Wikimedia CH/Grant apply/1st Open BAM BUAP

Infodata

Name of the project: Open BAM BUAP: 1st GLAMhack in Puebla, México
Amount requested: 5000 CHF$
Type of grantee: Group
Name of the contact: Sandra Palacios
Contact: sandra.palaciosg@correo.buap.mx

In case of questions, please write to grant wikimedia.ch

The problem and the context

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

Many GLAM institutions, in Switzerland in particular, but in Europe and the world, have Mesoamerican artifacts in their collections. The problem is that many of these artifacts are not accessible, especially to the heirs of Mesoamerican culture. While it is true that many of them are in the permanent exhibitions of museums or in the online catalogues of these institutions, access to such data is not always in a format and under open licenses so that they can be easily shared or reused. The same goes for artifacts belonging to other cultures with colonial pasts, such as various North and South American, African, Asian, and Oceanic cultures.

What is your solution to this problem (please explain the context and the solution)?

I am a professor at the Arts School of the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP) in Mexico, so over the last six months, thanks to the proposal and support of Opendata.ch, as well as the implementation of the “CultureFLOW” methodology in the context of the 10th edition of the Swiss Open Cultural Data Hackathon, my students and I have produced two audiovisual projects based on artifacts found in the Mexican collections of the Ethnographic Museum of Geneva and the Burgdorf Castle Museum. Thanks to the incredible results, we now have the necessary arguments to demonstrate to other GLAM institutions the potential of releasing data from these collections so that anyone, anywhere in the world, can freely and easily access such data. This can become a reality if the data is shared on Wikimedia projects.

The work carried out over the last ten years at GLAM hackathons in Switzerland has enabled many GLAM institutions to make their catalogues, photographs, artefacts, etc. accessible online. We believe that a GLAMhack in Mexico in 2025 is the next step in sharing and reusing the databases that are already available in Switzerland, as well as achieving, by good example, that other Swiss GLAM institutions, but especially also Mexican ones, make their collections accessible using Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikipedia. Since much of the information about Mesoamerican collections in Switzerland is not available in Spanish, we will use the occasion to improve Spanish coverage of important topics related to the collections. In addition, GLAMhack 2024 has allowed us to share the CultureFLOW methodology with Wikimedia.ch, with which we have developed a new project involving artistic communities in Nairobi, Kenya. The results are intended to be presented at Wikimania 2025, as well as at GLAMhack 2025 in Mexico. The cooperation will allow us to share our experiences at BUAP with the project team in Nairobi and beyond, using next year's Wikimania as a platform for exchange.

Project goals

Conduct a GLAMhack at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), in Puebla, Mexico.
Invite more GLAM institutions in Switzerland and Mexico to release their databases in free and reusable formats through Wikimedia projects during the GLAMhack in Mexico.
Develop artistic projects with my students of the Arts School based on Mesoamerican collections in Swiss museums to showcase their results during the GLAMhack 2025, both in Mexico and Switzerland.
Involve my students in information management (continuous education programme at BUAP) in activities related to Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons.
Share the results of the project we are carrying out together with GLAM Wikimedia.ch, implementing and reusing the CultureFLOW methodology within the framework of the GLAMhack 2025 in Mexico and Switzerland.

Project impact

How will you know if you have met your goals?

Similarly to the GLAMhack 2024 in Switzerland, the GLAM hackathon 2025 in Puebla will be used as an occasion and focal point to:

create and enhance, within the Spanish wiki projects, content related to holdings released by GLAM institutions in Switzerland;
approach and engage in cooperation with GLAM institutions in Switzerland and Mexico, in order to familiarize them with the format of the event, to encourage them to release data and content, and to share best practices among each other;
develop artistic projects among students at our Art School, reusing the Mesoamerican collections of Swiss museums, and present them at the GLAM hackathon;
encourage a variety of heritage institutions from the State of Puebla to release and engage with open data and content from the heritage sector, including their use in the context of Wikimedia projects.

Furthermore, we will continue to cooperate with Opendata.ch and Wikimedia CH to further develop the CultureFLOW methodology, with the goal of involving more institutions and adapting it to other contexts.

Do you have any goals or metrics around participation or content?


SMART Goal	Target (80% achievement = fulfilled)
number of active participants across the various parts of the program	5 heritage staff, 5 university lecturers, and 50 students
number of heritage institutions contacted / interacted with	10
number of heritage collections examined	5
number of new artistic or participatory projects worked on (fully executed or ready to apply for the necessary funding)	3
number of themes worked on in the Wikimedia projects	3
number of Wikipedia articles created or substantially improved	24
number of workshops organized among heritage institutions to exchange and promote best practices	3

Project plan

Activities

Preparatory activities for the GLAMhack:

Introductory talks on free knowledge and Wiki projects by Wikimedia Mexico, Opendata.ch, and others for GLAM institutions in Puebla, especially at BUAP, although the intention is to invite institutions outside the University;
Preparatory workshops to plan projects to be presented as challenges in the Idea Pitching session;
Preparatory workshops to edit Wikimedia projects: Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata.

The GLAMhack itself will consist of two days with different activities:

Presentation of results of artistic projects with the CultureFLOW methodology, by ARPA BUAP students and artists from Nairobi in conjunction with the GLAM team at Wikimedia CH;
Wikipedia Editathon around Swiss GLAM collections in Spanish
Presentation of Challenges / Idea Pitching
Work in groups around the challenges
Final Project Presentations
Wrap-up and Apéro

Budget

Budget
Type of expense	MXN	Comment / Details
Food & Beverages	$11.500,00	2x Breakfast, 2x Lunch, 1x Dinner, 1x Final Apero 80 participants
Accomodation Hostel	$37.500,00	3 nights for 10 participants, 1250 MXN$ per night
Project Coordination + Communication	$20.000,00	200 hours at 100 MXN$
Training / Outreach to Institutions	$20.000,00	200 hours at 100 MXN$
Hack Tech Infrastructure	$3.500,00	Hacking platform, datasets hosting, ...
Side Events	$5.000,00	Events happening before the hackathon to promote the hackathon
Public Relations & Communication Materials	$4.000,00	Logo, flyers, video teasers, ...
Onsite Tech Support	$5.000,00	Boosting internet connection, ...
Gifts	$3.000,00
Varia / Incidentals	$10.000,00
Total Cost (in MXN)	$119.500,00
Total Amount Requested (in CHF)	CHF 5000

Community engagement

As the experience of the Swiss GLAM hackathon has shown, the GLAM hack typcially attracts a mix of regular and new participants. Thus, on average, 50% of participants have previously been in touch with Open GLAM and/or data hackathons, while 50% of participants are completely new both to open data and Open GLAM. We expect to see a similar development in Puebla, with participants from various backgrounds: GLAM staff, artists, IT professionals, data scientists, Wikimedians, researchers, digital humanists, etc.

As the experience of the Swiss GLAM hackathon has shown, a large number of hackathon projects (more than 50%) directly involve Wikimedia projects, mainly Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. By having some challenges focusing also on improving Wikipedia, we expect to see some project teams also to work directly on Wikipedia. This will allow us to reach out to and involve members of the local Wikimedia/Wikipedia community.

Long-term retention/conversion rates among art students are expected to be relatively low, but with regard to the information management students, we expect about 20-30% of students to continue working with Wikimedia projects after the GLAMhack. In order to facilitate this, it will be important to secure the support from management at various heritage institutions in the State of Puebla, especially the major institutions at BUAP itself, including the BUAP Library, with which an excellent working relationship has already been established.