Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Empowering Italian GLAMs

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Empowering Italian GLAMs

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Feedback from the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Regional Funding Committee on your proposal

Hello iopensa,

Thank you for taking the time to submit your General Support Fund proposal in the Northern and Western Europe region. We are pleased to have reviewed your application and have the following comments and questions:

• The committee strongly appreciates the work you have done on this proposal. It is clear that you have given considerable thought to your plan, and how the information gathered may inform future iterations of the strategy. Your team has extensive relevant experience, with both staff and volunteers included.
• The expectations for museum participants seem reasonable. Although unlikely to happen, it would be beneficial to see how the group would approach coping if a larger number of institutions than expected need support?
• It is very clear that there is strong external support from organisations related to the project in Italy. It is less clear what the everyday Wikimedian thinks of the project, however since this project is supporting the inclusion of more resources for the Italian community to use. Can you share what you know about support from the Wikimedian community?
• The project seems to be led by a volunteer, who is not paid through this grant, is this sustainable? Is it correct to say that you have full time employment elsewhere, and can afford the volunteer time for this project?
• Are the fees for junior researchers sufficient in context, or could/should they be raised? Early career researchers are some of the most vulnerable people in academia, and the committee would be happy to support an increase in their wages if appropriate.
• This is a suggestion, not a requirement. In addressing knowledge gaps and knowledge equity, perhaps this could be a suggestion made to the 500 institutions who will add content on a theme e.g., a museum could work to a broad theme of "women" or "women in X"
• On the theme of knowledge equity, the committee noticed that there was no mention of how work with Wikimedia would connect with discussions around decolonisation that are currently happening in museums around the world. Can you share your thinking about this?
• We appreciate your inclusion of a Gantt chart and a detailed multi-year funding request. One thing that needs clarity is the amount requested for the second year. The budget spreadsheet ('multi-year funding') says €85,430, but the spreadsheet also says year one is €31,250, which disagrees with the proposal of €70,230. This question is for clarification.
• Have you considered the way other countries with restrictions on public domain have approached open source work? (For example, Armenia and South Africa have done interesting work on freedom of panorama).
• We are curious about any advocacy work you may have done to change the law that restricts public domain? We would be interested to know more about your thinking and approach if you have information you can point to for us to read and learn from.

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.

On behalf of the NWE Regional Committee,

–Lajmmoore (talk) 05:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks to the committee and to Lajmmoore for such a nice feedback. I copy below your questions/requests to respond more easily. Thanks and my best regards, --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

The expectations for museum participants seem reasonable. Although unlikely to happen, it would be beneficial to see how the group would approach coping if a larger number of institutions than expected need support?

Having more museums involved in the project than expected would be wonderful. We indeed target all Italian museums and I think this should be the job of all Wikimedia chapters ;-) In the Risk Mitigation Plan I included this issue planning that the project can be extended over more years and Wikimedia Italia can assure financial support for a GLAM team over the years. Reaching all Italian institution is truly the ultimate goal of this initiative and the association is deeply committed in supporting it. --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Institutions

More institutions than expected join the project and contribute

The project can be extended over more years and Wikimedia Italia can assure financial support for a GLAM team over the years. Reaching all Italian institution is truly the ultimate goal of this initiative and the association is deeply committed in supporting it.

It is very clear that there is strong external support from organisations related to the project in Italy. It is less clear what the everyday Wikimedian thinks of the project, however since this project is supporting the inclusion of more resources for the Italian community to use. Can you share what you know about support from the Wikimedian community?

What we know

• In January 2022 with the support of a company we engaged as consultant, we involved a series of stakeholders in providing us feedback related to our strategy (we also posted the call for feedback on Wikipedia in Italian) and it emerged that increase the number of open content is considered a high priority.
• We experienced that several volunteers (active on the Wikimedia projects) are interested in supporting the local museums where they live (we had around 30 volunteers activated for the grant program for museums and theatres).
• The contest Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy (including museums) received a great support from the Wikimedia communities due to its specific role in questioning (and dealing with) the Italian heritage legislation.
• Furthermore articles about museums (with few expectations) are welcome on Wikipedia in Italian with a specific policy. We expect that the Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap communities in Italy will appreciate an effort to engage a large number of Italian museums and to open content.

What we expect

• We expect users on Wikidata to welcome the enrichment of data related to Italian museums.
• We expect the institutional content of museums to provide relevant images/texts for articles in particular in Italian and to have 15 volunteers engaged in supporting the use of this content.
• We expect collections uploaded on Wikimedia Commons to be welcomed by users on Wikimedia Commons (in particular because we engage the institutions which manage them and we are creating a form which includes the permission), but the collections will have a limited reuse.
• We expect Wiki Loves Monuments 2024 focussed on museums to trigger the reuse of content form museums, the engagement of the communities (which are know the format) and the involvement of new participants

What we can improve

• We didn't notify yet the project to the communities (I triggered some feedback only from Wikimedia staff Catrin Vimercati, Marta Arosio, Marco Chemello, Dario Crespi, Federico Benvenuti - all active users - and from few people like Lorenzo Losa and Federico Leva who normally have very good sharp comments, glup) so we need to do it. We already included among the tasks some community management to make sure we communicate properly.
• We will need to engage volunteers in fun and interesting events/edit-a-thons. We have May 23rd already an edit-a-thon at the Egyptian Museum in Turin, which is a very special event with all the museum for wikipedians/wikimedians; this format seems very attractive and fun to engage and trigger reuse of content.

--iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

The project seems to be led by a volunteer, who is not paid through this grant, is this sustainable? Is it correct to say that you have full time employment elsewhere, and can afford the volunteer time for this project?

The project includes a large team of paid staff and consultants (which provides it with a strong operative team) and it is already an executive project (a very detailed project which facilitates its implementation). I am the volunteer leading the project and contributing in solving problems and supporting it, but I'm not coordinating the day-by-day work which makes it feasible and compatible with my full time job. I care very much about this project I have been thinking about for a while and I trust I can lead it and manage my full time employment as I previously did with Wikimania Esino Lario for example. --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Are the fees for junior researchers sufficient in context, or could/should they be raised? Early career researchers are some of the most vulnerable people in academia, and the committee would be happy to support an increase in their wages if appropriate.

Thanks for this kindness. We set 26'000 euro because it is the lowest fee for researchers (Italy has very bad fees for researchers) and we would be more than happy to increase the salary to a higher standard. --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

According to your suggestion, I have discussed it with the team and we can increase the budget for the researcher from 26'000 to 36'000 euro (budget change for 2023, increase of the request for Wikimedia Foundation). Thanks for bringing this up and best regards, iopensa (talk) 09:44, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

This is a suggestion, not a requirement. In addressing knowledge gaps and knowledge equity, perhaps this could be a suggestion made to the 500 institutions who will add content on a theme e.g., a museum could work to a broad theme of "women" or "women in X"

It is a very good suggestion. In the city of Bologna the volunteers are already working with institutions with a focus on women and we can engage them. We can also make sure that the topic is present among the selected collections. --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

On the theme of knowledge equity, the committee noticed that there was no mention of how work with Wikimedia would connect with discussions around decolonisation that are currently happening in museums around the world. Can you share your thinking about this?

This is certainly a topic that will emerge in engaging ethnographic and natural science museums, with also the problem of collections which can not be made public (i.e. human remains). Also in Italy there is at the moment a tendency of museums to focus on their meta-history (i.e. the history of the museums, the history of the collections, the storytelling about the context which produced the collections of the museum): for example also the Egyptian Museum in Turin is providing content for the Wikimedia projects about the history of Italian archaeology in Egypt; this is a safe approach because it contextualises collections and it provides historical information about the history of the museum instead of cleaming to be a voice of the ancient history of Egypt.

Personally I am specifically interested in the capacity of Wikipedia to provide a space for rewriting history with a postcolonial approach, based on a neutral point of view, on collaboration, on the possibility of modifying and questioning knowledge and on an historiographical approach (which can allow articles to acknowledge the evolution of knowledge): I actually started contributing to Wikipedia because of its potentiality as an infrastructure for a postcolonial approach (with all the contradictions of the aim to universal knowledge with the format of a Eighteen century encyclopedia).

More practically the project:

• Focuses on collections which already have been at the centre of a work by the museum around a publication or exhibition; this allows to associate the collections with background knowledge, studies, texts, captions which contextualise content. This is specifically important from a postcolonial perspective to accompany content with its context and to guide its reading.
• Evaluates collections through their capacity to contribute to knowledge: how a topic on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects changes and it is reinforced after content has been uploaded (which is actually the mission of a museum: providing and enriching knowledge, not simply counting the number of viewers and visitors).
• Involves many institutions: it is the large number and the variety of institutions which can provide a better and more diverse discourse
• Wants to provide a scalable system to engage a large number of museums: it is by putting together the voices of the different institutions in different parts of the world (with also small collections) that we will be capable of enriching and change power dynamics.

Please note that museums are institutions which historically have been contributing to the strategy of glory and the construction of identities of nations and powers. They are political and ideological projects and they are never innocent. I think in selecting the collections it is important also to reflect on what we make available and why (and if we ethically agree on what we are actually share). We spent a lot of time arguing about the importance of sharing: I think the next advanced step we are currently engaged with is to critically considering what we are sharing and how to make sure we do it ethically. --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

We appreciate your inclusion of a Gantt chart and a detailed multi-year funding request. One thing that needs clarity is the amount requested for the second year. The budget spreadsheet ('multi-year funding') says €85,430, but the spreadsheet also says year one is €31,250, which disagrees with the proposal of €70,230. This question is for clarification.

Sorry for this. I probably made a mistake.

• Total budget requested to Wikimedia Foundation €70,230 (2023)
• Request to Wikimedia Foundation for Workpackage 2 year 2023 - €36,440
• Request to Wikimedia Foundation for Workpackage 3 year 2023 - €33,790
• Workpackage 1 year 2023 - Fully financed by Wikimedia Italia
• In multiyear funding I put the entire budget for the project (not the request to Wikimedia Foundation)
• €85,430 is the total budget for 2023 (Workpackage 2 and 3) which also includes funding and in-kind from Wikimedia Italia and in-kind from University of Torino.

Year	Proposed Total Budget in Local Currency (total budget)	Proposed Total Budget in US Dollars	Increase / Decrease Percentage % in US Dollars	Summary / Key Budget Notes
Year 1: 2022	€ 31.250,00	$ 34.030,00	0,00%
Year 2: 2023	€ 85.430,00	$ 93.029,85	0,00%	We do not expect an increase or decrease of the budget

Year	Request to Wikimedia Foundation	Proposed Total Budget in US Dollars	Increase / Decrease Percentage % in US Dollars	Summary / Key Budget Notes
Year 1: 2022	€ 0,00	$ 0,00	0,00%
Year 2: 2023	€ 70.230,00	$ 76.477,66	0,00%

I corrected this copy of the budget. --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Have you considered the way other countries with restrictions on public domain have approached open source work? (For example, Armenia and South Africa have done interesting work on freedom of panorama).

Wikimedia Italia and myself have good contact with Armenia and South Africa. I will get better information about their work on freedom of panorama. Thanks for the suggestion. iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

We are curious about any advocacy work you may have done to change the law that restricts public domain? We would be interested to know more about your thinking and approach if you have information you can point to for us to read and learn from.

Here you find a description of the situation about heritage in Italy and here in Italian a chronology of all the activities of advocacy implemented by Wikimedia Italia. Please note that we do not have freedom of panorama but we also have restrictions related to the commercial use of images of heritage in public domain (this has consequences on images compatible with our projects which always allow commercial use).

• Since 2012 Wiki Loves Monuments has been our main tool to negotiate and communicate about the restrictions on heritage in public domain (since we produce images which allow commercial use and commercial reuse)
• Since 2013 Wikimedia Italia has opened discussions with the Ministry of culture with their endorsements to Wiki Loves Monuments
• Wikimania Esino Lario focussed on this issue with a meeting in the Italian parliament about Italian heritage, the involvement of members of the parliament and the communication of the event focussed on "Wikipedia comes to Italy, how about the Italian heritage on Wikipedia?"
• Strong collaboration with Creative Commons Italia about the European directive on copyright; presentations at the Italian senate, letters
• Currently strong focus on partnerships with major national institutions (ANCI - National association of municipalities, ICOM Italia...)
• Currently we are working on a publication about open knowledge in Italy (2022 focussed on heritage and museums) as a communication tool for like-minded organisations, activities and contacts with the press
• Currently we are working on a publication about 10 years of Wiki Loves Monuments in Italy to tell also about this story of Italian complexity
• Currently request to the EU about the irregularities related to the implementation of the European directive about copyright

Thanks for your work and please do not hesitate to let me know if you need any further information. --iopensa (talk) 12:06, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Modification of the project

According to the suggestion of the committee, in our request we increase the budget to cover the expenses for the researcher engaged in 2023. Thanks and best regards, iopensa (talk) 09:46, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

You will find in the complete budget the increase from 26.070 to 36.000 euro.

Year	Request to Wikimedia Foundation updated 2.0	Proposed Total Budget in US Dollars	Increase / Decrease Percentage % in US Dollars	Summary / Key Budget Notes
Year 1: 2022	€ 0,00	$ 0,00	0,00%
Year 2: 2023	€ 80.160,00	$ 87.291,03	0,00%

• Please find here the new updated budget.
• Please note that I have uploaded the updated budget also on the Fluxx portal. The file is called "Updated Budget Empowering Italian GLAMs-2.0"

Please do not hesitate to let me know if you need any further information, iopensa (talk) 10:18, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Round 2 2022 decision

Congratulations! The Northern and Western Europe Regional Funds Committee has recommended your proposal for funding!

The Wikimedia Foundation has approved the committee's recommendation to fund your proposal in full for $87,291.03 USD / 80,160.00 EUR

Comments regarding this decision:
The NWE Committee recommends full funding for Wikimedia Italia, with the updated amount of €80.160,00 requested. We would welcome any ways in which you could highlight museums with ties to the knowledge equity goals of the Wikimedia movement strategy.

Next steps:

1. You will be contacted to sign a grant agreement.
2. If you have questions, you can contact the Regional Program Officer for the Northern and Western Europe Region.

Posted on behalf of the Northern and Western Europe (NWE) Funding Committee, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 17:30, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Request of an extension for the project Empowering Italian GLAMs (from 31 January 2024 to 30 June 2024)

Dear Wikimedia Foundation team,

At the moment the project Empowering Italian GLAMs ends on 31 January 2024. We would like to ask for an extension until 30 June 2024.

We ask for an extension because our researcher at the University of Torino won a PhD. and she now leaves the project. We need therefore to make a new call for research candidates to assigned the remaining funds to a new person. The procedure takes time and an extension will help us finalize the project more conveniently. The extension don’t require new funding.

Please let us know if it is possible and thanks for your support :)

Regards, iopensa (talk) 09:44, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Dear Iopensa and WM Italia,

Thank you for your explanations. The request for extension is accepted, as per approval from the NWE Program Officer. The Empowering Italian GLAMs project's new end date now is 30 June 2024.

Kind regards, Agnes ABruszik-WMF (talk) 12:03, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Noting here that the new grant report due date is now 30 July 2024. -- Best, JTud (WMF), Grants Administrator (talk) 18:48, 9 November 2023 (UTC)