Dear All,
Hope everyone is doing well. I am writing to share that the final report of
our study "Bridging the Gender Gap: A Report on Indian Language Wikimedia
Communities" has been published on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki [1] and the CIS
website [2].
For me a valuable part of this research was networking with the various
Wikimedia contributors and learning how to be part of the extensive
Wikimedia projects.
Please revert with any queries or feedback on the report; do share this
with your networks.
[1]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Bridging_the_Gender_gap:_A_report_…
[2]
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bridging-the-gender-gap-in-indian-language-…
Thanks and Regards,
Bhuvana Meenakshi
Hi all,
This email contains information about a new award that we're
introducing as well as instructions about how you can nominate
scholarly research publications for the award.
=Purpose of the award=
Recognize recent research on or about the Wikimedia projects or recent
research that is of importance to the Wikimedia projects. Recognize
the researchers behind the research.
=Call for Nominations=
We invite you to submit nominations for the Wikimedia Foundation
Research Award of the year, which will be handed out at Wiki Workshop
2021 [1].
==Eligibility criteria==
Your nomination must meet the following criteria:
* The research must be on, about, using data from, and/or of
importance to Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons or other
Wikimedia projects [2].
* The publication must be available in English.
* The research must have been published between January 1, 2020 to
December 31, 2020.
==Selection criteria==
The award committee [3] will assess nominations based on
methodological excellence, quality of execution, quality of
presentation, reproducibility, ethical considerations, potential
impact on the Wikimedia projects or the Wikimedia research.
==Nomination process==
If you are interested to nominate a scholarly research publication,
please do so no later than 2021-03-22 by uploading it to Easychair via
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wmfray2020 . We will ask you
to provide the following information in your nomination:
* Title of the manuscript
* A copy of the manuscript you are nominating
* A summary of the research and a clear justification for why the work
merits the award (in 350 words or fewer in English).
Note that self-nominations and nominations of others' work are both welcome.
If you have any questions, please contact wmf-ray-2020(a)easychair.org.
Best,
Leila Zia, on behalf of the Selection Committee of the Wikimedia
Foundation Research Award of the Year
[1] https://wikiworkshop.org/2021/
[2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/wikimedia-projects/
[3] comprised of myself, Benjamin Mako Hill (University of Washington)
and Aaron Shaw (Northwestern University) as of now. More people may be
added depending on the diversity of the nominations we receive and as
expertise are required.
--
Leila Zia
Head of Research
Wikimedia Foundation
Dear friends and Wikimedians,
(apologies for cross-posting!)
The Community Resources team announced in January the intention and process
to review its current grants programs (Annual Plan Grants, Simple Annual
Plan Grants, Project Grants and Rapid Grants) to ensure we are aligning
with the strategic direction of the Wikimedia movement, with a focus on
knowledge equity and building a thriving movement[1][2].
Now that we have finished our needs review, key stakeholders discussions,
community brainstorms, and grantee surveys, we are excited to share with
you the draft proposal[3] that has resulted from this work:
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…
>
We are requesting your feedback on how the proposed grant programs would
impact you and how well they align with our movement strategy, which can be
provided in the following ways [4]:
* Complete a feedback form
* Participate in office hours
* Discuss on-wiki
* E-mail the Community Resources team (<communityresources(a)wikimedia.org>)
More information about these options can be found on our feedback page.[4]
After one month when the planned feedback period is over, the Community
Resources team will review all community input and make final adjustments
to complete the redesign. In April 2021, the Community Resources team will
review and incorporate suggested changes and send a final proposal for
endorsement and approval by the leadership of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Working with all our communities to update our grants programs is essential
to ensuring that they are useful and address real needs for our
communities. Thank you for all of the participation that has brought us to
this point. We look forward to the continued engagement in this next step
and listening to your ideas.
On behalf of the Community Resources team,
Chris
---
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Medium-term_plan_2019/…
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…
[4]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Community_Resources/Grants_Strategy_Relaunc…
*Chris Schilling* (him//they)
User:I JethroBT (WMF)
Senior Program Officer, Rapid Grants
Wikimedia Foundation
Apologies for cross-posting
====
SEMANTiCS - 17th International Conference on Semantic Systems, September
6 - 9, 2021
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
https://2021-eu.semantics.cc/
====
= Important Dates (specific track dates are given below)
* Abstract Submission Deadline: March 22, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Paper Submission Deadline: March 29, 2021 (11:59 pm,Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: May 17, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Camera-Ready Paper: June 06, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
= Read a detailed description of all available calls online:
https://2021-eu.semantics.cc/cfp
= Submission via Easychair on
https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=sem21eu#
Proceedings of SEMANTiCS 2021 EU are planned to be published by Springer
LNCS & CEUR. All proceedings will be made available open access.
SEMANTiCS 2021 EU particularly welcomes submissions on the following key
topics:
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
* Web Semantics & Linked (Open) Data
* Enterprise Knowledge Graphs, Graph Data Management, and Deep Semantics
* Machine Learning & Deep Learning Techniques
* Semantic Information Management & Knowledge Integration
* Terminology, Thesaurus & Ontology Management
* Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
* Reasoning, Rules, and Policies
* Natural Language Processing
* Data Quality Management and Assurance
* Explainable Artificial Intelligence
* Semantics in Data Science
* Semantics in Blockchain environments
* Trust, Data Privacy, and Security with Semantic Technologies
* Economics of Data, Data Services, and Data Ecosystems
-------
* Special Sub-Topic: Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
* Special Sub-Topic: LegalTech
* Special Sub-Topic: Distributed and Decentralized Knowledge Graphs
We especially encourage contributions that illustrate the applicability
of the topics mentioned above for industrial purposes and/or illustrate
the business relevance of their contribution for specific industries.
We invite contributions to the following tracks:
= Read a detailed description of all available calls online:
https://2021-eu.semantics.cc/cfp
== Research and Innovation Track ==
The Research and Innovation track at SEMANTiCS welcomes 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 must follow the guidelines
given in the author instructions, including references and optional
appendices. Each submission will be reviewed by several PC members who
will judge it based on its innovativeness, appropriateness, and impact
of results in terms of effectiveness at solving real problems.
= Important Dates:
* Abstract Submission Deadline: March 22, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Paper Submission Deadline: March 29, 2021 (11:59 pm,Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: May 17, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Camera-Ready Paper: June 06, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
Author instructions: Reviews will be carried out in a single-blind mode.
Long papers should have a maximum length of 15 pages and short papers of
6 pages. Submissions should follow the guidelines of the Springer LNCS
format. The detailed Call for Research and Innovation papers is
available here: https://2021-eu.semantics.cc/cfp
== Posters and Demos Track ==
The Posters and Demonstrations Track invites innovative work in
progress, late-breaking research and innovation results, and smaller
contributions in all fields related to the Semantic Web and Linked Data
in a broader sense. These include submissions on innovative applications
with impact on end users, such as demos of solutions that users may test
or that are yet in the conceptual phase but are worth discussing, and
also applications or pieces of code that may attract developers and
potential research or business partners.
= Important Dates:
* Paper Submission Deadline: May 24, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: June 21, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Camera-Ready Paper: July 05, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
Author instructions: Proceedings are planned to be published via CEUR
Workshop Proceedings and should follow the guidelines of the Springer
LNCS format. The detailed Call for Poster and Demos papers is available
online.
== Industry and Use Case Track ==
Focusing strongly on industry needs and ground breaking technology
trends SEMANTICS invites presentations on enterprise solutions that deal
with semantic processing of data and/or information. A special focus of
Semantics 2019 will be on the convergence of machine learning techniques
and knowledge graphs. Additional topics of interest are Enterprise
Knowledge Graphs, Semantic AI & Machine Learning, Enterprise Data
Integration, Linked Data & Data Publishing, Semantic Search,
Recommendation Services, Thesaurus and/or Ontology Management, Text
Mining, Data Mining and any related fields. All submissions should have
a strong focus on real-world applications beyond the prototypical stage
and demonstrate the power of semantic systems!
= Important Dates:
* Presentation Submission Deadline: April 26, 2021 (11:59 p.m.,Hawaii
time)
* Notification of Acceptance: May 17, 2021 (11:59 p.m., Hawaii time)
* Camera-Ready Presentation: July 26, 2021 (11:59 p.m.,
Hawaii time)
Submit your presentations here:
http://2021-eu.semantics.cc/submission-industry-presentations
== Workshops and Tutorials ==
Workshops and Tutorials at SEMANTiCS 2018 allow your organisation or
project to advance and promote your topics and gain increased
visibility. The workshops and tutorials will provide a forum for
presenting widely recognised contributions and findings to a diverse and
knowledgeable community. Furthermore, the event can be used as a
dissemination activity in the scope of large research projects or as a
closed format for research and commercial project consortia meetings.
= Important Dates for Workshops:
* Proposals WS Deadline: March 01, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: March 15, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
= Important Dates for Tutorials (and other meetings, e.g. seminars,
show-cases, etc., without call for papers):
* Proposals Tutorial Deadline: June 07, 2021 (11:59 pm, Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: June 21, 2021 (11:59 pm,
Hawaii time)
== Special Calls ==
Special calls or sub-topics are dedicated towards specific topics that
are of special interest to the SEMANTiCS community. IN case we receive a
sufficient amount of high quality submissions these topics will become
special tracks within the conference program. For 2021 SEMANTiCS
Amsterdam encourages submissions to the following sub-topics:
* Special Sub-Topic: Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
* Special Sub-Topic: LegalTech
* Special Sub-Topic: Distributed and Decentralized Knowledge Graphs
Each sub-topic is managed by a distinct committee and encourages
submissions from the scientific or industrial domain. Scientific
submissions will undergo a thorough review process and will be published
in the conference proceedings in case of acceptance. Industrial
submissions will be evaluated and selected according to the quality
criteria of the industry track. WE are looking forward to your submissions!
== SEMANTiCS 2021 EU Organizing Committee ==
The program committee is announced on the conference website
https://2021-eu.semantics.cc/committee
= Read a detailed description of all available calls online:
https://2021-eu.semantics.cc/cfp
Hi all,
The Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation has officially started a new
Formal Collaboration [1] with Mo Houtti and Loren Terveen of University of
Minnesota to work collaboratively on understanding article importance [2]
as part of the Addressing Knowledge Gaps program [3]. We are thankful to
them for agreeing to spend their time and expertise on this project in the
coming year.
Here are a few pieces of information about this collaboration that we would
like to share with you:
* We aim to keep the research documentation for this project in the
corresponding research page on meta [2].
* Research tasks are hard to break down and track in task-tracking systems.
This being said, tasks related to this project that can be captured on
Phabricator will be captured under here [4].
* I act as the point of contact for this research in the Wikimedia
Foundation. Please feel free to reach out to me (directly, if it cannot be
shared publicly) if you have comments or questions about the project.
Best,
Isaac
[1] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Formal_collaborations
[2]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Prioritization_of_Wikipedia_Articl…
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:2030#Knowledge_gaps
[4] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T155541
--
Isaac Johnson (he/him/his) -- Research Scientist -- Wikimedia Foundation
Hi all,
I hope this email finds you well.
We are going to open a position in the Research team [1] at the
Wikimedia Foundation and given the nature of the role (focused on the
research community building aspect of our work), I'd like to offer a
period of two weeks (until 2021-02-21) to hear your ideas about how to
improve specific aspects of the opening. If you would like to provide
optional feedback, please read on. Otherwise, you can safely stop
here.
==Background==
Over the past year or so, it has become evident to me that delivering
towards Section 4 of the Foundations whitepaper [2] the Research team
wrote in 2019 requires a dedicated individual in our team to focus on
this direction. We're going to open a position in our team for this
reason.
==Why are you asking for my input?==
We normally don't ask for the input from the community on the
specifics of the job descriptions. I'm making an exception in this
case because of the nature of the work for this particular position.
==Roles and responsibilities==
These are the roles and responsibilities I currently envision to ask
of the person who joins us in this capacity:
* Developing, maintaining, and executing a research capacity and
outreach strategy in collaboration with the Head of Research and
rooted in the priority areas identified (Section 4 of the whitepaper
on the Foundations)
* Maintaining, revamping and expanding the already existing research
community programs including the Formal Collaboration program [3], the
Research Internship program, and the Research Fellow program.
* Organizing events such as the public Monthly Office Hours [4],
Monthly Research Showcases [5], and the annual Wiki Workshop [6] in
collaboration with the rest of the team
* Serving as the liaison and facilitating engagement between the
existing Wikimedia research community and the Wikimedia Research team
* Actively working to expand the existing Wikimedia research community
to include more regions of the world and more diverse disciplines
* Understanding and triaging the needs of the Wikimedia research
communities and advocating for resources internally to meet them
* Communicating and promoting the Research team’s work to external and
diverse audiences
* Discussing, documenting and communicating the process and results of
your work publicly
==Who can provide input?==
Everyone on this list should feel welcome to. Given the nature of the
position and the focus on research community building, I expect to
hear the bulk of the feedback from those of you already active in the
research community, as organizers or researchers.
==What feedback am I seeking?==
Please focus your feedback on the "Roles and responsibilities"
section. Have I missed a responsibility? Is there a lack of clarity
around one or more of the ones already listed? ...
==What happens to your feedback?==
I commit to read all constructive feedback I receive by 2021-02-21 and
take them into account in updating the responsibility section of the
job description that we will post. I want to be clear that I may not
be able to implement particular feedback. My commitment is to
seriously consider them.
==What happens in parallel to this opportunity for providing feedback?==
For the sake of full transparency: I will start the process of
finalizing the job description with our Talent and Culture department,
including finalizing the title, experiences we will need for the role,
and the responsibilities. I will not completely finalize the job
description until the feedback period is over, however, so that I can
make the adjustments needed.
==Where can you provide feedback?==
You have 2 venues for doing so. On this email thread or in-person in
one of the two time-slots below:
February 11, 21:30-22:00 PST, link to connect:
https://meet.google.com/wrt-zypn-bxs
February 17, 8:00-8:30 PST, link to connect:
https://meet.google.com/igz-xboq-mwx
==What if you have questions?==
Feel free to join me in one of the two office hours posted above or
get in touch on this thread, on or off-thread.
==Will there be a reminder for this?==
No. If you are interested in engaging, please take a note on your end.
I am not planning to send reminders. :)
If you have made this far, thank you! :) I'm looking forward to
hearing from you. I also want to share that I'm excited that we are
given the opportunity to bring a dedicated resource in our team to
focus on the community aspect of our work. There is a lot to be done
for you all already in the Wikimedia research community and towards
those who are not part of this community today but they can be. :)
Best,
Leila
[1] https://research.wikimedia.org/team.html
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Foundations_-_Wikimedia_Research_2030.…
[3] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Formal_collaborations
[4] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Office_hours
[5] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Showcase
[6] https://wikiworkshop.org/
--
Leila Zia
Head of Research
Wikimedia Foundation
Hi all,
We've opened a position in the Research team at the Wikimedia
Foundation to bring onboard a Research Community Officer. You can read
more about the role and responsibilities at
https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/2950273?gh_src=0b430d3f1us
.
Apply if you're interested or share the posting with those who may be
interested.
Best,
Leila
--
Leila Zia
Head of Research
Wikimedia Foundation
Dear All,
The Access to Knowledge (A2K) team at the Centre for Internet and Society, India has been engaged with work on research on Indian language Wikimedia projects since 2019. You may see some of our recently published reports here:
1.Mapping GLAM in Maharashtra:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Mapping_GLAM_in_Mahara…
2.Understanding Gaps on Wikidata on Cultural Heritage Structures in Bengal:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Research/Understanding_the_d…
This year, following up on learnings from work so far, we are undertaking a needs assessment exercise to a) understand the awareness about research within Indian language Wikimedia communities and identify existing projects if any, and b) gather community inputs on knowledge gaps and priority areas of focus and the role of research in addressing the same.
We would therefore request interested community members, working with or interested in research on Indian language Wikimedia projects to respond to the needs assessment questionnaire here:https://forms.gle/2xGAUBKSVJTK7Wks9
The deadline to submit a response has been extended till 5 March 2021. Feel free to write in any language. Please write to us with your queries at:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CIS-A2K/Research
best wishes,
sneha
--
P.P Sneha
The Centre for Internet and Society
Bangalore
http://cis-india.org/
Dear all,
As many researchers are currently investigating how the COVID-19
pandemic affected contribution and collaboration on Wikipedia, I thought
I'd share the preprint of our quantitative analysis of editor
contributions during the pandemic, which suggests encouraging findings
for the Wikimedia volunteer community (see abstract below):
"Volunteer contributions to Wikipedia increased during COVID-19 mobility
restrictions"
https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.10090
best,
thorsten
------------------
Authors:
Thorsten Ruprechter, Manoel Horta Ribeiro, Tiago Santos, Florian
Lemmerich, Markus Strohmaier, Robert West, Denis Helic
Abstract:
Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia ever created, is a global initiative
driven by volunteer contributions. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out
and mobility restrictions ensued across the globe, it was unclear
whether Wikipedia volunteers would become less active in the face of the
pandemic, or whether they would rise to meet the increased demand for
high-quality information despite the added stress inflicted by this
crisis. Analyzing 223 million edits contributed from 2018 to 2020 across
twelve Wikipedia language editions, we find that Wikipedia's global
volunteer community responded remarkably to the pandemic, substantially
increasing both productivity and the number of newcomers who joined the
community. For example, contributions to the English Wikipedia increased
by over 20% compared to the expectation derived from pre-pandemic data.
Our work sheds light on the response of a global volunteer population to
the COVID-19 crisis, providing valuable insights into the behavior of
critical online communities under stress.
--
Thorsten Ruprechter
Institute of Interactive Systems and Data Science (ISDS)
Graz University of Technology, Austria