Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Deutschland/June 2014

VOLUNTEER SUPPORT PROGRAM

Because the communities carried out so many funded activities in June, this monthly report gives a brief overview only. A detailed report can be found in this separate blog entry.

===Photography projects Not a month passes without our volunteer photographers, supported by Wikimedia Deutschland (WMDE), providing us with up-to-date photographs from the worlds of politics, sport and culture. The following events were snapped in June:

• June 1: 1st Münsterland Photoflight
• June 3: Austria vs. Czech Republic international football match in the Czech town of Olomouc.
• June 6 to 8: Rock am Ring festival summer
• June 6 to 8: Rock im Park festival summer
• June 6 to 8: Moers Festival festival summer
• June 6 to 9: 78th Internationales Pfingstturnier Wiesbaden (Wiesbaden International Horse Show)
• June 7: 2nd Münsterland Photoflight
• June 13: Shoot for the ARD series Mord mit Aussicht
• June 14: Industriada in the Polish city of Katowice
• June 20 to 22: “Ulle & Friends” charity event in Kürten
• June 28 to 29: Pirate Party national convention

Community spaces and events

Whether it be an organizational and editorial get-together or an event in the local community spaces, Wikipedia contributors come together each month to exchange ideas. The community participated in the following events in June, in collaboration with or funded by WMDE:

• June 1: WikiCon organizational meeting in Hanover
• June 4: Women Edit in Berlin
• June 12: Open uploading of data
• June 21 to 22: Women Edit workshop in Dortmund
• June 21 to 22: Future of Education workshop in London
• June 26: Open editing in Berlin
• June 27 to 29: Medicine editorial team meeting in Munich
• June 28: Official opening party for Lokal K in Cologne

Funding Program for Free Knowledge (FFW)

FFW signaled the launch of the project “Free Children’s Encyclopedia”, which considered the question of what contemporary ways of making free knowledge attractive to children could entail. The first workshop for the “Videos for Wikipedia articles” project is currently being planned and will be held in August. Your own ideas in support of this project can be presented at any time on the idea portal http://ffw.wikimedia.de.

Tech news

The Media Viewersurvey was launched on June 3, and it has since received well over 1,000 responses within the German-speaking community. Media Viewer is a new display option to improve the media-viewing experience on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and MediaWiki websites. The latest results show that the current acceptance of the Media Viewer within the German-speaking community is 27.8 percent. Improvement suggestions from the survey will be prioritized. By the end of June, all tool developers must have moved their programs from Toolserver to Tool Labs.

Wiki Dialogue

More than 35 Wikipedia contributors took part in the “Wiki Dialogue” project to work together on the subject of “Quality on Wikipedia.” Anyone interested in this topic can read up on the detailed discussion on the discussion page of the first Wiki Dialogue. Wiki Dialogues are online meetings based on the format of cMOOCs (connectivist Massive Open Online Courses). Anyone who wishes to initiate their own Wiki Dialogue can do so by registering on the [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki-Dialog project page. Julia Kloppenburg and Dirk Franke will gladly answer any queries.

Community debates on Wikidata

It’s the time for debating within the community over on Wikidata. A number of topics are being discussed, such as a new design for the user interface or the focal points of 2015, including data quality.

Tool for Wikimedia Commons

On http://tools.wmflabs.org/commonscategorycount/ there is a new tool for detecting and counting pictures that have been uploaded onto (sub)categories of Wikimedia Commons.

Elasticsearch

The software development department was paid a visit by Nik Everett from the Wikimedia Foundation – expert for Elasticsearch. We will continue to work with this indexing and searching software for Wikimedia projects and will increasingly be using it for our own development projects.

INSTITUTIONONAL PARTNERSHIPS PROGRAM

HIVE Berlin learning network

At the monthly HIVE Berlin MeetUp on June 11, 2014 the Geek Girls Carrots Berlin, the School of Machines, Making & Make-Believe and the Science Hack Day all presented their work. In the subsequent discussion, the institutions, individuals and target groups who attended exchanged their views about target groups, opportunities and expectations. With regard to the inclusion of schools in the learning network, a Berlin-based teacher gave a good insight as to how HIVE Berlin should be structured. The first project supported by HIVE Berlin was also held in June. On June 21, our premises hosted an “Introduction to Scrum” workshop with 19 participants, which was run by the Geek Girls Carrots under the guidance of HIVE.

Science Year 2014 – Digital Competences

On June 23, 2014, we successfully launched our “Digital Competences” series of events with around 50 visitors, as part of the “Science Year 2014 – The Digital Society” initiative, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Three talks and a follow-up podium discussion dealt with the subject of “Data protection – an underappreciated digital competence?”. Guests included Data Protection Supervisor Dr. Imke Sommer, media educator Martin Müsgens and Prof. Karsten Weber, professor for general science of technology at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. A video documentary will shortly be available on the event page. The second event will take place on September 1, 2014, and it will focus on “Digital Natives – a nice-sounding phrase with little substance?”

Coding da Vinci

In the current working phase of the Hackathon, 27 projects are being developed between now and early July 27, based on 20 freely licensed data sets from 16 cultural institutions. The second part of the event was planned in June. The presentation and award ceremony will be held on July 6 at the Jewish Museum Berlin. The 49 participants are competing for five main prizes.

GLAM on Tour

GLAM on Tour events (GLAM stands for “Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums”) are held on the initiative of voluntary contributors in the GLAM sector, and they offer Wikipedians the chance to meet employees from cultural and heritage institutions. The next Glam on Tour stop-off is in Brilon and it focuses on the subject of the coal and steel industry in the Sauerland region. Registration for the event here.

Presentation and workshop at SWR

On June 13, we visited Südwestrundfunk (SWR in Stuttgart. Following an introductory talk on the Wikiuniverse, there was a hands-on workshop for the SWR editorial staff and other employees. Four Wikipedia contributors from the Stuttgart area went along to answer any questions from the SWR employees. They explained to the interested participants how they may be able to integrate free licenses into their work, what guidelines were in place for editing, and encouraged them to get started with Wikipedia.

First World War and Braunschweig

GLAM on Tour stopped off in Braunschweig from June 27 to 29. In collaboration with the Braunschweigisches Landesmuseum (BLM) we organized a First World War-themed writing and photography contest. Twenty-eight editors and photographers took part in Braunschweig on the opening weekend. There were many interesting lectures, excursions and a varied supporting program. The reason behind the contest was the museum’s exhibition entitled 1914… schrecklich kriegische Zeiten (1914… awful wartimes), which opens August 1. Based on the selected military exhibition pieces and related literature provided, the event produced eight new articles and 167 photos. The results are documented in an ongoing process on the project page. The competition closes on August 3. The event’s supporting program included a photo excursion to Braunschweig’s main cemetery, a guided city tour and a visit to the museum’s depot. The event was developed as a follow-up project to “Die Römer kommen!” (2013) (“The Romans are Coming!”), thanks to the voluntary commitment of Wikipedia author brunswyk and in collaboration with the BLM and WMDE. For more on the topic, read this guest contribution from user Schlesinger on the WMDE blog.

Shaping Access

A location has been found for the annual conference “Shaping Access – More Responsibility for Cultural Heritage.” It will take place from November 13 to 14 at the Hamburger Bahnhof museum in Berlin. In addition to this, nine new partner institutions and one sponsor are onboard. The rough program planning for the conference is in place, and it will include, amongst other things, speeches on reusing free content, from Wikimedia Commons, for example, citing the example of the Coding da Vinci culture hackathon, and also on the open data legislation in Norway.

LEGAL AND SOCIAL FRAMEWORK PROGRAM

OERde14 – conference program confirmed

The call for participation for the OERde14 (OERde14 = OER Conference 2014) ended on June 17. A total of 49 suggestions were submitted, around the same amount as in 2013. The program team included a number of high-profile OER experts. These included Sandra Schön from Salzburg Research, one of the most high-profile voices on OER in German-speaking countries, Jan Neumann, head of Law and Organization at the North Rhine-Westphalia Library Service Center, and Simon Köhl, founder or Serlo. The program team selected 31 submissions in total. The highlights will include a speech from Thomas Curran, former Chief Technology Officer at Deutsche Telekom, who will talk about grass-roots approaches to OER.

BarCamp “Society 2.0”

WMDE collaborated with Wissenschaft im Dialog (Science in Dialogue) and the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society to host the “Society 2.0” BarCamp on June 13 and 14. Fifty participants discussed the various aspects of the digital society across twelve sessions that spanned two days. Open knowledge, online participation and crowdsourcing: Which current developments will determine our future? What will follow the sharing culture? What will come after the maker culture?

Seven-day depublication period – hearing at North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament

WMDE was called to the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament’s committee for culture and media on June 26 to provide an expert opinion on two proposals submitted by the SPD/Greens and the Pirates. Both proposals concerned an end to the seven-day depublication period for public-sector content on the internet. Our statement alluded generally to the importance of free licenses for the right of reusing this content and also to the interrelation between such licenses and depublication obligations.

Wikimedia in Brussels

While the newly elected European Parliament slowly gets to work in Brussels, the place to go for Brussels enthusiasts has been refurbished on Meta-Wiki by our man in Brussels.

STAFF

Lucie-Aimee Kaffee has been providing support to the Wikidata team since June 1 as a student employee. Nicola Zeuner, who also started on June 1, joined as an expert in fundraising for foundations and is concentrating on third-party funding.