Reports/2014/February

Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for the period 1st to 28th February 2014. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join a UK mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk page.

Program activities

Community

Project grants outcome

12,126 images have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons using the Macmini that was approved and purchased under the Wikimedia Commons Geograph and Avionics batch upload projects support grant.

Wikimania

Over a hundred submissions have been made for Wikimania and more are expected by the deadline of the 31st March 2014. click here to submit a proposal for a talk

GLAM activities

We currently have Wikipedians in Residence in York, Scotland and at the Royal Society

Editathons

On the 1st of February Art and Feminism meetups were held in both London and Dundee as part of the global Art + Feminism 2014 event; the Dundee meetup has inspired an additional editathon on Scottish Women in Contemporary Art to be held 13 March at the University of Dundee.

Fæ lead a Cornwall GLAMs workshop at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, which was attended by a number of museums in Cornwall.

Martin Poulter ran a Wellcome Library editathon on the 26th February.

Preparations are advancing for Wikimania with a London Libraries page listing specialist libraries in London that Wikimanians can visit.

Image Releases

Lidded box by Jane Hamlyn, image courtesy of York Museums Trust

As a result of the York Museums Trust WIR the W.A. Ismay Studio Ceramic Collection was loaded to Commons. Discussions continue with various partners for the first mass uploads with the new mass upload tool

Education and expert outreach

Expert outreach

Ally Crockford spoke at the Edinburgh City Libraries' Edge Conference 2014 on 28 February about the Wikimedian in Residence programme at the National Library of Scotland and the value of GLAMWiki collaborations more broadly. Conference delegates consisted of Information Professionals from across the UK, as well as from the US and Europe.

Education activities

Please see respective links for each of these activities for futher details.

• On Saturday 1 February 2014 Toni Sant and Katherine Bavage led the training for the TaPRA Wikipedia Workshop at the V&A Reading Room in London.

• On Tuesday 5 February 2014 Charles Matthews supported Luke Surl with a training session at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.

• A number of volunteer trainers led by Chris McKenna delivered a series of events called Wikipedia Takes UCL between 17-20 February 2014.

• Students at University of Hull in Scarborough participated in a WWI editathon as part of their use of Wikipedia in the classroom.

• Magnus Manske spoke about Wikidata to the Cambridge University Wikipedia Society on Thursday 27 February 2014.

Wikimedia Ambassador at Jisc

Dr Martin Poulter continues as Wikimedia Ambassador with Jisc. See his 6th report covering February 2014.

Future of Education at Wikimania 2014

Preliminary planning for a fringe/hack event ahead of Wikimania (21-22 June) is ongoing. WMUK is participating in this through Stuart Prior and Toni Sant but other UK-based Wikimedians are also involved. Details here.

EduWiki Conference 2014

Preliminary planning for EduWiki 2014 is ongoing. See plans for EduWiki 2014.

Technology

Hiring

Wikimedia UK began hiring in March for a Technical Programme Manager to help shape and deliver the charity's priorities in the technological field. The role entails leading the execution of the charity's technology strategy for technology platforms, partnerships, and external relationships, as well as providing visible leadership for the charity within the MediaWiki community.

Scholarships

Under the direction of Volunteer Support Organiser Katie Chan, the charity began accepting applications for scholarships to the European Hackathon, which is this year being held in Zurich in early May.

Other activities

Project grants

The proposal to spend three days photographing to bring en:List of public art in the City of Westminster to feature list status on the English Wikipedia has been approved.

Information about other project grants that are currently running, and how to submit an application of your own, are at Project grants/Applications.

UK press coverage (and coverage of UK projects & activities)

• The Guardian / Observer: Stop women scientists being written out of Wikipedia history

Blog posts this month

• Have your say on Wikimedia UK's strategy (4th February)
• We're looking for Wikimedian in Residence projects! (5th February)
• Wonder Women of Natural History editathon (6th February)
• Vote for your picture of the year... (7th February)
• Wikipedia training at the Royal Society of Chemistry (10th February)
• Interested in helping improve OpenStreetMap? (13th February)
• Wikimedia UK strategy consultation - two weeks remaining! (14th February)
• One sentence on Wikipedia - a microcosm of information literacy (18th February)
• Invitation to tender - Train the Trainers 2014 (19th February)
• Preparing for the Wikimedia Serbia EduWiki Conference (20th February)
• Royal Society to host Wikipedia events (25th February)
• Crowdsourcing - the wiki way of working (28th February)

Upcoming activities in January and February

January

• 07 - Tech Com meeting
• 12 - London meetup
• 14 - Education Committee meeting
• 18 - Speakerthon: uploading voice samples from the Radio 4 archive to Wikipedia
• 18 - Post speakerthon meetup (from 5pm)
• 18 - Women in zoology and natural history editathon at London Zoo
• 19 - Oxford meetup
• 23 - Using Wikimedia to link research impact and open education - workshop for staff in Bath Spa University
• 25 - Anybody but Burns editathon, Edinburgh
• 26 - Swansea Editathon and Wiki training
• 26 - Manchester meetup

February

• 01 - TaPRA Wikipedia Workshop - London
• 01 - Art+Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon, Middlesex University
• 01 - Art+Feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon, Dundee
• 01–02 - Training the Trainers/February 2014 event - Cardiff
• 04 - Tech Com meeting
• 05 - UEA Wikipedia Workshop for PhD Students - Norwich
• 09 - London meetup
• 14 - Wikipedia and Archaeology or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the free Encyclopedia
• 15 - Cambridge meetup
• 16 - Oxford meetup
• 17–20 - Wikipedia Takes UCL - London
• 20 - Cornwall GLAMs workshop - hosted by the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth. Contact:Fæ
• 23 - Liverpool meetup and museum visit
• 25 - WWI editathon with students at University of Hull in Scarborough
• 25 - Education Committee meeting 25 February 2014
• 26 - Wellcome Library editathon
• 27–28 - Ally Crockford at The EDGE Conference - Edinburgh
• 27 - Magnus Manske speaking about Wikidata to Cambridge University Wikipedia Society, all are welcome

For events in March 2014 and onwards, please see Events.

Administrative activities

Board activities

The board meeting agenda for 8 March 2014 has been published.

Communications

Please see the above links to relevant press coverage received in January and blog posts published during the same period. In addition to the day-to-day work, there has been some work on the annual review. This process will take a couple of months and includes both the printed document and the SORP Annual Report. The closing date for the position of Open Coalition Project Co-ordinator passed. The number of excellent applicants meant that the shortlisting process was very difficult. More news on this will follow. Stevie was invited to guest edit a website for comms professionals called Comms2Point0. Work on developing a memorandum of understanding with the BBC continued. This is currently being discussed at high levels of the BBC and more progress should happen soon.

If you're interested in getting more involved with our communications or have any questions or comments, please email Stevie Benton – stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk

Fundraising and Membership

Fundraising

This month, we received £1,892.00 in one-off donations, with 7 individual donations, 1 of which was a donation of £1,342 Removing this large donation from consideration the average donation amount was £91.66 - of the donations that were eligible for gift aid, 40% had Gift Aid Declarations made and matched with their records. If anyone would like a full (but anonymised) csv file with more information, please get in touch with katherine.bavagewikimedia.org.uk and let her know your requirements.

There were 4696 successful direct debits this month, bringing in a total of £18989.02

Membership

Up to 28th February 2014 there were 242 members of the charity eligible to vote.

You can view more detailed membership data here

Visitors to the office this month

64