Free Your Knowledge 2014/Report
Supported by
Media Partner
SummaryIndonesian Wikipedia is the biggest online Encyclopedia in Indonesian language. There are 2.6 milion people visit the site and it has more than 300.000 articles in 2014 with only 45 very active contributors. The number of very active contributors are increasing compare to year 2010 when "Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2010" (Free Your Knowledge 2010) launched. However, that amount is not an ideal one and relatively stagnant for years, even though Indonesian Wikipedians community has been there since 2003. Moreover, the increasing number of articles that have been produced throughout these years does not mirrored the quality of the content. There are many entries from Indonesian Encyclopedia (hard copy one), which are important ones, missing from Indonesian Wikipedia. The fast growth of internet users in Indonesia needs to be followed by the growing of good and useful information for learning purposes. Therefore, there is a need to increase the amount of good-quality articles related to knowledge. Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2014 (Free Your Knowledge 2014) is a three-months writing competition that using Indonesian Wikipedia site as it's base. The purpose is to enlarge the amount of very active contributors by inviting 90 elected participants from 10 universities in three cities, Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta. The participants got a training to make them familiar and be able to write in Wikipedia before they begun the competition. As a prize, one winner went to London to join Wikimania 2014. The project starts in April 2014 and over in June 2014 when one winner is elected to join Wikimania 2014 in London. The Contribution of the Project to Indonesian Wikipedia
Implementing Organization and project partnersWikimedia IndonesiaWikimedia Indonesia is a legal not-for profit organization established by volunteer with the goal of "free knowldege". The organization is a member-base association and officially recognize as local chapter of Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non profit charitable organization based in San Franscisco, U.S. Wikimedia Foundation operates some of the largest collaboratively eited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Indonesia affiliation is strictly goal-sharing oriented one: free knowledge. Wikimedia Indonesia is an independently operate within Indonesia geographic area and is neither a branch nor funded by Wikimedia Foundation. Established in September 5, 2008 Wikimedia Indonesia became Indonesian volunteer identity to meet, to build project, and to collect funding to make the organization's mission a reality. The "Free Knowledge" movement is a global effort introduces as an alternate approach to bridge the gap of knowledge because the absent of access to the information or the absent of the information itself. Wikimedia Indonesia serve as the implementing organization of "Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2014" a three-month wiki based writing competition in Indonesian language Wikipedia. The project initiated to address problem of low participation in Indonesian language Wikipedia where selected participants from 10 Universities are invited to receive online training on how to write in wikipedia and compete for three months. As an incentive, one winner will attend Wikimania 2014 International Conference in London, England. Project partnersThe project will be considered a sucess if during the planning stages and implementation it involves the organization's stakeholders;
Implementation and findingsPlanning stages and fund raisingAt the stage of fund raising, the outcome was not really well, even though we had a very good-proposal. We prepared various documents aimed for different companies and other potential fundings from private and public such as Telkom Speedy, Garuda Indonesia, Sosro, Sido Muncul, Pertamina, and others, yet they were not interested in supporting our project. There were 15 companies that we tried and mostly gave a negative answers, by sending a letter of declined or not giving any response at all. Besides Ford Foundation as the main donor, Bank Mandiri then gave a small amount of money. Afterward, ACER is willing to give rebates for the laptops that were given to the best five participants at the second round. From the government side, it is the Coordinator Ministry for People Welfare that is willing to support this project. After that, two months before the competition begun, Project Director recruits three interns as project committee. These people have already been used to Wikipedia; one of them is Indonesian Wikipedia bureaucrat. The background of this choice is to build a skillful team that can help participants effectively. Internship is one of the organization's strategic planning because of the following: a) The project's budget is not design to pay for professional help. b) The organization product is capacity building, focusing on building capacity to disseminate knowledge freely. c) The scope of the project in three cities made the committee must work extra for this project. But with one committee resides in Bandung help the project to run better. The committee met in Wikimedia Indonesia's office periodically. Most of the works are done online because each committe has their own activities, such school and work. Hence, through active communication, we were able to do our works. Project director also noted how treating interns as equal by being transparent about the project funding and distribution affected in the interns attitude. Transparency initiate sympathy and emphaty, it is also create a sense of belonging to the project. The interns feel they own and operate the project. We have one note on the partnership with Bank Mandiri. Because we do not have a deal on the amount of money they offer, the result is the amount they gave was too small so that Bank Mandiri only counted as a sponsor only in the first period. ACER, which has already declined our proposal, then agree to support our project by reducing the price of the laptops. Learning from these experience, we need to be more specific in our proposal about the amount of money if partners interested in this project.
University ParticipationTo invite universities participate in the project is not an easy task. The earliest communication, made by the Project Director, dated back since October 2013. Universities in Jakarta, which had involved in the last project, were easier to re-participate since they had already knew about the project. Four campuses in Jakarta agreed to join the project. Yet, more effort was needed to invite new universities, especially in get into the campus's bureaucracy and convince them about positive impact of the project to their campuses. Fortunately, it was personal connection with lecturer in those campuses that paved a way between Wikimedia Indonesia with universities's officials. After several meetings with the officials end, most of the universities agreed to join the project. Only two campuses responded negatively; the other six are positive. Therefore, total are 10 universities from Jakarta, Bandung, and Yogyakarta joined the project by sending representatives to compete in the project. Informal agreement with universities's officials is an exceptional event since the funding needed for the project was not available at that time. Most of those informal agreements were followed with signing an official Memo of Understanding (MoU) between Wikimedia Indonesia and respective school. In this case, the middle persons, who mostly are faculty of those campuses, are the key and still important if Wikimedia Indonesia wants to offer other projects in the future. Several faculty members of those campuses who came to the 2nd press conference said that they were interested to host a local competition similar to Bebaskan Pengetahuan 2014 in their own campuses. Moreover, they also suggest Wikimedia Indonesia to gather the alumni/ae of all writing competition in one body in order to maintain good relationship. The signing of memo gives positive impact to respective department or university because it will add some points in campus's accreditation. Besides that, banners and other publications that which contains the name and brand of the campus were good promotion tools for campuses. Another advantage for the campuses is self-development of their students who were trained in this project. Another positive note is the universities are involved in hosting the writing workshops held in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, and Bandung. Especially in Bandung, the department in Padjadjaran University even let their students who are not representatives to join the workshop in order to make them familiar with writing in Wikipedia. One point that had been noted in 2010 and still relevant in 2014 is a fact that many universities are not connected with others. Most events that are funded locally are limited only to the host. It is very rare to find an event such this project that connecting participants from different campuses to know each other and compete in order to develop themselves. Media Partner and Press ConferenceCollaboration with mass media is one way of measuring the success of the project. Our official media partner is TraxFM, one of the most famous radio in Jakarta. Several online news sites and television that we asked to support the project did not give us any respond. Most likely it is related with the competition period that goes together with Indonesia general election that attracts most of media attention. However, the project still receive more than 15 coverage from media, including some governmemnt-related media. TraxFM sent their representative to the 1st press conference and every time it held, they always put their standing banner next to Wikimedia Indonesia's banner. Moreover, TraxFM made an advertisement to promote the project and after the winner returnt from London, they will have a special interview session. Reciprocally, besides putting their brand in our publications, Wikimedia also promoting TraxFM through Tweeter. Press conference is another important note because it was attended by campuses' representative, even those who came from Bandung and Yogyakarta. The ministry also very cooperative in preparing the press conference. On the 2nd press conference, Mr. Sudjana Royat as a deputy of minister was there too and gave a speech. Evaluations and Implementations
 
Media coverage
Pre-Competition and Early Publication
Writing Workshop
1st Press Conference: Launching the Project
Catatan kaki |
