Grants:PEG/WM AM/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013/Report


Report accepted
This report for a Project and Event grant approved in FY 2013-14 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.
  • You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
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Photowalk in St. Astvatsatsin Church Cemetery, Vanadzor
Photowalk in the residential caves of Goris Participants of the contest, near a WW2 monument in Vanadzor
Upload-workshop in Vanadzor, 22 September
Participants of the upload-workshop in Stepanakert Participants of the upload-workshop in Goris
Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Armenia was a unique Wikimedia event in Armenia: for the first time involved new contributors countrywide.
  • 1st row: Photowalk in St. Astvatsatsin Church Cemetery, Vanadzor, 22 September
  • 2nd row left: Photowalk in the residential caves of Goris, 14 September
  • 2nd row right: Participants of the contest, near a WW2 monument in Vanadzor
  • 3th row: Upload-workshop in Vanadzor, 22 September
  • 4th row left: Participants of the upload-workshop in Stepanakert, 15 September
  • 4th row right: Participants of the upload-workshop in Goris, 14 September
  • 5th row left: WLM-particiapant in in action, Vanadzor
  • 6th row left: Awards Ceremony in the National Library of Armenia, Yerevan, 15 November
  • 6th row right: First price winner of WLM 2013 in Armenia, Aida Aydinyan

Compliance and completion

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Did you comply with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?
Yes
Is your project completed?
Yes*
Did you use any of the grant funds?
Yes

*Note: One activity is postponed until spring.

Activities and lessons learned

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Activities

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Note: If no one else is mentioned, then the activity is performed by the Project Team (PT). The team included the following people: Aleksey Chalabyan, Mher Bekaryan, Vachagan Gratian.

1. Lists of national monuments added in Armenian Wikipedia

We imported 1,001 lists of the National Monuments in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenian Wikipedia. These lists included approximately 25,000 monuments.

The lists of National Monuments in Armenian were available online. The lists of National Monuments in Nagorno-Karabakh were never published online before, we received these directly from the State Department of Tourism and Historical Environment Protection.

However both of these lists were not suitable to be automatically imported to Wikipedia. The converting of these lists took approximately 2-3 months (June-September 2013) and was probably the most difficult part of the project.

2. Fundraising, Partnerships

Starting from June, our team member Aleksey Chalabyan met a number of local companies and offered them to sponsor the contest. Eventually Ucom, an Armenian telecommunication company, agreed to be our general sponsor.

There was another company which initially agreed to sponsor the contest and provide the prizes, but later disagreed. To get funds for the prizes we requested a grant from Wikimedia Foundation. The grant request was submitted by Vachagan Gratian.

We also found a number of organizations and volunteers who wanted to help us with the organization of the contest. Our partner-organizations included: Ministry of Culture of Armenia, Natinoal Library of Armenia, Shirak Technologies, Instigate, NGO Center, Barcamp Gyumri, State Department of Tourism and Historical Environment Protection of Nagorno-Karabakh, Artsakh Youth Development Center.

3. Press conferences and Press releases

We organized a press conference on 4 September together with the general sponsor of the contest. We sent a number of press releases to Armenian media companies:

  • 30 August - Announcement about the launch of the contest, also information about the photowalks
  • 20 September - Progress of the contest (English translation)
  • 27 September - Announcement about the last upload workshop in Yerevan on 29 September
  • 22 November - Announcement about the Award ceremony and photo exhibition
4. Other Promotional activities
  • April-May: Projects pages with detailed information about the contest in Armenian Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.
  • June: Launch of the official website of the contest in Armenia: www.wikilovesmonuments.am
  • August - Volunteers made a promotional movie for the contest
  • September - Promotional material was printed and distributed, this included posters, flayers and T-shirts.
6. Photowalks and Workshops

In order to involve more participants and get more public attention, we organized a number of 5 photowalks each followed by upload workshops.

  • 1 September, Yerevan: Organized with a group of active Wikipedians. Approximately 10 participants. Workshop in the National Library of Armenia.
  • 14 September, Goris: 2 young people from this city helped us to organize this photowalk: Anahit Baghdasaryan and Gevorg Baghdasaryan. 15-20 participants. Workshop in the local office of Instigate.
  • 15 September, Shushi: We got help from the employees of Shushi Tourist Information Center and Susanna Petrosyan (manager of Artsakh Youth Development Center). 15-20 participants. Workshop in the office of Artsakh Youth Development Center in Stepanakert. We travelled with 4 people to Goris and Shushi: Vachagan Gratian, Mher Bekaryan, hy:User:Lubekar and hy:User:Tanamasi.
  • 22 September, Vanadzor: Photowalk and Workshop coordinated by hy:User:A.arpi.a. 15-20 participants. Workshop in "NGO Center". Vachagan Gratian and Mher Bekaryan travelled from Yerevan to Vanadzor to facilitate the event.
  • 29 September, Gyumri: Photowalk and Workshop coordinated by hy:User:Karscout and hy:User:GeoO. Workshop in the event hall of Barcamp Gyumri. Vachagan Gratian travelled from Yerevan to Vanadzor to organize the event.
  • 29 September, Upload workshop in Yerevan, facilitated by Lilit Tarkhanyan and Mher Bekaryan.
7. Selection of the photographs

1-15 October: Members of the Project Team and 13 volunteers made a selection from the 23,919 images that were uploaded in September. Then the Project Team selected the 100 best photographs and sent them to the jury. The jury members were:

  • Poghos Poghosyan, photographer
  • Karen Mirzoyan, photographer
  • Arsen Karapetyan, architect
  • Hayk Tamanyan, director of Alexander Tamanyan Museum-Institute
  • Arthur Barseghyan, photographer
  • Naira Muradyan, animator
  • Eduard Ayanyan, director of Yerevan magazine

The Jury then selected the 10 winning photographs.

8. Acquisition of awards and souvenirs

In the first 2 weeks of November we spent most of the money received from Wikimedia Foundation to buy prizes and souvenirs for the winners of the contest. We also printed 20 photographs for the exhibition, as well as certificates, plastic bags, cups with logo of the contest, stickers and badges.

9. Awards Ceremony & Exhibition

The Award Ceremony and Photo exhibition were organized in the National Library of Armenia on 23 November. We had approximately 50 attendants.

Pictures of the Award Ceremony in Commons
10. Travel of exhibition (postponed activity)

We initially planned that the Award Ceremony would take place end of October and after 1 week the photo exhibition would travel to the 4 towns where we organized photowalks. But because the Award Ceremony itself was postponed and because of the weather conditions in December we decided to postpone this activity as well.

We have ordered 30 additional photographs printed on PVC for this future exhibition. As mentioned in the last section of this report, we would like to use the remaining funds to organize exhibitions and workshop to Goris, Shushi, Vanadzor and Gyumri in April.

Lessons learned

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What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects? Consider the following questions and respond with 1 - 2 paragraphs.
What went well?
Almost everything. We could find sponsors, partners and involve many volunteers. The participants of the contest were very active and uploaded a surprisingly large number of photographs.
What did not go well?
The average quality of the photographs was a bit lower than we would like to see. Some of the activities were postponed.
What would you do differently if you planned a similar project?
We would start much earlier with the promotion of the contest, at least from June. Maybe it's also a good idea to organize the photowalks in the summer. And to organize a series of workshops in the same towns rather than just one. We think that in this case more participants of the contest will become editors after the contest (see below about the 14%).

We would also try to involve more participants (more than 300) and more skilled photographers so the average quality of the images would be higher.

Project goal and measures of success

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This section should reference the project goals and measures of success described in the approved grant submission. See Grants:PEG/WM AM/Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 to review the goals and metrics listed in the approved submission.

Project goal

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Provide the project goal here.
  • A large number of free-licensed photos of Armenian architectural and cultural heritage will be available in Wikimedia Commons (current list includes app. 25.000 official monuments),
  • More people in Armenia, as well as Diaspora-Armenians from all over the world will learn how to contribute to Wikimedia Projects,
  • New Armenian-heritage-related articles in Wikimedia Projects (Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, etc.) will be created during and after the project,
  • Promotion of free-content and free-knowledge in Armenia,
  • Promotion of historic preservation in Armenia.
Did you achieve your project goal? How do you know your goal was achieved? Please answer in 1 - 2 paragraphs.
Yes, we did. Although this was just one little step and much more has to be done yet.

While most of Armenian internet users are acquainted with Wikipedia, but very few knew about Wikimedia Commons. During the events that have been organized and through press releases by media, many people have learned about Wikimedia Commons, they know what it means to upload your images to Commons and to release it under a free license. Not only new people, but also a lot of Wikipedians have learned to contribute to Wikimedia Commons during the contest. Besides, many of the participants of the contest, who were not Wikipedians, became editors after the contest.

It was also the first time that a Wikimedia event in Armenia involved so many volunteers. These volunteers helped us to set up our website, make a movie, organize photowalks, select the photographs and other activities. We believe that this was very good for our stated mission to promote free (collaborative) content in Armenia.

Finally, the participants of the contest have created probably the largest collection of images of monuments in Armenia. Hundreds of monuments have been documented and thousands of photographs have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons thanks to the contest. We think however that the majority of the monuments in Armenia still need to be photographed and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (hopefully WLM will continue in the coming years to help to accomplish this mission).

Measures of success

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List the measures of success exactly as provided in the approved grant submission, and evaluate your project according to each measure listed there.
  • number of participants (100+ participants)   Done 176 participants (see details about the contest here)
  • number of images collected (4000+ files)   Done 23,919 files
  • Inclusion in the media (40+ mentions)   Done We estimate the total number of media inclusion above 100 (there is an incomplete list with 55 inclusions here)


Provide an overall assessment of how your project went according to these measures.

We had significantly more participants, uploads and media inclusions than our measures of success stated.

If you were to plan a similar project, would you measure it differently? If yes, please explain how.

We would like to have more participants next time (at least 300) and involve skilled photographers. We actually encouraged everyone to upload as much images as they could. On average each participant of the contest uploaded 136 photograph. Next it would be a good idea to include number of quality images in our measures of success. I would be also a good idea to encourage quality more than quantity.

Impact

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This section ties this project to Wikimedia's broader goals, and shows what the project accomplished.

What impact did this project have on WMF's mission and the strategic goals? Please answer in 1 -2 paragraphs and include specific measures of impact such as the number of readers or editors reached by a particular project, or the number of articles edited or improved.
Stabilize infrastructure
Increase participation
Improve quality
Increase reach
Encourage innovation
 

First of all, the contest helped to encourage more people to contribute in Wikimedia Projects. It helped to promote the idea of free collaborative knowledge. 80% of the 176 people who participated to the contest had never earlier contributed to any Wikimedia Project. 20 of them (14% of the participants of the contest) continued to contribute to at least one Wikimedia Project after they joined the contest. This is a significant growth for the Armenian wiki-community if one considers that the number of active editors (5+ edits a month) of Armenian Wikimedia was around 70 in early September [1]. The number of active editors reached 120 in December 2013 which is apparently thanks to the (media) attention that WLM and WikiConference in Yerevan had in the months September-November.

If however, we would organize the same event again, we would strive for a much higher participation. We believe that much more people would like to join the contest if we started the promotion campaign earlier. It would be also good to find more media-partners and partners in general. We think that the above-mentioned 14% is really not very high and we should try to rise this percentage next time. On the other hand, thanks to the photowalks and workshops in 4 towns, there 4 small communities of people who are interested to contribute to Wikipedia in 4 different towns. We intend to continue to organize workshops in these towns with the help of the same people who helped us there to organize the photowalks.

Finally, the contest helped to increase content of Wikimedia Commons and Armenian Wikipedia. As mentioned earlier, we have now a huge database of images of Armenian monuments in Wikimedia Commons. Moreover, some participants of the contest started to create articles in Armenian Wikipedia about the monuments they have photographs (approximately 100 new articles have been created so far, most of them are in this category tree)

Reporting and documentation of expenditures

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This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation

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Documentation of expenditures has been received by WMF.

Did you send documentation of all expenses paid with grant funds to grants at wikimedia dot org, according to the guidelines here?
Yes

The following invoices have been sent:

  • [page 1] Invoice from "Imprint Ltd." ― 7 items: badges (25,000 AMD), Color printed photographs on PVC (92,010 AMD), Cups with WLM logos (102,000 AMD), plastic bags (21,420 AMD), Design of Certificates (1,500 AMD), Certificates (21,560), Stickers (9,000 AMD)
  • [page 2] Invoice from "Best Offer Systems Ltd." ― 2 Kindle Amazon's (108,000 AMD)
  • [page 3-4] Invoice from "Vandist Ltd." ― 4 Kindle Amazon Ereaders (220,000 AMD)
  • [page 5-6] Invoice from "Vega World Ltd." ― Canon 600D (299,000 AMD)
  • [page 7-8] Invoice from "AVB Group Ltd." ― Netbook Samsung NP-N100S-E02 (116,850 AMD)
  • [page 9-10] Invoice from "Vega World Ltd." ― 2 Briliant Tripods (58,000 AMD)
  • [page 11-12] Invoice from "Fine Ltd." ― 3 External hard drives, GoClever Tablet, Samsung Galaxy Tablet (477,540 AMD)
  • [page 6] Invoice from "Imprint Ltd." ― 30 Color printed photographs on PVC (138,000 AMD)

Expenses

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Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.
These expenses should be listed in the same format as the budget table in your approved submission so that anyone reading this report may be able to easily compare budgeted vs. actual expenses.
Note that variances in the project budget over 10% per expense category must be approved in advance by Project and Event Grants program staff. For all other variances, please provide an explanation in the table below.


WMF Grant Expenses

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Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Cost per unit Total cost Currency Budgeted cost Notes
1 Prizes and awards 1st prize - Photo Camera Canon 600D EOS 1 299,000 299,000 AMD
2 Prizes and awards 2n prize - Tablet Samsung N8000 Galaxy Note 10.1" 1 238,800 238,800 AMD
3 Prizes and awards 3-4th prize - Tablet GoClever R105BK, 1.5 Ghz, Bluetooth keyboard, 10" 1 119,880 119,880 AMD
4 Prizes and awards 3-4th prize - Netbook Samsung NP-N100S-E02 10.1" 1 116,850 116,850 AMD
5 Prizes and awards 5-6th prize - Ereader Amazon Kindle 2 54,000 108,000 AMD
6 Prizes and awards 7-11th prize - External Hard Disk PQI USB 2.o H567L, 1TB 1 41,340 41,340 AMD
7 Prizes and awards 7-11th prize - External Hard Disk Toshiba StorE Alu 2S 750GB 1 39,780 39,780 AMD
8 Prizes and awards 7-11th prize - External Hard Disk Silicon Power Diamond D03 750 GB 1 37,740 37,740 AMD
9 Prizes and awards 12-13th prize - Photo Camera Brilliant Tripod 2 29,000 58,000 AMD
10 Prizes and awards Special prize - Ereader Amazon Kindle D01100 4 55,000 220,000 AMD
Prizes and awards Subtotal 1,279,390 AMD 1,300,000
11 Prizes and awards Souvenirs - Badges Badge with WLM/Wikipedia logo 100 250 25,000 AMD
12 Prizes and awards Souvenirs - Cups Cup with WLM/Wikipedia logo 60 1,700 102,000 AMD
13 Prizes and awards Souvenirs - Plastic bags Plastic bag with WLM logo 70 306 21,420 AMD
Souvenirs Subtotal 148,420 AMD 150,000
14 Award ceremony Travel costs of winners from provinces Round trip for 1 person 0 14,000 0 AMD 84,000
Award ceremony Subtotal 0 AMD 84,000 There was no need for covering travel costs
15 Photo Exhibition Color printed photographs A2 Color printed photograph on PVC 30 4,600 138,000 AMD 0 We printed additional 30 photographs for the exhibitions in 4 cities (altough we didn't budget this)
16 Photo Exhibition Travel of Exhibition in 4 towns Transportation cost for 1 town 0 35,000 0 AMD 140,000 We postponed the travel of the exhibition because of the whether
Photo Exhibition Subtotal 138,000 AMD 140,000
17 Mistake in the original budget 0 AMD 27,000 I only now notice that the subtotal of what we requested from WMF should have been 1,674,000 instead of 1,701,000. So we received actually 27,000 AMD more than we requested.
Grand Total Funds spent from WMF 1,565,810 AMD 1,701,000
See complete list of expenses of "Wiki Loves Monument 2013 in Armenia" here
Total project budget (from your approved grant submission)
3,527,500 AMD
Total amount requested from WMF (from your approved grant submission, this total will be the same as the total project budget if the Project and Event Grant is your only funding source)
1,701,000 AMD (4,129.00 USD)
Total amount spent on this project (this total should be the total calculated from the table above)
1,955,590 AMD

1,960,150

Total amount of Project and Event grant funds spent on this project (this total will be the same as the total amount spent if the Project and Event Grant is your only funding source)
1,565,810 AMD (3,828 USD)
Are there additional sources of revenue that funded any part of this project? List them here.
We received a donation of 550,000 AMD from our sponsor. And printed material equivalent of 1,276,500 AMD (details here)

Remaining funds

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A request for reallocation of remaining funds has been submitted by the grantee and approved by WMFon the discussion page of this grant report.

Are there any grant funds remaining?
YES
Please list the total amount (specify currency) remaining here. (This is the amount you did not use, or the amount you still have after completing your grant.)
An amount of 135,190 AMD (331 USD) remains from the grant we received from Wikimedia Foundation, as well as 160,220 AMD from the donation we received from our general sponsor. In total we have 295,410 AMD (722 USD) left.
If funds are remaining they must be returned to WMF, reallocated to mission-aligned activities, or applied to another approved grant.
Please state here if you intend to return unused funds to WMF, submit a request for reallocation, or submit a new grant request, and then follow the instructions on your approved grant submission.
We would like to spent the remaining funds to organize WLM exhibitions and 1 day workshops in the 4 towns where we have organized photowalks earlier (Goris, Shushi, Vanadzor, Gyumri).
Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Cost per unit Total cost Currency Notes
1 Transportation Taxi to Goris and Shushi and back 1 80,000 80,000 AMD
2 Transportation Taxi to Vanadzor and back 1 25,000 25,000 AMD
3 Transportation Taxi to Gyumri and back 1 30,000 30,000 AMD
4 Transportation Hotel for 2 people, 2 nights (in Goris and Shushi) 2 20,000 40,000 AMD
5 Other Lunch for the participants of 1 day workshops 4 20,000 80,000 AMD
6 Other Administrative/Unforeseen expenses 20,000 AMD
Total 295,000 AMD