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Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round1/Wikimedia Argentina/Impact report form

< Grants:APG | Proposals | 2015-2016 round1 | Wikimedia Argentina


Purpose of the report

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This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their results to date. For progress reports, the time period for this report will the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). For impact reports, the time period for this report will be the full 12 months of this grant, including the period already reported on in the progress report (e.g. 1 January - 31 December of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Global metrics overview - all programs

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We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees' programs. Please use the table below to let us know how your programs contributed to the Global Metrics. We understand not all Global Metrics will be relevant for all programs, so feel free to put "0" where necessary. For each program include the following table and

  1. Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
  3. In addition to the Global Metrics as measures of success for your programs, there is another table format in which you may report on any OTHER relevant measures of your programs success

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Education Program

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Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 64 See the details here
2. # of new editors 995 See the details here
3. # of individuals involved 2463 See the details here
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 64 See the details here
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 1112 See the details here
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects n/a


GLAM Program

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Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 310 See the details here
2. # of new editors 726 See the details here
3. # of individuals involved 2622 See the details here
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 1383 images uploaded
273 books= 35,000 pages uploaded to Wikimedia Commons 		See the details here
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 9651 See the details here
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects n/a n/a


Community Support Program

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Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 189 See the details here
2. # of new editors 85 See the details here
3. # of individuals involved 1269 See the details here
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages Out of program's scope Supported 3000 images
See the details here
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects Out of program's scope +3000 articles created
See the details here
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects n/a n/a


Highlights 2016

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During 2016 WMAR promoted activities that consolidated our programs. In particular we want to highlight the following results:

2015 2016 Growth (%)
People involved 5430 6354 +17%
Activities conducted 71 activities 110 activities +55%
Institutions involved 31 42 +35%
Articles created or improved. 5274 10763 +104%
Content released 17,000 36383 +114%
Volunteers involved 96 + 67 Wikiambassadors = 164 170 aprox. +4%
Women involved 1485 (27.3%) 1741 (27.4%) +17%
Press released 33 program mentions 50 +52%
People retained 36 editors retained (after 2-6 months) 55 editors retained (after 2-6 months) +53%
Tutorials created/designed 21 9 -57%.

Used those from last year

Iberocoop activities 4 12 +200%

Education Program

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  • WIKILESA
    WIKILESA
  • Photo tour with students from the University of Buenos Aires'
    Photo tour with students from the University of Buenos Aires'
  • Teacher's training
    Teacher's training

Summary
The Education Program is one of the three main programs of Wikimedia Argentina. During 2015-2016 we focused on strengthening our relationships with private and public institutions that are well known in our country’s educational field. We developed both online and onsite activities for elementary, high school and university educators and students.

Reformulated objectives:

  • Consolidating remote trainings as the trademark of WMAR’s Education Program.
  • Increasing the participation of the educators’ community in the activities of the Program, fostering proposals that adjust to local schedules and contexts.
  • Increasing the use of Wikipedia in the classroom and encouraging educators to be project leaders in their institutions.

Onsite education: Working with students and educators with Wikipedia in the classroom

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Short Summary:
During the 2015-2016 period, we carried out many activities with students and educators at the national level. Our main objective at the university level was the development of activities dedicated to work on specific subjects in academic spaces together with researchers, teachers and students. At the same time we continue working on the development of face-to-face trainings with teachers and high schools students with the aim of strengthen the use of Wikipedia in classrooms.

Success: Activities with university students and experts on specific subjects

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Working on Human Rights with university students
During 2015-2016 we carried out four activities called "Wikilesa", designed to edit the existing content in Wikipedia regarding crimes against humanity during the Argentinean civil-military dictatorship. Together with Cosecha Roja -a journalistic medium in Argentina on this subject- we trained educators, university students and researchers so they can use Wikipedia correctly, edit and improve existing content or create new one. We organized the activities in a similar way to an edit-a-thon in universities –University of Avellaneda - and Human Rights and Memory-related places like the Space for Memory and Human Rights (Former ESMA). Wikilesa has become a WMAR trademark and a way to construct social condemnation and contributing to the processes of Memory, Truth and Justice in our country. This work mode, that involves university experts on the subject, has allowed us to:

  • Increase Wikipedia’s quality content: during the four Wikilesa sessions, we created and edited 78 articles regarding Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity.
  • Incorporate new specialized editors to Wikipedia: we got over 60 new specialized editors involved as university students, judges, journalists, etc. 16 of them remain active.

Also, getting the educational community involved in specific subjects has turned Wikipedia into a space for social recognition. This year, we will continue expanding the Wikilesa experience.We are currently working with Iberocoop to scale and fundraise the initiative regionally.

Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
4 Education edit-a-thons 2 2 4 n/a
200 students involved 204 105 135 n/a
Women involved n/a n/a 52 Means the 38% of the total
At least 20 articles created/improved 30 59 78 71% new articles
3 editors retained 1 n/a 16 16 remain active after 6 months adding +59673 byttes added.


Gating factors: Wikipedia in the classroom

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During the 2015-2016 period, we carried out 15 in-person training courses for educators and students at universities level and high schools level around Argentina.The aim of the trainings is to raise awareness about the use of Wikipedia in the classroom.
This objective worked much better at university level than at high school level during 2016. Despite trainning +350 school teachers the results weren’t the expected mainly because we didn’t know how to overcome the lack of internet and we carry out trainings that didn't give teachers enough confidence, tools and support to use Wikipedia in the classroom.
We have learnt that for a WEP to be successful, we need:

  • At least one motivated professor, with a specific occasion to use Wikipedia in his/her classes.
  • A professor properly trained for the activity
  • A correct support and guidance from WMAR Education Program

To solve these difficulties we have designed two new activities for 2017: “Edition Club” and “Wikipedia at your university”. The first focused on high schools, aims to work through 3 instances with teachers and students, training them correctly, accompanying the teachers in the classroom and supporting the students in the edition. On the other hand, the university training has been extended to 3 days where teachers and students learn how to edit according their area of interest. This last activity has been already carried out as a pilot test with very good results.

Pilot test: Training at the National University of Rio Negro:

In May 2016, we carried out a pilot activity within the frame of our training courses for educators. We did it at the National University of Río Negro, with professors and researchers. The proposal came from an educator that summoned us, and with whom we designed a training format that gave us the expected results. The training course for educators lasted three days and we worked with the same group of educators every day. During the training course, we worked on the basic notions behind the Wikimedia projects and the edition of Wikipedia. Each educator had to edit an article related to his/her academic field. The fact that it was a three-day course helped to create an excellent work environment and we had time to answer all the educators’ questions. Beyond the edited articles the most impressive result came afterwards: 4 educators have remained active editors of Wikipedia. This is undoubtedly one of our main objectives for this new kind of training courses: to add more editors, but, fundamentally, to make educators feel comfortable with their role as editors, helping them understand how Wikipedia works and, lastly, to encourage them to incorporate Wikipedia into the classroom.

Despite the difficulties, we are still working to get educators to use Wikipedia in the classroom as an educational tool. Our goal is to sustain the work we’ve been doing satisfactorily and to replicate this experience in other universities of our country during 2017.


Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Number of participants n/a 28 28 n/a
Number of articles created/improved during the activity n/a 31 61 n/a
Number of volunteers involved n/a 1 1 n/a
Number of institutions involved n/a 1 1 This university is our partner of the Education Program 2017.
Number of editors retained n/a n/a 4 4 remain active after 6 months.
Number of women n/a n/a 21 75% of participants
% of satisfaction n/a n/a 96% 96% of the participants was satisfied with the training and learning.


Onsite trainings with high school teachers and students

During 2016 we worked with high school students and teachers mainly in the province of Misiones, in the North of our country, in a project called “Wikimisiones”. The aim was to involve teachers and students to improve the existing content on Wikipedia about their province.
The project included 3 stages, the last 2 carried out in 2016, that were organized as follow:

  • We trained the teachers involved in Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons during 2 days in May 2016.
  • From May to October, teachers and students worked in designing education activities to use Wikipedia in the classroom.
  • In October 2016, each school presented their projects and results in an event that involved + 1100 people.

What did work?

  • Teachers developed a critical thinking regarding Wikipedia and its use in the classroom. This can be seen in the 97 projects designed by them and presented in the final event.
  • Qualitatively, the project achieved good results: we improved the reach of our education program, we increase the participation and we build a local community.
  • We involve the right partners. The project was led by the Ministry of Education of the province.

What did not?

  • It was very difficult to give a personalized follow-up to each teacher.
  • A great number of schools had a lack of Internet which made very difficult the teacher’s work.
  • The results were not good in terms of content according to the number of institutions, teachers and students involved.

Challenges to face:

  • We need specialized volunteers that can provide support locally, per example a community of mentors.
  • In order to have the results expected, it is necessary to work with fewer schools, teachers and students.
  • The lack of internet is very common in all the Argentine provinces. For the project to be a success, we need to partner with a technology enterprise, which can help us provide Internet to the schools.
  • Despite the distance we need to find the way of being more present in the development of the project, supporting mentors, teachers and students on a more regular basis.

However and as a matter of fact, we have already been contacted to bring our activities to other provinces of our country, with whom we will carrying out our “Editing Club” proposal in 2017.

Main results of Wikimisiones

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
100 teachers trained 261 285 559 Only Wikimisiones project.
700 students trained 1200 n/a 410 Only Wikimisiones project.
100 articles improved/created (50 of quality) n/a n/a 41 Mainly minor improvements
Number of institutions involved n/a n/a 97 Teachers from 97 schools around the province.
Number of volunteers 59 59 59 Stable work group since 2015.
Number of women n/a n/a 767 60% of participants


Onsite education main learnings

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  • We have reached the conclusion that when the activities are linked to a specific subject, production and commitment increase.
  • Training courses for educators must last at least three days, so we can introduce the proposal and then practice the experience of editing Wikipedia.
  • Training sessions should be designed together with the educators, counting on the support of local mentors who know what we need to work on and how to do it in their territories.


Remote Education: Online courses as the base of WMAR’s Education Program

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Short Summary:
The main project of WMAR’s Education Program are the online courses on how to use Wikipedia aimed at training educators. After three years’ experience, we have reached the conclusion that this is the activity with greatest national outreach and we see that it continues to be well received by the educational community of our country. Our goal is that what we teach in the online courses becomes visible in the classrooms, with educators as protagonists.

Success: Online course

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During the 2015-2016 period, we carried out two editions of MOOC Wikipuentes aimed at educators of the entire country. The course was designed in two different ways along the year. What worked best was to offer a course not longer than 5 weeks, focused on practicing Wikipedia edition. Beyond the numbers of edited articles and people involved, Wikimedia Argentina’s MOOC is a proposal that we deem successful for several reasons:

a) Firstly, it is an online course designed by WMAR in our own online platform. This gave us the freedom to organize the course adjusting it to the school calendar.
b) Participants edited on subjects of their own interest: at the beginning of the course we carried out a survey to define what they wanted to edit about.
c) We counted on the support and follow-up of active editors as volunteers who answered the participants’ questions and helped them to begin editing.
d) And lastly, this course has been recognized, supported and promoted by the largest and most important educational organizations of the country.

This has generated:

  • The inclusion of educators of all Argentinean provinces during 2016.
  • The consolidation of the educators’ training proposal at a national scale, since we work with tools that are necessary for the educational community, and are also free and inclusive.
  • High retention of participants - 41 in 2016
  • The establishment of new counterparts for the Education Program, mainly universities.

After four editions, the MOOC finally grew and became a training proposal for educators at a national scale. We could work with educators of different fields and different educational levels (elementary and high school, universities). Getting to know the prejudices they had regarding the use of the Wikimedia Projects in their classrooms has helped us to deconstruct school myths about the reliability of Wikipedia as an educational tool.

Side effect: adding new professors to the Education Program

One of the results of the online course was the incorporation of new counterparts, like universities. In this sense, during 2016 we supported an educator who participated in the third edition of Wikipuentes designing activities to take the Wikimedia Projects to the university.
Thanks to the knowledge she acquired in the Wikipuentes course, she could work with over 50 architecture students on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia. The activity she designed included a photographic tour around Buenos Aires’ architectural landmarks where students- working on groups- took photographs that they later uploaded to Wikimedia Commons to be included in Wikipedia articles.

We followed up the entire activity by training students and educators on how to upload the images to Wikimedia Commons as well as teaching them how to improve articles by positioning images. This activity has been extremely relevant. We have been able to transfer online participants in offline activities as educator’s ambassadors. This is one of our great challenges in 2017.

Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
500 new editors 311 184 361 n/a
320 articles improved 11 263 680 n/a
600 participants 315 311 661 661 started the online courses
10 projects designed by teachers n/a 31 85 n/a
Participant dropout (40%) 55% 39% 41% n/a
Editors retention (35) n/a n/a 41 n/a
% of satisfaction n/a n/a 94% 96% of the participants was satisfied with the training and learning.
% of diversity n/a n/a 71% 71% of the teachers coming from inland provinces in Argentina.
Replicability in Iberocoop n/a n/a n/a Postponed to 2017


Online course learnings
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  • It is essential to have our own online platform that adjusts to the educational calendar and to the needs of educators.
  • It is necessary to offer proposals that get educators involved in editing and in the practice of using Wikipedia.
  • We need to produce material that answers the specific doubts that arise during the editing process and provide constant follow-up.
  • We need a team of mentors who know the tools and can provide support during the process.
  • We need the support of expert users who can follow up on new editions.

GLAM Program

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  • Wikipedian in residence giving a lecture
    Wikipedian in residence giving a lecture
  • Wikiarte edit-a-thon
    Wikiarte edit-a-thon
  • Edit-a-thon in the Hotel de Inmigrantes
    Edit-a-thon in the Hotel de Inmigrantes

Summary
The GLAM program is one of Wikimedia Argentina’s three main programs. During the 2015-2016 period, the program focused on its professionalization and on making its foundation more visible to the non-wikimedian public in order to generate new alliances, specifically to incorporate new niche communities and the figure of the Wikipedian in Residence.

Objectives 2016:

  • Professionalization of the GLAM Program in order to generate new partnerships.
  • To give prominence to the figure of the WIR as an expert on free licenses and content digitalization.
  • To generate alliances with other Spanish-speaking Wikimedia chapters and promoting both online and offline activities with greater global impact.

Professionalizing the GLAM program

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Success: Inclusion of an itinerant Wikipedian in Residence

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In 2016, our team decided to incorporate a WIR to work as a specialized link between the Wikimedia platforms and cultural institutions, for the digitalization program. Mauricio V. Genta, WMAR volunteer and partner, was chosen for the position, given his knowledge on free licenses and librarianship.

The figure of an itinerant WIR was necessary, given the characteristics of Argentinean cultural institutions: their limited resources (computers, scanners, software etc.) make it impossible to carry out a traditional residency program. Being regularly present in all institutions that participate in the program has allowed us to strengthen the bond with them, by improving communication and results in general. It has also helped to establish the debate on free licenses in the realm of Argentinean cultural patrimony.

This new itinerant figure compelled us to identify and define tasks according to the work possibilities of each institution. The WIR is in charge of training and assigning resources for the institutions, so they can digitalize their own material while he works with the institution’s digitized material uploaded to the Wikimedia projects. Through this mode of operation, we could not only improve the project’s rhythm but also incorporate other projects and communities besides Commons and Wikipedia, such as Wikidata and Wikisource.

The project was carried out during 2016 in the following institutions and with the following results:

Institution Number of trainings Pages uploaded to Wikimedia Commons Pages added/improved on Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikisource
Academia Argentina de Letras 1 35,000 pages (264 books) 386 new articles in Wikidata
1600 pages in Wikisource
10 articles improved in Wikipedia
Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes 2 487 pages (6 books) 51 articles improved in Wikipedia
18 new articles en Wikidata
Archivo Histórico de la Provincia de Buenos Aires 2 600 pages (3 books) 3 articles in Wikidata
Biblioteca del Senado de la Provincia de Buenos Aires 1 Not yet started Not yet started
Total 6 36,087 pages
273 books		 2068 articles created/improved

Compared to the 2015 results, the digitalization project grew by 112% in terms of the amount of digitized material. However, we still have challenges to face, in part due to political changes that have influenced directly within the cultural partners we work with. This can be seen in the material we have released this year. During 2015 we released mostly historical Argentine images. In 2016 we planned to continue working on this line -between 4000-6000 images according to our annual grant- but institutional priorities changed, focusing on books. This has meant having to sign new agreements with all cultural institutions and has also involved redefining the approach of the digitizing project.
The positive effect of changing priorities has been:

  • We have a huge collection of books of Argentine literature of great historical value.
  • Books have allowed us to work with other projects besides Wikipedia. 97% of the books released have been used to created new articles in Wikidata. As well, 12 of them have been completed in Wikisource (this activity continues).

Challenges:

  • We need to delineate concrete work plans with the cultural institutions to ensure that the released material is useful to the Wikimedia Argentina community. Per example, we continue to struggle to access to their photographic heritage, which we know is of great value to the Argentinean community of editors.


Side effects of incorporating a WIR: working with thematic communities

The inclusion of our WIR translated not only into the professionalization of the digitalization, but also the strengthening and definition of the GLAM Program. Until 2016, the program lacked a clear strategy regarding projects and activities. Incorporating a WIR has helped us to organize the work with different institutions better, with the goal of enhancing our presence in strategic cultural environments. One of the main results has been the incorporation of new partner with the goal of facing one of our biggest challenges: to incorporate more and better images of Argentina to Wikipedia through a community of photographers. Wikimedia Argentina promoted Wiki Loves Monuments and Wikitour from 2012 to 2016, but we decided not to pursue with the activity because after working on the evaluation with two Wikimedia Commons administrators who are volunteers of Wikimedia Argentina, we concluded that:

  • The number of images dropped abruptly from one year to the next: from 6000 images uploaded in 2012 to 300 images in 2016
  • The contest never translated into the retention of new participants as active editors: after 4 years, around the 80% of the participants, only participated for the contests.
  • We verified that around 70% of the images produced through theses initiatives were already included in Wikimedia Commons.
  • To combine the photography contest with an edition contest (Wikitour 2016) hasn’t mean an increase of editors involved, images uploaded or articles improved.

After this evaluation, we concluded that today Wikimedia Argentina might have a small community interested in contributing to Wikimedia Commons but they are not very much interested in photo contests.

Hence, during 2016 we tried to promote projects in an opposite manner, involving for the first time thematic communities as partners. With this strategy we launched a project together with OpenHouse, the Buenos Aires City architecture and urbanism festival. They already had a photographer's community, so we offered a space to house all the images produced by the participants.In November, we offered three training courses on the correct use of Wikimedia Commons for OpenHouse volunteers, and in December we launched a contest within the frame of the event that translated into the incorporation of 973 quality images to Wikimedia Commons. Currently, the alliance is consolidated and we are working together to promote the use of photographies in the local communities of photographers and architects, two communities that aren’t a part of Wikimedia Argentina and they are very important for the conservation of local heritage, one of the main strategic lines of WMAR.

The program keeps getting stronger with the participation of new cultural institutions. The decision to work with an itinerant Wikipedian in Residence was WMAR’s answer to the local context, which is similar to the situation in the entire Emerging Countries. That’s why the work done by the itinerant WIR, the work model, its advantages and challenges have been noted in a Case Study.

During 2017 we expect to keep making the role of the WIR grow, not only as a coordinator among cultural organizations that participate in the digitalization program but also as an articulator with new strategic counterparts in the Argentinean cultural sector.

Digitizing and WIR main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Retain 4 cultural institutions 4 4 4 n/a
4 trainings n/a 3 6 n/a
4000-6000 images released 6177 n/a 1296 Wikitour 2016 + OpenHouse Contest
Focus changed
2 new institutions engaged n/a 1 1 Start to work with new organizations in 2017.
300 articles improved and 500 new images (by these 2 new institutions) n/a n/a n/a dismissed
Digitizing 5 historial books 100 101 272 n/a
Position 1 WIR n/a 1 1 n/a
1000 images released by WIR n/a 01 books = 15,000 pages 35,000 pages Mainly books
200 articles created/ improved by WIR n/a 1523 2052 n/a
% of material used n/a n/a 97% Mainly in Wikidata.



Gating factors: Innovate and generate new partners

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Wikimedia Argentina has worked regularly with the same counterparts since 2015. Among them, we find the Argentinean Academy of Letters, the Historical Archives of the Buenos Aires Province, the Buenos Aires Province Senate Library, the Museum of Fine Arts and this year we began working with the Immigration Museum.
Likewise, we face some challenges that we must take into account:

Timing in Argentinean cultural institutions:

Generating new alliances with cultural institutions is a long process and can take months to set up a first meeting.The time it takes to even sign an agreement is due to:

  • The institutions have tight budgets.
  • Lack access to new technologies, hence they see Wikipedia as a strange and unapproachable thing.

WMAR cannot change the schedules of these institutions, but we can approach new cultural institutions with more flexible schedules. In this regard, during 2016 we have carried out different strategies to involve new partners:

In this sense, one of WMAR’s greatest challenges for 2017 is to continue to balance our counterparts with new organizations to improve results and navigate institutional timing issues.

Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Number of new partnerships 4 n/a 8 n/a
At least 4 new media contacts n/a 11 17 n/a
3 events attended n/a 5 7 n/a


Problems to innovate with large cultural institutions:

Few institutions agree to new activities, partly because much of the work of large cultural institutions in Argentina is based on proposals that have been previously proven in other parts of the world, especially in Europe and North America. Per example, activities that are framed by global campaigns, like Art & Feminism or WikiArte 2016, seemed more interesting to our partners, because they saw it as a way to emulate museums around the world. In this context, WMAR has its limitations:

  • Many of the innovative initiatives such as 1lib1ref, Europeana, etc, would be impossible to carry out in this part of the world. In the first case, the problem is the calendar: libraries are closed in January. In the case of Europeana, for example, our region does not have an organization where the museums of the region work together.
  • Both, the requirement for results (mainly in terms of numbers) and the idiosyncrasy of the large cultural institutions leave us, little room for innovation. This causes our GLAM activities –edit-a-thons, editing contests, etc.- to become repetitive.

Despite this situation during 2016 we conducted some innovative initiatives to partner with new and middle-size cultural organization:

Remote learning for cultural leaders

One of WMAR's innovative activities during 2016 was to promote an online course for cultural project leaders. We used our own online platform and the course lasted 4 weeks. We had a very good reception with 80 people involved from the cultural world. Finally 30 students attended. The course originally intended to be a meeting space for diverse cultural institutions of the country in order to engage new partners and release new material/heritage. Likewise, after working with cultural organizations and seeing their limitations, we understood that the course should focus on the meaning of free culture and its importance within cultural institutions in order to break the fear of opening the heritage by the cultural sector. The course itself did not translate into quantitative results, but has helped us build a very broad contact base of cultural institutions.. Even though we need to re- think this activity, thanks to this experience we are currently holding meetings with new potential partners.



Professionalizing GLAM learnings

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  • Having an expert on digitizing and access to information makes us more reliable in the eyes of institutions and helps to plan work in the long term.
  • Constant and friendly follow-up keep the projects going even though it doesn’t speed them up
  • Working with niche communities and smaller cultural institutions to access to new free licensed material and documents for the edition of articles.
  • Moving away from traditional cultural circuits and getting closer to new communities and smaller cultural organizations can:
  • Increase and involve new partners.
  • Generate new activities and promote innovative spaces in cultural spaces.

GLAM and Iberocoop

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Short summary:
Iberocoop has been the most important alliance of Wikimedia Argentina during 2016 in GLAM.
We have done 12 major activities within the GLAM through Iberocoop as follows:

Success: GLAM and Iberocoop to improve content on Wikimedia projects

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Working with editors of the Spanish Wikipedia

We carry out a survey at the beginning of each year to know which activities our editors in order to generate attractive activities that motivate participation. For the first time we included as part of our community all those editors who wished to participate in our online activities within Wikipedia in Spanish. During 2016, we launched 3 editing challenges involving mainly members of the editing communities of Argentina, Spain, Chile and Mexico. The focus of these challenges was on improving Wikipedia and Wikidata quantitatively and qualitatively. The results were +4000 created or improved articles. Beyond the numbers, the most important result was the construction of a steady online community. Currently, our editing challenges gather a group of 15-20 people, 60% of them are regular participants.Our next goal is to turn this into a friendly space for a new editors.

Editor's activities main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
100 editors participating 1 online survey n/a 102 102 n/a
5 editing challenges 3 2 3 Other initiatives launched during 2016.
2000 articles improved/created 1372 2653 4376 n/a
10 active editors involved per activity n/a 5 13 n/a
4 new editors per activity n/a n/a 4 n/a
5 editors retained n/a dismissed dismissed Our editors in these activities are mainly active editors.


Promotion of Ibero-American culture, gender and Wikipedia

Iberocoop defined its strategy during 2016 the following way:

Contests that promote Ibero-American culture:

Even though we represent very different countries, our language and our history are similar in each of our contexts, so promoting and giving visibility to Ibero-American culture seems like a natural result to work together. Still, it is also true that sharing the language can be a limiting factor. Wikipedia in Spanish has very well developed content regarding the history and culture of the countries with organized communities of editors. That is why during 2016, we launched editing proposals that had the aim of promoting our culture outside Wikipedia in Spanish. Organizing activities in other languages gave us the opportunity to:

  • Position Ibero-American culture: +1700 articles were created or improved in 20 different Wikipedias.
  • Getting new communities involved: between both contests - Translating Ibero-America and Wiki Loves the Olympics - 90 new editors were involved. None of them belonged to the Spanish Wikipedia.

Organizing these activities, a part of positioning strategically position Iberocoop, has made us generate new alliances with non-Spanish-speaking countries, with which we are currently organizing new activities. Expanding the community is one of the great challenges of Iberocoop for 2017.

Narrowing the gender gap:

Iberocoop is a network mainly led by 4 organizations, of which Wikimedia Argentina, Wikimujeres and Wikimedia Mexico have lines of work that aim to narrow the gender gap in Wikipedia. During 2016, Iberocoop organized and directly participated in 5 large gender-related activities - Art and Feminism, #HerStory, Women in Architecture, Women Writers and the editing contest “The woman you have never met”- They translated into the creation of over 1400 articles about women, women’s movements and feminist paradigms. But numbers are not the most important result of this work. The gender-related work that we have promoted in Iberocoop has generate the following results:

  • Improve Wikipedia qualitatively: we defined the way to include a gender perspective when editing Wikipedia in Spanish. The guide, with very simple instructions, has been used in all of our activities and also when evaluating articles for the contests.
  • Space for support and regional mentoring: we have established a support network for regional initiatives. Along with Wikimedia Mexico and Wikimujeres we supported the organization of gender edit-a-thons in countries like Peru, Nicaragua, and Guatemala by:
  • Providing technical support: we have organized skype meetings with the organizers and we have provide them with tutorials and other tools needed. Per example, we opened the Art & Feminisms edit-a-thon in Perú in 2016.
  • Providing communication support: we have promoted theses edit-a-thons in our social media to enhance their reach.
  • Consolidating the debate about gender and Wikipedia in the public agenda: the gender issue has been included in each of the conferences that we attended during 2016. Our work has been recognized at an international scale, participating in conferences such as the 4th International Forum of Women against Corruption or the LACNIC conference 2016 organized in Cuba, where we were invited because of our work on gender and Wikipedia.

Just like in other activities, the challenge ahead is to be able to have more women editors in Wikipedia. In search of this goal, during 2016 Wikimedia Argentina has consolidated alliances with the most important women’s groups in the country and we have significantly expanded our community by incorporating 8 new female volunteers who work with us regularly in the organization of our activities.

Culture and gender main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
Total participants n/a 194 258 n/a
Articles created/improved (cultural heritage) n/a 424 1759 n/a
Articles created/improved (gender) 389 1289 1408 n/a
Regional initiatives supported n/a n/a 3 n/a


Gating factors: Iberocoop's lack of professionalization

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The strategy of promoting activities together with Iberocoop is good but the network’s lack of professionalization and the existence of many informal groups without human resources to carry out the activities translate into activities that are not led by other countries of the region.

Efforts are not equally distributed. This creates a dependency on other countries of the region, because they leave all the decisions in the hands of a little number of organizations from the region and they don’t contribute with their full vision and experience as wikimedists. This translates into proposals that seem similar and attend to the priorities of just few chapters without reflecting the variety of cultures, ideas and themes that a network of countries can offer.

For this reason Iberoconf 2017 will focus on generating training spaces with the aim of strengthening the chapters and user groups in the region.


GLAM and Iberocoop learnings

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To belong to Iberocoop is a great advantage for Wikimedia Argentina because:

  • We have consolidated our online editors community
  • We have improved the reach of our activities globally, both online and offline. This has meant improving the results obtained in 2015 by 70%.
  • We have generated new strategic alliances and a new offline community of women experts editors, which are now active members of WMAR.
  • Iberocoop is an excellent learning platform. WMAR has been able to position itself as a reference organization of support and consultation for other user groups in the region during 2016 thanks to the strategic role played by Iberocoop at the regional level.

Community Support Program

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  • Wikitón in Santa Fe
    Wikitón in Santa Fe
  • Volunteer given a lecture in FLISoL 2016
    Volunteer given a lecture in FLISoL 2016
  • Volunteers meeting
    Volunteers meeting

Summary

Community Support is Wikimedia Argentina’s most recent program. During 2016, we focused on promoting initiatives launched by members of the Wikimedia Argentina community, on fostering their leadership and on building new communities with the aim of increasing the number of active volunteers for our projects.

Objectives 2016:

  • Creating spaces to get together in order to build and strengthen the bonds with the Wikimedia Argentina community.
  • Positioning our community in leadership spaces at a local, national and international scale.
  • Supporting the proposals and activities led by our community at a local, national and internacional scale.

Strenghtening WMAR's community

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The community of Wikimedia Argentina has the characteristic by being much more Wikipedist than Wikimedist. One of our greatest challenges for 2016 was to turn these active members of Wikimedia Argentina into leaders of the chapter, so they can promote activities with our support. During 2016, we got together with 22 volunteers of Wikimedia Argentina and identified the following issues to work on:

  • We needed to make it easier for volunteers to participate at a local and international scale.
  • We needed to improve incentives and recognition for volunteers.
  • We needed to improve our support to the proposals led by the WMAR community.


Sucess: Supporting WMAR’s community

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During 2016, our activities were focused on:

Positioning more volunteers as leaders
We organized a calendar of events in places that we thought strategic to participate as WMAR. The calendar was organized collectively with our community that promoted along the year 7 events in cultural institutions, educational spaces and FOSS communities, in representation of the WMAR work. This activity, that we’ll continue promoting and expanding during 2017, translated into:

Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
5 editors leading events n/a 3 7 n/a
3 mobility grants events leaded by community members n/a 2 7 n/a
10 community testimonies in our blog n/a 6 6 n/a
3 testimonies in WMF blog n/a n/a 2 Supported and review by WMAR

Training workshops and mobility grants
These initiatives intend to improve the participation of volunteers in the WMAR activities and other events within the movement. That is why we offered workshops on how to apply to grants, both for projects and for attending international events. During 2016 we gave out 16 local mobility grants and supported the participation of two members of our community in WIkimania 2016 with travel grants and lodging. These activities, that we intend to continue promoting during 2017, aim at improving and fostering the participation of our community in the WMAR activities, appreciating the work of volunteers and help them to keep on training and strengthening their bond with the movement.

Main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
2 grants trainings n/a 1 1 1 training to submit Wikimania proposals
3 free training courses n/a n/a n/a posponed to 2017
Number of mobility grants n/a 4 16 Included Wikimania mobility grants.
5 lectures given in international events n/a n/a 3 1 lecture given in WMCON 2016 + 2 in Wikimania

Support to local projects
During 2016, nine project proposals were presented to WMAR. Five of them were carried out. We decided to support the projects that were in line with our objectives:

  • Creation of new communities of editors: during 2016, we continued supporting two projects promoted by volunteers of the WMAR community, Jaluj and Imoisset. Both projects, Wikimujeres and Women in Architecture, have made significant progress during 2016. Apart from the over 2000 articles created, both projects were replicated in Uruguay and Spain. In Argentina, the Women in Architecture project has a stable community of ten female editors that, since 2015, have increased from 5 to 8% the number of female architects present in Wikipedia. Both projects work autonomously and have begun to take their activities to a national level, with initiatives in the cities of Cordoba and Rosario, both with good results.
  • Cultural Heritage : Through our WIR, we support the work done by Jmmuguerza, in the liberation of over 3000 images of El Gráfico magazine, one of the first sports magazines in Argentina. All articles related to soccer are considered valuable in our community and, so far, over 1200 articles have been improved and over 200 images have been considered as distinct images by our community.
  • New Counterparts: Two volunteers fostered 3 projects. Two of them in university spaces in 2016. Activities took place at the National University of Rosario and the University of Rafaela. We trained educators and organized edit-a-thons with two new counterparts that have currently joined WMAR’s Education Program in 2017.

All these projects have been supported by WMAR in the following way:

  • Financial support: we designed the material, educational guides, identity, campaigns in Wikimedia Commons and offered travel grants to support the promotion of these projects.
  • Communicational support: promotion of the activities through our social networks, media, WMAR and WMF blogs, etc.
  • Institutional support: we have consolidated necessary alliances with cultural and educational institutions where our volunteers han promoted activities to support the initiatives.

Supporting WMAR’s main results

Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual) Comments
2 workshops regarding photography n/a n/a dismissed Community not interested
2 photo safaris n/a n/a posponed Posponed to 2017. We are conducting a survey to find out our community interests.
1 call for projects n/a n/a 1 8 projects presented.
3 projects supported n/a 1 6 n/a
20-40 articles created by projects supported n/a n/a 2014 n/a
200 images n/a n/a 3000 +1200 articles improved


Side effect: Building a new community in WMAR

One of the most important objectives for WMAR, and one which we share with many other communities, is to be able to incorporate more members as active volunteers at a local level.

During 2016, we promoted initiatives with the aim of fostering the creation of a new community of women. Wikimedia argentina had only 3 active female editors, which resulted in very limited female participation and projects organized with a strong male perspective. This situation, together with the current Argentinean agenda where the presence of women’s movements is growing, made us think of generating a new community of female editors. During 2016, 80% of our offline activities were suggested and organized together with Argentinean women’s groups, which translated into:

  • The increase of the number of volunteers: during 2016, 134 women participated in our editing activities, which represents 30% of the total number of participants. Currently, 8 female editors are active volunteers in Wikimedia Argentina, as leaders of projects and initiatives.
  • The improvement of the quality in Wikipedia regarding gender: most of the women involved in our activities have been expert editors: journalists, Human Rights’ advocates, university professors, etc. The edited content has improved the quality in Wikipedia.

Currently, the women’s network is consolidating autonomously. We expect to expand this community with new members during 2017.


Gating factors: Improve participation

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The Community Support program was designed and implemented for the first time in 2016. This meant the definition of strategic guidelines that have framed our activities during 2016, but we also faced some challenges that we must deal with during 2017.

These challenges can be defined in the following way:

New community members
During 2016, we launched a survey to attend the needs of our online community. We do not know many of the members of this community and we didn’t have a direct channel of communication with them. On the contrary, we do have channels of communication with our offline community and members of WMAR. But even though we thought we were having a good flow of communication, when we organized activities that involved new members we realized that:

  • New members don’t know how to participate in the organization, beyond the activities that we promote.
  • Members lack knowledge not only regarding what WMAR can do for the community, but also regarding what channels they can use to communicate their proposals.

Active community members

On the other hand, during 2016 we had the opportunity to meet with our active community much more frequently, outside the activities. These gathering spaces generated new conversations about their thoughts on WMAR’s most important shortfalls regarding them, which can be summarized in the following way:

  • WMAR offers little support to improve the skills and to train our community.
  • Voluntary work is poorly defined within the organization, which makes it harder to get involved more actively.

To alleviate this situation, during 2017 we have promoted the launch of a survey with the aim of getting to know what our community thinks of our work, getting to know proposals, understand the support that the community needs and improve our communication channels that has been very well received as initiative. The results will be available in our next report.


Community Support learnings

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  • To sustain the motivation and the engagement of our community we need:
Create and form a team of stable volunteers
Train our volunteers adequately
Have a smooth communication between WMAR and our community
Generate leadership spaces to position our community in different activities
  • We need to generate a welcome strategy for new members and partners, with the aim of facilitating their involvement in our activities.
  • We must define and well-communicate the possibilities of volunteering to improve the participation of active members and new members of the community in our activities.
  • Encouraging meeting spaces is fundamental. But we must go a step further and be able to generate spaces of work with the objective of organizing work commissions by program according to the interests of our community.


Revenues received during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)

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Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Anual Grant ARS 2.273.850,00 ARS 2.089.743,73 ARS - 1.437.236,05 ARS - 3.526.980,00 ARS 232,500,00 USD 232.500,00 USD Exchange rate variation. Full explanation is detailed in section below
Memberships fees ARS 5.868,00 ARS 500,00 ARS 410,00 ARS 1.272,25 ARS 250,00 ARS 2,432,25 ARS 600,00 USD 164,6 USD n/a
Fixed-Term interests ARS 57.041,10 ARS 33.904,11 ARS 16.109,59 ARS 24.547,95 ARS 131.602,75 ARS - 8.904,11 USD n/a
TOTAL ARS 2.279.718,00 ARS 2.147.284,8 ARS 34.314,1 ARS 1.454.617,9 ARS 24.798,00 ARS 3.661.014,80 ARS 154.243,4 USD (*) 247,700,60 USD (*) (*) Anticipated and cumulative in USD is calculated based on effective exchange rate of 14,78 ARS per USD

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report)

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Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)
Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Administration ARS 318.752 ARS 155.804 ARS 58.128 ARS 161.904 ARS 129.476 ARS 505.312 ARS 33.915 USD 34.189 101% USD - 159% ARS
Staff ARS 1.190.611 ARS 346.535 ARS 251.222 ARS 429.210 ARS 289.618 ARS 1.316.585 ARS 123.167 USD 89.079 USD 72% USD - 110% ARS n/a
Education Program ARS 245.300 ARS 23.218 ARS 93.224 ARS 177.879 ARS 73.768 ARS 368.101 ARS 25.333 USD 24.905 USD 98% USD - 150% ARS n/a
GLAM Program ARS 206.000 ARS 39.854 ARS 40.573 ARS 76.009 ARS 162.760 ARS 319.196 ARS 21.276 USD 21.596 USD 102% USD - 155% ARS n/a
Federalization and Community Support Program ARS 367.200 ARS 87.308 ARS 263.336 ARS 10.088 ARS 113.373 ARS 474.105 ARS 37.923 USD 32.077 USD 85% USD - 129% ARS
TOTAL ARS 2.339.463 ARS 652.720 ARS 706.483 ARS 855.091 ARS 768.995 ARS 2.983.288 ARS 241.614 USD 201.846 USD 128 % ARS
84% USD 		Full explanation is detailed in the section below

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Full explanation about divergences in percentage spent in USD and ARS

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As it can be observed in the tables above, there is a divergence between execution levels measured in USD and ARS. That gap is a consequence of exchange rate variations between the moment the grant proposal was made (9,78 ARS per USD) and the effective rate decided by the new government authorities in December 2015 (14,75 ARS per USD was the average exchange rate for 2016)[1] [2]. .

The devaluation of 50% of the Argentine peso, together with a significative increase in utilities costs [3] caused a big distortion in execution among the different items.

Expenditures that were already fixed in ARS (wages, office rent) were made according to the agreed amount. Expenses related with foreign services or foreign travel suffered a 50% increase in ARS, as they are paid in USD. Finally, the remaining goods and services, such as local providers, were affected by the general inflation of domestic prices, which was accelerated because of the devaluation and increases in utility costs, reaching 41% at the final of 2016 according to BA City statistics bureau (DGEC)[4]. This means that prices for foreign goods and serviced hiked up by 50%, while domestic prices rose by a median of 41% along all sectors of the economy.

Wikimedia Argentina had budgeted its annual plan in USD instead of Argentine pesos to account for part of those risks. That is the reason why the amount WMAR received in ARS was higher than the projected budget (because funds were credited at ARS 14,75 per USD instead of 9,78 ARS). This divergence enabled us to compensate at least partially the impact of peso devaluation and domestic inflation, and is the reason why some items may appear slightly over-executed in ARS and sub-executed in USD. Wikimedia Argentina could face all the budgeted expenses, ensuring its performance was not affected.

Compliance

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Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement?

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As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".

Signature

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

Resources

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Resources to plan for measurement

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Resources for storytelling

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  1. ↑ Peso devalues 30 percent in one day, Buenos Aires Herald, December 18 2015
  2. ↑ BCRA Exchange rate stats
  3. ↑ Natural gas, water hiked 300%, Buenos Aires Herald, Saturday April 2 2016
  4. ↑ Consumer Prices Index, BA City Goverment Statistics Bureau
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