Wikimedia Czech Republic/Staffing plan/2017

For 2016 staffing plan, please see Wikimedia Czech Republic/Staffing plan/2016

Wikimedia Czech Republic's employees during a recess :-)
May 2016

This is the Wikimedia Czech Republic (WMCZ)'s staffing plan, a document which describes the way the organization handles its employee(s) and oversees their work. The document was first created in autumn 2015 when the preparatory work for the first employee materialized into an simple APG proposal and then updated in autumn 2016 when applying for the 2017 simple APG proposal.

Responsibilities

The body responsible for leading the chapter activities is the board, which delegates part of this responsibility to the executive director in the day-to-day work. The role of the executive director is to communicate with other employees on a daily to weekly basis, lead them and support them and help to solve day-to-day challenges. Board oversees this process and is presented an update on the chapter activities during each board meeting and via regular e-mails.

Board may also appoint specific people from or outside the board who help overseeing various programs managed by the employees. Currently, each proposed employee position has an "overseer" who is well-oriented in the field of the employee's work and has regular meetings or phone calls with the employee. To avoid confusion, it must be always clear to everyone involved who is in charge of which employee (because if they are provided with contradictory tasks, it gets confusing).

General obligations

Each employee is expected to:

• Learn and respect the methods of work inside the Wikimedia and Wikipedia community and comply with these to avoid demotivation of the volunteer community, which is the biggest asset that our organization has.
• Communicate with external subjects on a professional level, corresponding with the good practice, experience and brand of the Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia projects
• Respond to any activities-related message (calls, e-mails or other transmission) if necessary within a reasonable time (80% of e-mails within 2 days, 100% of e-mails within 1 week).
• Present a monthly report of their achievements to the Board and to the community using the internal chapter wiki (or other means as communicated with the board). Important reports will be also regularly published publicly.

Tracking employee work

Chapter currently uses Redmine for tracking their time and activities. The board will review this system together with the executive director.

Employee 1: executive director (Jan 2017 – Dec 2017)

     Volunteer community management (12.5%)     Overseeing WMCZ employee force (12.5%)     Organizing meetings of the community (12.5%)     Meeting with partner organizations, initiating collaborations (12.5%)     Project grantmaking (12.5%)     Reporting back to the board, meetings, etc. (12.5%)     Various office tasks (25%)     Other (0%)

The executive director (ED) will be selected in late 2016/early 2017. The employee's tasks will be to implement the strategic documents (WMCZ Strategic plan 2017-2020 and WMCZ Annual plan 2017) as well as other program priorities of WMCZ. ED will have his/her contract split into two parts, a 75 % portion dedicated to program activities and 25% portion reserved for administration. For the latter, the ED will take over some of the current administrative tasks of the board which represent a significant burden to several of its members. Moreover, the executive director will foster and develop volunteer community, evaluate the programmatic results, represent WMCZ in negotiations with our partners and supporters and manage the WMCZ office that serves for our employees and volunteers as a pleasant place for day-to-day meeting and co-working.

Tasks

75% program activities

• Overseeing the work of the program managers of WMCZ and making sure that the strategic priorities of WMCZ, annual plan and board decisions are all met in a professional and timely manner. Suggesting improvement to our program portfolio based on upcoming opportunities.
• Communication with the WMCZ volunteer community and its supporters, as well as partner organizations.
• Coordination of various project managers (volunteer or employed) and facilitating the exchange of best practices in project management.
• Community building as well as capacity building for the members of the community, assistance with organization of regular meet-ups as well as larger events including the Czech WikiConference or any possible larger-scale WMCZ events for public.
• Communication with press and curating the WMCZ's official social networks pages.
• Analysis of opportunities in the EU grant system (OP VVV) in collaboration with experienced grantees from our partner organizations. Submitting of an education-oriented grant request on behalf of WMCZ.

25% administrative activities

• APG grants management and reporting (together with experienced grantees from the chapter)
• Handling communication with governmental institutions etc.
• Managing the OTRS system of WMCZ and internet-banking transfers, communication with WMCZ accountant and handling routine HR-related issues
• Office management, creating a pleasant working atmosphere.

Employee 2: education manager (Jan 2017 – Dec 2017)

     Organization of workshops and courses (40%)     Meetings with partnering/like-minded organizations (20%)     Attendance at various meetings or workshops of the chapter (15%)     Grantmaking (5%)     Managing social media (5%)     Reports and blog posts (15%)

The overall task of the Education manager is to manage the education program (especially Students Write Wikipedia, Senior Citizens Write Wikipedia), ensure their sustainable development and help these programs to expand to other institutions. Managing contacts with representatives of cultural and educational institutions and with volunteers from the Wikipedia community (including the chapter's Mailchimp registry of contacts) is an additional part of this employee's work.

Tasks

• Organize, prepare and promote regular courses for senior citizens happening all over the Czech Republic.
• Organize Wikipedia courses for librarians
• Give support to teachers involved in the education program and provide 2–3 on-campus workshops for those courses where students encountered technical problems in past or produced lower-quality articles
• Organize 1 Train the Trainers workshop for new Wikipedia trainers (aiming to teach them the basics) and 1 workshop for the advanced trainers (aiming to develop their skill according their needs). Methodical guidelines for teaching seniors will be formulated and shared as a part of the existing learning pattern. Education manager will also create a status of a "certified Wikipedia trainer" as a guarantee of quality for our collaborating institutions.
• Coordinate the creation of simple-to-use lesson plans for Teach (with) Wiki program which can be used by teachers to plan a 45-minute school lesson that concentrates on teaching digital literacy and promote these texts among teachers seeking innovation. Education manager will also officially accredit the lesson plans in the system of postgradual teacher's education and help us gain additional financial resources on this through EU grants for year 2018.
• Create a landing microsite for #1lib1ref campaign 2017 on Czech Wikipedia (or Meta), and send out an e-mail campaign to Czech librarians thanks to our large network of collaborating libraries as well as contacts with the Librarian Institute of the National Library.
• Negotiate an establishment of a Wikipedian in residence who will contact research group leaders or core facility employees and teach them to upload the photographic material that they produce in their daily work.

Employee 3: wikipedian in Brno (Jan 2017 – Dec 2017)

     Licensing framework at university (Masaryk University Creative Commons directive) and uploads of free images (15%)     Wikisource program and collaboration with Moravian Library (10%)     Local workshops and edit-a-thons, Wikipedia club (10%)     Support for local Students Write Wikipedia projects (5%)     Community work (15%)     Wikidata program workshops for academians, data release by city council (10%)     Reporting, program promotion and administration (20%)     Other (15%)

"Wikipedian in Brno" is the official name for a position that has been gradually emerging in Brno, the second largest city of the Czech Republic, since 2013. After regular Wikimedia meetups in Brno had been established, long-time Wikipedian and member of WMCZ Marek Blahuš took control of them and established a flourishing community. He became a prominent face of the "Masaryk University Wikipedians Team" which gained financial support of Masaryk University in Brno in 2015. In 2016, Marek Blahuš expanded his work to other non-university institutions as a "Wikipedian in Brno" and further developed the local community. A formal partnership has been negotiated between Masaryk University and Wikimedia Czech Republic and the employee is funded from both sides. In July 2016, Marek wrote a summary of his achievements in an essay called "Building a local community in the Czech Republic".

Tasks

As a part of the Media Acquisition program

• Support of the camera lending service in Brno.

As a part of the Education and Institutional Collaboration program

• Community support in the city of Brno including regular meet-ups, innovation of the Brno’s weekly Wikipedia Club.
• Logistic on-site support for teachers using Wikipedia in their classrooms (introductory talks for Students Write Wikipedia classes in Brno) as well as for Wikipedia trainers (eg. trainers of senior courses in Brno). Responsibility for achieving high teacher retention rates (i.e. that teachers from last year collaborate this year again).
• Extension of the present Masaryk University Creative Commons directive to applicable works produced by any part of the university (faculty, department, specialized center etc.) which shows interest to participate. This is based on the success and positive reception of the directive introduced in 2016, which applies to the works of the university's Press Office and External Relations and Marketing Office only.
• Start of cooperation with Masaryk University Archives with the aim of exploring which of its valuable materials could be released under a Wikipedia-compatible free license. Various use cases (such as work for hire, work of a deceased author, work created under an earlier copyright law, student work, anonymous work) will be explored with help of the university's lawyers. As a proof of concept, at least 100 pictures will be released by the archives and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, of which >20% will be used in Wikimedia projects.
• Implementation of a set of plugins linked to the VisualEditor's reference generator which can process sources published by Masaryk University, simplifying usage of academic sources in Wikipedia.
• A short bilateral meeting of head representatives of Wikimedia Czech Republic and Masaryk University to mutually inform each other about the results of our collaboration and to explore new opportunities.
• 2 public lectures in the Moravian Library given by subject experts who present reputable sources for their field of expertise and suggest how present Wikipedia articles should be improved using these sources. This will stimulate the interest of Wikipedians in specific key areas and also serve as a meeting opportunity for Wikipedians writing articles in similar fields of expertise and of subject experts discovering the potential of Wikipedia.
• Collaboration between the Moravian Library and the Czech Wikisource community to digitize and proofread a book of choice in the Proofread Page environment and make it available in Wikisource as a showcase of the project’s potential usefulness to GLAM institutions.
• Better integration of several public databases with Wikidata items and Wikipedia articles, including authority files, digitalization registry, Kramerius digital library and other sources of valuable librarian content. Fostering usage of Wikipedia and Wikidata in librarian databases and vice versa. This will improve Wikipedia's services to the readers.

As a part of the Wikidata Content & Community program

• Import of a public dataset into Wikidata provided by the Brno city council's newly established open data workgroup and OpenAlt, an open data NGO operating mainly from Brno. This will be a showcase of a distinct mode of collaboration between local governments and Wikidata and will be promoted accordingly.
• Public lecture for the academic community of Masaryk University (and other interested researchers) about how data from Wikidata (through Wikidata Query Service) and the Wikimedia APIs can be used in various types of research. Questionnaires will ask the participants whether they had planned to use Wikidata in their research before/after the lecture, which types of data they are most interested in and which drawbacks or obstacles they currently see that prevent wider academic usage of Wikidata in research. Generated academic interest in Wikidata will help illustrate the project's importance in further communications with universities and research organization.