both capable of setting aside their careers for temporary employment and with the right skills for effective program development at partner organizations. Instead, hiring individuals with moderate-to-little Wikimedia experience, but with demonstrated energy, experience and alignment with digital communities alongside outreach and project management skills has proven effective in a number of situations.
When supported by a broader community of Wikimedians through an affiliate or network, it's even possible to develop effective programs with someone with no Wikimedia experience: for example, West Virginia University Libraries hired Kelly Doyle, a community organizer and educator, who had no previous experience working with the Wikimedia community. Her ability to organize effective events, learn and teach about the social components of the Wikimedia community, and ability to innovate on existing project models, has allowed a much wider variety of impact types around their focus of “gender equity”.
Outcomes from WIR range widely, based on the organizational strategies, project pursued, and capacity within the organization to prioritize resources and open-license content for use in the partnership. But documented outcomes and descriptions of the experience by host institution staff, tend to be very strong, resulting in: positive organizational culture changes, theoretical public impact (through visibility of topics of importance to the institution) and tangible metrics in terms of large pageviews of new content created on Wikipedia and media uploaded to Wikimedia projects, as well as an increase in referrals from Wikimedia websites to institutional resources.[1]
Residencies can be described as successful based on just tangible metrics and impacts. However evaluating and implementing the WIR model in isolation often struggles to leave any lasting institutional impact on Wikimedia’s projects and mission once the residency ends. Meaningful strategic impact, particularly in larger GLAM’s, can take a very long time and may meet with resistance from staff with conflicting priorities and targets. In order to aid a lasting Wikimedia collaboration, the WIR must work closely with the institution to build a sustainable model for engagement. This might involve establishing a volunteer community under the management of permanent library staff who acts as the champion after the residency, securing policy change within the timescale of the residency, expanding written job descriptions to include Wikimedia related duties or building content release or donation into digitisation workflows.
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- ↑ The most thorough evaluation of this has been by Wikimedia United Kingdom, who did a review of their program in 2014: Chris McKenna and Daria Cybulska. “Wikimedian in Residence Programme Review.” Wikimedia UK, 22 July 2014. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedian_in_Residence_Programme_Review_-_WMUK_2014.pdf. Though the report has some learnings specific to Wikimedia Organizations within the Wikimedia Community, the examination showed that overall impact from institutional perspective, has been positive.
