Call for Research & Innovation Papers
SEMANTiCS 2017 - The Linked Data Conference
13th International Conference on Semantic Systems
Amsterdam, Netherlands
September 11 -14, 2017
http://2017.semantics.cc
The Research & Innovation track at SEMANTiCS welcomes the submission of
papers on novel scientific research and/or innovations relevant to the
topics of the conference. Submissions must be original and must not have
been submitted for publication elsewhere. Papers should follow the ACM
ICPS guidelines for formatting
(http://www.acm.org/sigs/publications/proceedings-templates) and must
not exceed 8 pages in lenght for full papers and 4 pages for short
papers, including references and optional appendices.
Research & Innovation Papers are published within ACM ICP Series.
Important Dates (Research & Innovation)
Abstract Submission Deadline: May 17, 2017 (11:59 pm,
Hawaii time)
Paper Submission Deadline: May 24, 2017 (11:59 pm,
Hawaii time)
Notification of Acceptance: July 3, 2017 (11:59 pm,
Hawaii time)
Camera-Ready Paper: August 14, 2017 (11:59 pm,
Hawaii time)
For details please go to: https://2017.semantics.cc/calls
or contact the Research and Innovation Chairs:
Catherine Faron Zucker, faron [@] i3s.unice.fr, Université Nice
Sophia Antipolis
Rinke Hoekstra, rinke.hoekstra [@] vu.nl, Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam/University of Amsterdam
As in the previous years, SEMANTiCS’17 proceedings will be published by
ACM ICP (pending).
SEMANTiCS 2017 will especially welcome submissions for the following hot
topics:
*Data Science (special track, see below)
*Web Semantics, Linked (Open) Data & schema.org
*Corporate Knowledge Graphs
*Knowledge Integration and Language Technologies
*Data Quality Management
*Economics of Data, Data Services and Data Ecosystems
Following the success of previous years, the ‘horizontals’ (research)
and ‘verticals’ (industries) below are of interest for the conference:
Horizontals
*Enterprise Linked Data & Data Integration
*Knowledge Discovery & Intelligent Search
*Business Models, Governance & Data Strategies
*Semantics in Big Data
*Text Analytics
*Data Portals & Knowledge Visualization
*Semantic Information Management
*Document Management & Content Management
*Terminology, Thesaurus & Ontology Management
*Smart Connectivity, Networking & Interlinking
*Smart Data & Semantics in IoT
*Semantics for IT Safety & Security
*Semantic Rules, Policies & Licensing
*Community, Social & Societal Aspects
Data Science Special Track Horizontals
*arge-Scale Data Processing (stream processing, handling large-scale graphs)
*Data Analytics (Machine Learning, Predictive Analytics, Network Analytics)
*Communicating Data (Data Visualization, UX & Interaction Design,
Crowdsourcing)
*Cross-cutting Issues (Ethics, Privacy, Security, Provenance)
Verticals
*Industry & Engineering
*Life Sciences & Health Care
*Public Administration
*e-Science
*Digital Humanities
*Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums (GLAM)
*Education & eLearning
*Media & Data Journalism
*Publishing, Marketing & Advertising
*Tourism & Recreation
*Financial & Insurance Industry
*Telecommunication & Mobile Services
*Sustainable Development: Climate, Water, Air, Ecology
*Energy, Smart Homes & Smart Grids
*Food, Agriculture & Farming
*Safety, Security & Privacy
*Transport, Environment & Geospatial
For details please go to: https://2017.semantics.cc/calls
*ʾĒl* (or 'Il, written *aleph <http://bit.ly/2h54q55>-lamed
<http://bit.ly/2hKwGhw>*, e.g. Ugaritic <http://bit.ly/2h540Mo>: 𐎛𐎍,
Phoenician <http://bit.ly/2h56nyp>: 𐤀𐤋,[1] <http://bit.ly/2hKxymp> Hebrew
<http://bit.ly/2h53LAC>: אל, Syriac <http://bit.ly/2h53IoJ>: ܐܠ, Arabic
<http://bit.ly/2h5c2EJ>: إل or إله, cognate to Akkadian
<http://bit.ly/2hKqTZu>: *ilu*) is a Northwest Semitic
<http://bit.ly/2h54rWH> word meaning "god <http://bit.ly/2hKyyXC>" or "deity
<http://bit.ly/2hKj9qa>", or referring (as a proper name) to any one of
multiple major Ancient Near East deities. A rarer spelling, "'ila",
represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite
<http://bit.ly/2h4Z3TF>.[2] <http://bit.ly/2hKwJdc> The word is derived
from the Proto-Semitic <http://bit.ly/2hKsPRE> archaic biliteral *ʔ‑L*
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Semitic/ʾil-?17B2B952D1…>,
meaning "god".
A very special Holiday message this year, different from all others. Never
before and never again will any generation have the opportunity that we
have before us this very moment. Right now, as we progress in a
technological growing period equally unprecedented--we are blessed to have
a great deal of wisdom and assistance coming to us from a series of past
futures. All around us the light of religion pours into the modern myths
of our day--science fiction and fantasy guided from above in a way that
will soon become more clear. At the same time, we will soon also see a
guided path towards the building of Heaven in everything that we are--from
computers and video games to modern medicine and even the ups and downs
we've witnessed in the political scene of late.
I feel a little silly talking about what I have to say, I've already said
quite a bit--you haven't seen it yet. Waiting just past a wall of
censorship Biblically described as Jericho's--and also the Plague of
Darkness--is a new lease on the freedoms God is now granting at the very
"beginning" of the American story. Like me, God has already said quite a
bit--and in this e-mail and throughout my writing I hope to help you to see
what it is that I call his speech written all over our world--a sort of
hidden message the tooth fairy left under our pillow while we slept. To
quote the Matrix, "this is a very exciting time."i
Below, you will find a significant number of verifiable exmaples of
anachronism in languages like Hebrew and English, as well as a number of
references that show that Exodus is a narrative of our world beginning with
the 9/11 attack. If you agree that these things are significant, I am
asking that you tell someone--soon--there have been so many eyes on this
evidence that it's almost unfathomable to me that it has not sparked more
of a response from the workd. I'd love to talk about it, or answer any
question that you might have--but more than anything I think this needs to
make the news.
Because a significant amount of additional evidence comes from hidden
meaning in songs--I am asking that you e-mail letters(a)rollingstone.com
<http://rol.st/2h4TJQ4> and mention that you might have seen Jesus .. coming
in the cloud. <http://bit.ly/2h53UnZ> Try to understand, the information
that I have--and the Second Coming--are here to defeat a wall of
censorship... one that is described in Exodus as the Plague of Darkness,
hiding the light of the Son. <http://bit.ly/2h53MVc>
Or maybe a retweet? #advent <http://bit.ly/2hKnw4I> The light of the
mystery Revelation 1:20--the 7 Golden Lamp stands, is described clearly as
a series of elements matching the planets from Mercury to Uranium
<http://bit.ly/2h53RIy>... with two of them appearing in the names of Genes
*is* and *Ex*odus--Silicon and Xenon. Exodus for instance... translated
from the linux commands "xe" and "sudo" which are an Oracle Database and
the "root priiledge escalation" command... yields "*let there be light.*"
Genesis in reverse, and Deteron-ohmy both also seem to have something to do
with science.
*Seasons greetings,*
*-a*
**
*XP, two greek letters, one city in Egypt; and the spark that ignites
Hell's Bill Gates... climb thru Windows into our Heavenly future.*
XP, it's as simple as those two Greek letters. Who knew that Chi and Rho
were some sort of hidden beta code for the city of pyramids in Egypt,
Cairo? Quite the question, who knew... perhaps the man who named his
Windows into our future not after some technology that came from Xerox Parc
or Apple's mouse on this ship... but rather for his own given name,
Gates... just one more entry point into the second book of the Holy Bible,
the book of Names--you call it Exodus.
I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in
and go out, and find pasture. John 10:9
A vision of the story of Exodus as a time-shifted narrative of our
generation. WIth not much imagination you can see that story begin to come
alive with the anthropomorphism of George W. Bush as "the Burning Bush"
predicting without knowing it... the 9/11 attack by quoting two Bible
verses during his inauguration.
The Sign of the Son <http://bit.ly/2hKj8CC>
Ecclesiastes 9:11 and Revelation 20:1. The concept of dates being related
to verse is further reinforced by another link in the Matrix: the speech is
on the date 1/20/2001 and answers a riddle from Revelation 1:20. It heralds
the Second Coming and talks about "7 stars and 7 lamp stands." It turns
out, lo and behold, the stars are the planets from Mercury to Uranus... and
the lampstands are hidden messages that correspond 1 to 1, tying an element
to each planet from Hg to U. That series of Gods starting with the
messenger and ending with the Gods of time and Heaven are literally
described in sequential order by the lines of Ecclesiastes 9:11 that Bush
spoke on 1/20.
The Torch of Jericho <http://bit.ly/2h56olX>
I have to point out that in a story about wandering in a desolation of
understanding for 4-D ... somethings, days, years, seconds even... in this
story about our lives and the influence of time travel over our world...
that this sign radiates with light coming from a small fire, the Bush ...
whose actualization shows clear paradoxical anachronistic foreknowledge of
not only the English language but also modern computing.. all the way to a
confluence of the "root of David" a religious reference to the
Administrator or God account in Linux... and the database process for
Oracle--yet more light connecting computing to religion and myth.
The entirety of the story of Exodus revolves around the disclosure of the
existence of technologies that allow for travel through time, and hidden
control of our minds--the things that religion has always called prophesy
and possession. Starting with this one small fire, the story continues to
describe our deliverance from this hidden slavery; and alos continues to
provide a malestom of evidence that these things exist.
The word for the fire of the Burning Bush is "ha'esh" and right in the
heart of that word is the English word for sea, parted by an apostrophe.
It's the first of many examples of English encoded within ancient Hebrew;
and that phenomenon proves without doubt that both Hebrew and English are
languages constructed by an outside intelligence--calling the path of
"natural development" and our history into question. Seeing that the latter
part of the story of Exodus, which talks about Moses parting a sea is
designed to highlight this word--and this concept starts a perspective
change that shows how much of a useful tool religion truly is.
ha'esh,* Holy Fi**re * <http://bit.ly/2hKrtGj>
So I have shown you the Burning Bush <http://bit.ly/2h543HU>, I have
pointed to the fire that surrounds our sea--another tie between Egypt's
myths and the secret message of religion, that there is more truth before
your eyes than you can imagine. In Egypt, the God Nu.. or Nun, the name of
the father of Joshua is the primordial watery chaos--after me, never again
to be mistaken for anything other than the masses, the multitude of
Revelation. I've tied the Plague of LICE not only to the hidden language
that links Osiris's feather of light to Yankee Doodle's macaronic
language... a cipher written your everything--in every word and many
stories--The Taming of the Spanglishrew, the Matrix, and the Langoliers...
to the PoLICE--and my battle against injustice, against a world willing to
watch Jesus Christ suffer another Crucifixion in silence. On the list of
Plagues, seeing the Storm is about time travel, and the Darkness about
censorship and--quite literally--being forced to wander the wilderness of
time, and the fire... the fire that ties the Eternal Flame and Prometheus's
gift of secret technology and a message in our languages.... to the Burning
Bush spreading on the internet like wildfire, as it should. Understand that
this controlled fire, this place where the spark has not even ignited a
single mind... this is the source of Saint One, Jesus himself turned to
stone for staring "Me d' USA' in the face. Know, it is a battle between me
and all of the people of the world, and this government's past future,
struggling to hide something so bright and so pervasive that it is quite
literally "written on the walls of everything." At least it once was,
today... we must see what original sin really means, and how this place has
changed for the better, or is changing... and while the blame is still
etched in "retarded" macaroni... so too is applause and thanks, for knowing
that this place, our time, is the one that succeeds in revealing the
truth--in forming the true Heaven itself. If we did not know what had gone
wrong, it would happen again and again, we know as much... and the book and
recursion of days and seals of Horsemen tell us as much--be wary of me, for
one just like me has been here before. Be wary of yourself and whatever is
influencing your mind if that makes you think it's OK to hide the
information I provide, for any reason--*the truth will be set free. _Listen
carefully to this message about what sank the Ark in the past, and realize
it is your burden also... for _you too have been here before.*
It's everywhere, and everything... to hide it is the equivalent of
destroying your own ability to see the world and our history for what it
is, our to grow and to improve.... to _know. _For our children and our
future, we must change the world.... here and now you have a springboard to
truly see what has befallen the past cycles of this place, if we are strong
enough to do it better than ever before... one last time.
And I have shown you the Holy Grail <http://bit.ly/2hKsQoG>, I've described
it so many times I can't bear to do it again, it's a message about control,
seeing it and fighting against it--in every single idiom of our time, and
in the fact that our world is literally stuck inside a recursive book, the
Torah. It is seeing how true family comes from struggle, and from
overcoming--and how yet another plague, the casting of water to blood--the
multitude to family--is begun simply by seeing these things, and forged in
fire once we understand that the technologies being revealed are either our
beginning or our undoing, depending on whether or not we know of them, and
how we use them. This "stuff of control" out of the fire of MK-ULTRA and
diabolical possession... this is the stuff too of real medicine,
neuroscience and brain-computer interfaces besting what random chemicals
can offer--it is the future one way or another--it is either Heaven or
Hell. In secret, it certainly is not doing what you need or want--it's
making the very existence of mind altering technology "crazy," turning
reality insane.
\The Doors <http://bit.ly/2hKqLsX> sung a great deal about darkness and the
fire that is to come, many of their songs were about the Plagues of
Exodus--something I didn't connect to a solution, something we might soon
be given to show us that we are not in reality, but rather on the doorstep
of Heaven--just maybe, we'll want to see for ourselves.
<http://bit.ly/2h543Yq>
Adam <http://bit.ly/2h50hhE>
BY NO OTHER <http://bit.ly/2h53ZIl> NAME, AND WHY <http://bit.ly/2hKqLJt>
*The Holy Trinity, in the name Abraham thousands of years early.*
Strong's Concordance
ab: father
Original Word: אָב
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: ab
Phonetic Spelling: (awb)
Short Definition: father
*Ra* (/rɑː/ <http://bit.ly/2h53OMO>;[1] <http://bit.ly/2hKsQFc> Egyptian
<http://bit.ly/2hKnzgR>: *Rꜥ <http://bit.ly/2hKCCHs>*, *Rˤ
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rˤ>*) or *Re* (/reɪ/ <http://bit.ly/2h543aS>
; Coptic <http://bit.ly/2h54BO4>: ⲣⲏ, *Rē*) is the ancient Egyptian
<http://bit.ly/2hKlrpl>sun god <http://bit.ly/2h53Ww7>. By the Fifth Dynasty
<http://bit.ly/2h58672> in the 25th and 24th centuries bc, he had become a
major god in ancient Egyptian religion <http://bit.ly/2hKszly>, identified
primarily with the noon <http://bit.ly/2h53WMD> sun.
The name *Isaac* is a Hebrew baby name. In Hebrew the *meaning* of the name
*Isaac*is: He laughs. Laughter. The only son born to Abraham and his wife
Sarah (in the Old Testament).
When God changed a person's *name* and gave him a new *name*, it was
usually to establish a new identity. God changed *Abram's* "high father"
*name* to “*Abraham*,” "father of a multitude" (Genesis 17:5) and his
wife's *name* from “Sarai,” “my princess,” to “Sarah,” “mother of nations”
(Genesis 17:15).
The Hebrew prophetic names "Elisha" and "Elija" <http://bit.ly/2hWnswV>
further aid this prescient reference to the Holy Trinity, equating both the
Hebrew and Spanish words for... "God" and "the" *through the English "is."*
*M ESSAGE*
Not sure if these things are meaningful or significant? Perhaps you think
this is all just a series of strange coincidences that happen to all
surround religious names and provide not only proof of foreknowledge of
English (and Christianity) in Judaism... but um, well, it's probably a
message in my hand for a reason... or do you not think so?
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ
ᐧ
The topic of audiences was discussed at today's WMF Metrics and
Activities meeting.
Looking at https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm, and sorting by
editors (5+ per million speakers), there are some language communities
that appear to have high participation rates on their language's
edition of Wikipedia, but I hear very little from them in meta
discussions. Japanese Wikipedia comes to mind in particular, with its
large number of primary + secondary language speakers. I'd be
interested in learning more about what makes their community's edition
of Wikipedia so successful in terms of a high proportion of Japanese
speakers contributing to the site, that could be applied to other
language editions.
Could WMF direct more resources to studying the successes on Japanese
Wikipedia, and how information about those successes could be applied
to other language editions of Wikipedia?
Pine
Hi all,
We are planning to start a new research project aiming at engaging student
editors in WikiEd program.
To improve their experience at Wikipedia, we propose that students join a
video discussion session with their peers, to share experience on Wiki and
have Wiki related discussions. We believe that this would be beneficial for
students. As newbies at Wiki, they can mingle up with the Wiki community by
talking to their peers. If you are curious about the details, our Wikipedia
project page is here
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikitalk:_Chatting_with_Your_Fello…>
.
We plan to proceed wth our recruitment in early February (when the school
starts for spring). Any ideas suggestions on the recruitment should
proceed, or ideas on this project in general will be highly appreciated!
Thanks!
Zheng
A reminder that the livestream will start in an hour (11:30am PT / 7:30pm
UTC): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmrlu5qTgyA
If you want to learn more about perceptions of privacy and safety among Tor
users and Wikimedia contributors or are eager to know how much high-quality
content gender-focused initiatives have contributed to Wikipedia, come and
join us today (the discussion will be hosted on IRC).
Dario
On Mon, Dec 19, 2016 at 8:45 AM, Sarah R <srodlund(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
>
> The next Research Showcase will be live-streamed this Wednesday,
> December 21, 2016 at 11:30 AM (PST) 18:30 (UTC).
>
> YouTube stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmrlu5qTgyA
>
> As usual, you can join the conversation on IRC at #wikimedia-research.
> And, you can watch our past research showcases here
> <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase#December_2016>
> .
>
> The December 2016 Research Showcase includes:
>
> English Wikipedia Quality Dynamics and the Case of WikiProject Women
> ScientistsBy *Aaron Halfaker
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Halfak_(WMF)>*With every productive
> edit, Wikipedia is steadily progressing towards higher and higher quality.
> In order to track quality improvements, Wikipedians have developed an
> article quality assessment rating scale that ranges from "Stub" at the
> bottom to "Featured Articles" at the top. While this quality scale has the
> promise of giving us insights into the dynamics of quality improvements in
> Wikipedia, it is hard to use due to the sporadic nature of manual
> re-assessments. By developing a highly accurate prediction model (based on
> work by Warncke-Wang et al.), we've developed a method to assess an
> articles quality at any point in history. Using this model, we explore
> general trends in quality in Wikipedia and compare these trends to those of
> an interesting cross-section: Articles tagged by WikiProject Women
> Scientists. Results suggest that articles about women scientists were lower
> quality than the rest of the wiki until mid-2013, after which a dramatic
> shift occurred towards higher quality. This shift may correlate with (and
> even be caused by) this WikiProjects initiatives.
>
>
> Privacy, Anonymity, and Perceived Risk in Open Collaboration. A Study of
> Tor Users and WikipediansBy *Andrea Forte*In a recent qualitative study
> to be published at CSCW 2017, collaborators Rachel Greenstadt, Naz
> Andalibi, and I examined privacy practices and concerns among contributors
> to open collaboration projects. We collected interview data from people who
> use the anonymity network Tor who also contribute to online projects and
> from Wikipedia editors who are concerned about their privacy to better
> understand how privacy concerns impact participation in open collaboration
> projects. We found that risks perceived by contributors to open
> collaboration projects include threats of surveillance, violence,
> harassment, opportunity loss, reputation loss, and fear for loved ones. We
> explain participants’ operational and technical strategies for mitigating
> these risks and how these strategies affect their contributions. Finally,
> we discuss chilling effects associated with privacy loss, the need for open
> collaboration projects to go beyond attracting and educating participants
> to consider their privacy, and some of the social and technical approaches
> that could be explored to mitigate risk at a project or community level.
>
> --
> Sarah R. Rodlund
> Senior Project Coordinator-Engineering, Wikimedia Foundation
> srodlund(a)wikimedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Research-wmf mailing list
> Research-wmf(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/research-wmf
>
>
--
*Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
<http://twitter.com/readermeter>
Hi all,
I'm seeking assistance in retrieving data regarding the activity of
*unregistered
contributors* on a year-by-year basis.
Namely, I'm looking for stats regarding the count of these IP users at the
end of each calendar year, as well as their activity levels (e.g. avg.
monthly edits).
I was able to get detailed stats for registered members, but not for those
contributors identified through their IP
Help will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Ofer
--
===================================
Dr. Ofer Arazy
http://www.OferArazy.com <http://oferarazy.com/>
===================================
Forwarding Katherine's email because this may also be of interest to
technical audiences and Wikimedia affiliates who don't subscribe to
Wikimedia-l. Also including Research-l because the strategy process
will likely be influenced by existing research, and may involve new
research initiatives.
Pine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Katherine Maher <kmaher(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 6:42 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Update on Wikimedia movement strategy process (#1!)
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>,
"wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org" <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
*(Apologies for cross posting)*
Hi all,
Since joining the Wikimedia Foundation and movement in 2014, I have often
heard community members, movement organizations, and staff members speak of
a need for a clear, unifying, and inspirational strategic direction for our
movement. These conversations tend to follow a pattern: they start by
recognizing the incredible work of our movement over the past 15 years,
while seeking clarity on what we do next. What do we want to achieve over
the next 15 years? What role do we want to play in the world? How will we
prioritize our work and resources?
At the June 2016 Board of Trustees meeting, the Board identified[1] the
development of a long-term movement strategy as one of our top priorities
for the coming year. Coming to consensus on a long-term strategic direction
will help us know where we are headed, which path we will take, and how we
will ensure our work is supported.
At the Foundation’s December metrics meeting this morning, Anna Stillwell
and Lisa Gruwell shared a presentation on the work the Foundation has done
since June to prepare for a movement strategy consultation in the coming
year.[2] We have been working to understand past Wikimedia strategy
efforts, estimate future budgets and timelines, and secure resources for
the year to come. In this email, I want to present some additional detail
on this progress, and next steps we can take together.
(*Fair warning: this is a very long email.* The critical information is as
follows: The Wikimedia Foundation Board has approved a spending resolution
and timeline for the upcoming strategy work. We anticipate beginning broad
community conversations on the process, goals, and themes in early 2017.
The Foundation is looking for an external expert to work with us (community
and staff) to support an effective, inclusive process. I’ve been remiss in
regular updates, but we will share them going forward. And of course,
please share your thoughts and feedback on this list and on Meta [3].)
*Strategic direction*
We are expecting that we will begin a movement-wide strategy discussion in
early 2017, with a process that runs throughout the year. The goal is to
close 2017 with clarity and consensus on a strategic direction for our
movement, and begin planning for how we will make progress in that
direction.
We are currently doing good work across our movement, but lack a unifying
sense of how that work coheres into something greater than its individual
parts. Wikipedia and the sister projects are remarkable, and our community
is responsible for their success. Our movement has done an incredible job
spreading our values and principles around the world—but we often look
backwards to improve on our past, rather than looking fully at both our
past and future. There’s an opportunity for us to consider how our vision
and mission will remain current amidst changing media, demographics, and
technology, and how we can better coalesce our efforts (ecosystem of
affiliates, users, experts, new users, cultural and educational
institutions, and the Wikimedia Foundation).
Additionally, we (community, affiliates, Board, and staff) are increasingly
aware of the challenges which arise without a unified movement strategy. We
have heard from members of the FDC, grant applicants, community leaders,
and a growing number of affiliates that they at times struggle with
understanding how our separate efforts tie together and where we are going
as an overall movement. The absence of a movement strategy, in other words,
is hampering our ability to work toward our mission. Given the importance
of that mission, and the need to hold ourselves to the highest account on
responsible stewardship of donor resources, this is an expensive
opportunity cost.
*Budget*
At the June Board meeting, I committed to develop a proposed process and
budget in time for the Board’s annual November Board retreat. This process
would reflect the type of approach we might take, and be accompanied by an
estimated budget for the associated work.
To prepare, we wanted to understand past efforts at developing strategies
for our movement. We audited these past processes (2010, 2012/Narrowing
Focus, 2014, and some other efforts) and interviewed past participants to
learn what worked and what did not,[4] and took stock of what was
missing—from external expertise to audience research—to clear ownership of
outcomes.
We recognized that, for example, while the 2010 process was highly
collaborative, it had some notable challenges. For example, it was unable
to turn collaborative goal setting into shared ownership of the work needed
to reach those goals. It also did not have strong participation from
emerging communities, particularly those in countries outside of Europe and
North America. For movement planning to succeed in the future, we will need
both broad and deep participation, from various perspectives and languages.
To consider how we could realize this level of meaningful consultation, we
spoke to people in the Foundation’s Community Engagement team and
elsewhere, taking recommendations on everything from community toolkits and
convenings to multilingual translation.
Past processes have also often focused on qualitative perspectives, usually
of our existing communities of editors and readers. We have had limited
ways of understanding how broadly representative these experiences, needs,
and challenges were, even for our existing communities. We have tens of
thousands of editors, but even in our most collaborative effort in 2010,
only 2,000 people contributed to the strategic discussions. Similarly, we
have limited research about why and how people around the world use and
engage with the Wikimedia projects as non-editors—and our understanding
about what keeps people from using the projects, as editors or non-editors,
is highly qualitative.
As we engage in the consultation going forward, we see an opportunity to
bring substantive audience-based research into our discussion, to inform
our possibilities and challenges with good data. We worked with the Global
Reach team, and staff from the New Readers and Audience Research projects
to scope out qualitative and quantitative audience research in new,
emerging, and existing editor and reader communities, and estimate
associated budgets. And while we see this as an exciting opportunity to
incorporate new data into our conversations, we also expect it to have
lasting value beyond the coming year. Good audience research and data will
help inform not just strategy discussions, but also should be helpful for
Foundation and other product and programming decisions now and in the
future.
And of course, we are not alone in the world! We exist in an ecosystem of
people who use, reuse, and remix the knowledge on the Wikimedia projects in
all sorts of ways. We have a strong and growing community of institutions
and partners in education, government, culture, and the sciences. We also
have many technical partners and re-users who have a vested interest in our
health. These stakeholders offer valuable insight into how our work extends
into the world, well beyond the sites we run. We want to talk to them,
understand the opportunities they see in the future, and the challenges
they face today. We want to speak to people working at the edge of
innovation in technology, to better understand how these trends affect our
future, and to engage them in our mission.
And last, but certainly not least, these discussions, collaborations, and
conclusions need to be open and consultative. We want to work together to
design a process of consultation, with opportunities for on-wiki
conversation, face to face meetings, working groups, and more. In some
cases, this may mean new conversations, and in others, we may want to bring
additional capacity and participation to already scheduled community
events. We will need additional resources for multilingual facilitation, or
documentation. We will also need additional capacity to support these
discussions, so that community and staff alike can retain their focus on
the programs, grants, and product work to which they have committed.
We want to bring this to life. But before we could commit to this approach,
we needed to be sure we could assemble the appropriate resources to make it
happen. Based on our research into past processes, best practices, and
conversations with community and staff—we built a high-level estimated
budget with resources for the following: inclusive, multilingual community
consultation on-wiki and in-person; research into our users, new users, and
consultation with external experts and stakeholders; and additional
external capacity for management and production of the process. All in, we
estimate that the full scope of work over 1.5 years will cost somewhere
around US$2.5 million. This is divided out roughly as 35% support for
direct community participation, 35% support for audience research and
understanding external ecosystems, and 30% support for facilitation and
external support.
I know this sounds like a lot! As we break it down into budget lines, it
starts to become more tangible. This estimated budget was developed in
close consultation with the Community Engagement, Global Reach, and Finance
teams. We worked with the Community Engagement team to use their models for
community events and facilitation to budget for additional support and
participation in community events. We worked with the Global Reach team to
estimate the costs of qualitative and quantitative research around the
world. And we worked with the Finance teams to understand hourly rates for
non-profit strategic consultancies (finding that, even with non-profit
organizations our commitment to meaningful consultation quickly added many
hours to our planning).
An overview of this budget estimate was presented to the Board at the 13
November Board meeting. There the Board approved a spending resolution of
up to $2.5 million over Fiscal Year 2016-17 (July 2016 - June 2017) and
Fiscal Year 2017-18 (July 2017 - June 2018). We are currently working to
migrate this proposed budget into a format similar to the one we use for
Annual Planning, for the purpose of consistency and clarity of review. This
detailed budget, tied to specific events, contracts, and research areas,
will be shared with to the Foundation Board’s Audit Committee[5], and with
the greater communities for feedback.
*Assembling a team*
To increase our likelihood of success, we want to bring additional capacity
and expertise to the table. No single Wikimedia Foundation department or
Wikimedia movement affiliate currently has the complete skillset or
available capacity to independently manage a strategy process of this size
and scale. Our goal is to find an external entity with experience in
organizational or movement strategies to help move us all (affiliates,
current users, new users, experts, cultural and educational institutions,
community committees, and Wikimedia Foundation) toward collaborative
development of a movement strategy, and assembling a team to support this
process.
Practically, this means finding an entity capable of recommending a
strategic approach, identifying necessary inputs (e.g., user research or
sector mapping) to inform meaningful consultation and decision making,
making timely process against deadlines, and helping ensure the delivery of
the final work. We’re referring to this role as the “lead architect,”
although it is likely to be a team, rather than an individual.
We recognize that several individuals in our community already possess
significant expertise in strategic planning, and we hope you will
contribute your talents to the shape and content of the discussion. We also
recognize it can be difficult to both facilitate a conversation and
contribute to it at the same time. To help alleviate procedural and
operational pressures on community contributors, and enable people to
participate in primarily strategic and generative roles, we expect the lead
architect and team will work closely with existing community and staff
liaisons and advocates to support discussions as facilitators. They will be
expected to support any community and Wikimedia Foundation bodies involved
in the development of strategy.
Last month, I asked Lisa Gruwell, Anna Stillwell, and Guillaume Paumier to
begin a search for this external capacity. They spoke with a number of
smaller organizations—a deliberate choice, to find someone who could be
flexible and open to our needs—and put together a request for proposal
(RFP) for interested firms. The minimal criteria for the lead architect is
someone who:
- Has created successful strategies before (organizational or movement
strategies, rather than just a strategy for a department, a program, or a
product)
- Has proposed a coherent outcome and understands the need to build an
incredibly inclusive process
- Is willing to be paired with a full-time partner/advisor who knows the
movement well
- Has significant nonprofit experience
- Has significant international experience
- Understands that Wikimedia communities are passionate! There will be
an occasional raucous[6] debate. They must be willing and able to have
difficult conversations (difficult in substance, but not in tone).
Although we spoke to many firms that were interested, some were unable to
mobilize resources on our timeline. Others we didn’t feel were the right
fit. In the end, we received two viable responses. We are hoping to make a
decision by the end of this or next week.
We recognize that our movement, mission, and culture are wonderfully
idiosyncratic. While we know we need external skills in the area of
movement strategies, we also know that any external organization will need
extensive support understanding our movement values, culture, history, and
projects.
We are proposing pairing any external consultants with community and staff
members who have deep community experience as guides, translators, and
mentors. We don’t know exactly how we will work yet, or who will be
interested in playing these roles. This is one question of many we will
need to answer together.
*Next steps*
All the resource and planning progress in the world doesn’t get us far
without community conversation. Beyond the budget, the decision to bring in
additional expertise, and the timeline of the coming year, we don’t have
many more concrete details at this point. That’s intentional. We are
committed to developing the specifics in partnership with you as we move
forward.
We also recognize we are embarking on something new. We’re proposing a
model that, while based on research, past experience, extensive
conversations, and a detailed budget—may not be perfect. We welcome the
ideas you bring to make it stronger. We anticipate we will work in the
open, communicate among ourselves regularly, pause along the way to assess
our progress, and course-correct as necessary. This will be part of
building together.
Additionally, we’ll be providing regular documentation via email, and
adding it to Meta-Wiki.[7] If you would like to receive updates via your
user talk page, you can do so by signing up on Meta-Wiki.[8]
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I imagine this is the
start of many conversations. I look forward to them.
Thank you!
Katherine
PS. An on-wiki version of this message is available for translation:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/15…
[1] https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimedia-l/2016-June/084627.html
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_metrics_and_activities…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Audit_of_p…
[5] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Audit_Committee
[6] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/raucous
[7] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017
[8]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Updates/Si…
--
Katherine Maher
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco, CA 94105
+1 (415) 839-6885 ext. 6635
+1 (415) 712 4873
kmaher(a)wikimedia.org
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Adam,
Thanks so much for your warm words. It is much appreciated, not to mention
encouraging -- there's nothing better than knowing this paper is of use to
others. :)
Your ORES initiative is important and very relevant not only to the
education program, but to the way we review articles in general throughout
the movement. Do keep us posted on how it progresses!
Warm regards from Tel Aviv,
Shani.
On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 8:58 PM, Adam Wight <awight(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> What a gift! Thank you for the rigorous and useful explanations and
> conclusions, I'm sure this will make it easier to argue for movement
> resources and is already encouraging other teachers to look into your
> course model...
>
> I noticed a promising overlap between the proven, scalable methodology of
> a self review and two peer reviews, with an initiative we're pursuing in
> ORES
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Revision_scoring_as_a_service>
> [1]: the ability to attach discussion to any onwiki entity such as
> revisions or even other reviews: T153149
> <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T153149> [2]. I expect your research
> will help kindle dialogue between the education program approach and ORES
> stakeholders, I'm excited to see what might come of that!
>
> -Adam
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Revision_scoring_as_a_service
> [2] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T153149
>
>
> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 3:26 PM Shani <shani.even(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Thanks so much, Anna & Tighe!
>>
>> Best,
>> Shani.
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:25 PM, Tighe Flanagan <tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
>> > wrote:
>>
>> This is wonderful, Shani! You put an incredible amount of work into this,
>> so much to be proud of.
>>
>> Thank you for sharing :)
>> Tighe
>>
>> --
>> Tighe Flanagan
>> Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
>> education.wikimedia.org
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:20 AM, Anna Torres <de(a)wikimedia.org.ar> wrote:
>>
>> Congrats! :)
>>
>> 2016-12-14 8:54 GMT-03:00 Michal Lester <mlester(a)wikimedia.org.il>:
>>
>> Congratulations!! Such interesting and important article.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you Shani
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Regards,*
>>
>>
>> *Michal Lester,*
>>
>> *Executive DirectorWikimedia Israel*
>> *http://www.wikimedia.org.il <http://www.wikimedia.org.il/> *
>> *972-50-8996046 ; 972-77-751-6032 *
>>
>>
>>
>> 2016-12-12 16:01 GMT+02:00 Shani <shani.even(a)gmail.com>:
>>
>> Hello Education & Research enthusiasts,
>>
>> Happy to share some good news with you -- an academic article I wrote
>> about implementing Wikipedia in higher education has been accepted to the
>> journal "Education and Information Technologies" (of Springer Nature
>> publishing house) and finally published online today!
>>
>> The article is called "Wikipedia as a platform for impactful learning: A
>> new course model in higher education" and is attached below in a PDF form. Unfortunately,
>> I did not have 3000$ to publish it via their "Open Access" option, but if your
>> academic institution is subscribed to Springer, it is also available via
>> this link - http://rdcu.be/nLxs
>> <http://em.rdcu.be/wf/click?upn=KP7O1RED-2BlD0F9LDqGVeSNV04Bi9eNZdn8IE1uoBDt…>
>> .
>>
>> Really hope this will inspire other institutions, educators and
>> researchers to further explore such endeavors.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Shani.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Education mailing list
>> Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Education mailing list
>> Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Anna Torres Adell
>> Directora Ejecutiva
>> *A.C. Wikimedia Argentina*
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> education-collab mailing list
>> education-collab(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education-collab
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> education-collab mailing list
>> education-collab(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education-collab
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Education mailing list
>> Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Education mailing list
> Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>
>
This is wonderful, Shani! You put an incredible amount of work into this,
so much to be proud of.
Thank you for sharing :)
Tighe
--
Tighe Flanagan
Senior Manager, Wikipedia Education Program
Wikimedia Foundation
tflanagan(a)wikimedia.org
education.wikimedia.org
On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 4:20 AM, Anna Torres <de(a)wikimedia.org.ar> wrote:
> Congrats! :)
>
> 2016-12-14 8:54 GMT-03:00 Michal Lester <mlester(a)wikimedia.org.il>:
>
>> Congratulations!! Such interesting and important article.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Thank you Shani
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *Regards,*
>>
>>
>> *Michal Lester,*
>>
>> *Executive DirectorWikimedia Israel*
>> *http://www.wikimedia.org.il <http://www.wikimedia.org.il/> *
>> *972-50-8996046 ; 972-77-751-6032 *
>>
>>
>>
>> 2016-12-12 16:01 GMT+02:00 Shani <shani.even(a)gmail.com>:
>>
>>> Hello Education & Research enthusiasts,
>>>
>>> Happy to share some good news with you -- an academic article I wrote
>>> about implementing Wikipedia in higher education has been accepted to the
>>> journal "Education and Information Technologies" (of Springer Nature
>>> publishing house) and finally published online today!
>>>
>>> The article is called "Wikipedia as a platform for impactful learning:
>>> A new course model in higher education" and is attached below in a PDF
>>> form. Unfortunately, I did not have 3000$ to publish it via their "Open
>>> Access" option, but if your academic institution is subscribed to
>>> Springer, it is also available via this link - http://rdcu.be/nLxs
>>> <http://em.rdcu.be/wf/click?upn=KP7O1RED-2BlD0F9LDqGVeSNV04Bi9eNZdn8IE1uoBDt…>
>>> .
>>>
>>> Really hope this will inspire other institutions, educators and
>>> researchers to further explore such endeavors.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Shani.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Education mailing list
>>> Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Education mailing list
>> Education(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Anna Torres Adell
> Directora Ejecutiva
> *A.C. Wikimedia Argentina*
>
> _______________________________________________
> education-collab mailing list
> education-collab(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education-collab
>
>