Annual Report 2024/Story: A learning organization and movement – the foundations for structured approaches have been laid during the year

Det här är en översatt version av sidan Verksamhetsberättelse 2024/Story: En lärande organisation och rörelse – grunderna för strukturerade tillvägagångssätt har lagts under året. Översättningen är till 100 % färdig och uppdaterad.

In this story, we focus on our journey toward both learning new ways of working and making it easier for the global movement to learn from each other, using the growing platforms Metabase and learn.wiki as examples of how existing knowledge can be structured and made accessible.

The Wikimedia movement consists of people who love and highly value data, knowledge, and education. The Wikimedia platforms and the movement operate in symbiosis, educating the public, documenting, and disseminating information – information that is reused in all conceivable products. For Wikimedia Sverige, it is natural to strive to be a learning organization that absorbs new knowledge, processes it, tests, and analyzes. However, this has largely happened in an ad hoc manner, driven by individual interests or specific emerging needs. This more reactive learning approach is fantastic and a positive aspect of our work. However, in 2024, significant resources were invested in preparing various types of platforms and materials to enable proactive efforts in education across different priority areas. These efforts have taken different forms, but the various initiatives reinforce each other.

As part of our initiative to organize a thematic hub for content partnerships, we have established a structured knowledge base of Wikimedia-related activities, with a particular focus on content partnerships with GLAM institutions, universities, UN agencies, government agencies, etc. We call this database Metabase, as it focuses on meta-information about the work of the Wikimedia movement and is built on the software infrastructure Wikibase, which also powers Wikidata. The structure of Metabase allows for advanced searches to find material that is particularly relevant and valuable for a specific task. The hope is to reduce redundant work and facilitate exchanges between different Wikimedia organizations.

The speed at which new information is added to the database has increased significantly as more areas have been discussed, data structures have been established, and many initial challenges with the platform, such as limitations on using external tools, have been resolved since we launched Metabase in 2023. Metabase will continue to evolve, and material will be continuously added, including the elements described below.

Metabase focuses on structuring information about what already exists. However, there is a great need for new educational materials to be developed. This includes e-learning materials that can replace or complement the traditional lectures Wikimedia Sverige has delivered for a decade. The plan is for participants in our activities, our members, and others to go through the learning resources on their own and prepare themselves. This would allow us to focus, during in-person training sessions, on tasks such as editing Wikipedia articles, discussing specific cases relevant to a given context, or talking about current events and how they affect the Wikimedia platforms — rather than covering the basics of Wikipedia, its funding, or how to create an account. Such a development would be highly beneficial. In 2024, we finally made progress in establishing this. As many as 10 modules were developed and published, and we were able to test and explore various settings and functions within the learn.wiki platform. We provided feedback to the Wikimedia Foundation for further development. However, much work remains for the learn.wiki platform to include all the learning modules we see as necessary, and investments in this will continue in 2025. Complementing Metabase with existing learning resources to assess what can be reused is a crucial piece of the puzzle.

We have also actively worked on developing materials for a larger training program aimed at people interested in taking on assignments as Wikimedians in Residence at UN agencies and other IGOs. We plan to apply for project funding in 2025 to develop the training program for a launch in 2026. This will include various types of learning modules available on learn.wiki.

In 2024, we also secured funding for several pilot projects, with Wikimedia Ukraine being a central project partner. In the two follow-up projects, which will be applied for in 2025, the development of training modules on learn.wiki will be an integral part. These modules are intended to be translated and contextualized for multiple Wikimedia affiliates within the project framework.

Our staff has continued with regular internal training sessions, often focusing on how various tools can be used in our work. For instance, the possibilities of new AI-driven tools have been presented by invited experts, providing us with many valuable insights. Additionally, we organized a major seminar together with Stockholm University, focusing on AI and text and data mining. We will continue to explore how these AI tools can contribute to our work and how our efforts can also support more ethical AI – that is AI solutions that include everyone and do not reinforce discrimination, exclusion, or marginalization.