There are over 100 million freely licensed media files on Wikimedia commons, but unfortunately, not all of them are accessible or informative for the audience as many of them lack sufficient descriptions.
Search and find what you are looking for!
The problem of accessibility and searchability of images is solved by structured data!
Structured Data is data that is understood by humans and machines. So, when we add structured data to images on wikimedia commons, we increase their ‘searchability’. This allows people to easily find the content or images they want.
How the ISA Tool can help
Using the ISA Tool, you can easily add 2 types of structured data to Wikimedia Commons images. These are captions and depicts.
ISA is a fun, multilingual, mobile-first microcontributions tool, that makes it easy for (groups of inexperienced) people to add structured data to images on Wikimedia Commons.
With ISA, you can choose a pre-defined set of images on Commons and then ask contributors to ‘tag’ these with multilingual structured metadata.
Points are counted for each contribution, and therefore it is possible to organize ‘tagging’ or microcontributions competitions or challenges with ISA.
ISA was developed as a collaboration between different structures (see all partners here) and was initially a GLAM pilot for Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons. It was (and still is) spearheaded by Wiki In Africa. The tool recently received the Coolest Tool Award at Wikimania 2024, category Eggbeater!
A new tutorial available!
We happily announce that the Wiki In Africa team has just posted a video in our youtube channel as a tutorial to help you and your community to play ISA. This video explains what structured data is, what ISA is, and how to add structured data using ISA.
Join the latest ISA campaign by Wiki in Africa
Additionnally, we are reminding you that the annual Wiki Loves Africa campaign on ISA is running from 1st October to 30th November. It is meant to improve images uploaded during the WLA 2024 contest from different countries across the continent.Take the opportunity of the WLA campaign to practice ISA and to improve Africa images as well! Participation around the globe is welcome !
Access the Wiki Loves Africa 2024 ISA campaign : https://bit.ly/WLA24_ISA
Best links:
- ISA on Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:ISA_Tool
- Access the ISA tool: https://isa.toolforge.org
- Tutorial video about how to create an ISA campaign: https://youtu.be/yK9EJ_39gPY?si=LQHD9qCcY5hkYn8a
- General tutorial video just released : https://youtu.be/CLsUqDnsNKo?si=q6FExYKMotZeL18Z
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