Erasmus+ Project BePart/PIF

ERASMUS+ PARTNER FORM

Participating Organisation

OID code: E10348672

Full Legal name: WIKIMEDIA ITALIA - associazione per la diffusione della conoscenza libera

Acronym

Country: Italy

Region: Lombardy

Post Code: 20144

City: Milan

Website: https://www.wikimedia.it/

Profile

Type of Organisation

No profit

BACKGROUNG & EXPERIENCE

Please briefly present the organisation/group (e.g. its type, scope of work, areas of activity and if applicable, approximate number of paid/unpaid staff, learners and members of the group)

– Max. 4000 characters incl. spaces

Wikimedia Italia – association for the spread of free knowledge – APS, is a social advancement association, operating since 2005 in the field of free culture. The association is officially recognized by Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (an American nonprofit organization founded in 2003, that manages and hosts, from a technical point of view, the websites linked to the Wikimedia movement), as part of the network of local chapters that operate in their own countries to promote free culture and the projects hosted by Wikimedia Foundation. Since 2016, the association is also the official chapter of OpenStreetMap Foundation (international nonprofit organization based in the United Kingdom, that supports the OpenStreetMap Project, the free geographic platform that offers universal access to geospatial data). Wikimedia Italia’s job is to promote free content on online cooperation projects, such as Wikipedia in Italian, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata and many more. Apart from the biggest and most famous projects (Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata), the Wikimedia universe has many other “sister” projects, each one focused on a specific aspect of free knowledge. All their content is published under free license, and it is built by the community of contributors; they are basically cooperatively developed by volunteers.

Wikimedia Italia works to facilitate improvement and spread of knowledge and culture. Specifically, Wikimedia Italia promotes production, collection and spread of open content, that is public domain works or works whose authors have released under a free license, allowing processing and / or free diffusion for any purpose, including for commercial purposes. The association is also involved in the spread of knowledge and awareness of social and philosophical questions related to the topics of free culture and public domain.

Wikimedia Italia is made of its members and volunteers (be them members or not) who act to contribute to its corporate purpose. The members share the values and scopes of the association and they contribute to its life, each based on their own availability, either with the annual fee or with volunteer work. Volunteers are those who perform their services for free in order to achieve the target of the association. The members are active participants of the association’s decisions, steering its actions with yearly meetings, commissions and workgroups, and with the discussions conducted through the association’s internal communication channels. Wikimedia Italia supports the integration between members and volunteers with different backgrounds, such as Wikipedia or other Wikimedia project users, OpenStreetMap mappers, free software developers and people who have never previously been involved on online free knowledge projects, while sharing their principles and founding values. Members and volunteers are encouraged to get organized, at a local level and with a wide degree of freedom, to carry out their activities more effectively. Some of the functions performed by the association are guaranteed by the staff. in detail:

Members: 354

Volunteers: 283 ca

Staff: 8

Wikimedia Italia’s corporate bodies are: the members’ General Meeting, the Board of Directors (elected by the members’ General Meeting and is composed of five unpaid members), the Board of Guarantors (composed by three effective elements and two deputies, unpaid), the Supervisory Body.

What are the activities and experience of your organisation in the areas relevant to this project?

Wikimedia Italia works with schools and universities on educational projects. Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap projects allow for the development of digital skills related to search, analysis and reuse of sources (information literacy), for the responsible and conscious use of the net, for the interaction with the online community and the license of use of the contents. These are digital citizenship requirements that are included in schools’ curricula in the new, compulsory Civic Education subject. Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap projects are OER (Open Educational Resources) that allow students to move from passive web users to content co-creators, promoting an open and collaborative approach to the production of cultural content. The collaboration between Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap contributes to Open Science, opening data and content following the principles of FAIR data, contributing to communication and spread of science in the society; it also contributes to citizen science, involving the population in research activities (third mission of the university).

Moreover Wikimedia Italia offers training courses, that are chosen by many institutions to spread their knowledge, train and involve their staff or volunteers, and organize educational workshops focused on Wikimedia projects. The activities suggested by Wikimedia and carried out by wikimedians in residence are strategic, because they help institutions (GLAM and University) to improve their content and promote their activities and collections.

What are the skills and/or expertise of key persons involved in this project?

– Max. 4000 characters incl. spaces

Iolanda Pensa is a wikipedian, art critic and researcher. She has been contributing to Wikipedia since 2006, she is chair of the Wikimania Steering Committee, president of Wikimedia Italia and member of Wikimedia CH, active in the implementation of the contest Wiki Loves Monuments and in increasing the documentation of cultural heritage on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects. Since 2006 she has been involved in triggering the use of open licenses by institutions, in publishing research materials on Wikipedia and in rebalancing online geographic information. Her job is senior researcher at SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, where she is head of the research sector “Culture and Territory”, she is member of SUPSI board and she is actively involved in the implementation of Open Science. Previously she was scientific director of the Moleskine Foundation.

Elena Marangoni has a degree in Historical Geography and works as digital librarian. She has been contributing to Wikimedia project since 2012 and member of Wikimedia Italia since 2017. As a volunteer and regional coordinator for Piedmont region she participated to Polo del '900 Glam project in 2021 and to the organisation of the local contest Wiki Loves Monument in 2022 and 2023. She is a member of GWMAB (Wikidata Group for Museums, Archives and Libraries).

Marco Chemello has an architecture degree and a strong interest for digital culture. He is a Wikipedia contributor since 2004, and an admin of the Wikipedia in Italian since 2005, when he also became a member of Wikimedia Italia. From 2015 to 2019 he was coordinator of Wikimedia Italia for the Veneto region, then he joined the staff as a trainer and a GLAM specialist. As a Wikipedian in Residence, he worked with many cultural institutions: BEIC Foundation and the National Science Museum "Leonardo da Vinci" in Milan, the Central Institute for the Archives (ICAR) of the Italian Ministry, the Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, the Archivio Storico Ricordi of Milan, the Polo del ‘900 of Turin; in 2021 he became one of the two first Wikimedians in residence in a university in Italy, at the University of Padua. He also worked with other Italian universities as a Wikipedia trainer. He lives in Vicenza, Italy.

Ilaria Diterlizzi has a degree in Political Science and International Cooperation, and a master's degree in Economics, Management and Social Innovation. She worked as project manager for several NGOs in Italy and Africa, dealing mainly with planning and development cooperation. She joined the Wikimedia Italia staff in May 2021 and is in charge of relations with schools and universities and projects on education.

Would you like to make any comments or add any information to the summary of your organisation’s past participation? (This is a complementary and optional question in the application form that accompanies the automatically prefilled presentation of all Erasmus+ projects your organisation participated).

/ (first partecipation)

Has the partner organization participated in a European Union granted project in the 3 years preceding this application? Please indicate the number of granted project and related data and the number of project applications: Number of granted projects: NO

ASSOCIATED PERSON - Legal representative person: Maria Iolanda Isabella Pensa

ASSOCIATED PERSON - Contact person: Ilaria Diterlizzi

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

In what way is the project innovative and/or complementary to other projects already carried out by your organisation and/or in your country?

Wikimedia Italia works with teachers and students of all ages to access and use the full potential of Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap projects for their learning objectives. We aim to foster learning in which students actively interact with the information they are consuming on projects—transitioning from passive information consumers to proactive knowledge creators. In this field, the project is complementary to the activities the association already carries out with some Italian universities to improve the skills of art and heritage students in promoting participatory processes through Open Digital Tools.

DISSEMINATION and IMPACT and SUSTAINABILITY

To whom will you disseminate the project results inside and outside your organisation at local/regional/national/EU level (approx. number of contacts, name/type of stakeholder organisations/institutions of your network)

By creating project pages on Meta-Wiki (the global community site for the Wikimedia Foundation's projects and related projects, from coordination and documentation to planning and analysis), on other Wikimedia projects, as for example Wikipedia and Wikiversity (the Wikimedia project dedicated to learning materials and activities) and on OSF Open Science Framework (for content which is not pertinent for the Wikimedia projects), those who will have the opportunity to learn about the project, its goals and results will be a very large number of people. In addition, Wikimedia Italia will involve the international Wikimedia communities, particularly in the related countries of the project.

Approximately how many people can you reach via your company’s website and social media?

• Facebook: 928K
• Instagram: 275K
• X: 14K
• Website: 18K visits, 23K pageviews

Any international groups that are relevant and will enhance international networking?

Wikimedia Italia is local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation and OpenStreetMap Foundation. Wikimedia chapters are national or sub-national not-for-profit organizations created to promote the interests of Wikimedia projects locally, by members of the movement; currently there are 38 chapters, with at least one on every inhabited continent. Instead the OpenStreetMap country-level or region-level not-for-profit legal entities representing the area's OSM mappers and OSM data dealing with local government, business, and media are currently 17.

How can you ensure that the project's results will remain available and will be used by others? (important question on sustainability)

The long-term availability and sustainability of the project's results will be ensured through the use of Wikimedia projects as a free and collaborative projects.

What are the activities and results that your organisation will maintain after the end of the EU funding, and how will you ensure the resources needed to sustain them? (important question on sustainability)

The methods and methodologies learnt will be shared with the community and possibly included in the certification process of trainers that Wikimedia Italia is carrying out. The results obtained from the project will become also case studies and will also be disseminated during national and international meetings on education and cultural heritage in which Wikimedia Italia participates annually.

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

Specific question A, like.: What are the different target groups you are planning to engage with? Researchers? Students? Professors? Supporting staff? How do you plan to engage with each different target group?

We are planning to engage with professors and supporting staff of the university and coordinators and volunteers active in GLAM and Wiki Loves Monuments projects.