Submissions/GLAM Boot Camp — A New Model for GLAM-Wiki Skills-Building for Wikimedians

From Wikimania 2014 • London, United Kingdom

This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2014.

This session will take place at 11:30am on Sunday, August 10, in Frobisher 456.

Submission no. 2015
Title of the submission
GLAM Boot Camp — A New Model for GLAM-Wiki Skills-Building for Wikimedians
Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)
presentation
Author of the submission
Dominic McDevitt-Parks and Lori Byrd Phillips
E-mail address
dominic@wikimediadc.org
Username
Dominic, LoriLee
Country of origin
USA
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)

Dominic

  • Wikimedia D.C. (Cultural Partnerships Coordinator)
  • GLAM-Wiki U.S. Consortium (advisory group)
  • U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

Lori

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

This presentation will analyze the GLAM Boot Camp, a three-day intensive workshop—sponsored by Wikimedia D.C. and hosted by the U.S. National Archives—that sought to teach the outreach skills necessary for GLAM-Wiki partnerships to experienced Wikimedians from the U.S. and Canada. We will discuss the rationale for organizing the event, various logistical challenges we faced, a walkthrough of the program and activities, and outcomes and lessons learned. We hope to provide practical information to establish a model for GLAM Boot Camps as a replicable event within the international Wikimedia community.

Within the GLAM-Wiki community, one of the realities we have increasingly faced in several countries—like the United States or the Netherlands—is a lack of experienced Wikimedians to handle the level of interest from cultural institutions in GLAM-Wiki. At GLAMcamp London, we recognized that the Wikimedia movement's needs in several communities had shifted away from being primarily about outreach to cultural institutions to convince them to collaborate, to being more about recruitment of the Wikimedia community to lead and participate in these partnerships. In one breakout session, we developed a plan for a "GLAM Boot Camp" in which those of us with GLAM-Wiki experience would run a skills-building workshop for experienced Wikimedians in order to prepare them to work with cultural institutions.

The first ever GLAM Boot Camp was held in Washington, D.C. in April, 2013. A dozen Wikimedians from across the U.S. and Canada were invited (with travel paid by WMDC) to attend. Those in attendance were administrators, WikiProject coordinators, and other Wikimedia community leaders with an interest in GLAM-Wiki but little participation up to that point. The program consisted of guest talks by cultural professionals, tutorials on important skills (such as event planning, copyright, conflict of interest, analytics, chapters, and Wikisource), and group discussions. By the end, it was our hope that attendees would feel empowered to make a first approach to a cultural institution, to provide on-wiki support to GLAM-Wiki projects, or simply to become more engaged in organizing their local Wikimedia community in ways that would benefit GLAM-Wiki infrastructure. We surveyed the attendees after the event and are planning a follow-up survey one year later—and we will also present lessons we learned based on these and our personal insights from organizing the event.

Additional speakers may include James Hare, GLAM Boot Camp's co-organizer.

See also Signpost coverage and Wikimedia D.C. blog recap.

Track
  • GLAM Outreach
Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
30 minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
Yes


Interested attendees

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  1. Geraldshields11 (talk) 16:27, 26 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 14:18, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. John Andersson (WMSE) (talk) 14:39, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4. PatHadley (talk) 11:17, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Husky (talk) 12:30, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  6. AdamBMorgan (talk) 16:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  7. --Another Believer (talk) 01:49, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Ham (talk) 14:39, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Scott (talk) 19:33, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Beat Estermann (talk) 12:45, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  11. I endorse as President of Wikimedia District of Columbia. Harej (talk) 05:24, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Edwardx (talk) 17:14, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Quiddity (talk) 19:45, 12 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  14. LoriLee (talk) 12:10, 13 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  15. SarahStierch (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Joelaldor (talk) 07:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Maarten Jansen (talk) 13:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  18. --Urjanhai (talk) 11:03, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]