GLAM CSI/Wiki Loves Project Manager

Work in progress

Persona: Alex, the Gallery Outreach Coordinator

• Background: Alex has been working as an Outreach Coordinator for a contemporary art gallery for over 3 years. The gallery hosts a wide array of artworks from emerging artists and prides itself on its diverse collection. Alex is passionate about art and is eager to share the gallery's collection with a wider audience.
• Goals: Increase public engagement with the gallery's collection, promote underrepresented artists, and contribute to the open knowledge movement.
• Skills: Proficient in digital tools, basic knowledge of copyright law, experienced in social media promotion and digital content creation.
• Challenges: Limited technical support for large-scale digital projects, navigating the complexities of copyright permissions for artists' works, engaging a broader audience beyond the local community.

User Story: Sharing the Gallery's Collection on Wikimedia Commons

As Alex, the Gallery Outreach Coordinator...

I want to upload high-resolution images of artworks from our collection to Wikimedia Commons

So that the artworks are accessible to a global audience and can be used to enrich related Wikipedia articles, thereby increasing engagement with the gallery and promoting the artists we represent.

User Scenario: Uploading an Artwork Collection

• Step 1: Alex selects a recent exhibition featuring works by emerging artists focusing on environmental themes. The goal is to upload this collection to Wikimedia Commons to highlight contemporary environmental art.
• Step 2: Alex contacts the artists to obtain permission to share their works under a Creative Commons license. This involves explaining the benefits and ensuring the artists understand the rights they are granting.
• Step 3: Once permissions are secured, Alex prepares the digital files, ensuring they meet Wikimedia Commons' quality and format requirements. This includes editing images for clarity, attaching metadata, and creating descriptive files for each artwork.
• Step 4: Alex uploads the files to Wikimedia Commons, categorizes them appropriately, and links them to relevant Wikipedia articles on environmental art and the artists themselves.

User Journey: Engaging with the Wikimedia Community and Beyond

• Preparation Phase: Alex researches Wikimedia Commons' contribution guidelines, identifies the most relevant artworks, and plans the project timeline.
• Permission Phase: Communicates with artists to explain the project and secure permissions, addressing any concerns about copyright and exposure.
  • The Wikimedia Commons permissions system is rather complex if the uploader does not own the copyright to the files being contributed.
  • Alex eventually finds the page at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Volunteer_Response_Team#If_you_are_NOT_the_copyright_holder requiring an email to the VRTS system. Alex emails the VRTS address with the proper permissions.
• Upload Phase: Prepares and uploads images, ensuring all metadata is accurate and comprehensive, and tags the uploads correctly on Wikimedia Commons.
  • She is prepared to use the main Upload Wizard, but wonders if there are better tools.
  • She goes on the Telegram channel for "GLAM Wiki Global" and asks the community there.
  • They suggest either the Pattypan tool, which is a Java-based downloadable tool with some compatibility issues for her Mac computer, or to upload to Flickr.com under a free license, and then use a tool like flickr2commons to load it "across" to Wikimedia Commons. She is warned that sometimes this could be viewed as imporper "flickr-washing" the license, if Wikimedia Commons administrators see something suspicious about artworks being freely licensed.
  • Eventually she tries to use Pattypan on her Mac, but cannot install it correctly. She then finds a Windows computer and uses the latest version of Pattypan from Github, after some searching around.
• Promotion Phase: Alex shares the successful upload on the gallery's social media, tagging the artists and Wikimedia Commons, and encourages followers to explore the collection and use the images in Wikipedia articles.
  • She finds the biographical Wikipedia articles of the artists, and places one representative image on each of the artist's biographies.
• Feedback and Follow-up Phase: Monitors the usage of uploaded images in Wikipedia articles, gathers feedback from the Wikimedia community, and assesses the impact on gallery engagement and artist visibility.
  • She winds up using the GLAMorgan and GLAMorous tools to check on the traffic to the images.
• Reflection and Planning for Future Contributions: Based on feedback and the outcomes of the initial project, Alex plans further contributions, possibly focusing on different themes or collaborating directly with Wikipedia editors to create new articles related to the gallery's collections.

Summary

In this example, the persona of Alex helps to humanize the user story, providing context for the motivations and challenges involved. The user scenario offers a specific, step-by-step look at the task of contributing to Wikimedia Commons, while the user journey expands the narrative to include the broader context of Alex's engagement with Wikimedia projects and its impact on the gallery and artists. This integration of persona, scenario, and journey provides a comprehensive understanding of the user experience, facilitating more empathetic and effective design and planning.