Verksamhetsplan 2021/en

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Annual plan for 2021 for Wikimedia Sverige

For an overview of the Programs, Strategies and Goals, please see https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Verksamhetsplan_2021/Tabell_över_program,_strategi_och_mål/en

Context

Specific opportunities and challenges in Sweden and the EU

No country is unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic and in Sweden the recommendations from the government have so far been to avoid organizing physical events and to work from home if possible. We expect these recommendations to continue through a large part of 2021 and have therefore adjusted the way we organize events and activities. This has a direct effect on both our budget, our ambitions and how we design the projects for the year.

One of the few positive changes that have developed because of the pandemic has been the quick adoption of digital technologies across society. Partner organizations who before insisted on physical meetings and who did not have strong knowledge of, or any deep thinking about, digital technologies have quickly changed. Schools are now discussing online learning and tools, cultural heritage institutions are discussing how they can engage people in their materials through digital platforms, governmental agencies are working hard on interacting and engaging with the public through digital means. This all creates many opportunities for conversations, discussions and possibly a long-time change in behavior – if we manage to act swiftly and decisively.

We have also seen a change in available funding opportunities. In 2020 many funding agencies postponed calls for grants, to some extent the general public and to a large extent companies reduced donations to civil society organizations, governmental agencies reduced many projects due to delays because of the pandemic. However, the opportunities for 2021 looks promising: The Swedish government has a record sized budget for the year, the stock market had recovered by the end of 2020, the funding organizations that underspent in 2020 are likely to increase their spending in 2021. So for 2021 we expect many of the opportunities that were lost in 2020 will return.

Sweden is a digitized and tech friendly society which significantly lowers the threshold to engage people and organizations in our work. The country has a very strong and efficient welfare state and the governmental organizations invest massive amounts of money to digitize different types of content that is of public interest. However, many actors in Sweden lack a clear plan on how to most efficiently deliver the material to the general public. The Wikimedia movement has proved itself to be one of the most efficient and groundbreaking ways to achieve this and the interest in working with us is soaring.

Despite comparatively high wages in Sweden, in relation to many countries, this strong trend of digitization investments in the country is something that helps reduce the overall costs for the work we do for the free knowledge movement. The public investments in digitization allows us to focus on contributing specifically to the latter part of digitalization work and to ensure that it is disseminated and connected and interlinked, rather than digitizing materials ourselves.

As Sweden has a stated aim to be a leader in the tech field the methods we develop with our partners are frequently spread globally by our partners. Wikimedia Sverige can therefore often support rather than lead that work, and still achieve significant visibility for our work.

In Sweden the labor force is highly skilled and there are good opportunities to attract the talent needed to build a strong team, not the least developers who could improve the software used within Wikimedia. This is a possibility that we would like to explore further in partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation. As the workforce is fluent in English, adding international competence to the team is not an issue. As an EU country, hiring across the continent does not present major hurdles.

Through a new EU directive all governmental organizations in Europe will need to ensure the accessibility of all extranets and intranets that the organization start using after 23 September 2019.[1] So even though the Wikispeech initiative, which we have worked on since 2015, at first glance does not connect directly to our tool development efforts for the GLAM community of practice it provides a tool for satisfying an aspect of this legal demand for accessible tools for the public sector. Because of this we believe that this work will be a cornerstone in being able to develop long term partnerships. Furthermore, the MediaWiki development skills, developed through the Wikispeech project, will enable us to later focus on effectively integrating the content partnership tools developed directly into MediaWiki, when deemed suitable.

Opportunities and challenges internationally

The ongoing ​Wikimedia 2030 Strategy​ has inspired the chapter to put forward bold initiatives with a clear international focus. The implementation of the recommendations is expected to start in 2021, and this will affect the association's activities in many ways. A major and important area is decentralization and Wikimedia Sverige is hoping to take on a leadership role and to develop the concept around Thematic hubs together with the Wikimedia Foundation and the Movement at large (see below under the heading General Direction).

The strategic discussions have also helped to gain insight into what a ​hub​ in the Wikimedia movement should and could be. Even though much discussion, experimentation and investments are needed to realize some of the envisioned initiatives we see a clearer path and a stronger commitment for change than we have seen before. We are hopeful that we will be able to tackle important issues that we have struggled with for years as a movement. The leadership across the Movement seem to nowadays be thinking much more internationally and planning joint initiatives, which creates many new interesting opportunities.

However, due to COVID-19 in 2020, the plans for an initiative around content partnerships starting in July 2020 were postponed. The future of the initiative is still uncertain which has created a somewhat problematic situation for the association as it prevents initiatives in other areas through external grants. This is because we wish to be ready to start the work with the content partnership initiative as soon as possible.

Part of our work to become a more attractive organization to partner with and to donate to is to highlight the work we do and connect it to major trends. One of those are the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted by the UN in 2015. They have had a major impact in Sweden where there is a positive view of the UN institutions in general. The Goals make it easier for both the business community, the public sector and civil society to see what will be given political priority, not just in the near future but until 2030.

Clarifying how the Wikimedia movement contributes to meeting these goals is therefore important and through our work with Wikimania 2019, where the SDGs were the theme, we got off to a flying start. In line with the goals, Sweden has a feminist foreign policy and the authorities are obliged to work towards increased cooperation between each other and with society at large. The Swedish civil society is very engaged in the implementation of the SDGs. Sweden is also a major international aid donor.

We believe that this will have a great positive impact on our work in the coming years. We have actively communicated how our work supports these large initiatives and this has led to many international governmental organizations reaching out to us to discuss possible future partnerships. Especially our work with the WikiGap initiative has created interest.

We are enthusiastically following the important expansion of a global internet through different satellite constellations.[2]

The foundation for the Wikimedia platforms are based on Internet access, and with new technical solutions that have the potential to allow several billion people to gain access to the Internet in the short term the Wikimedia movement need to consider how it will affect our platforms and our work.

In the case of Wikimedia Sverige the work with collecting cultural heritage from across the globe would be significantly improved with better internet connectivity, as more institutions can provide content over a stable connection and will realize the value to work with digitization. But also other parts of our work could be affected significantly, e.g. with increased possibilities to collect data, e.g. speech recordings, to develop better multilingual tools. Such efforts also grow in importance when more users are in need of the technical solutions.

General Direction

Over the years Wikimedia Sverige has developed its capabilities in GLAM and education, around technical projects, in diversity work, political lobbying and in support for the volunteers of the Wikimedia and wider free knowledge community. All of this work helps support the trust, use and visibility of our platforms. Many of the initiatives we run also have an international dimension or focus to them.

With a growing team we intend to continue to have a strong focus on all of these areas in 2021. Overall our programs and projects continue and build upon those of previous years. However, we continue to strategically refocus the existing initiatives to align with, and support, the work of the planned Thematic hub (see below). In accordance with the direction taken during the last years, the work will have a further increased international focus. We have realized that the composition of our team ​–​ and the context in which we are working ​– ​is giving us an opportunity to take on a leading role within the Movement and to effectively support other Wikimedia affiliates, and by doing so strengthen our joint effort.

In 2021 the chapter is launching its new 4-year strategy and significant efforts in 2020 are expected to operationalize it. Through the updated strategy we can highlight how the work in Sweden will connect to the implementation of the global strategic recommendations.

Wikimedia Sverige as a possible future Thematic hub

Like most international movements the Wikimedia movement has had a significant amount of discussions on how to ensure different, and sometimes conflicting, values and goals, such as ​efficiency​, ​diversity​ and ​interoperability between different actors​.

These goals sometimes end up in conflict with each other, sometimes because they are actually in conflict, but often this is dependent on what time horizon one is looking at. E.g. in the short term a centralized organization might be more suitable to enhance efficiency, but in the long run a more diverse set of organizations might enhance the efficiencies even further. What was true at one point in time might change over time and the discussion on how to best achieve our shared vision should therefore stay active.

The Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Recommendations were developed between 2017 and 2020 and in depth analyzed ways the Wikimedia movement should develop until 2030. One of the key takeaways from this process was the intention to develop different ​hubs across the world. The need for two types, ​Regional hubs ​which support organizations and volunteers in a certain geographical area (e.g. a ​European hub​), and ​Thematic hubs​, which support organizations and volunteers within a certain area of expertise (e.g. a ​Content partnership hub​).

Representatives from Wikimedia Sverige were strong proponents of the concepts of hubs during the development of the 2030 Recommendations. The chapter views hubs as a key concept to organize the Wikimedia movement around, as there is a real urgency to implement a more distributed power structure in the Wikimedia movement to tackle many of the identified issues. As such the chapter was interested to start experimenting as early on as possible, to see how the idea of hubs could be organized in the Wikimedia movement.

The hope was that, as an organized mid-sized chapter, these trailblazing efforts would reduce the costs and complexities for other affiliates to take the necessary steps when taking a larger role in their contexts.

This work to become a hub has been done with the clear understanding that a clear definition of what a hub consists of is yet to be defined and that the exact scope is likely to change. In fact, in the end Wikimedia Sverige might not pass the muster to be formally appointed to be a hub, but for us such outcome is okay if we have made the needle move in the right direction and on the way achieved more free knowledge.

The intention is to state an intent and to make a serious effort to initiate a process of transition and organizational change that would allow the chapter to transition to take on this international responsibility.

We believe that we can help fill a gap that currently exists around technology and capacity building in our international movement. In partnership with Wikimedia Foundation we are developing our international work with the hope to develop our organization into a Thematic hub focused on content partnerships​. The preparatory work done in 2019 and 2020 has given us a very good starting point for achieving a successful organizational transformation in 2021‒2022.

Wikimedia Sverige, with support from Wikimedia Foundation, has worked on producing a White Paper about the work to prepare the organization for a larger international role. The White Paper outlines the opportunities and many challenges that have to be handled during such a radical transformation process and future work that is identified. The aim with the White Paper is that other affiliates who plan to develop new hubs can learn from these trailblazing efforts and do not have to reinvent the wheel or fall into the same traps. The hope is that the document will also be valuable for the Wikimedia Foundation, as the main funding agency of the development of hubs, and later for the Global council to assess the best paths for developing hubs in the Wikimedia movement.

Based on the insights from the work in the last two years our efforts during the first half of 2021 mainly focused on:

  1. Increasing Wikimedia Sverigeʼs organizational capacity to allow for substantial and rapid growth. This includes:
    1. Legal and HR preparations for internationalization and diversification of the team;
    2. Further refinement of internal technical tools and platforms;
    3. Development of policies and guidelines;
    4. Translations of key organizational documentation.
  2. Agreement on a first technical direction of the work. In the direction the existing initiatives worked on by Wikimedia Sverige are included, e.g.:
    1. Dedicated tools for GLAMwiki work;
    2. The Wikispeech extension;
    3. How maintenance and support is achieved over time;
    4. How we support other affiliates and volunteers when they develop tools connected to content partnerships.
  3. Developing a model to continuously involve, investigate, research, monitor and compile the needs from partner institutions and affiliates regarding what type of tools they need and match it with existing tools to identify what we should focus on developing. This will inform the development of the future plans for what technical development to focus on.

For the second half of the year and first half of 2022 we have secured a significant grant of 400,000 USD (circa 3,332,000 SEK) from the Wikimedia Foundation. Around half of the funds will be used in 2021 and the other half in the first half of 2022. The work will focus on:

  1. Supporting the development of a set of key technical tools. We intend to start the work with low-hanging fruit to stress test the association and showcase the potential of the initiative.
  2. Creating a method to educate and showcase the value of the solutions we develop for stakeholders and decision makers. This includes free knowledge actors who will spread knowledge and information further, external partners that need to use the tools, and VIPs that can ensure that the tools are being prioritized and that the institutions will work with us. This work is especially important in countries without Wikimedia affiliates to ensure their culture and content nevertheless gets represented on our platforms, ensuring a better diversity of content. A lot of this work will focus on Structured Data on Commons and on Wikidata.
  3. Developing the thematic hub concept for the Wikimedia movement, e.g.:
    1. By sharing what we have already learned;
    2. By continuing the experimentation on what a thematic hub around content partnerships could focus on. This will be done together with WMF teams and other affiliates;
    3. To participate in high level discussions on governance models for hubs.
  4. Ensuring support from within the Wikimedia movement and other key stakeholders for this initiative, through ongoing collaboration and discussions with stakeholders.
  5. Supporting, when requested, other affiliates with non-technical expertise to organize successful content partnerships.
  6. Develop a prototype inter-affiliate exchange program, working title is “The Grand Tour of Europe”, where staff and volunteers will visit different affiliates to learn about their work, share their knowledge and build strong inter-affiliate networks.
  7. Develop a UN-Wikimedia content partnership around health, gender and different emergencies, working title is “Sharing is Caring”, where we will formalize partnerships with international organizations to share their content through the Wikimedia platforms. This program will utilize the WikiGap campaign that we coordinates each year as a door opener.
  8. Ensure sustainability through local fundraising for long term change, working title is “Funding the fun” (see below for details about the planned fundraising work).
  9. Actively support other Wikimedia organizations to bring content from partners onto the Wikimedia platforms through batch uploads etc. We call this a “Helpdesk” and it will be supported by an international committee helping us to decide what to prioritize.

We will also prepare to develop a new application to become a formal hub in 2022.

All this work is intended to support partnerships with external actors from across the world, especially for smaller Wikimedia communities. We will therefore cultivate strong partnerships both within the Wikimedia movement, and with external actors. We intend to deepen our cooperation and knowledge sharing with other affiliates in the Movement. Depending on the size and geographical location of the affiliates, the cooperation will have different benefits and long term goals. With Wikimedia Deutschland and the Wikimedia Foundation in particular we intend to continue the exchange of learnings around technical development we have started in 2019-2020.

Through the work with the hub we will have to find ways to continuously involve, and co-create with, other free knowledge actors across the world. In the first half of 2021 external organizations will mainly be Nordic GLAM institutions and large coordinating Intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), such as ​Europeana​, ​UNESCO​, ​ICOM​, ​IFLA​, ​CLIR and different EU wide networks where we have established contacts. When we reach the second half of the year we will have a plan on how to engage GLAM institutions and other actors from across the world, our intention is that this will happen in close partnership with the Community Programs team and the Partnerships team at the WMF and with local volunteers and Wikimedia affiliates.

How the rest of our activities tie into the international efforts

For us to effectively engage external partners in the development of the hub we need to engage them in the production of free knowledge and convince them of the benefits and philosophies underpinning our work. We will therefore continue to invest in training, workshops, seminars and other types of outreach and educational activities. Through a number of planned projects (see below under the headline ​Projects​) we will scale our capacity and the number of activities in this area.

A strategic shift is that training provided by staff will be aimed to further the engagement of our partners over time and give them the tools to organize activities by themselves (e.g.train their staff on how to organize an editathon), rather than organizing one-off activities aimed at producing content. For events focused on content production or on introduction to Wikimedia we instead intend to engage volunteers. Staff time will be directed to supporting volunteers with coordination, logistics and with training for individual development and empowerment. This shift will, with time, allow us to scale the work significantly and not be limited by geographical constraints.

This strategic shift will also affect the work with the educational sector. Wikimedia Sverigeʼs staff will reduce the work aimed to support individual teachers to develop material for their courses. For this type of work volunteers and professional associations will instead be supported so that they can take ownership of this type of activities. Instead, the staff will be focusing on open access and open educational resources and how the hub can support such material to be added and connected to the Wikimedia platforms, and on supporting peer-to-peer learning and networks. We believe that this shift will allow us to support development of content partnerships not just across Sweden, but also in countries across the world.

In 2021, we will also continue to support the work to make Wikimedia the “​essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge​”, i.e. efforts that organizations across the world can use, benefit from and build upon. Our contribution to this is mainly twofold: (1)Develop the Speech Data Collection tools which are connected to the Wikispeech MediaWiki extension[3], as this will create a valuable dataset of speech recordings and annotations that is needed for Free and open source software (FOSS) solutions around text-to-speech and speech-to-text solutions; and (2) continue to develop the unique freely licensed resource of an inventory of GLAM institutions around the world on Wikidata, through the FindingGLAMs project. Efforts will be made to ensure that both of these initiatives will support the hub: accessibility is a must for extranets and intranets created (e.g. an institution deciding to use their own MediaWiki installation) in Europe and Wikispeech will help position us in competition with commercial actors; the data about GLAM institutions will help ensure that we reach a significant number of the potential partners the Wikimedia movement hope to engage, and in the process we establish partnerships with other Wikimedia affiliates.

Wikimedia is nothing without its community. To ensure continued support from the active volunteers, to engage more new volunteers and not least to improve diversity, is a strategic priority for the association. We will increase the level of support to our offline and online volunteer community, and work towards the growth of this community. This work with volunteer involvement will help to reinforce all efforts outlined in both our work in the hub and in the projects we run in Sweden.

In 2021 we are planning to increase our efforts to engage ​offline​ volunteers with a focus on significantly increasing the outreach done by the association. This will be in line with the new volunteer strategy we are developing, where volunteer groups will be organized and supported by the association (to allow them to innovate and lead in a number of areas). Volunteers from the global community will be provided with clearer paths to engaging in the projects led by staff, including engagement in a number of international campaigns (such as the WikiGap campaign), and in supporting international events and working with us around events and training with international partners such as UN agencies.

The ​online​ volunteers will be encouraged to actively engage with the material we are making available through our content partnerships. We will provide support to them in a number of ways, such as addressing technical needs and through grants, training programs to enhance their skills etc.

We intend to continue to support a diverse movement by activities dedicated to increasing participation from underrepresented groups. One way we will be working on this in 2021 are through the activities being planned to engage more female and non-binary volunteers online and offline (e.g. through the WikiGap initiative which we are coordinating globally). We see great possibilities to reach further by engaging civil society organizations and engage their networks in our efforts and by sharing their unique content through the Wikimedia platforms. Another way we support a diverse movement is our continued efforts with developing Wikispeech, to make contributing to the platforms easier for volunteers with e.g. visual or neurological impairments.

The work regarding long-term financial and organizational sustainability of the association will continue. As the initiatives we run become larger and more aspiring to become digital infrastructure a clear path for long term financial sustainability of the initiatives becomes more important. Infrastructure can not be allowed to fail. Sweden is a wealthy country with significant opportunities to secure funding for both national and international work. We believe that working to organize local fundraising in a wealthy country is a responsibility in order to free up the amount of resources available to the global community over time, and to help reduce the risks associated with having the majority of the Movement's funding coming from a small team at the WMF. That said, this is a change that will take time to fully implement and support from the Wikimedia Foundation is crucial for this shift to take place.

In one way we have already been very successful with local fundraising as Wikimedia Sverige now has an agile organization with a focus on utilizing the APG funding to further external grants and other revenue sources. We intend to keep this use of APG funding for 2021 as well. We will grow the sources of long term grants and funding, increase the amount of volunteers, members, and visibility through the use of bold projects that push the border for what Wikimedia affiliates have strived to do. The project grants we design and apply for are intentionally re-shapable to allow for the inclusion of new opportunities during the project. We have proven that we are efficient in bringing in funds to our Movement (with 44 successful grant applications between 2013-2020, not including applications to the Wikimedia Foundation), but our association is still very much dependent on the APG. In 2021, we will continue our push to change this. We have updated our financing plan for 2021 and have identified 10 areas to work on in order to continue to improve the associationʼs financial situation. However, not all will be pursued in 2021, and we believe that the following three avenues are the most important to ensure long term sustainability:

  1. Dedicated resources to research and prepare the association to possibly become a Thematic hub focusing on content partnerships.​ We are confident that we can deliver a unique service to the international Wikimedia community and strengthen the work related to content partnerships which other affiliates across the world are engaged in. We have prepared for an increased international responsibility since 2017, with a number of internationally oriented projects. To increase our readiness we have received dedicated funding from the Product department at the WMF since 2019. Our hope is that a long-term agreement with WMF will be in place by mid-2021 about experimenting with a number of activities that could develop Wikimedia Sverige into a Thematic hub. This would in turn allow us to secure new types of funding that we have been too small or unknown to attract before.
  2. Apply for general operating support from major grant givers in Sweden​. Initially we will approach the Swedish Postcode Lottery about this. They offer a major funding opportunity for civil society organizations, ​starting​ at 500,000 USD per year in a non-restricted grant. What is fairly unique is that the non-restricted grant is increased as our budget increases (this means that more Movement funds available for the work as a hub would increase the grant!) and some larger civil society organizations received 2,000,000 USD per year. Obviously, a lot of organizations are competing for the funding, and we did not receive funding in 2020 when we submitted our first application to them. However, in a follow-up meeting the funding agency stated their strong interest and presented us with a clear path to a successful future application. What we need to achieve is an increased presence across Sweden and a significant increase in brand recognition for the ​organization​. We have a good idea on how to achieve this and are hopeful to secure funding by 2023, if the right pilot funding for this work can be secured.
  3. Increase in donations and membership fees through Swedish fundraising campaigns​. We have worked with the WMF fundraising team in 2020 and have established the basic capacity for efficient and professional fundraising locally. It is still very much a work in progress, but we hope to start an active campaign during 2021 — if we receive funding for a pilot project. This work will in itself also support the work to receive funding from the Swedish Postcode Lottery (as described above), as brand awareness will be improved through the fundraising campaigns.

In 2021 our development of the Wikispeech Speech Data Collector is expected to be at a point where the community can be engaged to actively contribute with speech data. This will allow us to improve the Wikispeech extension, but it will also improve Lexicographical data on Wikidata[4] and add pronunciations to Wikipedia articles.[5] We are coordinating this work with initiatives with complementary goals and communities such as Lingua Libre[6] and Mozilla's Common Voice[7]. Furthermore, the Wikispeech Speech Data Collector has the potential to form the foundation for a dedicated tool set needed for capturing and structuring ​oral citations​, something that the Wikimedia community has discussed since at least 2012,[8] but were not much progress has been made since. Wikimedia Sverige do not aim to lead the work regarding oral citations, but in 2021 we hope to initiate discussions with other Wikimedia affiliates so that we hopefully in the future can provide a piece of the needed technical solution.

For long term protection of the project we will continue to invest in public awareness and lobbying campaigns. As a member of the European Union, lobbying efforts towards Swedish politicians can have a global effect. We believe that the positive view on Wikipedia will be beneficial when trying to convince the Swedish government and parliament to support free knowledge in different ways, not the least around Freedom of Panorama, open data and with the implementation of the Copyright Directive. We will also continue to discuss with other European chapters around the formation of a possible European Regional Hub in Belgium.

Programs

Wikimedia Sverige has adopted a new strategic direction in early 2021. Our four programs were kept intact:

PROGRAM Access Use Community Enabling
DESCRIPTION Where we ensure that more material is available for the projects Where we work to get more people to use the material and to know about it Where we support our active volunteers and grow and diversify the group Where we ensure that our association is working well and keep developing in a number of areas

Strategy

Wikimedia Sverigeʼs next 4-year strategy was adopted at the Annual General Assembly on 24 April 2021 and the chapter's work has since shifted towards fulfilling the new strategic direction.

Access Use
The chapter shall work to ensure that information that is of broad interest is made open and easily accessible, linked together and refined. The chapter shall work for a societal change where increased access to free knowledge is practically facilitated and thereby becomes the norm. The chapter shall provide volunteers and users with tools and opportunities to contribute to and ensure qualitative information. The chapter shall contribute to improving the user experience on Wikimedia's platforms. The chapter shall work to ensure that all volunteers have equal opportunities to contribute to the Wikimedia movement's platforms.
Community Enabling
The chapter shall support existing communities. The chapter shall help create new communities. The chapter's work shall be operationally sustainable. The chapterʼs work shall be financially sustainable.. The chapter will collaborate with new partners and actors. The chapter's work shall be based on and contribute to learning and external monitoring.

Goals

Grants metrics

Program Participants Newly registered Content pages Comments
Access 1,000 250 275,000 We expect Participants and Newly registered to stay the same as in 2020. We have plans for an increase in activities next year as we see an increased interest from Folk high schools​ in Sweden in our training, and we can reach many participants at once through online events. However, we will use the year (which we think will still be negatively affected by COVID-19) to finalize our strategic shift on how we organize events and activities, and as such the short term outputs will not increase as much in the coming year.

The goal for content pages are 11 times higher than 2020 which is due to the projects we have secured funding for. Nearly all edits will be on Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons through batch edits.

Use 500 50 500 As Wikispeech was not activated in 2020 as hoped, the number of Participants and Newly registered was not reached. With the hope that it will be launched in 2021 we are keeping the numbers the same as in 2020. Participants will take part in presentations on Wikispeech and Knowledge in Crisis Situations with one event focused on adding content.
Community 1,000 300 20,000 Due to COVID-19 we expect that fewer events will be organized in 2021 and that even though Participants will increase in number for each event, and as such stays unchanged from the goal in 2020, Newly registered will be reduced somewhat (from 500 in 2020). We are increasing the number of created Content pages compared to the goal of 2020 (15,000 in 2020) based on expected uploads and new initiatives around Wiki Loves and with WikiGap.
Enabling 100 - 25 We expect that our work with Association Involvement 2021 and Organizational development 2021 (around the implementation of Wikimedia Sverigeʼs new 4-year strategy) will increase the number of Participants. No Newly registered are expected in this program.

There will be improved pages on Outreach and Meta, especially connected to sharing lessons we learned from internationalizing our work regarding content partnerships.

TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 1,600 600 295,525

Grantee-defined metrics

Diversity​: The number of unique participants and/or organizers of activities conducted or supported by Wikimedia Sverige who belong to underrepresented genders in the Wikimedia movement in Sweden. These groups are defined as women and people identifying themselves as something other than male or female.

Non-participant audience​: The number of people that are in the audience at a presentation or lecture regarding a Wikimedia relevant topic given at an external (i.e. a non-Wikimedia movement) conference. This is used as a proxy for reach/awareness.

Program Diversity Non-participant audience
Access 800 2,830
Use 35 60
Community 225 940
Enabling 140 170
TOTAL FOR ALL PROGRAMS 1,200 4,000

Goals

The new strategy for Wikimedia Sverige was adopted on 24 April 2021 and the yearly goals are kept for now.[9]

That said, for some goals the numbers are likely to be revisited due to major changes in the organization or due to the expected impact from COVID-19 also next year, e.g. the goal of participation in five international Wikimedia events during the year.

Projects

We intend to continue working on many of the same projects during 2021 as we have in 2020. We will continue the work we have started with aligning the projects with internationally oriented efforts to become a movement leader and thematic hub for content partnerships. The new strategy for Wikimedia Sverige which is being developed and is expected to be adopted in April 2021 will mean that some of our projects will have to be adjusted to fit with the strategy. The necessary changes are expected to take place in May 2021.

In the ​Access program​ we will continue with all the projects we worked on during 2020. We have previously received a large grant which continue into the first half of 2020: the Free music on Wikipedia project. We expect to apply for two other externally funded projects connected to the library sector in the second half of the year. Furthermore, a few smaller project grants will be finalized as well and some bespoke work for GLAM and educational partners are expected. We plan to apply for a few different grants from Wikimedia Foundation connected to the implementation of the strategic recommendations for 2030 that will increase access to content. These applications are gathered under the umbrella name ​Implementation of global strategic recommendations 2021​ project.

In the ​Use program ​​we will continue with all the projects from 2020. The two ​Wikispeech related projects we have received external project grants for will continue in 2021. We plan to fund a project around maintenance of the Wikispeech extension with the APG. We are also in the early stages of planning for a large external grant to enhance visibility for our work across Sweden.

In the ​Community program ​​all the projects we had in 2020 will continue. External applications to scale the WikiGap campaign are being developed together with other Wikimedia affiliates.

The ​Enabling program​ will be reduced compared to last year as the work on the thematic hub is now organized under the Access program. However, current funding for the Tools for Partnerships 2020 project lasts until 30 June 2021.

Budget and grant request

For a complete budget for 2021, see https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u7_E3R0Qjpz95f0sKeirw05AoHfrlJ2mYgwLK-bgTaI/edit#gid=0​. Please note that the budget might be altered significantly depending on what the agreement with WMF regarding the thematic hub initiative will look like.

Wikimedia Sverige is requesting 3,038,500 SEK through the ​APG​ for 2021 (​FDC funding​).

Projects

We will continue with the following FDC funded projects from 2020:

ACCESS COMMENTS
Wikipedia in Education 2021 This project aims to engage the educational sector in contributing to free knowledge and to develop ways for us to work together.

2021: The previous work has laid a strong foundation with many established partnerships and good knowledge about Wikimedia amongst educators the project will now shift focus. Work will be aimed at forming long-term strategic partnerships, affecting policies, developing insights through research and building capacity for other actors (non-staff) to work with educators across the country.

One area that we want to continue expanding is our work with Open Educational Resources (OER). We will continue the work within our new network Mötesplats OER, including possibly organizing a digital conference on OER. We will also try to get more people to become involved in the network, increase our outreach and continue the work of implementing UNESCOʼs OER Recommendation on both the strategic and operational level in Sweden.

Furthermore, we will continue to support educators to implement Wikipedia based assignments where students improve Wikipedia as part of their curricular activities. We will actively highlight and communicate Wikipedia in classroom settings. Less staff focus will be directed to support educators to organize events, but instead focus will be directed to support peer-to-peer learning and to empower educators, volunteers, students and WiRs to work with the courses.

A key part of the project is the development of a modular digital educational package where the basic material is the same, but where additions can be made to different target groups. A number of projects will this year include funding to cover the costs for a module for the specific audience or use case the project is trying to reach or achieve. These target groups include e.g. the interested public, different expert groups, teachers/trainers, volunteers and staff.

To increase reach we will educate university teachers and folk high school teachers as part of their official educational programs (where we have well established contact).

GLAM 2021 This project maintains continuous interaction with GLAM partners and seeks out new collaborations. It also serves as an umbrella project for smaller projects funded by individual GLAMs.

2021: Staff will continue to support our existing partners and organize outreach to new potential partners. During the year we will work to re-energize our strategic partnerships with central and strategic actors. We will look into how linked open data (LOD) and Wikibase can create interest. We will develop a series of educational activities for the GLAM staff across Sweden.

The situation with the pandemic has shifted our focus to work through digital solutions for communication with the Swedish GLAMs and we will continue to develop the digital training material we started with in 2020 to allow for asynchronous preparations of the participants. We are planning for training with e.g. library staff, with working life museums and with the major museums in Sweden. As part of this project dedicated modules directed to these target groups will be created and connected to the educational package (outlined under the project Wikipedia in Education 2021).

A few different volunteer teams will be formed to support the work, e.g. to identify important collections to batch upload, with online engagement of the material, with training for GLAM staff etc.

Our partners will be invited to engage in the thematic hub as experts and stakeholders. We will also start the work to create material that can be internationalized to spur GLAM activities abroad.

Presentations 2021 This project includes different one-off presentations by WMSE staff, that are paid for by an external organization. The project exists to simplify taxation of our work.

2021: We will increase our efforts to create packages that are suitable for different stakeholders about areas of our expertise and proactively contact them about it, e.g. through our networks, through social media posts or when we approach e.g. companies to become supporters of our work.

Advocacy 2021 Through this project we ensure that the Internet user perspective and the free knowledge perspective are heard in the legislative process and by politicians. The project is funded by donations and membership fees to keep them separate from FDC funded projects.

2021: During the first half of 2021, focus will be on the implementation of the Copyright Directive of the European Union into Swedish legislation, and our work to defend the user perspective in this implementation, while pushing for Freedom of Panorama. As a positive long term outcome of this work, we will aim to create a network of Swedish organizations that have a stake in these issues to work together. The copyright societies are already highly coordinated, and a similar coordination among defenders of a user perspective would be important in the long term. Furthermore, the implementation of UNESCOʼs OER recommendation into Swedish legislation will be carefully monitored and decision makers will be approached as needed.

Support will be given for the work done by staff in Brussels in this and other legislation, financially but also by providing insights and contributing with insights and experiences. We will aim to support the coordination of policy work with the cultural heritage sector among issues relevant for both parties. There is currently a lack of coordination which limits the effectiveness of our work. Such a model, if successful, will be valuable to scale to other countries as part of the efforts in the Thematic hub.

USE COMMENTS
Trust Making 2021 We will continue to gather data on the trust of the Wikimedia projects in general and Wikipedia specifically, among the general public as well as among specific target groups.

2021: We will look into three different ways of organizing the work:

  1. We will coordinate with the team at the Swedish Internet Foundation who will write the next yearly report about “​Svenskarna och Internet​” (​The Swedes and the Internet​).
  2. We will investigate our participation in the ​SOM Surveys facilitated by Gothenburg University, in order to retrieve sufficient data on questions concerning trust in Wikipedia and related topics, among the general public. This would create valuable insights that will have a good reach and visibility, however the report has an upfront cost and will be prioritized if the finances of the association allows it.
  3. We will establish a process on how to work with the university sector and engage their researchers and students to research the trust of the Wikimedia movement and projects.
Visibility Making 2021 This project aims to coordinate our communication work and build up the platforms that we use. Much of the actual communication efforts (social media posts, blog posts and press releases) are developed as part of the projects that they cover. This project coordinates the publication of the material and ensures that it is consistent in quality and design.

2021: We will keep our blog and social media accounts active with general communication to ensure awareness about our work. This includes increasing the amount of people we reach through our channels, reporting in line with the digital communication reporting guidelines. The content on our websites will be updated regularly through the work in this project. We will work more proactively in our digital channels, using the capacity of the entire staff. We will therefore have a special focus on how visibility is an integrated part of the other projects with this project coordinating the work across the organization.

By updating and giving our portal ​wikipedia.se​ a new design with closer connection to the chapter, including links to projects, donations, membership and social media channels we aim to increase the visibility and awareness among visitors entering Wikipedia through the portal.

One of the areas where we will focus our communication is the 20-year anniversary of Wikipedia. This will be used to highlight the impact of volunteers. We will also focus on communicating what Wikimedia is, increasing the knowledge among the general public of who we are and what we do in order to gain more members and donors.

Bug Reporting and Translation 2021 The main purpose of this project is to decrease the number of errors in the software used on the Wikimedia projects by reporting bugs and correcting erroneous translations in the software.

2021: The main focus remains: continuous bug reporting, including capturing bugs encountered by participants in our events. Dedicated training resources around this will be developed and connected to the educational package (outlined under the project Wikipedia in Education 2021).

We will develop a concept for a translate-a-thon at free knowledge events or GLAM events to internationalize the software we build as part of the Thematic hub.

Knowledge in Crisis Situations 2021 Through previous collaborations, the value of free knowledge in crisis situations has been identified as an interesting area for the association to operate within. Both to take part of the enormous amount of material that various aid organizations and the like develop, and also to provide people who, for various reasons, are in a crisis situation with freely licensed material. At present, the knowledge of those working in the sector is low. In this project the methods and material needed to change this are created. The current Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of this project.

2021: The focus will be on:

  • Maintaining and developing relations with relevant actors within the international humanitarian aid sector;
  • Developing and improving basic material on how aid organizations can use Wikimedia and freely licensed resources in their work;
  • Organizing or taking part in events to strengthen our network and to convince aid organizations of the value of releasing their own material under a free license and contributing with their expertise;
  • Organization of events to produce content together with the respective aid organizations, by using the developed processes and means;
  • Investigating how we can work with researchers in this area.
Wikispeech Maintenance and Support 2021 The main purpose of this project is to maintain and support the Wikispeech software and initiatives which were built using external funding. The project will ensure that the software is functioning, that security concerns are addressed and that community feedback is triaged independently of the availability of external funding.

2021: The main focus will be responding to WMF concerns around the deployment of the Wikispeech extension as well as responding to community feedback to the initial release. Any core functionality identified to be missing is also covered by this project should no external funding cover it.

COMMUNITY COMMENTS
Community Support 2021 This project is directed directly towards the Swedish Wikimedia community to support their efforts and ideas.

2021: Our work include support the Sweden-based Wikimedia community with its endeavors and projects, such as:

  • Supplying the community with hardware and equipment, such as cameras, to better achieve their goals.
  • Identify ways of lowering barriers for newcomers to take part of the support.
  • Support the organization of Wikimedia camps, which will help build the volunteer capacity.
  • Continued support of low maintenance events such as wikifika and wikipub.
  • Continued support such as with the possibility to apply for grants, money for purchasing of books, sponsorship for photography accreditation to events.

We will experiment on how to communicate these opportunities to create interest and engagement and how volunteers can be engaged in finding new persons that would like to take advantage of the opportunities we offer.

As part of this project dedicated modules directed to the community outlined above. E.g. on how they can become better photographers and use the camera equipment. The created material will be created and connected to the educational package (outlined under the project Wikipedia in Education 2021).

Development Support 2021 The project focuses on giving technical (development) support to the Swedish-speaking volunteer community by solving technical problems that they have asked us to work on. From 2021 onwards this project will also take ownership of any previously developed tools which are still supported but were developed by now discontinued projects.

2021: Since community engagement with our wishlists has been limited we will this year investigate other ways of identifying technical community needs which could be worked on. The maintenance routine drafted in 2020 will also be expanded to provide a clear and maintainable overview of what tools we are currently supporting (incl. for how long and at what level). This effort will directly benefit the development of a Thematic hub.

Wiki Loves 2021 The project aims to coordinate Wiki Loves-campaigns in 2021.


2021: We aim to organize Wiki Loves Earth and Wiki Loves Monuments in 2021, focusing our work on lowering barriers for participation in both competitions. We also aim to support the community to handle more of the planning and running of the competitions themselves, so that we can focus more on outreach to partner organizations and technical development. We also aim to experiment with a “Wiki Loves Hembygd” campaign, a campaign focusing on working with organizations for local history to share their material on the Wikimedia platforms.

A Community for Everybody 2021 This project focuses on inviting diverse participation in Wikimediaʼs activities and platforms.

2021: We will be coordinating the international campaign WikiGap for the fourth time. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we aim to develop an engaging campaign with low barriers to participate in a predominantly digital format. We aim to continue to engage international partners in the coordination, e.g. aid organizations and UN agencies. We will engage volunteers to support the WikiGap events.

ENABLING COMMENTS
Organizational Development 2021 This project aims to improve the functioning of the association and the efficiency of its work through targeted activities against identified bottlenecks.


2021: We will investigate technical systems for donations on our website to simplify the time needed to process the donor data when scaling up our fundraising campaigns. The implementation of the next 4-year strategy for Wikimedia Sverige into the existing work and planning will be done.


The project will ensure that staff and board training is delivered in an organized fashion and that different team building activities are planned and delivered.


We will establish a trainee program for the association.

Exchange of Experiences 2021 The projectʼs aim is to ensure that we share our experiences and learn from other affiliates through available events and platforms.


2021: If any relevant international Wikimedia events are organized in 2021 we will participate to share experience, to coordinate and plan and to learn from others.

We intend to stay committed to supporting the emerging Wikimedia Northern Europe collaboration, and will investigate digital solutions to do so.

Association Involvement 2021 The project aims to increase the number of members and volunteers, and to find tasks and the necessary support to keep them engaged and develop a new membership management system.


2021: Organize the General Assembly, the Wikipedia Day and Membership Meetings. We will finalize a volunteer strategy during the year to keep existing volunteers and engage new ones. We will continue to engage members via improved communications capacities such as our newsletter.

Different types of micro tasks will be identified and communicated through our social media channels to showcase the many opportunities for engagement with the platforms.

We will define the criteria we have for a technical system to compile data about our volunteers for the entire organization and take the first steps towards implementation. This is especially important with a growing pool of volunteers, not just from Sweden but internationally, engaging in our work.

We will outline how we can showcase the possibility to become a member in the association through all of our work and develop a comprehensive set of actions to improve our communication.We will gather knowledge from other Wikimedia affiliates how they have worked on this.

FOSS for the Association 2021 Here we investigate how we can support the development of the FOSS tools that we use as an organization. Through the project we will engage consultants to solve the specific issues so that we can improve the FOSS alternatives.


2021: In 2020 we identified several needs, in particular related to our new website (in WordPress). For 2021 our goal is to engage developers to have the identified plugins developed and released for other actors to use.

Projects funded mainly through external project grants

We will work on the following projects that are financed through project grants:

ACCESS COMMENTS
Free music on Wikipedia 2019 To make Swedenʼs historical music treasure available, we focus on including structured information about music and audio files on Wikimedia projects. This includes making available collections that are digitized which contain material that has an extinguished copyright, or high quality contemporary recordings performed by professional musicians that release their work. The project has been extended until June 30, 2021.


2021: The focus will be on describing and analyzing experiences from the various processes surrounding the work with music on Wikimedia's platforms, how to engage new volunteers, how to improve searchability and connect different types of material connected to music. The possibility to organize an online contest, called ​Wiki Loves Audio and Music​, will be investigated.

As part of this project dedicated modules directed to musicians will be created and connected to the educational package (outlined under the project Wikipedia in Education 2021).

Wikidata for authority control 2021 The aim of this project is to develop and evaluate methods of linking museums' authority data to Wikidata, with the ultimate goal of making it easier for researchers and other users to find, understand and analyze relevant information distributed across different museum collections. The learnings from this project will be shared with other GLAM institutions in Sweden to demonstrate the benefits of Linked Open Data. If funded the project can apply for further grants to extend the work, and Wikimedia Sverige might have a role to play in future projects as well.


The project is a collaboration between Wikimedia Sverige, Nationalmuseum, the National Historical Museums and Digital Humanities Uppsala and Department of Information Technology (both part of Uppsala University).

2021: We will be working with Nationalmuseum and the National Historical Museums to link the posts in their authority databases to Wikidata. We will provide the museums with training on Wikidata and OpenRefine to equip them with tools to match their database posts to Wikidata entities. Visualizations will be created to demonstrate the benefits of including the museums' data in Wikimedia's open knowledge ecosystem.

GLAM 2021 (externally financed) In addition to the aims of the GLAM 2021 project described above, it also serves as an umbrella for projects funded by individual​ GLAM institutions, where they want help with a certain task within a limited time period.


These projects are usually aimed at making a particular collection of images or data available through the Wikimedia projects, at increasing the Wikimedia competency of an institution by having a staff member embedded at the institution over some time span or by building bespoke tools to facilitate the interaction, or the analysis thereof, between the GLAM and Wikimedia.

2021: We will continue to offer the possibility of doing such projects, the exact nature of these depends on the need of the individual GLAMs. ​The National Heritage Board​ and​​ the National Historical Museums​ are Swedish GLAM institutions that have been identified as very likely candidates. We are also involved in an application for EU funding where, if funded, we will act as a subcontractor.

We are also planning a collaboration with four museums in Gothenburg. We will develop teaching materials that focus on tools that facilitate large uploads of image files with associated metadata to Wikimedia's platforms. The ultimate goal of this project is to equip the museums with tools and skills to contribute to the Wikimedia platforms on their own.

When we are working on new types of collections or with a new type of partner we will develop a case study and share the learnings with the GLAMwiki community.

Implementation of global strategic recommendations 2021 The project is the continuation of the project ​Tools for Partnerships 2020 ​project. The focus of the project is to develop the association into a thematic hub.

This work include:

  • Technical development of tools for content partnerships;
  • A helpdesk to support local affiliates around content partnerships;
  • The development of local fundraising capabilities;
  • An international exchange program;
  • A partnership program for UN agencies and other international content partners.

The project is expected to start in July 2021 and last for 1 year, with the hope to establish a hub in 2022 to continue the work.

Samsyn 2021 As the original Samsyn project comes to an end the wiki will live on under the care of one of the partners in the project. We will continue our work with maintenance, training of new contributors and various other small tasks during the next three years or until a new larger project gets funding.
USE COMMENTS
Wikispeech – Speech Data Collector 2019 The main aim of the project is to develop a MediaWiki extension to make it possible to collect speech data through crowdsourcing, and to connect this to the Wikispeech extension. This can be used to improve the quality of the text-to-speech software and to extend it to more languages in the future. Furthermore, it will be a resource and a service to the entire FOSS community. The project ends in 2021.

2021: The final components of the tool will be built with the assistance of Wikimedia Deutschland, who will also be involved with code review and technical feedback throughout the project.

In 2021 we expect to have a demo of the Speech collector ready and to wrap up the development of the Text-to-Speech component developed in the original Wikispeech project so that it can be launched as a Beta feature in Swedish, English and Arabic.

Resources are dedicated for communication about the launch of the Beta and for volunteer engagement in the initiative.

The learnings gained and processes developed to work together from developing this MediaWiki extension will be used to further the work with the Thematic hub.

Wikispeech for AI 2020 The aim of Wikispeech for AI 2020 is to act as a reference and tester for a larger project aiming to use AI to create a free text-to-speech voice suitable for reading longer texts.


2021: Investigate how speech data collected through ​Wikispeech –Speech Data Collector 2019​ can be used to train AI to create a better voice and to test if such a voice improves the Wikispeech experience. During the year Wikimedia Sverige will support the project by sharing insights into the content created through Wikispeech – Speech Data Collector 2019​.

Wikidata for genealogy 2021 The aim of this project is to provide consulting services to Trackuback​, a Swedish start-up developing a genealogy research service with an emphasis on visualization. As this is the first time WMSE is working together with a start-up, we will use this project as an opportunity to evaluate this form of collaboration.

2021: We will work with Trackuback to connect their platform to Wikidata so that it can be enhanced with multilingual data on historical administrative divisions, landmarks and other objects of relevance to genealogists. We will also provide training about the Wikimedia movement, platforms and APIs.

COMMUNITY COMMENTS
Partnerships for WikiGap 2021 The aim of the project is to further develop WikiGap. We plan to work together with Wikimedia Ukraine to develop new innovative ways of collaborating with partners for digital and physical events and campaigns, as a part of the WikiGap initiative. More specifically, we aim to add an LGBT aspect t o the WikiGap campaign through the project.
Lowering barriers for WikiGap 2021 The aim of the project is to further develop WikiGap. Together with the user group in Uganda, we will identify the need for and develop the material to lower barriers to entry to the Wikimedia platforms and start editing, especially Wikipedia. The project will be an integrated part of the WikiGap campaign.
ENABLING COMMENTS
Tools for Partnerships 2020 This is the continuation of the project Tools for Partnerships 2019 – Blueprinting. The project starts in July 2020 and will

continue the work to prepare for the hub. The activation of the hub was delayed due to COVDI-19 and its effect on Wikimedia Foundationʼs fundraising.

2021: The project will focus on building capacity in the Movement and institutions for high quality content contributions, WMSE will illustrate SDC opportunities and mentor a cohort working with SDC, resulting in the addition of 250,000 new statements. This activity will inform an update to WMSEʼs technical scope by 31 March 2021 and a best practices section for batch uploads on Meta by 30 June 2021. We will also actively coordinate and support the GLAMwiki community as part of the project, e.g. with support for the continuous development of the statistical tool ​Cassandra​.

We will also help institutions move towards Open Access for cultural heritage, and will develop an implementation toolkit and work with local partners to organize workshops in 5 countries, with a minimum of 50 participating institutions.

Furthermore, the project will allow WMSE to expand the work in fundraising, both including grant application but also to initiate a Face2Face fundraising campaign based on the experimentation and preparation made in 2020.

To prepare for international hires we will improve, clarify and update our documentation and policies and start preparations on a few new policies identified as currently missing (e.g. a salary framework for international hires and policies around remote working) as well as policies needed to provide financial support internationally.

An inventory of what documentation should be translated into English will be done. The information provided on the associationʼs wiki will be reviewed and evaluated systematically to add missing pieces of information, increase the searchability and structure and prepare for translations.

References

  1. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=uriserv:OJ.L_.2016.327.01.0001.01.ENG&toc=OJ:L:2016:327:TOC
  2. E.g. ​Starlink​ is expected to start providing service in large parts of the world in 2021, see e.g. https://www.zdnet.com/article/spacex-starlink-internet-from-space-new-60-satellite-launch-brings-expanded-beta-closer/
  3. Wikispeech is a speech synthesis for Wikipedia articles which we have developed.
  4. See e.g. ​https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Lexicographical_data
  5. E.g. with the audio template: ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Audio
  6. https://lingualibre.org/wiki/LinguaLibre:Main_Page
  7. https://commonvoice.mozilla.org/en
  8. See e.g. ​https://cis-india.org/news/oral-citations-project-on-wikimedia
  9. See ​https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Verksamhetsplan_2021/en