and GLAM Newsletter of Wikimedia Foundation and in Torontohye. One of the articles of the Education Newsletter tells about Karvachar WikiClub editor - Lena Ghazaryan, who by editing Wikimedia Projects has improved her translation skills. The other article is about one of the active editors of Alaverdi WikiClub - Aren Dzavaryan for whom Wikipedia has become the inseparable part of his daily life.

The articles of the GLAM Newsletter represent the new project of Wikimedia Armenia, called "Singing Wikipedia" and the famous Armenian photographer Vahan Kochar who has donated a number of his photographs to Wikimedia Commons.

To increase the visibility of Western Armenian Wikipedia, and to encourage members of the Armenian Diaspora in becoming involved in its initiatives, on 2 November, 2018 an interview was published in the Armenian section of Torontohye, titled “Արեւմտահայերէնի Պահպանման Արդիական Ձեւեր”.

WikiClubs statistics

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  New participants, November
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  Total bytes, November
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  Active participants, November

	Community population (1)	Active users (2)	Active users index (3)	New users	New users index (4)	Female/male ratio	Bytes NET sum (5)	Bytes index (6)
Alaverdi WikiClub*	13100	28	0.214%	5	0.038%	39/17	682054	24359.1
Arevatsag WikiClub	821	48	5.847%	8	0.974%	70/53	358246	7463.5
Gyumri WikiClub* (Khrimyan)	121976	3	0.002%	2	0.002%	17/21	120531	40177.0
Gyumri WikiClub* (KASA)	121976	2	0.002%	0	0.000%		12949	6474.5
Goris WikiClub*	20300	11	0.054%	6	0.030%	39/7	427582	38871.1
Ddmashen WikiClub	2806	25	0.891%	5	0.178%	36/35	644520	25780.8
Yeghvard WikiGroup	11900	3	0.025%	0	0.000%	18/3	75692	25230.7
Lernapat WikiClub	1661	46	2.769%	7	0.421%	122/136	3243560	70512.2
Koghb WikiClub	4530	15	0.331%	3	0.066%	42/15	291831	19455.4
Hatsik WikiClub	1044	12	1.149%	2	0.192%	21/9	570024	90560.7
Mrgavan WikiClub	1606	10	0.623%	0	0.000%	30/23	367232	36723.2
Rind WikiClub	1502	9	0.599%	10	0.666%	8/7	136838	15204.2
Spitak WikiClub*	13100	24	0.183%	4	0.031%	28/25	254198	10591.6
Stepanakert WikiClub*	55309	18	0.033%	4	0.007%	164/58	456489	25360.5
Vanashen WikiClub	2364	12	0.000%	0	0.000%	38/10	159453	13287.8
Vardenik WikiClub	9880	32	0.324%	1	0.010%	41/21	443284	13852.6
Togh WikiClub	700	22	3.143%	3	0.429%	45/29	273763	12443.8
Karvachar WikiClub	500	35	7.000%	1	0.200%	48/35	1086728	31049.4
NET sum	385075	355	0.092%	61	3.243%		9604974	507397.9
General statistics of the Education program (7)		356					9838998
How many % of the Education program participants are comprised from Wikiclubbers		99.72%					97.62%

1 - Permanent population according to the population census (RA - 2011, NKR -2015)։
2 - Users who has done 1 edit during the month.
3 - Active users/population ratio expressed in %.
4 - New users/population ratio expressed in %.
5 - NET sum bytes added in Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikisource.
6 - NET sum bytes/active users ratio.
7 - Includes also Education program other users.
* - WikiClub established in a city.

Saturday workshops

Every Saturday Wikimedia Armenia organizes open workshops-edit-a-thons at the WMAM office where new editors are taught how to edit different wiki projects. Anyone interested in wiki projects, Wikipedia, wiki editing and needing assistance, as well as wiki editors, who want to edit in pleasant atmosphere participate in these workshops-edit-a-thons.

	Saturday workshops
	November 3	November 10	November 17	November 24
participants	10	6	3	3
created/improved articles	3	15	0	4
edits	10	351	4	41
bytes (net sum)	11078	19392	439	20232

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  3 November 2018
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  10 November 2018
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  17 November 2018
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  24 November 2018

This month in numbers

0	15154	996	182	93
articles recorded for the Spoken Wikipedia project	pages digitized for the Digitization project	words pronounced for the Wiktionary project	vital articles improved for the I create a vital article campaign	new editors involved in all projects