Plan/2015

Based on Wikimedia Serbia's Strategy of work and progress 2012-2015, we made this proposal as a plan of activities for the year 2015. Here are some basic activities.

Finances

Planned revenues: 103.510,00 €

Planned expenditures: 103.510,00 €

Office and staff

Executive Director

Executive Director of Wikimedia Serbia professionally leads the organization and coordinates staff, takes care of the administrative and financial affairs of the organization, promotes Wikimedia projects, which includes increasing the corpus of free knowledge and implementing strategic plans of the organization while respecting policies and procedures of the organization.

Program and Community Manager

Program and Community Manager will continue on structuring and coordinating projects and programs and guiding volunteers in their work.

Education Program Manager

We plan on hiring one more person, with the position “Education Program Manager”. This person will be responsible for developing Education Program which will involve gaining new partners, program development and participation in organizing and realizing of lectures and workshops both in Belgrade and other cities in Serbia.

Projects and activities

Wikimedia Serbia Education program

Education program of Wikimedia Serbia consists of several different projects, for which we will give key objectives.

Wikipedia in Schools: WMRS has a long tradition of conducting lectures and workshops in schools and faculties within projects for all types of educational institutions (elementary, high schools and university faculties). The goal is to use Wikimedia projects in educational purposes as a free platform that could be used in many ways. One of those ways is writing articles (seminal papers) on Wikipedia, which help increase quality and quantity of this project. Thanks to the lectures and workshops, new editors and users will be informed about the ways Wikimedia projects work.

Seminars and Trainings: This is a project that includes training teachers and professors to work on Wikipedia, so that they would be able to edit on their own and later train their pupils or students and use Wikipedia in their curriculum.

Professional Development: This is a project that deals with including seminars and trainings in the system of professional development of teaching staff through attending obligatory courses and seminars. In contrast to the “Seminars and Trainings” project, which isn't compulsory and is conducted as an extension to the cooperation with an educational institution on a specific Wikipedia article writing project, “Professional Development” is a project where teachers and professors from all over Serbia attend a seminar because they are required to attend several of such seminars throughout a year, with the goal of professional development.

Wiki Adventure: The main idea of this project is the implementation of Wiki Adventure in high schools in order to start a new way of education regarding editing Wikipedia. The main objectives are translation and implementation of Wiki Adventure, bringing Wikipedia closer to younger users and comparing Wiki Adventure with regular education approach. This is going to be accomplished primarily through translation and technical implementation and then through the promotion and workshops which will be conducted in major cities of Serbia and through comparative analysis of two approaches to education.

Wiki School - Our School: The subject of this project is digitalization of education and cultural heritage of the Pomoravlje, Resava and Levač districts of Serbia through involvement of school teams representing schools and school surroundings on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. This is a project whose main objective is improving digital competence of teachers and students through training of how to use and create resources within the Wikimedia projects.

Education projects have always had a role in popularization of Wikipedia and increasing participation in terms of editing. Cooperation with educational institutions through various projects increases Wikipedia’s visibility and enables even higher participation, and writing articles through education projects increases the quantity and quality of Wikipedia articles.

Free Photo Content

Photo Safari: This is a direct continuation of the same project from last year. In essence, the main objective is to collect photos of not very well covered parts of Serbia, e.g. natural heritage, everyday life, places of greater importance in Serbian villages and smaller towns. If possible, we would like to engage with the local community.

Wiki Loves Earth: This project includes mass collecting of photos of natural heritage of Serbia through a well-known contest; also, one of the objectives this year will be to hold an article writing and improving competition regarding Serbian natural heritage. Additionally, we expect to promote the project through holding several exhibitions of the winning photos.

Wikicopter: This is a direct continuation of the last year’s project with the same name. By next year, we will have all the necessary parts and the Wikicopter will be assembled, so the project next year will focus on creating aerial photos.

Petnica Science Center: This project will be a three-day photo school which will be organized in the Petnica Science Center for all participants who are interested in training about taking photos and shooting experiments. The objectives that will be achieved are introducing participants with licensing and working on Wikimedia Commons as well as using posted content in other Wikimedia projects. Each participant should successfully choose a license and upload at least one piece of high-quality content on Wikimedia Commons, and use that piece of content in another Wikimedia project.

Zapis - Sacred Tree: The goal of the project is to form the database of zapis trees, including data about and photographs of each tree. The database will then be used to suggest addition of zapis trees to the list of intangible cultural heritage of Serbia and later of UNESCO. This would be the first database of its kind in Serbia, if not in the world, and if we manage to make the addition to the list of intangible heritage it would deepen our cooperation with state institutions. We also expect a large number of photos of the trees and their surroundings that are often remote and would otherwise remain unphotographed.

Discovering Pešter: The goal of the project is research and documentation of specific geographic and natural characteristics of Pešter in southwestern Serbia, including ethnographic and social characteristics and activities of multi-ethnic population. The collected material will be fully available for use in Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and others).

Thailand Underwater: The goal of this project is documenting, collecting and processing the biodiversity and underwater landscapes of Thailand, summing it up on Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia articles, and thereby making it available to a broader public. Also one of the goals is, apart from dissemination of knowledge, introducing the public to the problems and possible solutions to many of the ongoing environmental issues. This is going to be done through a diving safari and five diving expeditions.

GLAM and Digital Belgrade

GLAM: This project continues our work with GLAM institutions with the objectives being two-way cooperation, facilitating the release of photos, texts and data under free licenses, and attempts to establish cooperation with institutions we haven’t previously worked with. At the end of this project we expect to:

have a Wikipedian in Residence in at least one GLAM institution - Wikipedian in residence will be working for mutual benefit while upholding the policies of both the institution and Wikimedia and enabling of community interaction in both directions. The goal is increasing the quality of many articles and quantity of photos available on Wikimedia projects. In addition, one of the goals is holding lectures and workshops in the institution with the aim of introducing staff members with the work of Wikimedia Serbia.
cooperate with GLAM institutions in obtaining photos and other free material

Digital Belgrade: The objective of this project is a continuation in placing QRpedia’s QR codes to Belgrade monuments. We will hold workshops for writing and improving articles and photos about objects and place QR codes on them. We expect to have some partners regarding further work on this project after this year’s Project presenting event.

Wiki Librarian: The topic of the project is informing and training librarians: a thorough introduction with all programs and preparation of librarians to participate in the activities organized by Wikimedia Serbia and Wikipedia; creating new pages on Wikipedia regarding libraries and their cultural activity; creating picture galleries regarding libraries or institutions to which they belong; creating complete and high quality bibliographic data regarding libraries and their activity on protecting copyright (links to the complete texts, bibliographic data on printed and electronic information sources and the like). The goals of this project are attracting librarians to become successful Wikipedians, enlarging the library and network of other cultural institutions and introducing them with the Wikimedia Serbia activities, creating richer, more informative materials of higher quality on Wikipedia.

Competitions

The primary objective of this program is to increase free knowledge by creating new or improving existing Wikipedia articles that would unlikely be created or improved otherwise, except through on-wiki competitions. Additionally, competitions are a good opportunity to motivate community members to edit articles.

This project would bring attention to Wikimedia projects since the awards offered are somewhat unorthodox for an Internet project. It would increase participation in Wikimedia projects since people who would not otherwise participate will be drawn to the participation by the awards, and we have empirically observed that competitions produce positive effects on Wikimedia projects. As quality of articles is included in their assessment the competition will improve the quality of articles. Wikipedia's reach will be increased both by the new articles and via reports of the competition.

Wiktionary

This is a continuation of the project of developing this Wikipedia’s sister project. Work on the project 1001 Arabic Words, that was started in 2013, includes writing Arabic-Serbian dictionary, articles about Arabic language and grammar, holding workshops and promoting the project. Beside the project in Arabic language, which will continue to exist, our plan is to start some more similar projects related to Wiktionary, in partnership with the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. Seeing as the volunteers who have participated in the 1001 Arabic Words project in 2013 expressed interest in actively taking part in other projects and activities of Wikimedia Serbia beside the Wiktionary project, we expect that other similar groups will show certain interest in internal events in Wikimedia Serbia and its other projects. We expect to start new Wiktionary projects in at least two new languages, so the project should be considered successful if 1000 new words are completed for the Serbian Wiktionary. In total, we will hold at least 80 workshops/meetups in Wikimedia Serbia office as parts of this project.

By supporting the development of smaller projects, we are encouraging innovation and improving the quality of those projects and quantity of articles therein. By engaging students to actively participate in projects like this, we will increase awareness regarding Wikimedia and hopefully attract new volunteers to become involved in other projects of Wikimedia Serbia.

Supporting regional cooperation:

Wikicamp: As one of the oldest chapters in the region, Wikimedia Serbia has started many initiatives for regional cooperation. The very recent one was Wikicamp 2014. It was organized by Wikimedia Serbia and Wikimedia Hungary in order to promote networking and develop stronger relationships between the two chapters. By continuing with the regional cooperation, we hope to support development, strengthening and connectivity of communities in our region. Our goal is to participate and enable participation of representatives of the broader community in events, to help in organizing events either by giving advice or by active participation in the organizational process. From Wikicamps program: we expect one Wikicamp to take place, with a minimum of 20 participants and two topics across two days.

Spreading the Wiki Word: Republic of Srpska: The goal of this project is introduction of a number of students and teachers in Republic of Srpska (part of Bosnia and Herzegovina) with free licenses and the Wikimedia projects, as well as with the ideas of equal use of information and knowledge. The main goal is to introduce students and pupils in four regional centers in the Republic of Srpska with free content, as well as the motivation for creating and usage of available information. Given that the project leaders are university professors and teaching assistants, and students and pupils are target group, the expected goal of the project is to create a solid base for expansion of Wiki idea, and in the future a step forward for founding Wikimedia Republic of Srpska or Wikimedia Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Community Support

Community support: The goals of this project are enabling communication across narrower and broader community of Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects, as well as broader Wikimedia movement. Another goal is to inform the public about happenings in Wikimedia movement by writing and localizing blog posts and participating on social media. Also, one of the goals is maintaining contact with the broader community in Serbia by visiting and enabling community members to participate in Wikimedia projects (e.g. participation in local and international conferences and meetings). We will create and promote blog posts and our other websites, but also post regularly on social media. We will use certain amount of the budget for transport expenses for community members who are willing to come and participate in local projects and events of Wikimedia Serbia and visit Wikimedia Serbia office.

Serbian Wiki Conference: This conference will be organized with the main goal of making Wikipedians meet each other in the offline world which we think is very important in addition to make them be more active both on Wikipedia and in some other projects of Wikimedia Serbia. By organizing this conference we will focus our work on strengthening the capacity of Wikimedia Serbia. Conference will take place in Belgrade and will be organized as two-day event with at least 30 participants, out of which we will fund travel and accommodation fees for 20 participants.

Diversity

Wiki Fem & LGBT: This project is an expanded continuation of the FemWiki project started in 2014. The main goals of these projects are the same: (1) to increase participation of women of any age and LGBT editors on Serbian Wikipedia and (2) to improve the quality and diversity of articles on Serbian Wikipedia by improving it with content about feminist and LGBT history, terminology and topics, and also biographies of women and LGBT persons.

Wiki Women Camp Serbia Albania: The subject of this project is to organize a one weekend camp for women from Serbia, Albania and Kosovo, with the main goal to work on overcoming the gender gap on Wikipedia in Serbian and Albanian languages and to make stronger connections within the region. The camp will be held in Priština, Kosovo. The main objectives for this Wiki Women Camp are:

to have a good cooperation with Albanians about organizing the Wiki Women Camp
to organize a three day camp in Priština, Kosovo for women from Albania, Kosovo and Serbia
to educate women about the gender gap on Wikipedia and why it’s important to work on that issue

Creative Commons & Wiki Loves Science

Creative Commons: The main purpose of the Creative Commons project next year will be to translate the Creative Commons 4.0 and Creative Commons Zero licenses to Serbian language. Through the established public process, we plan on getting the translations done by our volunteers and accepted by the Creative Commons during 2015. Also, part of this project is the continued maintenance of our CC website.

Wiki Loves Science: This is a continuation of the same project from 2012-2014, with the goal of promoting Open Standards and Open Access through a conference and website. A conference gathering several experts in open science, is a place where they would showcase their innovations and use of Open Standards. That will be an opportunity for promotion of Wikimedia projects and Wikimedia Serbia. Also, we will continue with the practice of collecting open content (mainly photos) by and within scientific institutions, thus enlarging our gallery.

Microgrants

We expect this kind of projects to mostly work towards increasing participation, creating content (mostly texts and media) and increasing reach by engaging people previously not active in Wikimedia community and supporting community members to try and run (with the help from more experienced community members) smaller programs that require less overhead to gain experience and better understanding of both broader Wikimedia movement and its goals.