Application or grant stage: grant in progress

Applicant or grantee: Wikimedia Community Ireland

Amount requested: 41,479.53 EUR + 2074 EUR contingency funds (47,000 US (+ contingency))

Amount granted: 43,554 EUR (41,478 EUR + 2074 EUR contingency) (49,000 (includes contingency))

Funding period: 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020

Application created: 1 March 2019

Recommended application date: 1 March 2019

Midpoint report due: 15 October 2019

Final report due: 30 April 2020

Application

Background

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Wikimedia Community Ireland Direction

Since its inception in 2014, Wikimedia Community Ireland (WCI) has worked towards its mission statement:

To aid and encourage people to collect, develop, and disseminate educational, cultural, and historic content in the public domain, or under a license, that allows everyone to freely use, distribute, and modify that content.
To encourage public and private, galleries, libraries, archives, and museums on the island of Ireland to make their holdings more broadly and freely available, and to collaborate with these institutions in an effort to preserve the heritage of Ireland.
To educate people in the use of free, open source information resources, in any form, for the advancement of education.
To encourage the development and release of these materials in the languages of the island of Ireland; including, but not limited to English and Irish.

As a user group which is celebrating its 5th birthday in 2019, there are a number of strategic strands that have emerged that inform our activities which coincide with overall Wikimedia movement strategic planning.

From an Irish perspective, three strands have been developing for WCI within our own context:

Developing and promoting critical digital skills, and information literacy, in both Irish and English

The lack of digital skills and information literacy is something that has been noted within Ireland. An Irish Department of Education plan, Ireland’s National Skills Strategy, is targeting this deficit by encouraging both critical thinking skills alongside digital skills at numerous points throughout the education system. Ireland was ranked as having one of the lowest rates of basic digital skills in the EU in 2018, making it a priority for all of those working in this sector in the country.

We will:

Work with educators at all levels to use Wikimedia projects as tools to teach digital skills and information literacy
Partner with educators and advocates to promote the use of Wikimedia projects within critical digital skills modules at secondary and tertiary levels

Advocating for knowledge equity within Ireland

As digital literacy increases in Ireland, we feel it is important that access and participation in the development of Wikimedia projects should be universal. Demystifying the editing of Wikipedia and contributions to its sister projects through presentations and workshops is the first step. In particular this engagement aimed at creating, improving, and expanding coverage of Irish topics, inclusion of the Irish context in relevant articles, and the continued work on the Irish language Vicipéid.

We will:

Collaborate with Irish speakers to ensure greater and more comprehensive coverage of content relating to the specific culture and heritage of the Irish language in Ireland and beyond, on both Wikipedia and Vicipéid
Partner with groups that represent minority groups in Ireland, such as the Irish Traveller community and the the Immigrant Council of Ireland to improve the representation and development of relevant content
Work with cultural institutions to identify and utilise unique resources or collections that can improve and illustrate the diversity of experience, culture and heritage in Ireland on Wikimedia platforms

Participating in the emergent conversations around open policies within Ireland

As well as the conversations happening within education, increasingly our group is being invited to speak to different professionals about how they could think about incorporating an open philosophy into their work. In the past two years this has included discussions with a body representing Irish photographers, and a session for GLAM employees working with cataloguing, data and digitisation.

We will:

Represent the goals and mission of the wider Wikimedia Movement in Ireland at relevant forums, discussions, and consultations
Advocate, in partnership with institutional partners, for more Irish GLAMs to publish images and other resources under Creative Commons licences
Develop and deliver workshops which demonstrate the benefits of uploading media, data or other resources to platforms such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata

Community Outreach

Overview

Within our community outreach, WCI will foster meaningful and productive relationships with various communities in Ireland. The goal of this work is to improve understanding of and contributions to Wikimedia projects from those in Ireland, while empowering individuals to find their niche within those projects. Over the past two years, the importance of Vicipéid within the ecosystem of Irish language speakers and promoters has become apparent. Not only has the importance of a body of open licence material in Irish been widely accepted, for both speakers and learners as well as for applications such as machine learning, but also how such an open platform can aid with both formal and informal learning of the Irish language.

Essential to this work with Vicipéid is the continued support and development of the platform itself. Having implemented some tools in the past year, we have noted that increasing localisation has positively impacted on how editors approach and rate their experience on Vicipéid. We want to work with editors to ensure that any English language ”creep” on Vicipéid is kept as minimal as possible, and that we support them as much as we can in achieving this.

Most importantly, WCI cannot achieve the broader goals of improving critical digital skills, digital literacy, knowledge equity, and understanding of openness within Ireland alone. Through the work of the last two years, the group has begun to foster important and fruitful relationships with individuals in partner institutions and communities. These have allowed for our Project Coordinator to be invited to present or to take part in discussions on topics relating to our wider and more strategic goals. These relationships with our “allies” is vital to WCI remaining a participant in these broader conversations within Irish society. Especially in relation to international trends and movements such as the Wikimedia movement.

Insure that our work is inline with the needs and wants of the existing Irish Wikimedia community

Description

In 2016, and in collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation, WCI surveyed editors in Ireland in both Irish and English. The results of which we used to inform our first Simple APG and much of our activities in that first year in particular. Given the time that has elapsed and how the group has grown, we believe it is time to revisit this survey. We intend to expand on that initial work that was done. This is integral to WCI delivering on one of the key areas of the emerging Wikimedia Movement Strategy, which is to serve our community to the best of our ability. To do this we view the survey as key to active engagement and a key metric to understanding their needs. In 2016, the survey was promoted through a banner on Wikipedia and Vicipéid and was geo specific to Ireland. In this next survey, it will be promoted in a similar manner, but we will endeavour to push for a banner on Commons and Wikidata, as well as on our social media.

Objectives

Measure our impact on the community
Assess the community's needs

Metrics

At least 100 respondents to the survey
At least 20 Irish language respondents

Work to develop engagement with Vicipéid as informal learning

Description

Vicipéid is being used within education in an ad-hoc manner. We are working to promote the utilization further within our education outreach (see below.) We have come to learn that it is a potential key resource to engage under-served Irish speaking educators and students. With Vicipéid at secondary and third levels, utilization within informal settings needs awareness and support for general acceptance.

An example, in secondary schools (post-primary education of pupils aged 12-18), there is the Gaelbhratach flag scheme. The flag is awarded to schools who foster more activities through the Irish language or that promote Irish culture through the language. The activities take place outside of the classroom, and are more extracurricular in nature. The scheme is run by Gael Linn, an organisation which promotes the use of the Irish language as part of Ireland's living heritage. WCI have had preliminary discussions about how editing or contributing to Vicipéid could become one of the activities promoted to schools as a potential activity for students to engage. We will work to make those discussions more formal over the coming months, with the aim to pilot student editing in late 2019 or early 2020.

With third level students, we will continue to work with Irish language groups such as Conradh na Gaeilge and university Irish language officers to deliver Vicipéid events to interested groups of students. Most third level institutions in Ireland have an Irish language student society, and our aim is to offer Vicipéid editing events to them as an event for their society members. Further to this will offer to mentor them to run their own events, as well as support them in larger events they may wish to run as part of national events such as Seachtain na Gaeilge (Week of Irish).

Objectives

Develop a programme for use of Vicipéid with Secondary school students
Provide training for educators, as necessary, to run this programme
Engage with Irish language societies in third level educations to promote the use of Vicipéid
Assist Irish langauge societies with organising and running Vicipéid events

Metrics

Have 10-20 Secondary school students complete 50 hours of instruction and editing in Vicipéid. The programme will be evaluated after this first cohort
Engage with Irish language societies at 3 Universities/Colleges
Assist with 5 events run by Irish language societies

Respond to the needs of the Vicipéid community on Wiki

Description

Through our continued work with members of the Vicipéid community, a theme has emerged in their feedback of the platform. They repeatedly express a frustration and disappointment at the level of English that still persists within it. From template content on the front page, to tools not being fully translated, there is still a large amount of English language “creep” on Vicipéid, to which users are sensitive. They have expressed a desire to assist with increased localisation of Vicipéid. The feedback indicates that Vicipéid would be considered more seriously as a teaching tool by educators if this work was done.

As a smaller and more under-resourced Wikipedia, Vicipéid has not benefited as much for the increased tooling and other developments. These enhancements have been shown to have helped in the increased participation on other languages. We have made progress in getting more tools enabled and improved over the past 2 years, and want to further this work. This has two immediate benefits, decreases frustrations of existing editors and makes it easier for new editors to start contributing. The latter is particularly important in light of the work we have targeted towards secondary school students. We would aim to have as few barriers for entry as possible within the editing environment.

Community members’ participation in Celtic Knot was particularly key to continued support and development of the Vicipéid platform. Attendance of the conference meant Irish editors had one-to-one access to specialised knowledge of other Wikimedians and Wikimedia developers. We found that the ability to work with those experts from across the Wikimedia movement in person, at the Celtic Knot, was the most expedient and immediately rewarding way to improve the Vicipéid editing experience.

Objectives

Engage with the Vicipéid community to develop tools
Engage with developers of other small language Wikipedias for assistance with developing Vicipéid
Host a virtual or physical hackathon to concentrate Vicipéid editors on improving the platform over a day

Metrics

Create/enhance 3 tools on Vicipéid
Have at least 2 community members attend Celtic Knot conference
Host Hack your Vicipéid event, either virtual, physical or both

Create more meaningful relationships with our event partners and foster more allies to our community

Description

Within our group, we have noticed that there are two forms of engagement: firstly there are the core volunteers, mostly active editors who have come into the group. The second form of engagement comes from what we call “allies.” These are people for whom editing is not a core personal activity, but who actively advocate and encourage editing or other contributions to Wikimedia projects through either their paid or voluntary work. These people are primarily educators, but they are increasingly those who work in GLAMs such as the Hunt Museum, the National Gallery of Ireland, and more recently local libraries.

From the first group, the active editors, they have begun to self-start and create their own projects and outreach which is then supported by the Project Coordinator. Examples of this are Dr Teresa Lynn, Meghan Dowling and Abigail Walsh, all of whom are engaging and promoting Vicipéid within their own professional practice. Other editors are fostering collaboration between other communities and Wikipedia, such as through an event held at an Irish Sci-Fi and Fantasy convention, Octocon, in October 2018.

The allies operate in a slightly different way. They may not engage in active editing or contributing themselves, but within their own work will advocate for Wikipedia or other Wikimedia projects. This will lead to them then hosting Wikimedia events in partnership with WCI, or inviting the Project Coordinator to meetings, seminars or workshops. In this way the allies are ensuring that not only is there a positive view of Wikipedia is represented, but it also works as a method for further allies to be fostered in sister organisations through mutual interest and interaction. Simply put, by inviting a Wikimedia representative to events it allows for them to make face-to-face connections with other potential partner institutions or organisations. This has grown organically out of the last 2 years of WCI activity, and we feel is the most sustainable and robust model for us to follow as we foster and grow our movement in Ireland.

We have seen this in action with our monthly events at the Dublin TOG hackerspace. The regularity of the event means that a wide variety of people attend, and often will use it as an informal setting to get feedback on an idea they have for further Wikimedia projects or collaboration. Also, being set within an existing hacker community, when that community is offered an opportunity to engage in outreach, WCI gets invited along as part of that outreach. We have seen this as part of both the Dublin Maker Faire and Culture Night.

Objectives

Provide support and guidance to active editors in creating and expanding projects
Attend events run by allies to promote community and Wikipedia projects
Hold community events to introduce editors and allies to the community and our project base

Metrics

Assist 5 editors to develop and run Wikimedia projects/events
Attend 10 events run by allies
Hold 15 events to target new editors and allies

Use Wiki Loves Monuments as a vehicle for increased engagement with Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia

Description

In 2018 saw a marked increase in participation in WLM after two years of decline. This seems to have been due to the large increase in the number of sites added, the majority of which had no photograph identified on Commons. 2018 saw 35% of all images uploaded were of monuments which had no photograph on Commons previously. There is still ample scope for participation given the number of structures still awaiting a photograph on Commons.

Current coverage of Monuments:

Leinster: 647 photographed, 2008 no photograph - 32% coverage
Munster: 479 photographed, 2100 no photograph - 22.8% coverage
Connacht: 310 photographed, 830 no photograph - 37% coverage
Ulster: 170 photographed, 941 no photograph - 18% coverage

Currently we are exploring the idea of awarding prizes for engagement with WLM in other ways. This could include a prize for the most useful images uploaded of sites with previously no photo, or a prize for editors using images to create or illustrate articles on Wikipedia or Vicipéid.

Objectives

Increase coverage of Irish monuments on Commons
Increase participation in WLM
Increase coverage of under represented Irish monuments on Commons
Increase amount of WLM images being used to illustrate articles on Wikipedia/Vicipéid
Target the areas in Ireland that have a lower percentage of monuments represented on Commons (Ulster and Munster)

Metrics

40% of the photos uploaded will be of monuments with no photo
Increase coverage of photographed monuments in Ulster and Munster by 10-20% to bring them in line with Leinster and Connacht
Increase of articles using images from WLM by 50%
Increase of participants by 20%

Education Outreach

Overview

As the profile of Wikipedia in education grows internationally, our group is benefiting from an overall better appreciation of how Wikipedia can be used as a teaching tool at a number of educational levels. With this backdrop, when we meet educators at events or conferences, they are already aware of Wikipedia as a teaching tool but did not know that our group exists and can aid them in using it in their teaching practice. This has lead to a slow but steady snowball effect, where we are invited to more education events, meet more people, whom we can then connect with as potential partners in the future. Within third level education (university and college), we find that they generally don’t need as much intensive help and are often happy with light support from our Project Coordinator to get started. However, we anticipate that it is our new connections with secondary school teachers that will demand more time in the coming year. Their need for more support can be for a variety of reasons, lack of technical support within their schools, a skepticism towards Wikipedia in the classroom by their teaching peers, or the desire to ensure that a trial use of teaching with Wikipedia is as supported as it can be to ensure success. Thus our strategy is to develop meaningful and sustainable relationships within secondary schools, shaping modules that are suitable for teachers to incorporate into their curriculum in either English or Irish.

Expand the use of Wikipedia and Vicipéid in secondary schools

Description

2018 saw the first pilot workshops run with secondary school students, using Wikipedia editing to introduce them to the concept of referencing and citations. These students were from a year known as Transition Year (TY). This year is designed to sit between the first Irish state exam, the Junior Certificate, and the beginning of preparations for the final state exam, the Leaving Certificate. TY is intended to give space to students to develop skills outside of classroom learning, and to learn more social or interpersonal skills, as well as engage with work placements and group learning activities. In response to feedback from universities and colleges, TY will now incorporate a module on introducing students to the concepts of referencing and citations, to prepare them for academic writing at third level. This is something that is still being developed as part of the curriculum, and it is our intention to work with both individual schools and teachers, but also the body for professional development for teachers, to offer Wikipedia or Vicipéid modules geared towards these learning outcomes.

A module for secondary school students will be developed in partnership with educators, using Wikipedia to deliver three key learning outcomes:

Digital literacy

Digital literacy broadly looks to improving the students’ ability to successfully navigate, evaluate, and utilise digital resources; both in their education and personal lives. As Wikipedia is one of the main sources of information readily available to students, their ability to successfully use the platform and to be able to use it critically is essential skill for them to develop.

Critical digital skills

Whilst learning about and engaging with Wikipedia, the students can also learn more critical digital skills. Some of our members have been involved in developing a module for 1st year university students on critical skills using Wikipedia, and we believe that a variant of this can be offered to secondary school students.

Developing young people’s understanding of citation and referencing skills

This is ultimately the goal of all modules relating to using Wikipedia or Vicipéid in the classroom. By guiding students on how to find and then properly use source material to add to articles and to reference them fully, the first two objectives are achieved. The ability to understand and use referencing is the concrete outcome of the module, with the two other learning outcomes being integral to getting to that point.

Objectives

Develop Transition year modules for use of Wikipedia and Vicipéid
Develop training for educators for the Transition Year modules
Provide training to educators, as necessary

Metrics

Roll out module into 3 secondary schools
Adapt and localise documentation and training materials for educators for both Wikipedia and Vicipéid

Create and expand partnerships with Universities and Colleges

Description

Since 2017, we have been steadily increasing the number of third level institutions educators that have incorporated Wikipedia into their modules. 2018 saw the first known use of Wikipedia as a teaching tool in Northern Ireland, in Queens University Belfast (QUB). With the help of library and e-learning staff in QUB we are looking to expand this into more schools in Queens, and to work with contacts we have established in the University of Ulster to start developing modules with their staff.

There are still a number of large third level institutions that we have yet to engage. We intend to target them in the coming year, such as the 12 Irish technical colleges. This includes the newly established Technical University of Dublin (TU Dublin). Many of these institutions have library staff that have interacted with our outreach activities in the past, we will build on that initial contact to make a more established connection with them.

A key to developing these relationships will be building on the work that Meghan Dowling has been spearheading in Dublin City University with student editing of Vicipéid. This incorporation of Vicipéid editing into the teaching of Irish can now be used as a case study on how to use the Outreach Dashboard, and further bolstered by the student’s experiences and learning outcomes. TU Dublin, Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Mary Immaculate College Limerick, and Waterford Institute of Technology are examples of third level institutions teach Irish as part of their degrees. Offering a sample module that would incorporate Vicipéid editing is a different way to engage with these teaching communities.

A second thread is a lower barrier of entry by engaging third level students and educators through Irish language student societies, and university Irish language officers. We have begun to make contact with some of these through the organisation Conradh na Gaeilge. We have had conversations about how editing and contributing to Vicipéid could be offered as a more social event, through editing or hackathons on campus with staff and students. Particularly, these events could be held during Seachtain na Gaeilge (Week of Irish), as part of an institutions overall Irish language activities.

We firmly believe that our work with the Irish language community is essential to the strategy on knowledge equity, as it is only through our work with the Irish language that we can represent the full diversity of the Irish experience.

Objectives

Create new partnerships with universities and colleges
Expand on existing partnerships
Expand partnerships targeting Irish language students

Metrics

Create partnerships with 3 new universities or colleges
Run or assist in 10 events held in universities or colleges
Assist with 5 events run by Irish language societies

Expand the reach of Wiki Science

Desciption

In 2019, we will build on the previous two years of Wiki Science to partner with Irish institutions and organisations to promote the use of open licences through this competition. We did notice a slight drop in participation in 2018, but this can be attributed to the lack of an international competition last year. It may be that we should follow the pattern of the international competitions and do Wiki Science every two years, rather than annually. We will use our experience in 2019 to make that evaluation.

Through exhibiting the winning images at the conference on science communication, SCI:COM, we have been able to have face-to-face conversations with a number of people engaged with other science advocacy organisations and events in Ireland. These initiatives, such as the SciFest, have expressed interest in partnering to promote not only Wiki Science, but engagement with Wikimedia projects in general within their own community.

Objectives

Increase participation in Wiki Loves Science
Engage with scientific organisations to promote Wiki Loves Science and Wikimedia projects in general

Metrics

Increase of participants by 10%
Increase in photos uploaded by 10%
Partner with 3 scientific organisations

GLAM Partnerships

Overview

Much like our work within education, we are increasingly invited to take part in events and conversations around opening up cultural collections under CC licenses. We have joined in discussions of how GLAMs could work with Wikimedia projects within their own practice. Now that less of our time and resources needs to be spent in reaching out to GLAMs and making the case to consider working with Wikimedia, we can develop specific working relationships as well as more Irish specific case studies, documentation and policies.

Continue partnership with the Hunt Museum

Description

The Hunt Museum has become our key partner regarding its new approach to an open ethos, since the appointment of its director, Jill Cousins. In 2018 the Hunt Museum was the first Irish institution to donate images directly to Wikimedia Commons. These images were a small collection relating to the work of an Irish fashion designer, and were uploaded using Pattypan, which was also a first for Ireland. As of January 2019, collaboration with WCI through Wikipedia is part of the Hunt Museum’s new strategy from now until 2025. This strategy also confirms their plans to publish all images and 3D renderings of their objects under a Public Domain or CC0 licence. As part of our collaboration, our Project Coordinator will continue to work with the staff to upload more media to Commons, and will help in training the staff to both incorporate editing into their own work, but also how to facilitate editing workshops themselves.

Objectives

Consult with Hunt Museum about digital collections
Hold upload events at Hunt Museum
Training of staff to enable upload of digital collections

Metrics

Run or assist in 3 upload events at Hunt Museum
Host 3 public editing events at or in collaboration with Hunt Museum staff
Partner with the Hunt Museum to host a training event for GLAM professionals from across Ireland on Wikimedia projects such as Commons and Wikidata

Formalise training relationships with GLAM partners

Description

As our relationship with the National Gallery of Ireland has developed over the past two years, we have become more strategic in our partnering. Rather than working with each other on an ad hoc basis, in 2018 we were invited to work with their TY students who were taking part in work placements within the Gallery. As a pilot, our Project Coordinator worked with a group of 15 students, and over the course of a morning they were introduced to Wikipedia editing and made edits to a selection of pages relating to the collections or artists associated with the Gallery.

Numerous GLAMs in Ireland have both interns and work placements that they facilitate throughout the year. Along with this student module, our Project Coordinator has started conversations with other institutions on how they could incorporate editing or Wikipedian in Residence type activities into their internships. This is an emerging area within Ireland, but it is planned that by late 2019 we would have one intern within a cultural institution with WiR activities specified as part of their duties.

Objectives

Provide training documentation to assist GLAMs to incorporate editing and WiR activities into internships
Expand intern partnership to other GLAMs

Metrics

Have 1 intern within a GLAM with WiR activities as part of their work
Create training documentation
Have intern partnerships in place with 2 GLAMs

Advocate for the adoption of open licencing by other Irish GLAMs

Description

Members of our community across Ireland, as well as our Project Coordinator, are continuing to advocate for more GLAMs to be involved with Wikimedia projects and to explore the use of open licensing in their outputs. This includes our continuing work with a large cultural institution to open up their collections under a CC licence, as well as working with an industrial archive to guide them in how to assess their collections for such open publication and access. It is planned that by working with these institutions that these can serve as Irish context specific working case studies for other institutions in Ireland. In having these case studies, both members of the WCI and those we are collaborating with can then look towards developing outputs for conferences and seminars, such as the presentation given by Chelsea Canavan from the Hunt Museum at Irish Museum Associations Education and Outreach Forum in 2018.

Objectives

Expand work with GLAMs to publish digital collections on Commons
Partner with fellow open license organisations

Metrics

Work with 2 new GLAMs to publish digital collections on Commons
Partner with 2 open license organistions to promote open licensing
Run 3 events in GLAMs about open licensing

Staff

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A video of Rebecca O'Neill's presentation at Celtic Knot 2019.

Progress

Community Outreach

Insure that our work is in line with the needs and wants of the existing Irish Wikimedia community

Survey is planned for January 2020 - contact has been made with staff in the Wikimedia Foundation to work on developing this in time for January. In January, there should be no great competition for a banner, and can be a quiet time for the group. The results can also be rolled into the Grant application for 2020-2021.

Work to develop engagement with Vicipéid as informal learning

We are currently liaising with Gael Linn to develop a module for secondary schools to engage with Vicipéid. They are currently overhauling the materials for the Gaelbhratach flag, so we have been discussing with them how Vicipéid contributions could be included within the overall programme.

As the school year has only begun in September, we are in the early stages of this work. Given that the Gael Linn staff are reworking the whole programme, and associated material, we will continue to meet and work with them on how we can promote the use of Vicipéid within the programme.

Initial meetings have resulted in Gael Linn identifying a number of schools who have held the Gaelbhratach flag for a number of years, and are looking for more advanced activities to roll out with their students.

We have discussing with Conradh na Gaeilge how best to support university student societies in any events that they might be interested in holding around Vicipéid. As this is the start of the academic year, the plan is to offer facilitation support and promotional material to student groups that look to work with us.

Rebecca has been invited to take part in the Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI) conference in February 2020. Teachers at numerous levels, in both English and Irish, will be in attendance.

In preparation for these events, we have begun designing and creating material including badges, stickers and handouts.

Metrics: None of the metrics have been attained at this point, due to waiting for the new academic year.

New badges, in Irish, based on the design by Dr Alice White

Respond to the needs of the Vicipéid community on Wiki

Once again, Rebecca O’Neill, Meghan Dowling, and Abigail Walsh attended Celtic Knot to represent the Irish language community. Rebecca presented on the developments within the work that WCI have been doing with Vicipéid.

It has been agreed between WCI and Wikimedia UK that Celtic Knot 2020 will take place in Ireland. Initial planning has identified Limerick as a host city for the conference, with the Hunt Museum being a partner organiser of the event. There are currently conversations between the director of the Hunt and Wikidata instructors on the potential to host an additional pre or post conference on Wikidata with an emphasis on Wikidata in an Irish cultural and language content.

Regarding the Vicipéid hackathon, this is something that we may include within the survey for Irish language editors, and promote it during Seachtain na Gaeilge in February 2020.

Meghan Dowling also co-authored an academic paper entitled Adapting NMT to caption translation in Wikimedia Commons for low-resource languages examining caption translation for languages like Irish on Wikimedia Commons.

Metrics:

Create/enhance 3 tools on Vicipéid - discussions ongoing with community
Have at least 2 community members attend Celtic Knot conference - 3 members of WCI attended Celtic Knot in Cornwall 2019
Host Hack your Vicipéid event, either virtual, physical or both - discussions ongoing with community

Éinín attending Celtic Knot, Cornwall

Create more meaningful relationships with our event partners and foster more allies to our community

We have continued our work in fostering relationships with our “allies”. These relationships vary in the level of engagement, but given the increasing amount of invitations that we are receiving, we believe that it demonstrates increasing awareness about our work and our visibility in similar Irish communities.

We have held 6 editing evenings in TOG since April, with 33 people attending across these events. As we found in the previous years, many of these participants are editing other language Wikipedias, including Irish, Mandarian, Italian, and German. We have also seen an increase in people wanting to learn about Wikidata and the uses of Wikidata to power apps or websites. Once again, Rebecca took part in TOG’s open evening during Culture Night.

An active member of our group, Antiqueight, has launched what is planned to be a regular meetup in Cork, loosely modelled on the Dublin TOG events. Beginning on 16 October, these events will be informal meetups for existing editors, or those interested in learning how to start editing.

As part of our ongoing outreach, we continue to look out for events being held in Ireland with common or overlapping missions to Wikimedia projects. One such event was the Valuing Scientific Collections which took place on 30 April. This event was aimed at those working with natural history collection, as an introduction to the European initiative DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections). As the event focused on publishing data and resources under open licences, it was an important conversation for WCI to be included in.

As well as attending events, Rebecca has been invited to speak as part of a number of talks and panels over the past number of months in her capacity as Project Coordinator:

Pint of Science Crucial Communication on how editing Wikipedia benefits both science communicators, their audiences and collaborators - 22 May
Dublin Con 2020, three panels relating to the perception and understanding of Ireland, women, and feminism: Ireland on Screen, Ground-breaking women, Feminist Agenda
Lecture in Christchurch Cathedral on Wikipedia as part of a series of lectures on encyclopaedias and dictionaries
Festival of Science panel on Women in the History of Science, focusing on Irish women in STEM with a Wikipedia presence owing to Rebecca's work on themed editathons and workshops

Following on from a connection made last year with Amnesty Ireland, precipitated by Wikimedia UK’s Brave:EDIT programme, we co-hosted an editing event focusing on “female frontline defenders” on 11 May. The event was to teach those in attendance how to edit Wikipedia pages on women human rights activists, with a particular focus on people of colour and other minorities. The plan is for more events like this one to take place with other groups of volunteers that Amnesty work with, to further develop and enhance relevant Wikipedia articles.

In line with our continuing work with groups in Northern Ireland, Rebecca facilitated an editing event with Women Who Code Belfast on 21 September as part of Culture Day. Based on this experience, and the wider goals of the Women Who Code group, it is hoped that more events like this will be hosted again in the future, aimed at the tech community in Belfast.

There are initial plans in place for an editing event by the Women Engineers Society in Northern Ireland, similar to those it has been holding across the UK in 2019. It is currently planned for early 2020. Based on this event, Engineers Ireland have also expressed an interest in holding a similar event, engaging with their members who have a specific interest in the history of engineering in Ireland.

Repeating the collaboration from last year, Rebecca was at the Teen Turn stand at Zeminar. Teen Turn is a charity which facilitates meaningful internships within tech companies for girls from disadvantaged schools or areas, who may otherwise not have such opportunities. This partnership is a fantastic networking opportunity, as it allowed Rebecca to not only speak with students about Wikipedia, but also their teachers. The conversation with Gael Linn begun after Rebecca meeting with their staff at their stall at last year’s event.

Metrics

Assist 5 editors to develop and run Wikimedia projects/events - 2 events held
Attend 10 events run by allies - 7 events attended/co-hosted
Hold 15 events to target new editors and allies - 7 events held

BRAVE:Edit in Dublin
BRAVE:Edit in Dublin
BRAVE:Edit in Dublin

Use Wiki Loves Monuments as a vehicle for increased engagement with Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia

2019 marks the 6th year that our group has held Wiki Loves Monuments. As a result of continuing work on the number of monuments and listed structures included within the competition, this year saw an increase in the number of images uploaded. In 2018 126 participants uploaded 1060 images, in 2019 76 participants uploaded 1222 images. While there was a drop off in the number of participants, 57% (43) of those uploaders were new users.

Metrics

40% of the photos uploaded will be of monuments with no photo - this metric is still being calculated
Increase coverage of photographed monuments in Ulster and Munster by 10-20% to bring them in line with Leinster and Connacht - we are currently working with Wikidatians to update this figure accurately
Increase of articles using images from WLM by 50% - this metric will be updated once more time has elapsed since the close of the competition
Increase of participants by 20% - number of participants was down, but level of new editors was up.

Education Outreach

Due to the timing of when this report is compiled, it falls largely during exam time and the summer holidays, activities within educational institutions has yet to be started in earnest. However, over the exam period and the summer months, we have continued conversations with educators, as well as working on planning for any programming we wish to offer educators at a number of levels.

Expand the use of Wikipedia and Vicipéid in secondary schools

Primarily we have been trying to initiate conversations with organisations who represent different groups of teachers about using Wikimedia projects in the classroom. Based on the outreach that we have done over the last few months, we have been invited to take part in two conferences held by teacher groups:

Dr Claire Murray will be presenting at the 'ChemEd-Ireland' Chemistry Educators Conference on 19 November 2019 at TUDublin. A group of 20 teachers will attend a 1 hour workshop on core Wikipedia editing skills, with the potential for a further workshop during the day if the workshop is oversubscribed. As well as directly engaging teachers with editing, the potential for future collaborations will be addressed by providing information on how to request future workshops. The focus of the workshop will directly target fundamental chemistry knowledge, in line with the work being carried out by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry on Wikipedia.

Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI), invited Rebecca to submit a workshop proposal to their conference on 29 February 2020. Such a workshop would be an introduction to editing Wikipedia and sister projects, as well as editing Vicipéid. This will have a particular emphasis on digital literacy and critical digital skills to assess information sources, and the use of citations, both of which are inline with broader Irish educational goals for students.

Our group are hoping to foster a relationship with the BT Young Scientists exhibition. An initial conversation has begun on how such a partnership could work for the benefit of both groups.

Metrics No workshops have been held in schools due to waiting for the new academic year. Initial research has begun into drafting the modules, focusing on how other countries and communities have developed these modules within their language contexts (Welsh, Armenian, Basque).

Create and expand partnerships with Universities and Colleges

National College of Art and Design Since April 2019, we have continued our work with universities, holding a number of events aimed at teaching staff over the holidays. These events included a seminar on Art+Feminism given to staff in the National College of Art and Design within their library. The event was focused on how the library staff could look to encouraging the use and dissemination of their collections from the National Irish Visual Arts Library in light of digitisation plans.

University of Limerick On 29 May, Rebecca gave a presentation to academic and support staff in University of Limerick on using Wikipedia as a teaching tool. Hosted by the School of Nursing, the presentation drew on the work done by the Wikipedian in Residence with the Health Services Libraries, presenting information on WikiProject Medicine. The experience of Clare Thompson and Richard Fallis from Queen’s University Belfast was also presented as a case study in the student’s experience of learning through Wikipedia.

National University of Ireland, Galway NUIG have continued to work with Rebecca and Dr Sharon Flynn to incorporate Wikipedia into events and programming at the university:

Sharon presented at Writing & Wellbeing conference, with Ananya Gupta "Writing for Wikipedia" on April 5 and 6 to an international conference on the therapeutic uses of writing for students and academics.
As part of Open Science Week 2019, NUIG hosted an editathon on 8 April, focusing on the gender bias on Wikipedia by looking at how to write and improve articles on women in STEM.
Sharon also presented at SAI 2019: Sociology Association of Ireland – Connecting Sociologies, on 10 May as part of a roundtable on Connecting open research, the sociology of knowledge and citizen science as a member of WCI speaking about: "recent initiatives to promote public participation in contributing to Wikipedia and the Irish language Vicipéid, particularly by, and for, women."
On 11 October, Sharon ran a workshop on using Wikimedia in Teaching and Learning as part of the postgraduate diploma module with academic staff.

Maynooth University Dr Brian McKenzie has continued his work with academics across disciplines in Maynooth University, promoting the use of Wikipedia as a teaching tool. Most recently this work has been with Law Students as part of the Maynooth University Student Experience (MUSE) Award, under the Civic Engagement stream. The work helped students developing writing skills essential for communicating technical content (legal analyses and terminology in this case) to a lay audience, Wikipedia readers.

On 24 May committee member Dr Kelly Fitzgerald presented at a Teaching and Learning Forum on Developing Wikipedia as an innovative teaching tool in Medieval and Early Modern Studies in Ireland at Maynooth University.

University College Dublin Rebecca was invited to give a lecture to a group of students studying for a Masters in Library and Information Studies in UCD. The idea behind the lecture was to introduce the students to how and why information professionals can collaborate with Wikipedia in a number of ways. The presentation covered topics such as WikiProjects, The Wikipedia Library and #1lib1ref.

Our long-standing partnership with Dr Crystal Fulton continues in the School of Information and Communication Studies, working with undergraduates on a module called DigiComp: Core Competencies for Digital Citizenship. As our longest standing educational partnership, this module serves as an evolving learning tool for both our practice and that of the educators. As the needs of students start to shift and learning patterns change, we initiated an overhaul of the module to focus more directly on issues of copyright and plagiarism, in both text and images. Dr Fulton has recently published a journal article on our collaboration through Netcom entitled: The use of collaborative open-access publishing via Wikipedia in university education to embed digital citizenship skills.

Dun Laoghaire Institute Of Art Design and Technology Following an editing event in the National Gallery of Ireland, Rebecca has been invited to work with a group of students in the Dun Laoghaire Institute Of Art Design and Technology (IADT). This will be the first time that we will be working with design students (studying design for stage and screen) in Ireland on Wikipedia. With visits by Rebecca planned for early November for an introduction to Wikipedia, followed by an upload event on 10 December, the small student group will work intensively on the biography of Anne Yeats and associated topics.

Queens University Belfast We will continue our work with Richard Fallis, the medical librarian in QUB, to deliver the module Wikipedia for digital and information literacies in 2020. This will be the second year of the partnership between QUB and WCI, and has been one of the most successful initiatives in Ireland involving medical content on Wikipedia. On 23 October, Rebecca will deliver a workshop to QUB staff about using Wikipedia in the classroom, and how to start using editing Wikipedia along with its sister projects.

Dublin City University Continuing her work with students in DCU, Meghan Dowling will be delivering a module using Vicipéid as the learning tool. Each student will write 3 new articles each on Vicipéid. She has also been invited to give a quest lecture to another group of students, to speak about her experience as an editor on Vicipéid specifically.

Metrics

Create partnerships with 3 new universities or colleges - Successfully run events with 3 new institutions: NCAD, UL, IADT
Run or assist in 10 events held in universities or colleges - 5 events held
Assist with 5 events run by Irish language societies - waiting on the new academic year

Wikipedia for Academia at the University of Limerick

Expand the reach of Wiki Science

Wiki Science will take place in November this year, alongside the international editions.

GLAM Outreach

Continue partnership with the Hunt Museum

For this portion of 2019, our support of the Hunt Museum has been remote. Rebecca has been answering questions via email and over the phone as they emerge. Work is continuing with staff and interns, preparing images sets for upload to Wikimedia Commons. We are hopeful that this groundwork will result in a number of batch uploads in the coming months. Rebecca has also been providing support and information on how the students and interns that work with the Hunt Museum can incorporate editing and uploading into their learning and project outcomes.

Much of our conversations with the Hunt Museum are focused around developing Wikidata workshops for other GLAM professionals in Ireland. This is still in the planning phase, but such a workshop may happen at one or all of the following: the Irish Museums Association Conference, at a pre or post conference event at Celtic Knot, or at the Europeana Tech conference.

Metrics We are currently working with the Hunt Museum to identify when events can happen, as well as how broader training events can be incorporated into partnerships with existing Irish and international conferences held in the museum or Limerick.

Formalise training relationships with GLAM partners

Our relationship with the National Gallery of Ireland has continued, with a second workshop with their TY students on 12 April 2019. They edited 6 articles during the workshop, focusing on the Zurich Portrait Prize and using source material from the Gallery’s library. We also partnered with them for an editathon during Heritage Week 2019, with a group of 9 new editors from the general public.

The conversations about including Wikimedia work into GLAM internships is ongoing. As many of these internships have formal learning outcomes, the current discussions are around how such Wikimedia work can be incorporated into the structure of the internships and their teaching and learning goals.

Metrics

Have 1 intern within a GLAM with WiR activities as part of their work - discussions ongoing
Create training documentation - discussions ongoing
Have intern partnerships in place with 2 GLAMs - discussions ongoing

Advocate for the adoption of open licencing by other Irish GLAMs

We continue to receive interest from GLAMs on how to begin to plan for either publishing work or collections under open licences, or how to adopt suitable licences to increase the impact of their work. Through a number of meetings, we have been working with librarians in TCD about the possibility of importing information on their Terry Pratchett to Wikidata. TCD holds a large collection of Pratchett works, including a great number of translations of his books. They have been creating a comprehensive dataset on this collection, and want to explore how to promote the use of the information and data.

On 16 July we collaborated with the PhotoIreland Foundation to host an editing event as part of their Photography Festival. This event focused on biographies of photographers in or from Ireland, and was attended by a number of professional photographers. What followed was an interesting discussion on how individuals can negotiate conflict of interest, but also how to donate images to Wikimedia Commons on their own, or fellow photographers, to ensure that Irish photography is well represented on Wikipedia.

On 21 November, Rebecca will be delivering a talk to those working with archives are part of the Archives and Records Association Explore Your Archives event the Irish Architectural Archive in Dublin. This invitation was extended following the talk Rebecca gave to the Council of National Cultural Institutions at the National Gallery last November. This talk will highlight some of the ways that archives can collaborate with Wikimedia Projects.

Metrics

Work with 2 new GLAMs to publish digital collections on Commons - discussions ongoing
Partner with 2 open license organisations to promote open licensing - discussions ongoing
Run 3 events in GLAMs about open licensing - 1 event held

Spending

Please report your organization's total spending during the reporting period, or link to a financial document showing your total spending.

18,306.78 euro

Final report

Program story

Please tell or link to one program story that showcases your organization's achievements during the reporting period. This can be another meta page, a blog post or any other source that tells your program story.

An interview with Rebecca was featured on Dublin City FM's Community Chats programme talking about WCI's monthly editing events in TOG as well as our other projects. Meghan Dowling spoke on an Irish language radio programme on Near FM talking about editing Vicipéid and the activities of WCI.

Learning story

Please link to one learning story that shows how your organization documents lessons learned and adapts its programs accordingly.

Rebecca was a guest on an episode of Wikipedia Weekly discussing the challenges of holding events during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on how Celtic Knot 2020 has been reformatted to be fully remote in response to the restrictions on movement and in-person events in 2020.

Programs Impact

Community Outreach

Insure that our work is in line with the needs and wants of the existing Irish Wikimedia community

Work started on rolling out this survey in October 2019 when we made contact with the Learning and Evaluation Team. Due to unforeseen delays in clearing the survey and its parameters, getting access to Qualtrics to host the survey, as well as getting a central banner to replicate the conditions of the 2016 survey, it is due to go live to users on Wikimedia Projects in May 2020. Having discussed the desired outcomes, and to maximise the ability to compare the results with the 2016 survey, the Learning and Evaluation Team’s advice was to run the same survey again, which can be found here. Again, it will be available in both English and Irish. The results will be posted on the research page here, at which point we hope to have an update on the metrics outlined in this grant.

Objectives:

Measure our impact on the community
Assess the community's needs

Metrics: Both metrics unfulfilled due to delay in implementation due to a longer lead in time than WCI or the Learning and Evaluation Team projected.

At least 100 respondents to the survey
At least 20 Irish language respondents

Work to develop engagement with Vicipéid as informal learning

As outlined within our latest Simple APG, some of the elements of this programme proved more ambitious than we had anticipated. Having met with representatives of a number of Irish language advocacy groups about this project, the capacity to develop, translate and disseminate is the biggest hurdle to greater participation with Vicipéid and other Wikimedia Projects through Irish. The recurring problem is a chicken-and-egg situation, where Irish language groups are reluctant to encourage events/programming/engagement with Vicipéid until there are resources to support that work, but without more Irish language speakers developing those materials is difficult with the capacity we currently have. One of these organisations, Conradh na Gaeilge, is a funder and supporter of Irish language societies in universities. They are currently undergoing some reorganisation, and while expressing interest in promoting events and other programmes around Vicipéid, they were not in a position to prioritise that work during the period in question. Workshops for the staff of Conradh na Gaeilge had been suggested for the first quarter of 2020. While in-person events are not possible at the moment due to the COVID-19 lock down in Ireland, it is planned to offer such a workshop digitally if there is an interest amongst the staff for such training.

In February 2020, we had been approached by some informal Irish language groups within government departments or private companies with the proposal of facilitating some editing events during Seachtain na Gaeilge (Week of Irish). However, in late February and early March, the lock down that would eventually prohibit such in-person events was being discussed, along with the general uncertainty about how and when the restrictions would come into place, meant that these proposals were put on hold for the moment.

In December 2019 and January 2020, we had started discussions with a partner organisation, Teen Turn, with plans to develop a programme for secondary school students which could be rolled out in both Irish and English in one school as a pilot. This pilot would have incorporated workshops with Rebecca, working with a group of female students as part of a wider module introducing them to programming, UX, and other digital applications. Unfortunately, schools in Ireland had already begun to roll back on events with outside speakers by February 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in these plans having to be shelved for the foreseeable future.

An additional issue that has become apparent in our talks with Gael Linn about their Gaelbhratach (Irish flag) scheme in schools is an infrastructure one. After a preliminary meeting with a representative from Gael Linn, they approached two schools in County Kerry and County Galway that have held the flag for a number of years, and were interested in exploring new events, programmes, and methods of outreach through the Irish language about using Vicipéid and other Wikimedia projects as a tool to expand their work. Unfortunately the schools' felt that their computer and other technical infrastructure would not be large or robust enough to support a programme in which large or multiple groups of students would be working on an online platform. The concerns were not only about providing access to suitable computers, but also stable and high enough internet speeds to support the students' work. At the time of COVID-19 pandemic, we had begun discussing events where partnering with local public libraries could have been a solution to these challenges. When social distancing measures are relaxed, these libraries might be the best place to bring small student groups where there is computer access as well as an interface with books, resources, and potentially archives and other historical material that the students could use within their work. We are hopeful that even in areas with poor internet penetration, or in schools or communities with limited access to computers, that there are partnerships that we can foster to overcome these issues. It is certainly more complicated and nuanced that we initially anticipated, and this knowledge has and will be incorporated into our future plans and strategies.

Objectives:

Develop a programme for use of Vicipéid with Secondary school students - while this programme has not been developed, we are working with some educators and advocates on how to begin this work so it has maximum effectiveness
Provide training for educators, as necessary, to run this programme - we now know that we need to partner with educators in this work, and that their involvement is more central than we had anticipated
Engage with Irish language societies in third level educations to promote the use of Vicipéid - we have begun to work with Conradh na Gaelige on how to formalise such events for 2020-2021 (if COVID-19 restrictions allow)
Assist Irish language societies with organising and running Vicipéid events - this work has begun, and we will continue to work with those groups and individuals with an interest in hosting events relating to Vicipéid etc

Metrics:

Have 10-20 Secondary school students complete 50 hours of instruction and editing in Vicipéid. The programme will be evaluated after this first cohort - this did not happen in 2019/2020, and is planned for 2020/2021 if COVID-19 restrictions allow
Engage with Irish language societies at 3 Universities/Colleges - this had been planned for Seachtain na Gaeilge 2020, but all in-person events were cancelled due to COVID-19
Assist with 5 events run by Irish language societies - having re-evaluated what is needed to support such events, we were unable to run these events in 2019-2020

Respond to the needs of the Vicipéid community on Wiki

As the editing community on Vicipéid is small and dispersed, it has been historically an under-resourced Wikipedia in relation to the features, gadgets, and other editing tools that are enabled for editor use. Primarily this is due to lack of awareness of the tools and gadgets that could be made available on Vicipéid, but then concerns from Wikimedia developers that there is not the level of activity in the editor base to ensure the proper maintenance of any features and tools if they are enabled.

It had been planned to hold a day long event on 11 March 2020 in the Dublin TOG Hackerspace which would have brought together editors from both English and Irish Wikipedias, as well as interested new editors in Ireland, to explore what are the needs and desires of the editors of Vicipéid. We had begun to plan the day, as well as platforms to allow for some virtual participation when both the Wikimedia Foundation and Irish government restrictions on in-person meetings meant that the day was cancelled. It had been hoped that the event would have been informal enough to allow for all levels of participation, while also creating a space to allow people from the wider editing community to meet and discuss the issues and challenges they face on Vicipéid and Wikimedia Projects generally. Given the unusual and evolving circumstances that we have found ourselves in, it was decided that it would not be possible to organise and host a successful event virtually by the end of March 2020. This decision was informed by the fact that at this time many people were adjusting very quickly to working from home, and that participation in such a virtual event could be affected by the wider pandemic. With this in mind, there are tentative plans to hold such an event in the run up to Celtic Knot as a possible brainstorming session to ensure that full advantage is taken of the conference for the Irish community.

Currently we are planning the first virtual Celtic Knot conference, which was to be held in Limerick in July 2020, but will now take place entirely remotely. Generally the conference is held over the course of two days, but the organising committee are hoping that there will be a spread of events over a week to allow for more types of engagement across varying platforms. As part of this, helpdesks and other virtual supports for those working in smaller languages will be available to new and existing editors on Vicipéid, and it is our hope and intention to ensure that the challenges and issues Vicipéid editors face are highlighted and fixes or remedies found. While some of this brainstorming and collaborative work can be far easier working face-to-face at times, we intend to make the most of the virtual meeting of a diverse and skilled number of Wikimedians at Celtic Knot to support the identified needs of Vicipéid users.

Objectives:

Engage with the Vicipéid community to develop tools
Engage with developers of other small language Wikipedias for assistance with developing Vicipéid
Host a virtual or physical hackathon to concentrate Vicipéid editors on improving the platform over a day

Metrics:

Create/enhance 3 tools on Vicipéid - this has been carried forward to Celtic Knot 2020
Have at least 2 community members attend Celtic Knot conference - Rebecca, Meghan, and Abigail attended Celtic Knot 2019
Host Hack your Vicipéid event, either virtual, physical or both - planned event was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions

Create more meaningful relationships with our event partners and foster more allies to our community

Throughout 2019-2020 we continued to work with a number of partners on a range of events. Up until the lock down in March 2020, we continued to host monthly editing events in the TOG Hackerspace in Dublin. The social evenings in November, December, January and February saw 20 new and existing editors meet, discuss and learn from each other about editing Wikipedia. As has been the case with these events, many of the participants are new to Ireland or visiting, so we often have many different language Wikipedias being edited at these events. These events were suspended from March onwards in line with both WMF and Irish government restrictions on in-person meetings.

Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland (IAI) invited Rebecca to speak about Wikimedia projects at a continuous professional development training event on 22 November. Rebecca presented on aspects of Wikimedia projects that would be of most interest to those working in the field of archaeology in Ireland. The feedback was that participants wanted to follow up this talk with a hands-on editing workshop, plans for which were briefly discussed with the IAI in late 2019. WCI has a longstanding relationship with IAI, including hosting our WLM launch event at their Archaeofest from 2015 to 2017 (this event has not been held since 2017). IAI also act as a bridge to other groups which represent or work with archaeologists in Ireland, including The Discovery Programme and the Office of Public Works, and members of these groups were in attendance at the workshop in November.

Given the success of the previous events, we again partnered with Amnesty International Ireland to host another BRAVE:Edit in December 2019. Eight participants worked on improving and creating articles relating to Women Human Rights Defenders, with some editors working in other languages to translate articles across Wikipedias.

Our community member, user Antiqueight, continued to run editor meet-ups in Cork in October, November, December and January, and have been attended by 2-3 editors and those interested in editing Wikipedia in the local area. No further events are planned for 2020 due to the on-going lock down.

Objectives:

Provide support and guidance to active editors in creating and expanding projects
Attend events run by allies to promote community and Wikipedia projects
Hold community events to introduce editors and allies to the community and our project base

Metrics:

Assist 5 editors to develop and run Wikimedia projects/events - 5 events held
Attend 10 events run by allies - 7 events attended, other events we planned on attending were cancelled or postponed
Hold 15 events to target new editors and allies - 13 events held

BRAVE Edit in Dublin December 2019
BRAVE Edit in Dublin December 2019

Use Wiki Loves Monuments as a vehicle for increased engagement with Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia

Having work through the figures of WLM 2019 in Ireland, there were some surprising an interesting results. Our aim to improve the geographical spread of images covered appears to have been a success. A new strategy employed this year was to send a small amount of flyers and a poster to all the local museums, the main local libraries, and in the case neither of those existed in the county, to the main tourist office. 2019 saw an increase in the number of unique monuments photographed for the first time, and with many more monuments from the areas previously poorly represented in the competition seeing a marked increase. Our hope that we would see a 10-20% rise in the sites with photographs in Ulster and Munster was far met, with all of the provinces seeing a jump in the percentage of monuments with photographs:

Leinster: 1074 photographed, 1581 no photograph - 40.5% coverage (up from 32%)
Munster: 944 photographed, 1635 no photograph - 37.6% coverage (up from 22.8%)
Connacht: 493 photographed, 647 no photograph - 43% coverage (up from 37%)
Ulster: 347 photographed, 764 no photograph - 31% coverage (up from 18%)

Having set the metric of seeing greater use of WLM images on Wikipedias as well as other Wikimedia projects such as Wikidata, it was discovered that at the beginning of 2019, we did not have a full dataset on the use of images at that time. Instead, from this year forward will monitor image use using the GLAMorous tool, which will give us a firm basis on which to monitor increases or decreases in image use across the 6 years WLM has been run in Ireland since 2014. Those figures can be seen below. Wikidata is the project that is seeing the most image use so far, with new and improved image categories being created on Commons and linked to the relevant Wikidata items. As this work continues, we plan on working with Wikidatians to use Listeria to create lists of missing articles on Irish monuments and built heritage which we can then bring to new and learning editing groups to work on as part of outreach and education projects. As the 2018 and 2019 editions saw an increase in the unique sites photographed, a correlated increase in the number of distinct image uses can also be observed.

Distinct image use across Wikimedia projects calculated using GLAMorous of eligible photographs:

2019: 258 images used out of 1099 - 23.48%
2018: 447 images used out of 1101 - 40.60%
2017: 108 images used out of 929 - 11.63%
2016: 83 images used out of 710 - 11.69%
2015: 257 images used out of 1660 - 15.48%
2014: 358 images used out of 1930 - 18.55%

Objectives:

Increase coverage of Irish monuments on Commons
Increase participation in WLM
Increase coverage of under represented Irish monuments on Commons
Increase amount of WLM images being used to illustrate articles on Wikipedia/Vicipéid
Target the areas in Ireland that have a lower percentage of monuments represented on Commons (Ulster and Munster)

Metrics:

40% of the photos uploaded will be of monuments with no photo - 24.29% of the 1099 eligible photographs were of monuments with no photograph previously
Increase coverage of photographed monuments in Ulster and Munster by 10-20% to bring them in line with Leinster and Connacht - The coverage increased in Ulster by 27.4% and in Munster by 34.9%
Increase of articles using images from WLM by 50% - this proved more difficult to track given how we captured data in previous years, but this will be more accurately trackable going forward
Increase of participants by 20% - number of participants was down, but level of new editors was up

Education Outreach

Expand the use of Wikipedia and Vicipéid in secondary schools

As outlined above in the informal learning section, we greatly underestimated the time, resources and capacity required to develop the module for use in secondary schools. Having done research into how other countries have created such modules, we are now looking to find a small number of teachers to collaborate with us on how to start drafting such a module for use specifically during Transition Year in secondary school. These new, adapted plans have been laid out in our 2020 grant and we are currently consulting with some teachers and other educators on how we can progress these plans with the COVID-19 social restrictions and school closures.

Rebecca was invited to lead a workshop at the Computers in Education Society of Ireland (CESI) conference in February 2020, and to take part in a panel discussion on asynchronous learning (a blog post by the chair of this discussion can be found here). The workshop introduced a group of educators from across the learning sector to the uses of Wikipedia as a learning tool in a variety of settings. As part of the panel, the experiences of the Wikimedia movement and how it tried to share knowledge over time and distance was of particular interest to the audience. At this event, a number of connections were made with plans to start discussions with teachers and educators to host Wikipedia or Vicipéid editing events in the coming months but at the moment, given current circumstances, these plans have not moved forward. We are planning to reconnect with some of these teachers in the coming months, once there is more certainty about social and in-person restrictions, or if they want to pilot some remote learning using Wikimedia platforms.

A key piece of feedback we have received, which has been incorporated into our 2020-2021 grant, is that educators want to learn and be comfortable with editing Wikimedia platforms before using it with groups of students. While there is an abundance of learning materials we can direct self-directed learners on how to edit through English, we do not have these materials in Irish. To this end, and with social restrictions continuing for the immediate future, we have begun to compile a list of all the resources that exist that are most useful to new and learning editors, the issues with them, if they need updating, and what gaps there are in the resources that exist in Irish. We will use this list to focus on a list of translation and other tasks which the Irish speakers in our groups can work through remotely as the lock down continues.

Objectives:

Develop Transition year modules for use of Wikipedia and Vicipéid
Develop training for educators for the Transition Year modules
Provide training to educators, as necessary

Metrics:

Roll out module into 3 secondary schools - work is continuing with a small number of educators on this module, with plans to pilot it when circumstances allow
Adapt and localise documentation and training materials for educators for both Wikipedia and Vicipéid - this work is ongoing, with existing resources identified, as well as gaps in suitable materials to adapt or translate

Create and expand partnerships with Universities and Colleges

Our various partnerships with educators has continued in the latter part of 2019 and early 2020, with some events cancelled due to COVID-19 measures. As previously outlined, a great deal of this work is now self sustaining with lecturers and library staff continuing to use Wikimedia projects as learning tools both with direct help from WCI and independently.

Queens University Belfast On 23 October Rebecca travelled to Queens University Belfast for a seminar for staff and students on the uses of Wikimedia projects in teaching. This was supported by the QUB librarian, Richard Fallis, and is part of our ongoing work to promote the use of Wikimedia projects in learning outside of the School of Medicine.

Trinity College Dublin On 18 November Rebecca and fellow WCI member Dr Claire Murray facilitated an editathon in the Chemistry department of TCD to mark Chemistry Week. It was a group of largely postgraduates, who took to editing very quickly, making a wide range of high-quality edits to pages on chemistry over the course of two hours. Given the success of the event, the organisers in TCD are keen to repeat a similar event when circumstances allow.

National University of Ireland, Galway Rebecca was approached to work with groups of students in two departments of NUIG which we had not previously worked with, Law and English. In early March, she led a group of Law students specialising in human rights law in an introduction to editing Wikipedia. It was planned to follow this up with a further editing workshop on 30 March, but due to universities closing for COVID-19 restrictions, this event did not go ahead. We hope to pick up with this group later in the year, if possible. A talk with the students of the MA in Literature and Publishing in NUIG on 20 March on open licencing was also cancelled due to the lock down.

Dublin City University Meghan Dowling, a member of WCI, continued her work with students taking a module through Irish on Irish resources online. Again, it was very fruitful for Vicipéid, with 12 new editors creating 15 new articles on Vicipéid, including this one of the use of Irish on Social Media.

Objectives:

Create new partnerships with universities and colleges
Expand on existing partnerships
Expand partnerships targeting Irish language students

Metrics:

Create partnerships with 3 new universities or colleges - Successfully run events with 3 new institutions: NCAD, UL, IADT
Run or assist in 10 events held in universities or colleges - 10 events run
Assist with 5 events run by Irish language societies - these plans were delayed due to the pandemic curtailing Seachtain na Gaelige (Week of Irish), but we are working with Conradh na Gaeilge on how to bring this to societies when university students return to campuses

Event at Queens University Belfast October 2019

Expand the reach of Wiki Science

Again in 2019, WCI partnered with the SCI:COM conference for Wiki Science 2019 in Ireland. We had hoped to enter more formal partnerships with 2 or more other science organisations for this edition of the competition, but were unsuccessful in this regard. November and December feature a very large number of science events in Ireland, including Science Week, and rather than this being to our advantage we have found that those organisations that we might have sought to work with are already too busy with their own events and programme planning to take on more at that time. We did find that overall, we benefited from this year having the international competition as well, with the banners and other promotion that the international committee bring to the event. It is due to this, that we have decided to run Wiki Science every two years to work in parallel with the international edition.

In previous years, the timing of the SCI:COM conference allowed us time to judge and then unveil the winning images at the conference. This year, the conference was held much earlier in December, meaning that we were unable to repeat that format from the previous two years. Instead, the upload window was extended until 15 December, and flyers about the competition were distributed to all the delegates attending the conference.

Results from 2019 Wiki Science in Ireland:

121 images uploaded, up from 74 in 2018 (19 images were deemed ineligible)
16 participants (10 newly registered), down from 20 in 2018

Wiki Science in Ireland is therefore following a similar pattern to WLM, with fewer participants uploading more images.

Objectives:

Increase participation in Wiki Loves Science
Engage with scientific organisations to promote Wiki Loves Science and Wikimedia projects in general

Metrics:

Increase of participants by 10% - user participation fell in 2019
Increase in photos uploaded by 10% - increase of images uploaded from 74 in 2018 to 121 in 2019
Partner with 3 scientific organisations - one partnership, with the SCI:COM conference

GLAM Outreach

Continue partnership with the Hunt Museum

Our partnership with the Hunt Museum has continued, but took a different format that was planned in the grant proposal. The staff of the Hunt have taken a more proactive role, uploading images to Commons using Pattypan and other work without needing direct an in-person help from WCI. This had the knock-on effect of not requiring Rebecca's presence in the Museum for uploads, so no accompanying editing events were scheduled. We had planned an editing event for Art+Feminism on 30 March, but this was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions. Rebecca has since been facilitating editing workshops with the staff and volunteers of the Museum over Google Hangouts since early April.

Progress was made on creating an appetite for Wikimedia editing workshops in Irish GLAMs when Rebecca led a workshop during the Irish Museums Association Conference on 21-22 February. The workshop was well attended with about 30 participants, and was followed by a lively and engaged discussion on how GLAMs and other similar organisations and groups could have meaningful and positive interactions with Wikimedia projects. A number of contacts were made on the day, with hopes that despite COVID-19 restrictions, that some will lead to remote or virtual events in the coming months.

Objectives:

Consult with Hunt Museum about digital collections
Hold upload events at Hunt Museum
Training of staff to enable upload of digital collections

Metrics:

Run or assist in 3 upload events at Hunt Museum - Hunt Museum staff have taken on this work, uploading new image collections using Pattypan
Host 3 public editing events at or in collaboration with Hunt Museum staff - due to lack of need for help with uploads, these editing events did not go ahead as planned
Partner with the Hunt Museum to host a training event for GLAM professionals from across Ireland on Wikimedia projects such as Commons and Wikidata - this work is continuing, with plans for this to be a part of Celtic Knot 2020

Boat-Shaped Fibula from the collections of the Hunt Museum
Bronze Braceleta from the collections of the Hunt Museum
Spectacle Brooch from the collections of the Hunt Museum

Formalise training relationships with GLAM partners

Aside from the other events outlined in the proceeding and preceding sections, other events and contacts were made in the last six months. Due to Art+Feminism, March is traditionally a very busy month for WCI with GLAM partners. A number of events with new and long standing partners were cancelled due to COVID-19:

The Little Museum of Dublin 12 March, staff introduction to editing Wikipedia
National Gallery of Ireland (Art+Feminism) 26 March
Library of Trinity College Dublin (Art+Feminism) 27 March

Based on discussions that were had with a number of smaller GLAMs in 2018, it had been hoped that we would have made progress in the establishment of one or more WiR style internships or placements within Irish GLAMs. As we have reflected upon in our more recent grant application, as an organisation we are not in the position to further this agenda on our own. We do not have the funding or advocacy power to push this further. As a small, mainly voluntary group, we can only educate GLAMs on the benefits of WiRs to their organisations, as well as advise on how WiR responsibilities can be incorporated into student placements and internships.

In February, Rebecca met with Dr Shaun O’Boyle, a science communicator who has been employed with the Dunsink Observatory to develop their strategies and resources around exhibitions, collections, and outreach. Dunsink is both a heritage site, and an active research facility. Working with Dr O'Boyle, an initial document was developed setting out the appropriate use of CC licencing of digitised images, as well as stating that Dunsink should work with WCI on event programming to include events and projects focused on creating and improving content on Wikimedia projects. It was hoped that the first of these planned events would take place from April onwards, but these are currently on hold. These discussions also covered the use and benefits of Dunsink having a WiR in the future, once funding and further development of the broader cultural programme had been developed. This new work with Dunsink overlaps with the next section, with the Observatory counted as one of the GLAMs we have discussed open licencing collection with.

Objectives:

Provide training documentation to assist GLAMs to incorporate editing and WiR activities into internships
Expand intern partnership to other GLAMs

Metrics:

Have 1 intern within a GLAM with WiR activities as part of their work - this did not come to fruition, but WCI will continue to advocate for WiR like positions in Irish GLAMs
Create training documentation - this work is still on-going, as it was hoped to fall in with the appointment of a WiR position in a GLAM, and has been incorporated more clearly into the plans for 2020-2021
Have intern partnerships in place with 2 GLAMs - despite consultation work, and many discussions with interested organisations, this did not happen in 2019-2020

Advocate for the adoption of open licencing by other Irish GLAMs

Wider conversations about the use of open licences for digital collections are progressing in Ireland. Ireland now has a Europeana representative organisation, the Digital Repository of Ireland, to channel digitised collections from Ireland towards Europeana projects. WCI have a long standing relationship with the DRI, which we hope to continue as more Irish GLAMs look to publish their collections through Europeana.

Rebecca was invited to speak at the Archives Research Association "Championing Diversity and Inclusion in Irish Archives and Records" event on 21 November about how archives can work with Wikimedia projects to help disseminate the information and resources they have by focusing on under-represented minorities and other communities on Wikipedia. The talk also explored the biases and other representational issues that some content on Wikipedia can have, both written and in the use and availability of imagery.

Rebecca was invited to speak at the "Valuing our natural history collections" event in the stores of the Natural History Museum on Wikidata, Wikispecies and Wikimedia Commons. This event was a follow up to the event on 30 April 2019 highlighting the European initiative DiSSCo (Distributed System of Scientific Collections). This event was very useful for making contacts with interested staff members from across a number of institutions with natural history collections and datasets.

Objectives:

Expand work with GLAMs to publish digital collections on Commons
Partner with fellow open license organisations

Metrics:

Work with 2 new GLAMs to publish digital collections on Commons - ongoing discussions with Dunsink Observatory, as well as individual staff members in two other GLAMs looking to openly publish their own photographs of their professional work
Partner with 2 open license organisations to promote open licensing - continuing to liaise with the DRI as more organisations in Ireland look to publish on Europeana
Run 3 events in GLAMs about open licensing - 3 events run, workshops at Irish Museums Association conference, ARA event, and at the National Museum of Ireland

Archive and Records Association training event November 2019

Spending update

Please link to a detailed financial report for your spending during the grant period. This should be in the same format as your detailed budget from your Simple APG application.

Please include the total amount of Simple APG funds you spent during the grant period:

38,135.98 Euro Full budget breakdown

Grant Metrics Reporting

Metrics, targets and results: grants metrics worksheet here.

Grants:Simple/Applications/Wikimedia Community Ireland/2019

Contents

Application

Background

Programs

Wikimedia Community Ireland Direction

Community Outreach

Education Outreach

GLAM Partnerships

Staff

Budget and resource plan

Midpoint report

Program story

Progress

Community Outreach

Education Outreach

GLAM Outreach

Spending

Final report

Program story

Learning story

Programs Impact

Community Outreach

Education Outreach

GLAM Outreach

Spending update

Grant Metrics Reporting