Submissions/Building an "open coalition"
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This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2014. |
- Submission no. 8005
- Title of the submission
- Building an "open coalition"
- Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)
- presentation / workshop
- Author of the submission
- Stevie Benton, Wikimedia UK Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 14:17, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
- E-mail address
- stevie.benton
wikimedia.org.uk
- Username
- User:Stevie Benton (WMUK)
- Country of origin
- UK
- Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
- Wikimedia UK
- Personal homepage or blog
- Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)
The “open sector” is large, wide-ranging and diverse. There are many groups with similar aims working in the same space but there isn't often a great deal of collaboration and communication between those groups.
In the autumn of 2013 myself (on behalf of Wikimedia UK), along with members of other groups including Creative Commons School of Open, Open Knowledge Foundation, Mozilla and others began scoping out an idea to increase collaboration across the open space. A co-delivered workshop at MozFest explored the idea in a little more detail. The project became known as the “open coalition”. The board of Wikimedia UK approved a small amount of funding to continue the work. At the time of submission, interviews for the part-time project co-ordinator are ongoing. The main goal of this “open coalition” is to improve the ease with which groups working on various aspects of “open” can communicate and collaborate more effectively, leading to better outcomes, efficiency and, where appropriate, a shared and amplified voice for advocacy.
This presentation and workshop will explain the progress made in this area so far and the future aims of the work (including the aim of securing continuation funding for the project from other, non-Wikimedia funds). It will provide details of next steps, the outcomes of the project so far and what tools and projects are currently being developed. It will also outline interesting opportunities for Wikimedia volunteers to help take the project forward. Further, the session will include an element of ideas sharing to encourage Wikimedians to have their say on how they view the project and what they would like to happen next.
The ultimate aim is to make “open” the new “green”. 30 years ago, environmental issues were beginning to become more widely acknowledged. Today, it is very rare for an organisation not to have an environmental policy. My hope is that the work of this coalition will lead to “open” becoming as natural and obvious a consideration as the environment is today. Please note that once the open coalition project co-ordinator is in place they will act as a co-presenter of this session. There will also be more to report on than is currently listed as the co-ordinator will have been in post for 3-4 months by this point.
- Track
- Legal & Free Culture
- Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
- 30 minutes
- Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
- Yes
- Slides or further information (optional)
The slides and other resources will be prepared closer to the time, once the project co-ordinator is in post.
- Special requests
WMUK is in the process of hiring a part time project co-ordinator to work on this. The presentation will naturally develop once they are in post.
Interested attendees
If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with a hash and four tildes. (# ~~~~).