Grants:APG/Proposals/2014-2015 round1/Wikimedia UK/Proposal form

Wikimedia UK received a funds allocation in the amount of £314,000 in 2014-2015 Round 1. This funds allocation was recommended by the Funds Dissemination Committee on 21 November 2014 and approved by the WMF Board of Trustees on 30 December 2014.

Community review has ended. You are still welcome to comment on these proposals, but the FDC and the applicants may not be able to respond to your feedback or consider it during the deliberations.

Please do not edit this proposal form directly. If changes are needed, applicants can request them on the proposal form's discussion page. Thank you!

Proposal by Wikimedia UK to support its annual plan with ~US$672,000.

Program focus: Content (includes GLAM, partnerships), Volunteer support, Access to open knowledge, Technology

WMUK has demonstrated success over a wide range of activity and programme areas. We will build on the strengths of the chapter through continuing our work in education and the GLAM sectors while expanding our volunteer base, in the light of our work leading up to Wikimania London. Wikimania proved to be of great impact and we will work hard to ensure this has a significant legacy. We are also addressing areas where we have not performed well enough, principally in our target to encourage and support technical innovation. Staffing will be adjusted to support the development of high impact projects likely to promote our work to the widest possible audiences. Independent external funding will be developed with staff seeking further opportunities for direct and in-kind funding of our work. We will continue the emphasis on working internationally being part of the wider movement and supporting new and developing chapters. Our support of the Open Coalition will continue, and we will develop our work in alliance with other open knowledge organisations. We will further concentrate on our advocacy work particularly in co-operation with our other European colleagues. We will work hard to deliver our vision: open knowledge for all.



If you need to review the edit instructions you will find them in the editintro.

Eligible organizations may complete this form to request an Annual Plan Grant from the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) in the current round. This complete proposal form must be published in English on Meta by the proposal submission date for each round for your organization's application to be considered. No changes should be made to this proposal form and supplementary documents after these proposal submission date without written approval from FDC staff, and any proposal forms created will be considered 'submitted' after the proposal submission deadline unless the applying organization withdraws the application in writing.

The purpose of this document is to provide the FDC with an overview of your organization's annual plan, the alignment of the plan with the Wikimedia movement’s strategic priorities, and the potential impact of the plan. This proposal should complement any annual planning documents your organization may have such as your organization's annual plan and strategic plan: please complete all fields and add links to supporting documents where relevant. If any documents are submitted in draft form (e.g. an annual plan that has not yet been approved by the organization's General Assembly), please link to the final version of the document once it has been approved, even if it is approved after the deadline. If you are a representative of the applicant organization, you may request permission to add information to this proposal form on the proposal form discussion page. All requested changes will be reviewed by FDC staff.

Please review the documents describing the Annual Plan Grants process, including the FDC Framework, Guidancefor the FDC from the Board, and the FDC's past funding recommendations: FDC recommendations. These documents include critical information for applicants.

If you have any questions about the form, please contact FDCSupport@Wikimedia.org. If you have general suggestions or comments about the form itself, please leave them on the discussion page for this form.

A few terms used in the form:

FDC proposal form terms Wikimedia terms Learning & Evaluation terms

Basic information

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1. In order to support community review, please provide a brief description of your organisation's work in the upcoming year that can be used as a summary of your proposal. (This should be about 200 words, and should be easy for anyone to understand.)
 
One of the UK winners from Wiki Loves Monuments 2013
  • WMUK has demonstrated success over a wide range of activity and programme areas. We will build on the strengths of the chapter through continuing our work in education and the GLAM sectors while expanding our volunteer base, in the light of our work leading up to Wikimania London. Wikimania proved to be of great impact and we will work hard to ensure this has a significant legacy. We are also addressing areas where we have not performed well enough, principally in our target to encourage and support technical innovation. Staffing will be adjusted to support the development of high impact projects likely to promote our work to the widest possible audiences. Independent external funding will be developed with staff seeking further opportunities for direct and in-kind funding of our work. We will continue the emphasis on working internationally being part of the wider movement and supporting new and developing chapters. Our support of the Open Coalition will continue, and we will develop our work in alliance with other open knowledge organisations. We will further concentrate on our advocacy work particularly in co-operation with our other European colleagues. We will work hard to deliver our vision: open knowledge for all.
2. Contact information.
  • Legal name of organization: Wikimedia UK
  • Organization's fiscal year (mm/dd–mm/dd): 02/01-01/31
  • 12-month funding period requested (mm/dd/yy–mm/dd/yy): 02/01/15-01/31/16
  • Primary contact name and position in organization: Jon Davies, CEO
  • Primary contact username or Email: jon.davies@wikimedia.rg.uk
  • Secondary contact name and position in organization: Richard Symonds, Office and Development Manager
  • Secondary contact username or Email: richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk


3. Amount requested

Table 1

Currency requested () US$ ()
Total annual expenses of organization 812,000 1,348,082
Amount requested from the FDC for the upcoming year's annual plan 405,000 672,381
Amount to be raised from non-FDC sources (total from Table 5) 406,866 675,479
Amount to be drawn from reserves for the upcoming year's annual plan 0 0
Amount of FDC funds allocated for the current year's annual plan 353,000 586,051


 
Some of our milestones from 2013-14
4. What is your organization's proposed rate of growth in total budget since last year? Please explain your organization's rationale if your proposed budget will increase this year.
  • 6.51% growth. Having evaluated our programme in line with our strategic goals we have identified areas of weakness where we need to allocate more resources. This is principally to hire a developer (circa £54,000/$89,651 total costs when taxes and pension are included) - something which both the WMF and our own board are keen to encourage and in line with our strategic goal G4 to encourage and support technical innovation to support the delivery of programme impact. The hiring of this developer is optional, but without it we will not be able to support technical projects to further our outreach or contribution work. Likewise, our support of projects such as QRpedia, the Virtual Learning Environment and Wikisoba would be diminished, and we would find it more difficult to support key WMF goals such as "Encourage innovation". Key parts of this WMF goal are to "Make technology investments to guarantee the permanence of projects and support ongoing growth", and to "Build internal capacity to better support the movement and achieve its strategic goals". Both of these WMF goals support the hiring of a developer by WMUK.

We will work to reduce our reliance on FDC funding over the next five years by finding external funding to develop our programme. Being mindful of FDC Advisory Group recommendations the primary intent is to better focus staff capacity dedicated to seeking in-kind and partnership funding, as well as more streamlined and proactive work to secure grant and individual giving as income streams. Our research indicates that with our charitable status and attendant beneficial tax arrangements, and high accounting standards there is good scope to directly support programme work and deliver additional unrestricted income through planned work with our established donor base.


Community engagement

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This section provides the FDC an overview of your organization's work with volunteers and online contributors.

 
Wikimedians enjoying the conservatory at The Barbican during Wikimania
1. Which Wikimedia community or communities does your organization work with most closely, and which online Wikimedia project or projects does your organization's work support?

In terms of Wikimedia communities, Wikimedia UK is proud of its position within the Wikimedia movement. Our programme of work means that we play a valuable role as a leading chapter, working closely with other chapters from Europe and beyond. We regularly work with Wikimedians who work on many different language Wikipedias and represent many different chapters. This is in addition to our core work with the UK community of Wikimedians, both new and experienced.

The Wikimedia UK community is itself growing, particularly after the great success of Wikimania. We have welcomed a significant number of new members, volunteers and editors over the past year as well as maintained engagement with current volunteers. We are a key partner in the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU (see EU policy – a network of European chapters working on advocacy and policy matters. We are a founder member of the Open Coalition, a group of organisations and individuals working to increase and facilitate greater collaboration across the open sector.

The chapter supports primarily the English (via most of our editathons and workshops) and Welsh language Wikipedias, Wikimedia Commons (especially through initiatives such as Wiki Loves Monuments), and is starting to support the Gaelic projects too.

Wikipedia work has been targeted in a number of ways, increasing reach through editing training sessions for new editors, focused events to increase content quality (topic-specific editing and the stubs contest), support for the Voice Intro Project, continued support of QRpedia to improve access and the Wikimedia assignments work to engage students and academics in content production.

Our Wales Manager and the Wikimedian in Residence at Coleg Cymraeg have been focused on the Welsh Wicipedia. We also held competitions to improve coverage in relation to the Living Paths project across 20 different Wikipedias - to improve the Welsh-related coverage in various languages.

Our Wikimedians in Residence have been working on releasing content onto Commons and appropriate licencing. Some of them focus on mass uploads, and others on supporting top-quality photographs, depending on the collections the Residents are working with. Numerous other activities we support, e.g. volunteer project grants, focus on quality media uploads. In Q1 of 2014-15, for example, we uploaded 37,715 images.

2. How does your organization know what community members / contributors to online projects need or want? Does your organization conduct needs assessments? How else does your organization consult the contributors and volunteers most involved with its work?
 
Wiki Loves Monuments was just one way we worked to engage with the existing Wikimedia community while recruiting new volunteers

We are in regular contact with Wikimedians in various ways and engage them in dialogue on a permanent basis – the conversation is always open. We use email and mailing lists, newsletters to donors and friends, our wiki (especially the vibrant water cooler and engine room), surveys, events, meetups, social media channels (especially Twitter and Facebook, where we often engage in conversations with the community). The contents of our newsletters are also made publicly available on our website for everyone to explore. We also use the wider movement’s channels to share information others would find useful - This Month in GLAM, for instance. All of these communications channels help with discussions with the community, as they raise awareness of what we are doing, and provide a variety of means of talking to us.

The home page of our wiki features a blog which is updated regularly with stories written from volunteers, staff, trustees, and anyone wanting to raise awareness of the project or issue they are working on. We also communicate about upcoming events through our main page.

We make sure we create opportunities for in-person meetings with the community. Staff members regularly attend wiki meet ups where we discuss developments within the charity. Events such as AGM are also strong opportunities to discuss the direction of our work, and see what we could work on in the future.

We put a high priority in offering as much transparency as possible in sharing our information and decision processes.

When doing reviews of our programmes community consultation is included to provide a valuable perspective on the work so far and suggested direction (e.g. Wikimedian in Residence review, or Train the Trainer review. This can often provide insights on what the community needs.

Needs assessments are considered in a variety of ways. Some projects that we run are supported exactly because a gap in content has been identified - e.g. our recent Gender Gap project. Many activities are developed as a skill need within the volunteer community. Our high profile Train the Trainer programme was set up exactly because we saw that by providing the volunteers with skill and confidence to train others we can build the capacity of Wikimedia events, and allow the community to better deliver the activities they wanted to do. After we hd run Train the Trainer for two years we realised that there was a need for continuous support for those trained, which gave rise to the Refresher event, which will be repeated. Similarly we have run Media training and Wikidata training events for volunteers.

In the international context, we analyse how we could best contribute to the global community. We saw that many chapters would benefit from governance support, which we were able to share through our experiences. This gave rise to two extremely popular governance training events in the year.


Organization planning and reports

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A women in science-themed editathon at the Royal Society

Please provide links to your organization’s planning documents and reports. All of these documents are required unless otherwise indicated.

Your organization's strategic planning documents, past reports, and current annual planning documents, are essential to our understanding of your organization's proposal. If you think you will have difficulty submitting any of these documents with your organization's proposal form by the proposal submission deadline, you should contact FDC staff right away. You may also provide notes to this table here, as well as links to any supplementary documents to this proposal form.

Table 2

Completed fiscal year Current year Upcoming year
Annual plan (including budget) 2013 Activity Plan 2014 Activity Plan This is a combination of our plan as outlined in this application and our draft budget (here). The plan will be finalised once our final FDC grant allocation is known.
Community discussion around annual plan Talk:2013 Activity Plan
There was also a dedicated community day for strategy and direction discussions - "Looking at the next five years – a day workshop on the future of Wikimedia UK"
Grants talk:APG/Proposals/2013-2014 round1/Wikimedia UK/Proposal form - substantial discussion on the programme as outlined in our FDC application. Shaping Our Programme - this document was created chiefly with the purpose of community discussion. It was presented at WMUK 2014 AGM during Wikimania.
Annual report (including financial report) Media:Wikimedia AR 2014 download.pdf - Our Annual Review
[1] - Our Annual Report with financial information
Not required. Not required.
Strategic plan Towards a five year plan 2013-18 and our Draft Goals - in the 2013-14 activity year we have focused on consulting the community with regards to the strategy. Strategic Goals - please use the menu on the right to navigate through the relevant pages. Also see the explanation of the consultation process (Strategy Consultation). We will continue to follow our established Strategic goals, in combination with the Programme Proposal paper showing our future direction.


Table 2 notes: We have submitted the requested documents and are happy to answer any questions you may have.

We wish to highlight how we have addressed weaknesses identified in the FDC assessment of our 2013-14 application:

  • We have implemented a full set of long-term goals and a system of measures. Outputs and impact measures are now at the core of all our work and we have worked with the FDC during the year to develop our systems.
  • Our leadership has become more stable during the year with an established board in place which has informed our strategy. The board has undertaken governance reviews and acted upon their findings.
  • The staff have developed a stable Senior Management Team and reviewed staffing to produce the recommendations that form a key to our 2015-16 strategy.
  • We are proposing a balanced budget without the need to use any reserves. This will ensure the long term sustainability of our programme.
  • We are not projecting significant underspend this year despite the effect of hosting Wikimania on our main programmes and a self-imposed semi-freeze on our Wikimedian in Residence work pending its full review.
  • Despite the extra workload of Wikimania we have been able to deliver to our targets and indeed have used Wikimania to develop and expand areas of our community.
  • Our budgeting and financial systems are now clear and highly sophisticated with quarterly reporting to a high standard and including assessments of staff time vs programme work.

Further relevant documentation:

  • Technology scoping paper outlining our options for development in 2015-16 and beyond - [2]
  • Proposal plans for 2015-16 staff structure - [3]
  • Wikimedian in Residence programme review outlining future steps Wikimedian in Residence 2014 review#Key findings - recommendations
  • We are also finalising the Communications and Fundraising strategies, which will be approved in Q4 of 2014. In addition, we are developing new volunteering approaches, which will give rise to plans of how to develop our community further.
  • We have also completed a draft Wikimania 2014 report.



Financials: year-to-date progress

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The purpose of this section is to give the FDC an idea of how your organization is spending on your current grant, or during your current annual plan. The period defined as year-to-date should be the start date of your fiscal year you defined in Contact information, until 1 September 2014. Your projected amount should be the amount your organization expects to spend by the end of the current fiscal year you defined in Contact information.

Table 3

Current funding period planned / budgeted Year-to-date funding period actuals Projected end of current funding period
In currency requested In $US In currency requested In $US In currency requested In $US
Revenues (from all sources) 623,000[1] 1,034,305 413,752[2] 686,911 646,400[3] 1,073,153
Expenses 740,312[4] 1,229,066 431,175[5] 715,837 730,371[6] 1,212,562

Table 3 notes:

  1. As planned at beginning of year, not including any virements or later changes to plan, or changes brought about as a result of Wikimania
  2. Estimate based on Q2 figures, as we only produce financial reports quarterly
  3. Includes £23,400 ($38,849) recharged staff costs from WMF re:Wikimania.
  4. As planned at beginning of year, not including any virements or later changes to plan, or changes brought about as a result of Wikimania
  5. Estimate based on Q2 figures, as we only produce financial reports quarterly
  6. Projections carried out on 25 June 2014 in preparation for Q2 accounts

NB as agreed these numbers may be revised next week once our Q2 accounts have been signed off by the WMUK Board on October 4th.


Programmes: upcoming year's annual plan

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Keynote speakers at GLAM-Wiki 2013 in London

This section is about your organization's programmes. A programme is a group of activities that share the same objectives. Please do not include information about your organization's operating activities in this section. You are welcome to provide information about activities like administration, staff and board training, fundraising, governance, and internal IT in another section of this proposal form or in a supplementary document. Please answer all four questions for each programme.

Introductory information
  • Our programme for 2015-16 follows the strategic goals we have agreed in 2013-14 and worked towards in the 2014-15 activity plan. Overall programmatic strategy is focused around these goals, which dictate what we are focusing on in our activities.
    • Please also see Senior Management Team’s WMUK 2014-15 programme proposal paper, outlining the programme plans and the direction of the charity for the coming years here: (based on the community consultation document, and the board paper produced in Q2 of 2014-15)
  • Each programme as listed here is at the same time a strategic goal, which groups the activities that are most aligned with it. At the same time, however, some activities also support another goal, and that is noted in the sections below.
  • We have used the same objectives as in 2014-15 activity year. At the same time, the particular targets that relate to these objectives will be adjusted, depending on the results of the full year of 2014-15 activities. For example, we may decide that different indicators of content quality would better reflect our work than the ones used currently - however, this will be looked at when we are closer to completion of this activity year, and have fuller data and reflections to base on.
  • This means that both the type of things we measure, and the specific targets, will be modified towards Q4 of 2014-15 activity year.
  • We are following the definitions (e.g. ‘volunteer activity’) set in our strategic goals - for definitions please see here and also here, where we define terms around volunteering.
  • We have made strong improvements in the evaluation and assessment of our work in the 2014-15 activity year. Strategic goals and the corresponding targets mean we have consistency of measurement in our programmes, and we have followed them in the progress reporting. We have brought our CiviCRM database into a state where it can be used as a central register of volunteer activity and are continuously improving it, together with gaining proficiency in our targets and metrics. CiviCRM is also used for event statistics (attendance etc), equipment usage and recording our partnership interactions on an ongoing basis by relevant staff. We are also taking advantage of the Foundation’s Wikimetrics. The staff has been gaining knowledge of evaluation and monitoring, supported by the trustees with relevant knowledge.
  • Throughout our programme plan we have placed several survey based targets, which are designed to deepen our understanding of Wikimedia UK’s impact. For example, we will survey volunteers to see how well they are developed and empowered by the charity, which will help us assess whether we are reaching our “Developing volunteers” objective.
  • We will also be continuing the reflective process of analysing our programmes, like we have done so far through reviews of for example Train the Trainer and Wikimedian in Residence. We will also continue sharing these reflections and reviews with the global community.


We are benefitting immensely from our Wikipedian in Residence project, which is starting to drive real change across Cancer Research UK in terms of releasing more of our content to the open web and improving articles. It’s been a pleasure working with the team at WMUK, getting this idea off the ground, applying for Wellcome Trust funding, and seeing the project start to bear fruit.

— Henry Scowcroft, Cancer Research U.K.


Program 1: Goal G1 Develop open knowledge

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Panel participants enjoying GLAM-Wiki 2013
1. A program is a group of of activities that share the same objectives. Please share the goal of the program, and then describe the objectives that the activities in this program share.

This goal relates to the uploading of new content, the improvement of existing content, and our relationships with content-holding organisations that might be persuaded to release educational material. Potential editors and uploaders are the focus here. We are aiming to increase the quantity and quality of open knowledge on the Wikimedia projects and other freely licensed resources.

The objectives (outcomes) are:

  • G1.1 The quantity of open knowledge continues to increase.
  • G1.2 The quality of open knowledge continues to improve.
  • G1.3 We are perceived as the go-to organisation by UK GLAM, educational, and other organisations who need support or advice for the development of open knowledge.
2. How do your program objectives focus on the Wikimedia strategic priorities?

We are working towards contributing to open knowledge - increasing quantity and quality of open content, particularly the content contributed to Wikimedia projects. This supports the Wikimedia priority of improving the quality. We contribute to that through activities described in sections below, for instance media donations resulting from GLAM, producing Wikimedia content via Education assignments, and Wikimedians in Residence work. We also support content improvement focused events or volunteer grants.

Collaborating with external institutions can often lead to collaborating on content as well, hence one of our objectives is building Wikimedia UK’s reputation in the relevant sectors and encouraging the organisations to work with us. Via building our reputation as a key open knowledge organisation to work with, we are able to build high-quality partnerships which can generate access to content that can be released under open license. A distinct area in this goal is G1.3 - partnership building, where we are (and perhaps as a result work with institutions in the future on media donations).

3. Please list the specific, measurable, timebound targets you plan to achieve through this program. Please include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets.

These targets are to be achieved in a year 2015-16 of our activity plan unless stated otherwise. We acknowledge that measuring the quality of content (one of our objectives below) can be challenging, and it is expected that the understanding of how to assess this will develop. We have a series of indicators around image quality, like featured pictures, and will continue to develop these.

Outcome (from our Strategic Goals) Outcome Measure 2014 target (to 31 Jan 2015) 2015 target (to 31 Jan 2016)
G1.1 The quantity of open knowledge continues to increase Number of uploads Report only Report only
TEXT - Sum of positive edit size [ 1 ] Report only Report only
G1.2 The quality of open knowledge continues to improve Percentage of WMUK-related files (e.g. images) in mainspace use on a Wikimedia project (excluding Commons) 13% 10% (adjusted according to results this year)
Number of files (e.g. images) that have featured status on a Wikimedia project (including Commons) 20 25
Number of files having quality image status on Commons 70 100
Number of files having valued image status on Commons 50 100
Number of new articles started on a Wikimedia site (eg any of the encyclopedias), excluding Welsh Wicipedia 200 300
TEXT - Number of new articles started on Welsh Wicipedia inspired by WMUK 10000 6000 (Pathways project, which contributed to the target strongly in the current year, finished in 2014)
G1.3 We are perceived as the go-to organisation by UK GLAM, educational, and other organisations who need support or advice for the development of open knowledge. Sum of reputation ratings [ 2 ] of organisations that we are working in partnership with, or were working with no more than than two years ago 693 800
Awareness score in annual national survey of public opinion [ 12 ] survey to be conducted target will depend on results of the survey in 2014-15

Looking at the Wikimedia Foundation’s global metrics, through this Programme we will be able to contribute to the ‘number of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles’ - we look at it as a % of the total media files we support the uploads of, but can track the numbers. We are also monitoring the ‘number of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects’ through our continuous Wikimetrics work, and similarly with ‘number of bytes added to and /or deleted from Wikimedia projects’. We have been tracking these metrics throughout 2014-15 activity year, and our achievements so far can be seen on the recent report card [4] in G1.1 and G1.2. The impact on these global metrics will grow as we develop our work in this programme area and increase media donations.


4. Please describe how your program activities will lead to the results you are planning, or describe or link to a logic model for your program.

The activities that are supporting the objectives outlined in this programme are:

 
One of our popular Backstage Pass events - here at the British Museum, Photo Mike Peel

GLAM

We will continue our work with GLAM institutions, particularly through the work of our GLAM Organiser. We will start regular use of GLAM tools for upload and metrics to allow for simple and trackable media donations. Europeana will begin to make an impact with its mass upload tool as we start to make use of it (our Organiser has been closely involved in the developments). This should also increase the volume of media that we attract for Wikimedia projects.

The activities will be a mix of smaller volunteer-led initiatives, partnership work, and greater leverage through use of cultural umbrella organisations.

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because working with GLAM institutions, convincing them of the benefits of open knowledge, showing ways they can work with us, and making use of the available media upload tools will lead to content donations. We have seen this approach work well before, for example with the British Library and the Picturing Canada collection (see for example the British Library project report here).

Note that the GLAM area of work also contributes to our Programme 3 (“Reduce barriers to accessing open knowledge”) and, also Programme 2a (“Develop, involve and engage WMUK volunteers”).


 
Tyne and Wear Archives WiR Robert Forsythe

Wikimedians in Residence

Wikimedian in Residence project’s aim is to facilitate a close working relationship between the Wikimedia movement and the host institution through a range of activities. This means it’s a complex programme, addressing various goals of Wikimedia UK. It can assist in content improvement and creation (G1), raising the host institution’s awareness of open knowledge and working towards policy change (G3), or involving and bringing in the volunteer community (G2a).

  • Increasing the quality and quantity of content is often the focus of this area, and it can be achieved by:
  • Exploring sharing the institution's digital resources on Wikimedia Commons
  • Organising events to create or expand existing articles about notable items or subjects of specific relevance to the collection and the organisation's expertise
  • Working with the institution's staff to explain Wikipedia's and its sister projects' practices and how they might be able to contribute. This can be done via events, workshops, producing case studies and documentation of content
  • Helping other Wikimedians to expand and write articles about the institution's collections or area of expertise.

WIR activities also support Programme 1 by being instrumental in building partnerships with the host institutions, and also other organisations that are being reached out to during the residencies.

This will continue to be one of the core areas of our work, with the continual focused support from relevant staff. Following the recommendations of the review), which also showed that the programme is successful and worth continuing, we will seek longer but fewer residencies based on the highest possible impact and find capacity to offer more support to those in post and their institutions.

In the coming year we will rely more on external funding - this is a trend we have developed this year, and will also seek additional residencies where they can be funded by third parties or the institutions themselves.

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because WIRs are building partnerships with their host institutions, adding their skill, knowledge, and onsite expertise, which can lead to content donations and uploads to Wikimedia projects. When choosing the host institutions for the programme, we assess their suitability for the residency - this can mean looking at whether they hold content that can be released, what are their attitudes towards openness, what content area of Wikimedia projects do they relate to (this can then influence how much this programme contributes to the global content metrics).

Note that the WIR area of work also very strongly contributes to our Programme 3 (“Reduce barriers to accessing open knowledge”) and, to a lesser degree, Programme 2a (“Develop, involve and engage WMUK volunteers”).


 
June's Future of Education Event

Education

In 2015-16 we will narrow focus to ensure maximum impact in the university sector. Our current Education Organiser (part-time) will focus on making a maximum impact in higher education via the Wikipedia classroom assignments, attracting more institutions to work with us, and in turn producing more content for Wikimedia projects. He will continue to work closely with the worldwide education movement which promises much. This work will continue to highlight the value and effectiveness of using Wikimedia projects within formal educational contexts - not only leading to good educational outcomes for the students, but to improvements to the quality and quantity of content on Wikimedia projects. Our annual review document (pages 12-13) shows past successful education initiatives, that we are ready to build on.

A key role of the revised remit for the Head of Major Projects will be to seek opportunities to develop high impact educational activities. Other staff, will also seek opportunities to extend our work in other areas of education. We expect these to be done initially via pilot projects.

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because setting up and supporting Wikipedia classroom assignments, when successful, produce content via students contributing to the Wikimedia projects.

Note that the education area of work also contributes to our Programme 3 (“Reduce barriers to accessing open knowledge”).


 
One of the images from the Welsh coastline

Wales

We have decided to continue to have a full time organiser in Wales who focuses on developing the Wikimedia community and building local partnerships with knowledge holding institutions by convincing them to release data, thus, increasing and improving content as a result. In a little under a year our Welsh Organiser has developed partnerships with the Welsh education and higher education sectors which we expect to lead to Wikipedian in Residence positions in the next year. He has also negotiated the release of significant collections of Welsh language material and this will continue to develop. Wicipedia Cymraeg is the biggest Welsh language website in the world and is playing a central role in the preservation of the Welsh language. Hir y bara. For a summary of the first year’s successes, please look at our Annual Review p.14.

Note that the Wales area of work also contributes to our Programme 2a (“Develop, involve and engage WMUK volunteers”).


 
Herbert Museum. Coventry, Back stage Pass

Partnership work

Building relationships with major organisations is time-consuming and requires attention to detail and diplomacy. It needs judgement to decide who to work with. It is however vital to the implementation of our future plans both in terms of impact, value for money, and perceived reputation in the movement and in the public mindset. These relationships not only open doors for us in terms of access to content, goodwill and expertise, but will also increasingly prove vital in formulating the basis for fundraising appeals and the confidence of grant making organisations. They are worthy of more time, consistent focus and development than has thus far been the case. Working with umbrella bodies give us a chance to be influencing with wider sectors, such as GLAM, thus increasing the spread of our impact.

WMUK has specialised in partnerships and this is one of its great strengths - linking with important organisations to deliver projects from our programme together - this allows us to do more than we would on our own. Through work of volunteers, trustees and staff we have established high-level relationships which lead to significant reputational merit for the projects, i.e. we work with the Natural History Museum, Royal Society, Wellcome Collection (where the relationship developed for several years, and is now leading to a major cooperation in media donation, and also joint events such as this one), National Library of Scotland, BBC etc, and are leading to generating content for our projects.

At Wikimania we were approached by institutions seeking cooperation and we will follow these up. Some are large and significant, like for example the British Museum, others can offer grassroots development. All are worthy of investigating as a part of delivering an ambitious vision and require additional expertise and nurturing.

Our partnerships are flexible and vary depending on what we want to achieve from working with the external organisation. The level of commitment also depends on the type of project delivered - WIR collaborations have set objectives and formal requirements, while hosting an event is less intensive. In this sense we are open to various types of collaborations, although always assessing the alignment of the potential partner with our goals and mission. We often have more interest than capacity on setting up new partnerships, hence our processes focus on deciding which partners to go forward with. Where there is a particular organisation we want to work with and are actively pursuing, it is often because of their sector leverage, status, attitude to openness, rich content collections.

In our partnership metric we include all the organisations we have worked with within the last two years, or had focused talks planning future activities.

The partnership work activity - similarly as the local work in Wales - supports the goal of this programme, because building partnerships aims at gaining contacts with organisations who are then made aware of Wikimedia UK, convinced of the benefits of working with us and ready to cooperate on content releases and improvements.

Note that the partnerships area of work also contributes to our Programme 3 (“Reduce barriers to accessing open knowledge”).

The Collections Trust has greatly valued its work with Wikimedia UK. WMUK acts as both a critical friend to the Gallery, Library, Archive and Museum (GLAM) sector and an agitant for change. We look forward to building on this positive relationship over the next few years, creating lasting engagement between the wiki and cultural heritage communities.

— Nick Poole, Chief Executive Officer, Collections Trust, September 2014

Program 2: Goal G2 As a volunteer-led organisation, ensuring effective use of the resources available to us: G2a Develop, involve and engage WMUK volunteers

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One of the presentations at EduWiki 2013 in Cardiff
1. A program is a group of of activities that share the same objectives. Please share the goal of the program, and then describe the objectives that the activities in this program share.

Volunteers are crucial to the effectiveness of Wikimedia UK. The WMUK volunteer community is a varying group of individuals most but by no means all of whom are UK based. This goal relates specifically to WMUK volunteers. Our aim is to support our volunteers to contribute effectively and efficiently.

The objectives (outcomes) are:

  • G2a.1 We have a thriving community of WMUK volunteers.
  • G2a.2 WMUK volunteers are highly diverse.
  • G2a.3 WMUK volunteers are skilled and capable.


2. How do your program objectives focus on the Wikimedia strategic priorities?

As this programme is about involving volunteers in our work, and bringing more interested people into cooperating with us, we are increasing the participation in Wikimedia UK’s activities, and in Wikimedia projects. We are aiming at increasing the number of active volunteers, building our supporter base, providing training for volunteers to make them more active, delivering grants to enable people to volunteer with us. We are aiming to build volunteer skill and confidence so that they are able to participate and lead on our activities. We are also working on diversity of our community, with the hope that by reaching out to other groups and organisations we can discover new reservoirs of contributors especially from under represented groups.

Some elements of the activities in Programme 1 (e.g. GLAM or Wikimedians in Residence) also create opportunities for volunteers to be involved, through e.g. content producing activities that they run.


3. Please list the specific, measurable, timebound targets you plan to achieve through this program. Please include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets.

These targets are to be achieved in a year 2015-16 of our activity plan unless stated otherwise. Many of the reported results for 2014-15 activity year have been influenced by Wikimania, and we cannot plan for the same rates of activity.

Outcome (from our Strategic Goals) Outcome Measure 2014 target (to 31 Jan 2015) 2015 target (to 31 Jan 2016)
G2a.1 We have a thriving community of WMUK volunteers. Number of friends 420 1000
Number of volunteers [ 3 ] 250 300
Number of leading volunteers [ 3a ] 140 (30% increase) 150
Number of activity units [ 4 ] 1200 (24% increase) 1500
Number of leading activity units [ 5 ] 145 (5% increase) 200
Leading volunteer [ 3a ] drop out rate [ 7 ] <10% <10%
G2a.2 WMUK volunteers are highly diverse. Proportion of activity units [ 4 ] attributable to women 20% 25%
Proportion of leading activity units [ 4 ] attributable to women 15% in year to date 18%
Activity units [ 4 ] in activities to encourage other diversity or minority engagement[1] 15 15
G2a.3 WMUK volunteers are skilled and capable. Activity units [ 4 ] in training sessions and editathons (total count, including people being trained) 575 600
Leading activity units [ 5 ] in training sessions and editathons (ie trainers only) 95 100
Annual survey capability score [ 6 ] (self-identified) To be decided To be decided depending on the results of 2014-15 survey

Looking at the Wikimedia Foundation’s global metrics, through this Programme we will be able to contribute to the participation metrics. From the perspective of the Wikimedia UK, we would like to focus on the health of our community, and so we track the numbers of volunteers involved and their levels of activity with our programme (‘number of individuals involved’). We do capture the data for ‘new registered users’ as a part of our events monitoring as well.


4. Please describe how your program activities will lead to the results you are planning, or describe or link to a logic model for your program.
 
Tyne and Wear Archives WiR Robert Forsythe

General Volunteer Support

This area aims to support our Wikimedia community through building their skill, diversity, and activity. We will continue to support the work of our volunteers through project grants, travel grants, events, equipment support and training. Wikimania offered an opportunity to build the volunteer community - we have been successful in bringing new people in - and 2015-16 will focus on sustaining that. We will use our technical systems to offer support and follow-up to all new participants and volunteers to ensure their continued participation in our activities. We will look to implement civiCRM support for volunteer projects.

Wikiconference UK and AGM in 2015 will involve volunteers in the chapter’s work.

Impact analysis of grants will offer information on what we should focus on. We should do more to promote them and continue to refine the expected outcomes through clear agreements. We are planning to review the activity mid-year if spending increases significantly.

This area is at a stage of review and establishing the most successful approaches. This is shaped with contributions from board, volunteers and staff, through a working group (see for example the meeting notes). This strategy work will be supplemented by a Volunteer Conference (draft scoping idea of the event in the page above).

Some activities may be supplemented by our GLAM or education work, where the content focused work will also involve and offer opportunities for volunteers.

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because by offering support to volunteers (staff capacity through Volunteer Support Organiser, funds, advice, regular communication), we encourage their activities. This is also very relevant for the project and travel grants - below.


 
From our Photographing Cathedrals project

Project Grants

We will support volunteer activities through providing them with grants for projects they develop.

Project grants can address various programme goals - this varies depending on the grant focus - it can often, however work on content (G1) or raising awareness (G3.2). Regardless of the end outcome of the projects, by providing volunteers with this support (motivation, help with developing ideas, finances) we sustain their activity with the chapter - often they would not be able to develop their projects without our support.

We have refined our processes around how the applications are assessed, and subsequently reported on. The project grants are submitted to a three person committee consisting of a trustee, another volunteer and a member of staff. While working with the applicant to ensure applications are of sufficient detail, we aim for a decision to be made quickly. Similarly, three person panel decision making is used for project grants of significant monetary value.

Applicants for grant are asked to show in their application how their project would be beneficial and contribute to Wikimedia UK's charitable objects and the Wikimedia movement goals. Grants recipients are required to produce a short report showing achievement based on a template which is based on the WMF Project and Event Grants report form. Through this we can assess the outcomes of the grants and monitor their success. From the grants delivered this year, we can see significant contributions to the quality of content on Wikimedia projects, for example (e.g. UK cathedrals project).


 
Wikimania Hong Kong where WMUK sponsored Wikimedians to attend

Travel Grants

This is a popular item that builds relationships with community - in terms of community coherence, development and wellbeing and spreading WMUK influence. Decisions on travel grants are delegated to the staff member responsible in consultation with other staff members, trustees or community members where appropriate. All scholarships opportunities are advertised openly through our different communication channels, with applications encouraged and accepted from all eligible persons. All successful scholarship recipients are also required as a condition of their scholarship to produce a report to the chapter on their event attendance, with details such as what they did, learned, lessons for the future etc.

The exact programme addressed can vary depending on the event travelled to, and the function of the grantee. It can be important for sharing knowledge with other chapters (G5.1, 5.3) or to address free knowledge advocacy (G3.2).


 
The aftermath of the Tay bridge Disaster of 1879, in which 75 people died. This is one of the images released as a result of our collaboration with the National Library of Scotland

Scotland

We will continue to develop our work in Scotland though special events, Wikimedians in Residence and volunteer meet-ups. We are exploring our aspiration of one day recruiting a post of Scotland coordinator, to serve as a focus for volunteer building opportunities and increase the capacity. This may come from existing and evolving relationships, such as a partnership with a Wikimedian in Residence. A local coordinator is able to set up events and activities for the community, which can attract volunteers and keep them engaged. We have seen in Wales how this can work to enlarge our community and improve content around themes of local importance. Our pilot work with the Gaelic Wikipedia community has proved that there is a community to be nurtured for the language and they have received support from the Chapter and our Wales Organiser.


 
One group of trainees hard at work

Train the Trainers

This is one of the key areas where we provide skills training for the volunteer community. Our evaluation demonstrated the high quality of the training and the user satisfaction. We now have approaching 60 Wikipedians who can offer high quality empathetic training and the growing number of people used for our activities proves its worth. This addresses the global metrics of number of individuals involved, and, as a further outcome, the number of new registered users (through the editor training delivered by the Train the Trainers).

We have a few women trainers, but need to work harder on improving the gender balance and identify areas of the country where we do not have trainers. Our local ambassador scheme, developed as a part of the volunteer strategy, will assist with this. The results have been good and we can offer partner organisations a level of quality we can be confident in. The trainers are also supported via the capacity of the Volunteer Support Organiser.

In 2015-16 we need to ensure that the skills gained at the training stays fresh, so continuous development for those currently trained is crucial. To ensure we are reaching our intention we also need to develop better support materials for the trainers, e.g. through the VLE (Virtual Learning Environment that we have been working on).

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because by offering training, materials and refreshers, we encourage their activities.


 
Ada Lovelace Editathon in Edinburgh

Extended Reach

We realise that despite the breadth of our programme work there will always be areas that we need to try harder to reach. Through content and participation needs assessments we are aiming to engage minority volunteer groups that are not well represented. We have had some real achievements in the past with low cost e.g. Ada Lovelace, addressing the gender gap, which enhanced our reputation as a chapter. In 2014-15 we have continued this work, bringing in a Diversity Intern - a programme support position that brings in the capacity, delivers the outcomes needed, and broadens our volunteer community.

This activity area is successful in bringing in partnerships as well, thus contributing to the outcome 1.3.

[U]sed correctly, Wikipedia can help develop the very skills universities are trying to impart: critical thinking and reasoning, and the ability to convey information clearly – with references. [...] Open content is growing in importance, and Jisc's Wikimedian project is providing training to university staff around the country in using Wikipedia, particularly in teaching and impact assessment.

— Colleagues at Oxford University, The Guardian

Program 2b: Goal G2 As a volunteer-led organisation, ensuring effective use of the resources available to us: G2b Use effective and high quality governance and resource management processes

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The Barclays editathon - spanning several countries and timezones and involving over 200 volunteers
1. A program is a group of of activities that share the same objectives. Please share the goal of the program, and then describe the objectives that the activities in this program share.

This is an internally looking goal managing our administration, but is mentioned here for consistency - it is an integral part of our programme and the strategic goals. We are working to be seen as an organisation that uses effective and high quality governance and resource management processes, building strong back office processes. For more information see here.

2. How do your program objectives focus on the Wikimedia strategic priorities?

The Wikimedia strategic priority focused on here is Stabilize infrastructure.

Through the governance reviews that we have gone through, we have been improving the internal procedures of the charity. This has an effect on all aspects of our work. Through good high-level governance we are able to be more strategic.

3. Please list the specific, measurable, timebound targets you plan to achieve through this program. Please include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets.

n/a (we do have internal targets for this area, which will follow the ones set for 2014-15, please see 2b for detail [5]).

4. Please describe how your program activities will lead to the results you are planning, or describe or link to a logic model for your program.

n/a - includes internal governance, fundraising, staff and board training.

Program 3: Goal G3 Reduce barriers to accessing open knowledge

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The 88 events we held in 2013-14 helped us to share the value of open knowledge
1. A program is a group of of activities that share the same objectives. Please share the goal of the program, and then describe the objectives that the activities in this program share.

This goal addresses the various barriers that prevent readers and re-users from easily accessing open knowledge. It covers ‘soft’ barriers such as poor information literacy, lack of awareness, and lack of organisational will as well as ‘hard’ barriers such as legal constraints and physical access difficulties. Potential readers and consumers of content are the focus here. We are aiming to reduce barriers by education, campaigning, and the elimination of physical access difficulties.

The objectives (outcomes) are:

  • G3.1 Access to Wikimedia projects is increasingly available to all, irrespective of personal characteristics, background or situation.
  • G3.2 There is increased awareness of the benefits of open knowledge.
  • G3.3 Legislative and institutional changes favour the release of open knowledge.


2. How do your program objectives focus on the Wikimedia strategic priorities?

The Wikimedia strategic priority focused on here is Increase reach.

We are increasing the number of people who can access open content in three ways - looking at developing projects that could technically assist with this (e.g. QRpedia), working on increasing general awareness of open knowledge thus making people informed about being able to access it (and perhaps subsequently get involved as volunteers), and working on policy changes - when they change towards openness, content may be made freely available to more people.


3. Please list the specific, measurable, timebound targets you plan to achieve through this program. Please include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets.

These targets are to be achieved in the year 2015-16 of our activity plan unless stated otherwise.

Outcome (from our Strategic Goals) Outcome Measure 2014 target (to 31 Jan 2015) 2015 target (to 31 Jan 2016)
G3.1 Access to Wikimedia projects is increasingly available to all, irrespective of personal characteristics, background or situation. Total number of scans of QRpedia codes [ 11 ] 14000 monthly 15000 monthly
Projects addressed at new readers [ 16 ] being enabled to access Wikimedia websites 3 activities 3
G3.2 There is increased awareness of the benefits of open knowledge. Awareness score [ 12 ] in annual national survey of public opinion to be conducted will be set depending on the results in 2014-15
G3.3 Legislative and institutional changes favour the release of open knowledge. Responses to EU and UK government policy consultations. Narrative Narrative
Involvement in EU and UK advocacy activities; Involvement in advocating legislative change within GLAM, Education, and other organisations Narrative + veal score [ 16 ] Narrative + self evaluation score - aim at 5/5

In the long term, meeting these objectives may result in more content being generated, supporting the global metrics of media and bytes added; and bringing more participation from people made aware of Wikimedia projects.


4. Please describe how your program activities will lead to the results you are planning, or describe or link to a logic model for your program.
Open Space Advocacy
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The Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU hard at work in April this year

Advocacy is a growing and important area of work for the charity. There is a growing understanding that Wikimedia chapters have a key role to play in fostering cultural and legislative changes which benefit the Wikimedia projects specifically and the open knowledge movement more generally. This is an area of great opportunity for the chapter but has to be balanced against the lead time of the work. Change will never come immediately, either at national or European level. But we must continue to make the case strongly for open content and open knowledge. As a founder member of the Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU, Wikimedia UK is showing sector leadership. This is worked on by a staff member interested in the area (and whose work is connected), and supported by the board. Our early achievements are covered in our Annual Report on p.8.

This activity includes, but is not limited to, building relationships with policy makers at national and European level, promoting legislative change, acting as a voice for open knowledge and preservation of a free and open internet, campaigning (or participating in campaigns) to move open knowledge and access to information higher up the political agenda.

We will continue to be recognised in the the open, tech and education sectors, as well as with policy makers and opinion formers. We will build on our engagement with bodies such as Parliament, the UK Department for Culture, Media & Sport and the Intellectual Property Office. We will continue to seek appropriate speaking slots at high profile conferences. We will continue building relationships with Members of the European Parliament and relevant UK Members of Parliament. We will continue to support the Open Coalition, whether through funding or, preferably, as a key partner with funding coming from elsewhere. We work closely with our partners in the FKAGEU (Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU - [6]). One new piece of activity in 2015-16 will be to provide greater support - both financial and in kind - to the Wikimedian in Brussels.

This area is raising awareness of open knowledge and facilitating policy change. Through the European nature of the work, we are also collaborating with other chapters, contributing to our Programme 5.

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because by involvement in EU and UK advocacy activities and involvement in advocating legislative change within GLAM, Education, and other organisations, we are working towards more open policies. These in turn would reduce barriers to accessing to knowledge, by e.g. taking down the paywalls, or requiring museums to freely license their content.

Merchandise
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A selection of our material

Part of this activity, with a budget and a staff member managing it, is aimed at supporting booklet production (e.g. Welcome to Wikipedia brochure). These can be used at events or meetings with partner institutions. This can raise their awareness of benefits of open knowledge, and of what Wikimedia UK does, potentially leading to more joint projects and their further involvement. Most directly to support raising awareness of open knowledge - G3.2.

Some activities that most directly contribute to Programme 1 and that have been outlined there also have their strong influence in Programme 3 as well. This is because some elements of their work focus more strongly on advocacy rather than content generation, and are explained below.

GLAM
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The GLAM-Wiki Revolution - a film by User:Rock drum and Joe Sutherland

'We will increase our presence in the sector by attending relevant external conferences, raising awareness of benefits of open knowledge and ways of working with us. This is managed by the GLAM Organiser.

Potential to influence policy in the cultural sector needs to be explored, as work through Wikimedians in Residence in this area has proven effective.

Education
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Education Ambassador training pre-Wikimania

We will also be raising awareness of the benefits of open knowledge and how educators can collaborate with Wikipedia through presence at sector conferences. We have done it successfully in 2014-15 particularly through the work of our Education Organiser.

Wikimedian in Residence
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UK Wikimedians in Residence

Depending on the aims of a particular project, residencies can focus strongly on raising awareness of open knowledge within the host institution, and also work with the staff internally to change the organisation’s policy towards more openness. This is an important area of residents’ work, and one that really strengthens what Wikimedia UK should be doing. Thanks to the projects often lasting a reasonably long time, the residents can work on advocating policy changes within the host institutions that bring them closer to open knowledge. They can encourage understanding and development of Wikimedia projects internally. As the Q2 progress report from our activities show, this area has shown much success and will be continued (see G3.3 [7]).

Additionally, with the amount of media interest that the projects and the Residents’ activities attract, they result in producing more general awareness of our work. Residents deliver talks at internal meetings and external conferences further raising awareness. They also produce toolkits and materials that can be used in advocacy for open knowledge, and how to engage with it - to be used by their host institutions, but also shared more widely, so that the skills of how to do this type of work are spread.

I have worked with members of Wikimedia UK for years on ways to maximise the social benefit of Wikipedia - from digital literacy to digital democracy. I've found its members to be exemplary representatives of the Wikimedia movement: as passionate and knowledgeable as they are friendly and community-minded. I hope to work with them for many years more.

— Carl Miller, Research Director, Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, Demos

Program 4: Goal G4 Encourage and support technological innovation

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An item from the Natural History Museum with description in Japanese
1. A program is a group of of activities that share the same objectives. Please share the goal of the program, and then describe the objectives that the activities in this program share.

This goal relates to our use of and support for technology, particularly software. We understand that with efficient use of technology we can significantly increase our own impact. But we want to go beyond that by supporting technical innovation more broadly to allow others in the Wikimedia movement and the open knowledge sector to benefit as well.

The objectives (outcomes) are:

  • G4.1 There are robust and efficient tools readily available to enable the creation, curation and dissemination of open knowledge.
  • G4.2 There are robust and efficient tools readily available to allow WMUK - and related organisations - to support our own programmes and to enable us to effectively record impact measures.


2. How do your program objectives focus on the Wikimedia strategic priorities?

The Wikimedia strategic priority focused on here is Encourage innovation.

Through putting attention to the technical development aspects of our work, we want to explore new solutions and new projects that support curation and dissemination of open knowledge. Wikimedia UK is well placed to offer technological innovation as a solution to many of its outreach related outcomes. Whether editor recruitment and retention (VLE), developing open knowledge (Voice Intro Project) developing member and volunteer support and reporting (CiviCRM) or supporting governance and movement evaluation outcomes the chapter has already taken steps to explore how software design can support real-world outcomes.

There is a considerable appetite to escalate the chapter’s spending and delivery of these types of projects, as well as more ambitious R&D that could deliver movement-wide tools with valuable impact (WikiRate). In 2015-16 we need a sea change in what we do. Having failed for two years to find a viable solution to our development aspirations we have commissioned an independent review and have made provision in our budget for a senior Chief Technical Officer to support our community’s development aspirations. We believe this can be a post that ensures full use is made of our pioneering VLE and Wikisoba work, will ensure QRpedia is used to its maximum effect and that funding and volunteer opportunities are harvested to support the aspirations of our community such as with WikiRate.


3. Please list the specific, measurable, timebound targets you plan to achieve through this program. Please include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets.

These targets are to be achieved in a year 2015-16 of our activity plan unless stated otherwise.

Outcome (from our Strategic Goals) Outcome Measure 2014 target (to 31 Jan 2015) 2015 target (to 31 Jan 2016)
G4.1 There are robust and efficient tools readily available to enable the creation, curation and dissemination of open knowledge. Number and availability of the project tools we host or support Narrative Narrative - but more structured targets will be added when the developer starts
G4.2 There are robust and efficient tools readily available to allow WMUK - and related organisations - to support our own programmes and to enable us to effectively record impact measures. Uses [ 15 ] of the internal or supporting tools we host or support Narrative

Narrative - but more structured targets will be added when the developer starts


4. Please describe how your program activities will lead to the results you are planning, or describe or link to a logic model for your program.
Development

We commissioned a review of our IT development capacity and potential. We need to bring in increased capacity to support building of proposals for larger development projects of international significance and the knowledge of how to find funding for such projects. (It will also help with our growing in-house technical needs, but the Programme here is more focused on developing ‘external facing’ projects).

Resources for wiki based development, such as the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) or Europeana have been insufficient and progress has been too slow. In addition we have a wealth of ideas that don’t have anyone with the technical expertise to assess and prioritise (e.g. VLE, QRpedia and Wikirate).

This will also allow us to engage more consistently with the foundation over issues such as the Visual Editor, Media Viewer and Flow. This will lead to developing relationships with a whole new area of the Foundation at an important time for this area.

This represents an item of significant growth in our budget and this is reflected in this year’s requested increase from the FDC but we feel it will lead to significant impact and attract external support that can support its remit in future years.

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because by working with the community on developing technological solutions, and creating new tools, we are supporting the innovation of the whole movement.

In the early days of developing this concept, I began attending the Wikipedia meetups in London and was blown away from the outset by the amount of help, support and advice that was offered by Wikipedians and members of Wikimedia UK. This is also where it was first suggested that I present the new site at Wikimania London, which ended up becoming our official time of launch to the public and opening up possibilities we could only have dreamed of just a few months earlier.

— Navino Evans,co-founder of Histropedia (www.histropedia.com)


The WikiVet project has modelled its development on Wikipedia with a focus on sharing knowledge within the international veterinary community. The site is now one of the most popular veterinary sites on the web with over a million visits per year and 36,000 registered users. This success is thanks in no small measure to support from Wikimedia UK

— Nick Short, Royal Veterinary College, London

Program 5: Goal G5 Develop, support, and engage with other Wikimedia and open knowledge communities

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The Free Knowledge Advocacy Group hard at work
1. A program is a group of of activities that share the same objectives. Please share the goal of the program, and then describe the objectives that the activities in this program share.

This Goal relates to our support for communities other than our own community of WMUK volunteers (for which, see 2.1 above). Some of these other communities are outside the UK - such as other Wikimedia chapters and organisations - while others are UK-based but separate from WMUK (some local Wikimeets, special interest, language-based and ad hoc groupings). Some communities are Wikimedia project-based (Wikipedia WikiProjects, Commons photographic competitions). Finally, we want to engage with non-Wikimedia open knowledge groups whose missions are aligned with our own. We are aiming to work with other Wikimedia communities and organisations in an open way to facilitate shared learning across the entire movement. We will encourage and provide support to other Wikimedia communities to help them develop, diversify and thrive. We will play a leading role in sharing good practice and acting as a focus for debate. We will work with non-Wikimedia open knowledge groups to further our open knowledge vision.

The objectives (outcomes) are:

  • G5.1 A thriving set of other Wikimedia communities
  • G5.2 An increased diversity of Wikimedia contributors
  • G5.3 Wikimedia communities are skilled and capable.
  • G5.4 Open knowledge communities with missions similar to our own are thriving.


2. How do your program objectives focus on the Wikimedia strategic priorities?

The Wikimedia strategic priority focused on here is Increase participation.

Similarly as with Programme 2a, we are aiming to activate more volunteers with our work - in this context though we are focusing on communities external of Wikimedia UK (either international Wikimedia volunteers, or open knowledge groups with aims similar to ours). We will be supporting these external groups and sharing our knowledge with them, and also bringing them closer in cooperation with us, increasing their participation in our activities. We are a chapter that’s well placed geographically, fairly senior in experience and development, and able to work with other communities.


3. Please list the specific, measurable, timebound targets you plan to achieve through this program. Please include both qualitative targets and quantitative targets.

These targets are to be achieved in a year 2015-16 of our activity plan unless stated otherwise.

Outcome (from our Strategic Goals) Outcome Measure 2014 target (to 31 Jan 2015) 2015 target (to 31 Jan 2016)
G5.1 A thriving set of other Wikimedia communities Funding to support other chapters and Wikimedia groups £10000 £15000
Activities held for or jointly with other chapters and Wikimedia groups 7 (including G5.2 and G5.3 events) 8
Total shared activity units [ 13 ] in shared activities [ 14 ] with other chapters and Wikimedia groups 150 (including G5.2 and G5.3 events) 160
Number of UK based Wikimedia events other than WMUK events Report only Report only - it's not something we directly influence
G5.2 An increased diversity of Wikimedia contributors Activities specifically directed to supporting the diversity of other chapters and Wikimedia groups 1 3
G5.3 Wikimedia communities are skilled and capable Activities specifically directed to help train or to share knowledge with other chapters and Wikimedia groups 1 1
G5.4 Open knowledge communities with missions similar to our own are thriving. Number of shared activities [ 14 ] hosted with groups or organisations having similar goals to WMUK 5 12
Total shared activity units [ 13] in shared activities [ 14 ] hosted with groups or organisations having similar goals to WMUK 40 60


4. Please describe how your program activities will lead to the results you are planning, or describe or link to a logic model for your program.
 
The Open Coaltion logo

Open Space Advocacy - Open Coalition

Open Space Advocacy consists of our policy work - explained in Programme 3, and building the Open Coalition of organisations with similar aims, outlined below.

The Open Coalition is a voluntary affiliation of open organisations and individuals, which exists to further the aims and objectives of open practices and knowledge sharing across the Web. We have begun to build on our relationships with other open knowledge organisations through the part time post of Open Coalition Coordinator, planning to make it permanent. This allows for the appropriate capacity to develop this area. We are creating outcomes through shared activities that can have an impact on policy makers and public opinion formers. For progress reports see here. Wikimania gave us several big opportunities to bring together UK and world coalition partners together. These relationships are already bearing fruit and we are proposing that we maintain our investment in this area, demonstrating commitment to the open movement.

Many of the biggest players in the sector are already involved, including Creative Commons, Open Knowledge, PLOS and Mozilla. Many smaller groups also participate on an equal footing. Two events planned for early in 2015 will magnify the impact. Some of the biggest outcomes will take time but we have effectively placed ourselves at the heart of a great network as a leader and we are being recognised for this.

By collaborating with open institutions - which often don’t normally collaborate - we are bringing important partners together, making them more active, and so strengthening the open knowledge movement in the UK.


 
The Community Village at Wikimania 2014 which WMUK helped organise

International Support

As a chapter we are very well placed for these activities. We have made excellent progress in this playing a full role in supporting other chapters and working closely with the Foundation, for example through active engagement with the Wikipedia Education Collaborative to provide a support network for global movement efforts in that specific area, and our partnership work with the Wikimedia communities in India, Ghana, South Africa and Ireland. For an update on the first 6 months of the current activity year, please see G5 on our progress report [8].

We produce in-house materials that we make sure can be picked up and used by other chapters (e.g. the Wikimedian in Residence report). We also have the capacity to carry out this area of work, as trustees, staff, and volunteers all contribute to in during their work with Wikimedia UK. Many areas of our work are extremely useful to the movement, and is shared in various ways. For example, our volunteers created an outward facing video about Wikimedia UK's GLAM activities which was premiered at Wikimania 2014 - [9]. We run knowledge sharing events - such as governance workshops or international Train the Trainers (we have given advice to other chapters that were interested in implementing the programme in their countries).

We will continue work in this area, especially with a view to supporting smaller chapters if we are to play the role we claim. We should expect to play a leading role in this area over the next five years through financial support, sharing expertise and building relationships. The feedback received showed value of sharing our knowledge with others, which strengthens the whole of the movement.

Organising Wikimania built relationships with all the other chapters and our office hosted many meetings that will create future synergies.

This activity supports the goal of this programme, because through providing support for the other chapters, we give them opportunities to gain knowledge and confidence to carry out their own projects, which in turn makes them more active in the movement.

On behalf of Wikimedia ZA I want to express our happiness with the support Wikimedia UK gave us for WikiIndaba. If it was not for the generous support of Wikimedia UK to charter a bus we would not have been able to transport our attendees to the Creative Commons event in Johannesburg.

— Douglas Scott, Wikimedia South Africa


I am grateful for the support you have provided in the last couple of years to the movement in India. WMUK is one chapter that WMIN has collaborated with on a regular basis. Be it the GLAM Collaboration with National Museum in New Delhi or your facilitation for training of WMIN board members, India has always benefitted from WMUK support. Even today India continues receive support on a matter of national importance to India that you and your team are playing a major part in.

— Pranav Curumsey, Wikimedian in India


As part of our global mission to improve medical content on the Wikimedia projects, we value our collaborations with Wikimedia UK highly. When we plan an event in the UK, we are able to quickly tap into the local knowledge and contacts that WMUK has already established

— Doug Taylor, Board Member, WikiProject Med Foundation


Staff and contractors: upcoming year's annual plan

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1. Please describe your organization's staffing plan or strategy here, or provide a link to your organization's staffing plan or organogram.

Following a staffing review and planning for our programme we are proposing the following management structure. This is intended to create enough staff capacity to deliver our programme at a high impact level while supporting grassroots activities.

 
2. List of staff by department or function.
Numbers for current staff should include staff your organization has hired or plans to hire in this current funding period, and proposed staff should include staff your organization will hire in the upcoming funding period. You should include both permanent staff and longterm contractors in this table and list the number of fulltime equivalents, where one fulltime staff person would be 1.0 (for example, if your organization has 2 part-time staff working at 50% each in a department then you would list the number of fulltime equivalents (FTEs) as 1.0, while if your organization has 1 full-time staff person working at 100% then you would also list the number of fulltime equivalents as 1.0).

Table 4

Department or function FTEs by end of current year FTEs by end of upcoming year Explanation of changes
Chief Executive 1.0 1.0
Office & Finance 2.5 2.5
Programme 3.9 4.9 Some roles to be revised to concentrate on high-impact work and monitoring and evaluation. includes hire of a Programme Support Manager to ensure enough staff capacity to maintain programmes and support grassroots work (G1 and G2).
External Relations 1.0 1.0
Fundraising staff 1.0 2.0 Role to be revised to concentrate on high level external funding work, with an assistant being hired to concentrate on day-to-day management.
Wikimania support staff 4.0[2] 0.0 Staff hired last year to deliver Wikimania - not continuing to this year.
Software Developer 0.0[3] 0.0 Unable to recruit at salary offered. Instead, we will hire the below "Chief Technical Officer" post.
Chief Technical Officer (CTO) 0.0 1.0 To enable delivery of our target to encourage and support technical innovation (G4) after the Scoping Review recommended a revised post with more seniority than Software Developer.
Total (should equal the sum of the rows): 13.4 12.4 Reflects our plans to deliver our programme more SMARTly.
Total staff expenses (currency requested) 368,212[4] 463,066
Total staff expenses ($US) 611,306 768,782

Table 4 notes:

3. Did your organization made any significant changes to your staffing plan since publishing your organization's most current annual plan at the beginning of the funding period, such as hiring more or fewer staff than planned or hiring staff on a different schedule than planned? Please describe any significant changes here.

WMUK made several changes to our published plan.

  • We employed a part-time accountant to bring accounting functions in-house, thereby saving on outside fees and further refining our accounting procedures.
  • We employed a fundraising assistant on a fixed term four month contract to enable the development of a long term fundraising strategy.
  • We employed four fixed term contract staff, paid for in part by the Foundation, to coordinate Wikimania.
  • We failed to appoint to the Developer post on the salary we were offering and are proposing a CTO on a more realistic salary.
4. What overall percentage of staff time is spent directly on programmes?
  • In Q1 2013-14 we spent 64% of staff time on programmes, and in Q2 72%. We expect Q3 and Q4 2014-15 to be similar.[5]

Financials: upcoming year's annual plan

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Detailed budget: upcoming year's annual plan

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Please link to your organization's detailed budget. This may be a document included on this Wiki (Meta) or as a publicly available spreadsheet.


Table 5

Anticipated revenues for the upcoming funding period
Revenue source Currency requested US dollars Status (e.g. guaranteed, application)


Grant from FDC 405,000 672,381 Requested.
UK Direct Debit Income 250,000 415,050 Not yet collected, but virtually guaranteed.
Gift Aid Income 32,000 53,126 Not yet collected, but virtually guaranteed.
Existing Revenue Streams 55,000 91,311 Estimated.
New External Revenue Streams 70,000 116,214 Estimated.
Total revenues (should equal the sum of the rows): 812,000 1,348,082 -


Table 5 notes: If your organization has significant funding other than FDC funds, please note how those funds will be used.

  • The funds, other than FDC funds, will be used for the benefit of the public, to promote and support the widest possible public access to, use of and contribution to Open Content of an encyclopaedic or educational nature or of similar utility to the general public, in particular the Open Content supported and provided by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., based in San Francisco, California, USA.

Non-FDC, independently generated funds will always be used should any activities be funded that might constitute 'political or legislative activities' as per this agreement. Any such activities would strictly adhere to UK Charity Law.

Operating reserves: upcoming year's annual plan

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Please use this table to report information about your organization's planned operating reserves. Since this information is included here, you should not include it as part of your planned program or operational expenses. There are some restrictions about how much FDC funding your organization can use to build up your reserves.


Table 6

Local currency $US
Total anticipated amount in operating reserves (by the end of the current fiscal year) 229,000 380,186
Total existing reserves from the current year to be carried over as reserves in the upcoming year 229,000 380,186
Total to be added to reserves in the upcoming year (excluding FDC funding) 0 0
Total to be added to reserves in the upcoming year from FDC funding only 0 0
Total planned reserves in the upcoming year (should equal the sum of the rows except the first): 229,000 380,186


Table 6 notes:

  • This year, unlike previous years, we have ceased deficit spending. We are able to do this because our fundraising team will be working primarily on raising funds from non-WMF sources, rather than using up movement resources.


Expenses: upcoming year's annual plan

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1. Expenses by program (excludes staff and operations).
Program expenses are the costs associated specifically with your organization's programmes. These costs do not include operating expenses or staff salaries, which will be described in separate tables. For example, program expenses may be the costs of an event, the costs of outreach materials specific to a program, budgets for microgrants and reimbursements, or technical costs associated with specific programmes. The programmes listed in this table should correspond to the programmes you have listed in the programmes section of this proposal form.


Table 7

Program / initiative In currency requested In $US
G1 Develop open knowledge 92,000 152,738
G2.1 Develop, involve and engage WMUK volunteers 58,000 96,292
G2.2 Use effective and high quality governance and resource management processes[6] 0 0
G3 Reduce barriers to accessing open knowledge 25,000 41,505
G4 Encourage and support technological innovation 36,000 59,767
G5 Develop, support, and engage with other Wikimedia and open knowledge communities 10,000 16,602
Total program expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 221,000 366,904

Table 7 notes: If your organization has significant funding other than FDC funds, please note how those funds will be used.

  • Funds other than FDC funds will be used for the benefit of the public, to promote and support the widest possible public access to, use of and contribution to Open Content of an encyclopaedic or educational nature or of similar utility to the general public, in particular the Open Content supported and provided by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., based in San Francisco, California, USA.


2. Total expenses. Please use this table to summarize your organization's total expenses overall.
These are divided into three expenses categories: (1) staff expenses from Table 4 (including staff expenses for both staff working on programs and operations), (2) expenses for programs from Table 7 (does not include staff expenses or operations expenses), and (3) expenses for operations (does not include staff expenses or program expenses). Be sure to check the totals in this table to make sure they are consistent with the totals in the other tables you have submitted with this form. For example, your total program expenses excluding staff will be equal to the total in Table 7, while your total staff expenses will be equal to the total in Table 4 and your total expenses will be equal to the total in Table 1.


Table 8

Expense type In currency requested In $US
Program expenses (total from Table 7, excludes staff) 221,000 366,904
Operations (excludes staff and programs) 127,800 212,174
Upcoming staff total expenses (from Table 4) 463,066 768,782
Amount to be added to reserves in the upcoming year (from Table 6) 0 0
Total expenses (should equal the sum of the rows) 811,866 1,347,860

Table 8 notes:


DESCRIPTION SUBJECT TO CHANGE: During 2014-2015 Round 1 we will be launching a multi-year funding pilot program where APG applicants can request a two-year funding commitment from the FDC. Participating organizations will provide the FDC with information about milestones for two-year programs during the next year's proposal cycle (2015-2016 Round 1), as well as with their annual plans and budgets for the second year.

Not all organizations will be participating in this program since it is a pilot, and a list of organizations eligible to apply for multi-year funding will be announced soon. This section is included in the current version of the proposal form, to ensure that it is available to any organizations that might need it if they are participating in the pilot. Please do not complete this section unless you know your organization is eligible to participate in this pilot program.

1. Will your organization be seeking a two-year funding commitment from the FDC during this proposal cycle?
  • We believe that long term planning will assist our programme development and are therefore providing the five milestones, one from each of our Strategic Goal programme areas, that we expect to reach by September 2015. We believe we have the financial and management stability to be able to manage this pilot proposal.
2. Please use this table to show which programs you will continue over a two-year period and list some milestones that you would like to report on after the first 8 months of your programs (to be achieved by 1 September 2015)

OPTIONAL: Multi-year funding pilot program

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DESCRIPTION SUBJECT TO CHANGE: As part of this pilot program, your organization will be asked to report on milestones reached by 1 September 2015 for your two-year programs by 1 October 2015. This information will be reviewed by the FDC during the 2015-2016 Round 1 proposal cycle, along with your annual plan and budget for the second year of funding, after which the second year of funding will be released by the FDC.

Table 9

Program name Start date Completion date Milestones (by 1 September 2015) Notes
Programme 1 - Develop open knowledge 01 February 2015 31 January 2017 Objective: The quantity of open knowledge continues to increase.

Milestone: The sum of positive edit size reaches 6,000,000 bytes

Our Programme Proposals document outlines the plans for 2015-16 activity year. Additionally, it scopes the future direction of major long term activities - in the context of 2016-19. These long term proposals are outlined below.

For Programme 1 see Partnerships and Education section below.

Programme 1 - Develop open knowledge 01 February 2015 31 January 2017 Objective: The quality of open knowledge continues to improve.

Milestone: 55 WMUK files have quality image status on Commons

See notes on programmes below.
Programme 2a - Develop, involve and engage WMUK volunteers 01 February 2015 31 January 2017 Objective: We have a thriving community of WMUK volunteers.

Milestone: 870 activity units (definition)

See notes on programmes below.
Programme 3 - Reduce barriers to accessing open knowledge 01 February 2015 31 January 2017 Objective: Legislative and institutional changes favour the release of open knowledge.

Milestone: We will keep the narrative qualitative target in this area (Involvement in EU and UK advocacy activities; Involvement in advocating legislative change within GLAM, Education, and other organisations). We aim to reach 2 stories of effected legislative changes in institutions we work with.

See notes on programmes below.
Programme 5 - Develop, support, and engage with other Wikimedia and open knowledge communities 01 February 2015 31 January 2017 Objective: A thriving set of other Wikimedia communities.

Milestone: 90 shared activity units in shared activities with other chapters and Wikimedia groups (see definitions - [10])

See notes on programmes below.

Table 9 notes:

These are key points from our 2015-16 Programme proposals that seek to look forward over the next three years, 2016-19. Some of this may be prioritised earlier of course depending on two major reviews we are currently undertaking.

Programme 1
  • Building major partnerships - We will use it as a chance to reinforce other areas, such as Education, GLAM, Extended Reach. Major partnerships with umbrella bodies can help us influence many organisations in the sector and convince them to release their content and work with us on improving the quality of the content.
  • Education work - We have plans in place to expand the Wikipedia Classroom Assignments to a wider number of institutions.


Programme 2a
  • Regional work - We will seek funding support from the regions to establish staff and if possible bases as a centre for WMUK partnerships and volunteer activities and support - this will help to account for regional differences in e.g. education structure. At the same time we will need to be careful to keep our messaging and approaches similar across all regions.
  • Supporting community activities - We will pilot building ‘role profiles’ and recruit volunteers for some public facing outreach work. We will look to build resources for volunteers to be able to deliver their projects (e.g. training portal with lesson slides, information etc).


Programme 3
  • GLAM programmes - We will aim for culture change in the sector - work with umbrella organisations/government (the funders of the GLAM institutions). We will be leading on advice about reusing material for GLAM institutions in the UK.
  • Open Space advocacy - Over 2016-19 there will be a continuation of our work and we can begin to see our influence grow. We will be a contact of choice for those policy makers in the fields of open, tech and education. We will begin to see wider acceptance of open licensing, open content and greater understanding of the impact our projects have as educational tools. We will begin to see the regulatory framework relating to copyright and public domain licensing move in our favour.
  • Wikimedians in Residence - We will develop more umbrella advocates for open knowledge and media donations - especially if supporting the major partnerships work.


Programme 4

Please note that the Programme 4 does not have a two year Milestone above. Depending on the progress of the developer post, by September 2015 we may have created a comprehensive plan for IT. However, it is not certain at this stage whether it will take place. If it does, in the longer term we would look to develop a portfolio of IT projects. Some of significant international importance, others aimed at a more UK focus. We will aim to be seen as a partner of the Foundation in rolling out new software and developing community initiatives.


Programme 5
  • Open Coalition - Through external funding the Open Coalition Coordinator post should become permanent - whether hosted at Wikimedia UK or at external organisations on a rolling basis. Office space to always be available for the Coalition. The network, with WMUK at its heart, is substantial, outcomes in terms of collaborations, knowledge sharing and Coalition membership as well as joint projects, funded by external sources or joint Coalition partner funding. The Coalition will continue to work with partners to produce materials which give insight into how to use open practices and best practice - these are to be shared with organisations outside the movement to grow the understanding of the value of openness beyond the usual players in the open sector. The Coalition will have a clearly stated and publicly articulated strategic plan, which correlates to the funding runway. It will be an effective and recognised as the leading voice in the UK and EU. It will become recognised as a significant voice in the open sector.
  • Supporting the international community - In 2016-19 we will nurture new chapters and support those that have developed further. We will be seen as the leading voice of the UK community, a leader in the EU community and a resource recognised by the whole international community.



The FDC or FDC staff may reach out to you for more information about your two-year plans as part of this pilot program, or may need to make changes to this section of the proposal form based on early learnings from this pilot. Participating organizations, please bear with us.

Verification that this proposal requests no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation for political or legislative activities

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Please enter "yes" or "no" for the verification below.

The term “political or legislative activities” includes any activities relating to political campaigns or candidates (including the contribution of funds and the publication of position statements relating to political campaigns or candidates); voter registration activities; meetings with or submissions and petitions to government executives, ministers, officers or agencies on political or policy issues; and any other activities seeking government intervention or policy implementation (like “lobbying”), whether directed toward the government or the community or public at large. Grants for such activities (when permitted under U.S. law and IRS regulations) should be sought from the Wikimedia Foundation Project and Event Grants Program .
I verify that this proposal requests no funds from the Wikimedia Foundation for political or legislative activities Yes

Once this proposal is complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.


Please do not make any changes to this proposal form after the proposal submission deadline for this round. If a change that is essential to an understanding of your organization's proposal is needed, please request the change on the discussion page of this form so it may be reviewed by FDC staff. Once submitted, complete and valid proposal forms submitted on time by eligible organizations will be considered unless an organization withdraws its application in writing.

  1. ie: excluding events aimed at promoting gender diversity
  2. Not included in original staff cost projections
  3. Planned to be 1.0, but never actually hired!
  4. Figure excludes Wikimania staff who were not included in original staff cost projections and were part-funded by the WMF.
  5. In previous years we were not apportioning staff time across projects as part of our accounts, but in 2013-14 80% of our total expenditure was on charitable projects.
  6. This is not covered by program expenditure, but instead is a more general goal which directs our administration and governance decisions