This stunning photograph of Coventry Cathedral, taken in 2006 was nominated for – and awarded – Featured Picture status as a result of the partnership.
1 October marked the first anniversary of Wikimedia UK’s ongoing partnership with Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, the longest-running GLAM partnership in the UK outside of London. Over the past 12 months, we’ve achieved a great deal. We’ve organised four events at the museum with over 80 people attending in total, the museum has donated images to Commons and we’ve turned readers into editors.
From little acorns
This time last year, we ran a Backstage Pass event at the museum. 25 people attended, coming from as far away as Southampton and Wales. Attendees worked on expanding several articles and created new ones. In January, we worked with the museum to upload some watercolour paintings from the museum’s upcoming exhibition, in addition to several others images from the museum. We also ran a training event for locals, and reached out to several local historians.
A rolling stone…
In March, we ran our first edit-a-thon, based around the historic city of Coventry. Several new editors attended, who have since come to other events. This is key to what we’ve tried to do with this project: we want to keep new editors attracted through the project involved. It’s for this reason that we also now regularly have Wikimeets in the city.
Evolving and growing
Our most recent, and arguably most successful event was Wikipedia Takes Coventry. This was a “Wikipedia Takes…” event where participants set out to photograph the city. Over 50 participants took over 2,100 photographs of historic and otherwise interesting places in Coventry, releasing them under a free license for use on Wikipedia and elsewhere.
So what’s next? We’re having our next meetup later this month and we’d love as many people as possible to come! Our ongoing collaboration continues; head over to the project page to learn more and get involved.
Over the past six months, a Wikimedia UK trustee led two Wikipedia-related projects, Monmouthpedia and Gibraltarpedia, in a way that seemed to some observers to blur his roles as a Wikimedia UK trustee, a paid consultant for the projects’ government partners, and an editor of the English Wikipedia. This raised questions in the Wikimedia community about whether a trustee was able to balance appropriately the interests of his clients with his responsibilities to Wikimedia UK, the values and editorial policies of Wikipedia, and whether any conflict of interest that arose as a result was effectively managed.
To better understand the facts and details of these allegations and to ensure that governance arrangements commensurate with the standing of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia UK and the worldwide Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia UK’s trustees and the Wikimedia Foundation will jointly appoint an independent expert advisor to objectively review both Wikimedia UK’s governance arrangements and its handling of the conflict of interest.
The review will consider Wikimedia UK’s current governance arrangements, current internal policies, such as the Trustee Code of Conduct, the Nolan Committee Requirements, the Conflicts of Interest policy, the Representing Wikimedia UK policy, any other relevant policies of Wikimedia UK, and best ethical practices.
Considering specifically the conflict of interest, we will ask the expert advisor to identify any gaps between how the conflict of interest situation within Wikimedia UK would ideally have been handled and how it actually was handled, and to recommend how situations such as this should be managed in the future. The review will also touch on any activities that may have blurred work as a paid consultant with work as a Wikipedia editor, but recommendations for changes to Wikipedia’s policies and practices will be outside its scope: we leave the broader topic of reviewing Wikipedia’s editorial policies to the community.
Once the review is completed, it will be reviewed by both the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK and then published.
At the same time, Wikimedia UK has agreed with the Wikimedia Foundation that the Foundation shall process payments for the United Kingdom during this year’s fundraiser.
Wikimedia UK has the benefit of legal and professional advice to assist in understanding and handling conflicts of interests. The goal of both organizations in carrying out this review, and Wikimedia UK’s in deciding to absent itself from the 2012 fundraising campaign as a payment processor, is to demonstrate that we mutually recognize the importance of handling conflicts well beyond simple requirements of the law. We understand our responsibilities to you: the members of Wikimedia UK and the Wikimedia movement, its donors, editors, and readers.
Isabelle, the first Wikimedia UK Intern, has finished her internship on 21 September 2012. Here is a message from her written on the last day in the office:
Today is the final day of my internship at Wikimedia UK, and now that the last few things have been wrapped up or handed over to my lovely successor Hasina, I have time to reflect a little on my past six weeks here.
Considering this has been a bit of a trial run for the office, having never had an intern before, as far as I’m concerned it couldn’t have gone better! They welcomed me with such warmth and explained everything so well that the ‘settling-in’ process took all of a day and I quickly felt comfortable as part of the team. I’ve particularly enjoyed working in an office building with numerous other charities doing interesting and worthwhile things, and where the environmentally-friendly ethos is proudly upheld.
The time has certainly gone quickly but it’s been long enough to achieve some things that I’m rather proud of!
Firstly, the compilation of a database of contacts at every university in the UK which then enabled us to mail out our Education Booklets to over 300 academics, plus many more digitally. This was a key process in raising awareness of the Education Program amongst teaching specialists who will hopefully realise the potential of Wikipedia in education practices, and this database of contacts should be a useful resource in the future.
This led into the EduWiki Conference in Leicester (5-6 September 2012), which was the highlight of my internship. It was extremely satisfying to see everything come together and the preparation pay off when the two-day event (the first of its kind) took place with great success. For me it was nice to put faces to the names I had been adding to lists and printing onto badges, and to see the passion of the attendees as they shared their ideas and experiences, and returned to their various posts with fresh optimism about the progress that can be achieved by collaborating with Wikimedia. This was certainly the largest event I have helped to organise and was therefore a valuable experience in working on such a scale and over two days.
Although I was unable to attend the GLAMcamp in London at the British Library I did assist during the run-up, booking flights and accommodation for GLAMcampers coming from all over Europe to attend, as well as a few from the UK, and arranging the restaurants for the all-important evening meals. There was certainly a lesson to be learnt in making group hostel bookings! But I believe the weekend went well, and I’m sure next year’s GLAM conference will be even more of a success.
As well as making the odd cup of tea or coffee, I also made myself useful in the office by helping out with the annual accounts, sourcing expenses claims to fill in a few gaps which involved a bit of detective work that was actually quite fun! I made the acquaintance of the franking machine and the shredder, too – happy memories. And my French skills even came in handy when a document on Wikimedia Commons needed translating, so my seemingly irrelevant degree actually did have some use!
All in all I’ve had a genuinely fulfilling experience working for Wikimedia UK. I’ve felt valued by the team and been allowed responsibility and independence in the tasks set for me, which have been varied and interesting. More importantly I’ve met some fantastic people with overwhelming knowledge and dedication, who have convinced me that in nine months’ time (maybe ten – I’ll give myself a few weeks off!) when I’ve finished my Masters and I’m looking for my first ‘real’ job, the charity sector is the first place I’ll look.
So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the team at Wikimedia UK, especially Daria and Richard who have been such wonderful managers, and all of the board members and volunteers I’ve met along the way who have been so supportive to a newcomer like myself. Thanks to WereSpielChequers I now have the basic skills to edit Wikipedia, so I can continue to contribute to the Wikimedia mission of free and open knowledge for all wherever I go next.
Gibraltarpedia is a project by the Government of Gibraltar to improve coverage of Gibraltar-related topics on Wikipedia. It is co-ordinated by two Wikipedians, Roger Bamkin and John Cummings, who are working with Gibraltar residents to train them in how to use Wikipedia and add appropriate photos, etc to Wikimedia Commons; as well as adding QRpedia codes which link places and buildings in Gibraltar with their Wikipedia articles. Roger and John are being paid as consultants by the Government of Gibraltar to help deliver this project. This project was announced at Wikimania in July 2012, and is currently underway. Gibraltarpedia was inspired by the successful Monmouthpedia project (see below).
2. What’s Wikimedia UK’s link to Gibraltarpedia?
Wikimedia UK has not funded this project – our only material involvement has been to supply some “how to edit Wikipedia” leaflets, which is the kind of thing we would do for any institution, and to refer any enquiries received by the office about the project to Roger. However, we do think that mobilizing volunteers to write Wikipedia articles is a good idea – and indeed we do exactly the same thing with the help of galleries, libraries and museums. To this end, we have long intended to give more formal support to this project; before we can do so we would need a clear memorandum of understanding with the Government of Gibraltar setting out shared aims and objectives, and we are working on such a document.
3. What’s Monmouthpedia, and what’s it got to do with Wikimedia UK?
Monmouthpedia is a project by Wikimedia UK and Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) to improve coverage of Monmouth-related topics on Wikipedia. Monmouthpedia took place mainly in the first 6 months of 2012 and, similarly, involved Wikipedians working with local volunteers to help write articles, upload photos, and tag places in Monmouth with QRpedia codes. Wikimedia UK was very much involved with this – we co-funded a Wikipedian in Residence in Monmouth, and a number of QRpedia plaques, as well as various other expenses relating to the project. Again, Roger Bamkin had a consultancy relationship with MCC, though in this case not directly concerned with the delivery of this project.
4. Who owns QRpedia and does anyone benefit from its use in these projects?
Roger Bamkin and Terence Eden have developed QRpedia, which is a system which allows you to generate QR codes which link to Wikipedia articles. They own the domains qrpedia.org and qrwp.org which are used by this service. They have developed this service as volunteers, there is no advertising, and there is no charge to anyone for its usage. The software is released under an open licence and anyone can re-use it. Wikimedia UK is in the process of finalising an agreement which will transfer qrwp.org to Wikimedia UK’s ownership, with the intention that Wikimedia UK will support existing and future QRpedia codes. No money will change hands as a result of this agreement.
5. What about Roger’s conflict of interest between his role in these project and as a Wikimedia UK trustee?
Roger has always been open with Wikimedia UK about his commercial interests and has declared them in public at appropriate times. He has not voted in any Wikimedia UK decisions about Monmouthpedia since the start of his consultancy relationship with MCC or on any decisions about Gibraltarpedia or QRpedia. All our decisions about this have been taken by the other trustees, with the aims of the charity in mind. Roger has not received any Wikimedia UK funds for any of these projects, except for out-of-pocket expenses incurred in his role as a volunteer in the early development stages of Monmouthpedia before becoming a consultant, paid in line with our normal expenses policy.
6. If he hasn’t done anything wrong, then why has Roger resigned?
After discussions with the Board, everyone agreed that the best way to avoid any confusion between Roger’s role running projects like Gibraltarpedia and Wikimedia UK projects, was for Roger to step down.
— Chris Keating, Chair of Wikimedia UK on behalf of the Board of trustees.
Wikimedia UK would like to announce that Roger Bamkin has stepped down as a Trustee.
“Roger’s energy and enthusiasm has been central to the establishment of Wikimedia UK as a registered charity, our outreach programme, and to many other aspects of our work. QRpedia, one of his creations, is now in use in dozens of museums and galleries worldwide,” said Chris Keating, Chair of Wikimedia UK.
“Roger has always conducted himself with openness and honesty with regards to his business interests, which the Board greatly appreciates. However we have reached the decision together that it is best if Roger steps back from the Board, and thus the Board has accepted his resignation. I look forward to working with Roger in future.”
The constitution of Wikimedia UK allows the Board to co-opt a Trustee to fill Roger’s place until the next AGM when elections will be held, and we will update the community about our intentions about filling this vacancy in due course.
The first week of September saw the first EduWiki Conference at the University of Leicester, England, bringing together educators and Wikimedians for two days to talk about the Wikipedia Education Program and other ways we can support each other.
The keynote speakers were Annie Lin from the Wikimedia Foundation; Leigh Thelmadatter from ITESM Mexico; and Amber Thomas, a programme manager for the JISC, a publicly-funded body for information technology in education and research.
The topics included assessing student work on Wikipedia, using Wikipedia’s corpus of 4 million English articles for language learning, creating customised reference books using the Wikipedia book tool, and Wikiversity. Video and slides are being added to the conference programme.
Both the Wikimedians and the external speakers were surprised at how much we shared a common vision for the future. Amber Thomas created an infographic (see right) to express how Wikipedia fits into the opening up of research and education. There was much less agreement about how we should accredit the informal learning that goes on in online communities. Doug Belshaw of the Mozilla Foundation prompted a vigorous debate when he introduced Mozilla’s Open Badges project.
Audience reaction to EduWiki has been very positive: “I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I signed up for this conference, but looking back it was easily the most thought-provoking event I have been to for some time,” writes AJ Cann on the ”Science of the Invisible” blog. Sarah Currier, who runs a national repository of open educational resources, titled her post-conference blog post “how this skeptic was won over” and wrote in praise of “brilliant, reflective and committed Wikipedians everywhere”.
The conference has started off a number of working relationships, including training workshops and joint events that we will carry out over the coming months. Wikimedia UK is planning to do a similar conference for pre-university education in the coming year, as well as regional workshops for campus ambassador training in universities.
Martin Poulter is a Wikimedia UK volunteer Associate who works on building relations between Wikimedia and academia. He was the convenor of the EduWiki Conference.
First prize winner: Man’s Struggle by Team Mattley
This blog post was written by Wikimedia UK volunteer and event organiser, User:Rock drum
On Saturday 1 September, local Wikimedians organised the first “Wikipedia Takes…” event in the UK, in the city of Coventry (which, contrary to popular belief, is home to many historic or otherwise interesting buildings and structures).
In the latest event in Wikimedia UK’s ongoing partnership with Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, 51 photographers, almost exclusively non-editors, descended upon the city for the one-day photo scavenger hunt. Over the course of the five and a half hours, over 2,000 photographs were taken and uploaded, making an invaluable contribution to open culture and the historical record about the key areas of Coventry.
Many articles to do with the history of Coventry and the surrounding area are now illustrated by lots of high-quality photographs.
Prize-winners
There were five prizes on offer for participants; for best photos, most points and a “judges’ choice”.
Best photo
The three best photographs, as chosen by the judges, were all printed on canvas and presented to the winners.
Second prize winner: Allesley Walled Garden by Phil Radbourne
The first prize winner was the photo called Man’s Struggle by Team Mattley. The judges said: “A masterpiece that captures the mural beautifully and makes it somehow more real, like a Picasso painting come to life.”
The second prize went to Phil Radbourne for his photo of Allesley Walled Garden. Here’s what the judges thought: “A quirky, playful photo that has colour, depth and texture. Good composition and it made us smile.”
A photo of the Reconciliation Statue, Coventry Cathedral, taken by Julia, was awarded the third prize. In the view of the judges: “This photo that shows what you can do when you have a feel for your subject. We felt that this image of the Reconciliation statue in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral successfully captured the spirit of the city.”
Most points
Every target on the list was given a points value based on its distance from the starting point and how important it was. The prize for most points was won by Team Wormova with a stunning 167 points.
Judges’ choice
The final prize on offer was the “judges’ choice”, the winners of which would be given a selection of Wikimedia merchandise. This prize was won by the Nicholson Family. The judges said: “The Nicholson Family win the judges’ choice award. They approached the event as a fun day together as a family, captured some excellent photos and got involved in the event with smiles on their faces – and to us, that’s what it’s all about.”
Third prize winner: Reconciliation statue in Coventry Cathedral by Julia
The organisers would like to thank all those who participated for making the day fun and memorable. All photos uploaded from the event can be found here on Wikimedia Commons.
Wikimedia UK is sad to announce that Joscelyn Upendran has stepped down as a Trustee.
“It is with great regret that I have accepted Joscelyn’s resignation.” said Chris Keating, Chair of the Wikimedia UK Board of Trustees. “I would like to thank her for her important contributions on the Board and look forward to her continued involvement as a member of the charity.”
The constitution of Wikimedia UK allows the Board to co-opt a Trustee to fill Joscelyn’s place until the next AGM, when an election for 3 trustees will be held. The Board will make a decision about how to proceed at its next meeting on September 9th.
Stamford Hall, University of Leicester, venue for the EduWiki Conference
There’s excitement in the air in Leicester this morning as our EduWiki Conference gets under way. Academics from three continents are meeting with Wikipedians and opinion-formers to discuss the use of Wikimedia projects, such as Wikipedia, in higher education.
As well as universities, organisations represented include JISC and the Mozilla Foundation. Delegates will be examining the impact of open educational resources and looking at the lessons from previous case studies.
Follow the event on Twitter across the two days by using the hashtag #eduwiki and keep an eye on this blog for more updates.
