This campaign was one part of a broader effort to better understand how community giving and merchandise sales can contribute to OpenRefine’s sustainability, alongside grants and institutional funding. It was also our first time running a structured community giving campaign, and the results provide a useful benchmark if we decide to repeat this exercise in the coming years.

Campaign results​

Outside of the FLOSS/fund contribution, the campaign raised approximately USD 595 through a combination of one-time donations, store sales, and new recurring support.

One-time donations​

We received five one-time donations, for a total of USD 317.21. Four donations came through the donation page, and one came via the store checkout.

Merchandise store​

During the campaign period, the OpenRefine store recorded 13 orders, representing:

• USD 899.86 in total sales
• USD 107 in total profit
• USD 69.22 average order value
• 11.89% average profit per sale

The most popular items were:

• OpenRefine Logo Sticker Sheet
• "OpenRefine is Magic" Sticker Sheet
• T-shirts (all designs combined)
• Hoodies (all designs combined)
• OpenRefine Black Mug

The store continues to be a useful way for people to support the project and show affiliation, even if it remains a modest source of funding.

Github Sponsor Recurring donations​

We welcomed one new recurring donor at USD 10 per month on our GitHub Sponsor page. OpenRefine now has eight recurring donors, contributing USD 67 per month, or approximately USD 804 per year.

Overall total​

Combining one-time donations, store profit, and the three months of the new recurring donation, the campaign raised approximately USD 595.21.

Outreach and engagement​

To support the campaign, we reached out to the community through:

• Banner on OpenRefine website homepage
• Two emails sent to approximately 265 community members
• A limited number of social media posts across LinkedIn, Mastodon, and X
• Ongoing forum updates focused on transparency around funding efforts

We did not run the campaign using OpenRefine notification, which is something we may explore in future outreach efforts.

While the financial outcome was modest, the campaign provided useful insight into engagement patterns and how different parts of the community prefer to support the project.

What we learned​

This campaign confirmed something we already suspected: community giving alone is not sufficient to sustain the OpenRefine core team. While community support remains important, long-term sustainability will continue to depend primarily on grant funding and institutional partnerships aligned with OpenRefine’s mission.

We will continue to explore these funding paths and share progress transparently as we refine our approach.

Thank you​

Thank you to everyone who contributed, shared the campaign, bought something from the store, or followed along. OpenRefine exists because of its community, and your engagement continues to shape the project in important ways.

This review offers a look back at some of the work that shaped the year, and at the people and practices that continue to sustain the project.

Strengthening how we work together​

In May 2025, we completed a revision of OpenRefine’s governance documentation, concluding a process that began in July 2024. This work was not about introducing radical change, but about clarifying the project's structures and dynamics and making them clearer and more transparent. The updated documentation provides better visibility into roles, responsibilities, and decision-making processes, and reflects the diversity of stakeholders who contribute to and depend on OpenRefine.

Alongside this, we continued to improve how we operate day to day through our participation in the Birdardo training programme. This ongoing work supports greater transparency and shared understanding in how the project functions, helping us align our internal practices with the values we promote externally.

During the year, we also published a new Goalposts page to better articulate our development roadmap. This has helped contributors understand where their efforts fit, while offering users a clearer sense of direction and priorities.

Community in practice: the 2025 Online BarCamp​

One of the most tangible expressions of OpenRefine’s community this year was the 2025 Online BarCamp. Held fully remotely over four days, the BarCamp brought together community members for around 20 hours of shared discussion and learning.

The event convened 36 participants from across Europe, North America, and South Asia, who spent an average of 6 hours engaged in sessions. Participants came from GLAM institutions, Wikimedia projects, academic research, and professional data work, with strong overlap between these communities. Many attendees identified with multiple roles, as users, trainers, community organisers, and developers, reflecting the hands-on, practitioner-led nature of the OpenRefine ecosystem.

Sessions focused on real-world data cleaning and reconciliation workflows, OpenRefine extensions and development, integrations with Wikidata and GLAM infrastructures, community practices, and emerging questions around scalability and AI-assisted data work. More than anything, the BarCamp was a space for exchange and shared ownership, where experience and curiosity flowed in both directions.

The map below was created during the BarCamp as part of a shared exercise and reflects where participants were joining from.

People and transitions​

Projects endure because people do, and 2025 brought both continuity and change to the OpenRefine team. We welcomed new elected committers Benjamin and Sandra, and were glad to see Rory join in the Developer and Contributor Engagement role. We also welcomed Albin to the Core Development Group, strengthening our capacity for long-term maintenance and evolution.

At the same time, we said goodbye to Antonin, whose departure marked a healthy and well-managed transition. Change is a natural part of sustaining an open source project, and we continue to focus on renewal and resilience rather than replacement alone.

During the year, we also issued a call for new members to join the Advisory Committee, as part of our ongoing effort to keep governance representative and responsive.

Shipping software​

Software maintenance and reliability remained central to our work in 2025. The year began with the release of the OpenRefine 3.9 series, followed by regular updates through version 3.9.5, and preparations for the upcoming 3.10 release.

Usage of the 3.9 series remained strong throughout the year. Version 3.9.5, released in September, has already seen over 70,000 downloads, averaging close to 20,000 downloads per month. Earlier releases in the series also saw strong uptake, reflecting the continued trust users place in OpenRefine for their data work.

Rather than focusing on sweeping changes, this series prioritised maintenance, reliability, and incremental improvement. Alongside this, the extension ecosystem continued to grow, with three new extensions released during the year, further expanding how OpenRefine can be adapted to different contexts and workflows.

Sustainability and funding​

2025 also marked the closing of an important chapter in OpenRefine’s sustainability. In December, we reached the end of the EOSS 5 grant, concluding five years of support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative through the EOSS programme, beginning with EOSS 1. We are deeply grateful for this long-term support.

Through the EOSS programme, we developed, tested, and institutionalised durable community practices that balance the needs of users and contributors. These practices have strengthened OpenRefine’s responsiveness, increased its capacity for innovation, and improved contributor retention, leaving the project in a healthier position than when the programme began.

As we move forward, we are actively engaging with institutional and philanthropic partners, with the support of the FLOSS/fund and several funding applications currently in progress. This year also saw the launch of our first dedicated fundraising campaign, and the opening of the OpenRefine store as a modest additional way to support the project. We will share more about these efforts in the new year.

None of this work would be possible without the generosity of our donors, contributors, and partners. We are grateful for the time, expertise, trust, and resources that so many people continue to invest in OpenRefine.

Thank you​

OpenRefine remains a collective effort. Whether you contribute code, documentation, training, financial support, or simply use the tool in your daily work, you are part of what sustains the project.

As we close the year, we want to thank everyone who has helped carry OpenRefine through 2025. We invite you to stay involved, to contribute where you can, and, if you are able, to support the project so it can continue to serve its community in the years ahead.

Thank you for being part of OpenRefine.

2025 Donor Shoutouts:​

If you would like to support OpenRefine, please consider making a donation at https://openrefine.org/donate.

We would like to thank our 2025 individual and institutional funders, including FLOSS/Fund and The Antoine Bello Philanthropic Fund, as well as individual supporters Joel Gardner, Jasmine Saffold, and Nicolas Semrau, along with two anonymous donors.

We also gratefully acknowledge GitHub users who supported OpenRefine through individual contributions: RefinePro, ostephens, DaxServer, alanorth, timtomch, trantor, wetneb, EstebanMH-SiB, btseee, and Balise42.

2025 GitHub Contributor Shoutouts:​

Our contributors play a critical role in our success. If you're looking for opportunities to get involved, you can start here: https://openrefine.org/community.

In alphabetical order, the 51 contributors to OpenRefine repositories during 2025 included the following accounts: Abbe98, Abhinav Pandey, Adem Özcan, Alan Orth, Albin Larsson, alex, Aman Kumar, amansingh-swe, Andi Chandler, Antoine Beaubien, Antonin Delpeuch, Arianne Pady, Benjamin Rosemann, DaxServer, DevangJagdale, Dhyan Patel, Esther Jackson, Ettore Atalan, Isao Matsunami, Jiří Podhorecký, Johann150, Jyothi Swaroop Reddy, kalinda, Keith Cirkel, Luca Martinelli [Sannita], Martin Magdinier, Nicolas @belett VIGNERON, Pierre-Yves Beaudouin, Rafael A Encinae Rodriguez, Ritoban Dutta, Rory Sawyer, Sandra Mierz, Sashank, Savvas Chrysostomidis, sunilnatraj, Thad Guidry, Tom Morris, XiaohanMu, Yaron Shahrabani, Yunus Emre BAYRAKTAR, Zarif León, ود علم الهدي, தமிழ்நேரம்

This new store is a way for our community to access OpenRefine-branded items, show support at events, and help sustain the project.

Why a store?​

Over the years, community members have often asked us for stickers, shirts, or mugs to represent OpenRefine. At the same time, the project has been looking for new ways to diversify fundraising while keeping operations simple.

The store helps us do both:

• Merchandising access: anyone can order OpenRefine items directly, without waiting for an event.
• Sustainability: All proceeds go directly toward sustaining the project, supporting new development, and maintaining a tool relied upon worldwide.
• Simplicity: items are produced on demand and shipped globally, so there is no inventory to manage or upfront cost.

We considered tying merchandise to sponsorship tiers, but decided to keep things open. Buying merchandise is separate from donations. If you’d like to support OpenRefine financially without buying anything, you can always do so through our donation page.

Choosing a platform​

We selected Fourthwall after reviewing several providers. It offered the right balance of quality and flexibility:

• Print-on-demand production (no upfront inventory).
• Global shipping and tax handling (including VAT).
• Promo codes for special cases, such as at-cost sticker sets for events.
• Giveaway links, where OpenRefine can cover 100% of costs when needed.
• Wide selection of apparel and accessories with a focus on quality.
• Integrated donation pages, so contributions and merchandise can live in one place.

What’s in the store?​

We kept the initial selection small so it’s not overwhelming. Items were chosen for quality and based on community feedback:

• Apparel with high-cotton content (we avoided lower quality polyester blends).
• Stickers, mugs, and other practical items.

During the recent BarCamp, participants helped us test the store and share preferences for items and colors. If you feel something is missing, let us know at martin@openrefine.org. We're happy to adapt based on your feedbacks.

First feedback​

We soft-launched the store during BarCamp 2025. Early feedback has been encouraging:

• Ordering was smooth and straightforward.
• Shipping and tracking information were reliable.
• Packaging was solid.
• Clothing quality was excellent on first touch.
• The mug survived the dishwasher with no visible wear.

What’s next​

We see this store as an experiment and a service for the community. If it proves useful, we’ll expand it with new designs and products based on your feedback.

👉 Visit the OpenRefine Merchandising Store and let us know what you think!

Thank you for continuing to support OpenRefine, whether by contributing code, sharing knowledge, making a donation, or proudly showing OpenRefine on your shirt or laptop.

Working on OpenRefine has been a real honor. I am very grateful for the trust and warm welcome I was given when I discovered the tool in 2017, looking for ways to import data in Wikidata. I was, and still am, a strong believer in maintaining existing software, avoiding its unnecessary obsolescence and adapting it to the changing needs of its users. As a maintainer, I have always considered my role as limited in time and have tried to keep in mind the duty to onboard other contributors so that they are also able to take this project in new directions.

For already quite some time, I have had it as a goal to leave the project to better make space for others. This has now happened. I have left the advisory committee last year, the core dev group this year and stopped developing and maintaining OpenRefine a few months ago. It's not an easy move to do, as I still care about this project and I can still see many areas that I would have hoped to leave in a better state, but I think it is the right thing to do and I have a lot of trust in the team to take good care of this tool and its ecosystem.

I'm very grateful for the many past and current team members for their involvement and wish the community the best. Have a great 2025 barcamp too!

The OpenRefine 2025 BarCamp starts Monday, September 8 and runs through Thursday, September 11, online from 13:00 to 18:00 UTC each day.

Key Information​

• ✅ Review, Propose, and Vote on Sessions: To see what's already been proposed, visit the list of BarCamp 2025 session ideas on the forum. You can vote, comment, or use those as inspiration to propose your own.

• 🔗 Access to Zoom, Miro Board, and Telegram: Links to join the BarCamp are shared by email only with registered participants. 👉 Register here - Registration closes Sunday September 7.

• 📅 Live Schedule (Public Calendar) You can view the evolving session schedule here: 👉 OpenRefine BarCamp Public Calendar

• ❓ Questions: Email Martin at martin@openrefine.org

Event Agenda​

Monday, September 8 - Planning Day​

The first day is especially important as we welcome everyone, review session proposals, and build the agenda together.

We’ll collaboratively build the agenda for the rest of the week during the planning session. Everyone is welcome to suggest, join, or lead a session — no slides required!

Tuesday, September 9 – Demo Day​

📹 indicates that this session will be recorded

Wednesday, September 10 – Community Building Day​

📹 indicates that this session will be recorded

Thursday, September 11 – Contribution Day​

📹 indicates that this session will be recorded

Event Overview​

Join us to discuss the past, present, and future of the OpenRefine project from Monday, September 8, to Thursday, September 11, 2025. This online event is open to all members of the OpenRefine community, as well as partners and stakeholders who are interested in helping to shape the project's future.

What is a Barcamp?​

A Barcamp is a participant-driven event: the agenda is shaped by you, the community. There are no pre-selected keynotes or speakers; this is an open invitation to propose sessions, join discussions, and share what matters most to you. Whether you're new to OpenRefine, looking to contribute ideas for the roadmap, or exploring technical details, this is your space to collaborate and connect.

Proposing a Session​

Sessions can be proposed on our forum using the barcamp-2025 tag. We invite participants to review, discuss and vote on sessions proposed prior to the event. We will select which sessions will go on the agenda during the planning session on Monday September 8.

Here are some session ideas we'd love to see based on last the Barcamp 2024 and past feedback:

• UX feedback and user experience discussions
• Hands-on code sprints or documentation writing
• Issue triage parties
• Feature scoping and roadmap input
• Updates from developers on recent work
• Tips from trainers and educators
• ...or any other topic you want to propose!

At least one participant must propose a session for it to be included in the planning day agenda.

Event Logistic​

Schedule​

We'll run sessions for 4 to 5 hours each day between 13:00 and 18:00 UTC to be accessible across time zones:

• Evenings in India 18:30–23:30 IST
• Late afternoons in Europe and Africa 15:00–20:00 CET
• Morning to early afternoon in the US, Canada and Latin America (East · 09:00–14:00 EST and West Coast 06:00–11:00 PST)

Monday, September 8 – Planning Day: We'll kick things off by reviewing session proposals, building the agenda together, and getting to know one another. During this day, we may also adjust the session schedule based on participants' time zones and interests.

Tuesday, September 9 to Thursday, September 11 – Session Days: Community-led sessions based on interest and availability. The agenda will be flexible and participant-driven. No preparation required, but you're encouraged to think of topics or questions you'd like to bring!

How to Participate​

• Register: Sign up here to attend.
• Propose a session: Create a topic tagged barcamp-2025 in the session submissions forum category. See the steps-by-step process.
• Vote and comment: Engage with session proposals to help shape the agenda.

Code of Conduct & Policies​

To ensure a welcoming and respectful environment, all participants must follow both our Friendly Space Policy during the event and the broader OpenRefine Code of Conduct for all community interactions.

The event will be held on Zoom and recorded. Sessions will be recorded unless participants request otherwise. We will also do live note-taking using Etherpad. Sessions will be in English. Zoom links will be shared with registered participants shortly before the event.

With over a decade of experience in software and data engineering, Rory has a proven track record of making data more accessible for people across various technical backgrounds. His journey includes significant contributions to the Open edX and dbt stack, where he developed his skills in collaborative development and communication within open-source projects. Rory's expertise spans backend development and infrastructure work, including managing deployment processes.

During the recruitment process, Rory's interpersonal skills stood out among other candidates. His considerate approach to open source development and understanding of the challenges faced by contributors align perfectly with OpenRefine values.

As Rory ramps up on the OpenRefine codebase, his time will be equally balanced between code improvement (bug fixes, quality enhancement, release management) and community engagement (issue triaging, assisting volunteer contributors, PR reviews).

Rory's position is funded via the EOSS-5 grant until October 2025, and we hope to extend his contract with future funding. Rory's contract starts March 3, 2025, and he will work an average of 20 hours per week.

You can find him online on our forum and Github.

Purpose​

The extension serves multiple purposes in the data processing pipeline:

1. Intelligent Data Cleaning: Use LLMs to suggest and implement context-aware data cleaning operations that go beyond rule-based approaches.
2. Semantic Enrichment: Enhance datasets by generating additional attributes or metadata based on existing content.
3. Natural Language Transformations: Express complex data transformations in plain English.
4. Anomaly Detection: Identify unusual patterns or outliers in your data through AI-powered analysis.
5. Content Generation: Fill gaps in your datasets with contextually appropriate synthetic data.

It works with OpenRefine 3.8.7 and later versions of OpenRefine.

AI extension details can be found here

As a key part of our governance structure, the Advisory Committee runs the administrative aspect of the project on a day to day basis with the support of our fiscal sponsor, Code for Science and Society (CS&S). Its members are bound by the fiscal sponsorship agreement with Code for Science and Society. The committee meets weekly including once per month with Code for Science and Society. Weekly calls are open to the OpenRefine community. We invite interested candidates to join us for a first-hand experience of the advisory committee's daily operations work.

So far we have interviewed users who expressed an interest in joining the Advisory Committee when filling out the 2024 User Survey, and we are excited to hear from other community members who may be interested in joining the Committee.

Advisory Committee responsibilities​

• Provide guidance and oversight of the Project’s staff and operations;
• Help the community apply for funding (grants) and manage awarded funds (note: the Project Manager does the majority of this work when that position is staffed)
• Ensure the project’s financial sustainability by searching for new sources of funding;
• Approve budgets and contracts including terminating contracts when necessary;
• Advocate for the Project and help the Project build connections and partnerships;

Ideal candidates:​

• Are users of OpenRefine;
• Are active community members;
• Are familiar with open-source software development and community-driven projects;
• Are passionate about promoting open data and data literacy;
• Are able to commit to regular meetings and contribute to discussions through video meetings, the OpenRefine Forum, and on GitHub.

To ensure a balanced representation of the diverse community OpenRefine serves, we seek members from at least one of the following communities.

• OpenRefine Developer
• Journalists/data journalists
• Data Science

For us, your motivation is as important as your resume. We explicitly welcome applicants who do not meet all requirements. We would also be happy to learn more about additional skills and attributes you possess that are not listed here but could be relevant to the advisory committee.

Current list of Advisory Committee members​

• Jan Ainali (Chair)
• Julie Faure-Lacroix
• Esther Jackson

How to apply:​

If you are interested in joining the OpenRefine Advisory Committee, please submit your application using this form. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. We look forward to hearing from you and welcoming new members to our Advisory Committee.

The following webinar presents many of the new features in this release, with a focus on improvements around the newly developed Wikimedia Commons integration:

Thanks go to our many contributors who have helped shape this release in a variety of ways. Please report any issues with this release on our forum or GitHub.

Features included in this extension:

• Start an OpenRefine project by loading details of files from one or more folders on your local system.
• File details included are file name, extension, size in KB, creation date, last modification date, permissions, SHA-256 checksum, author and file path

It works with OpenRefine 3.8.7 and later versions of OpenRefine.

File extension details can be found here

Living Our Values​

Just as developing our new Vision, Mission, and Values was last year’s priority, this year is about putting them into practice. We recognize that these statements are only as meaningful as their felt impact. Accordingly, we are committed to proactively and intentionally living our values by being respectful of diverse backgrounds and expertise, approachable, transparent and open, curious, and community-driven – all in pursuit of “a more informed world where working with data is easy and engaging.” We look forward to integrating these principles into all aspects of our day-to-day work, from how we prioritize features in the tool to how we engage with one another. With the backing support of our 2024 User Survey respondents, our new Vision, Mission, and Values will serve as a shared foundation for the decisions we make in the months and years ahead.

Of course, realizing this work will require new resources and investments. We are committed to fundraising this year to enable our continued pursuit of our mission and vision, and to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the OpenRefine project.

Delivering on Our Commitments​

We have been honored to receive generous grant funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) Over the past several years through their Essential Open Source Software for Science program. Our most recent grant from CZI enabled a multi-year initiative to improve the reproducibility of OpenRefine workflows. This grant concludes in October 2025, and we will be working diligently to deliver on this grant by further improving the visualization, editability, and reproducibility of a series of operations on new data sets. This work includes advancing long-term systemic changes to operation history management, as well as shorter-term refinements of existing operations to improve visualizations and error-handling while maintaining stability for current users and contributors. We are excited to see some of those improvements being shipped in the upcoming 3.9 release and plan to continuously deliver on those through 2025.

Advancing Our Roadmap​

In 2024, we collected user feedback through BarCamp, bi-yearly surveys, work on the Wikimedia Commons integration, and ongoing interaction on the forum and our GitHub repository. During the 2024 Barcamp, we also strategized about a proposed approach to our roadmap, where we would identify “goalposts” (high-level initiatives) and share them with the community to gauge interest and priority.

In that spirit, we are listing below some of the goalposts the community would like to see implemented in OpenRefine. In 2025, we will seek new grant funding, partnerships, and volunteer contributions to accomplish these impactful, community-proposed initiatives, including:

• Developing better extension support for smoother extension installation, better tracking of existing extensions, and easier discovery of new ones (already started here)
• Investing in making OpenRefine more useful as an exploratory tool through quick data visualization and analysis.
• Further exploring which hosting and multi-user capabilities best align with OpenRefine’s mission and priorities, and directing support accordingly.
• Further supporting our community exploration of integration with an AI platform like Huggingface for more seamless data wrangling.
• Investing in better support for geospatial data formats.
• Providing better reconciliation support for easier and more seamless data reconciliation.
• Furthering integration efforts with Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata in accordance with the roadmap developed collaboratively with Wikimedia Sweden.

Any one of these initiatives would meaningfully contribute to strengthening OpenRefine. Further, the goalposting process enacts our commitment to openness, transparency, and community-building, as expressed in our values. We look forward to collecting feedback on this process, and are excited to refine these further with the community. If you are interested in contributing to the realization of any of those goalposts, please chime in on the linked conversations or on the forum.

Between these one-off initiatives and our ongoing efforts to operationalize our Vision, Mission, and Values, we look forward to another year of robust community engagement and technical advancement. Thank you for your continued support in 2025!

You can refer to the previous year editions: 2012, 2014, 2018, 2020 and 2022. This year, we did not include the questions "How would you rate your skills using OpenRefine?" and "How long have you been using OpenRefine?". We will use them to correlate with other answers in a later analysis. You can download the anonymized answers here.

So now, let's dive in.

Who are you?​

OpenRefine Communities​

Overall, our largest communities remain stable, with Researcher (38.50%) becoming the largest, followed by Librarian (34.01%), Data Science (25.66%), Wikimedian (25.66%), and GLAM (22.57%) close behind.

This year, we introduced OpenSource Intelligence (OSINT) and Civic Tech as default options. We had information that OpenRefine was used by those communities, and we wanted to find out to what extent. We have 10 respondents from CiviTech users and 6 working on OSINT. So, while they are present and align with our vision of building a more informed world where working with data is easy and engaging, they do not represent the majority of our users.

Change in methodology: In this question, an individual may identify with multiple communities. In the previous year, we normalized the results based on the total number of communities selected. In 2024, 226 respondents identified, on average, with 2.48 communities (we received 561 selections). With our previous approach, we would have represented CiviTech as 1.78% of our user base (10 divided by 561). This year, we computed the results based on the total number of respondents (226), which allows us to say that 4.42% of our users identify as CiviTech users.

Professional Usage​

Last year, 85.1% of respondents indicated that they primarily use OpenRefine for work. This year, we provided a scale to measure the proportion of their usage in a professional environment. The results are consistent with those from 2022, as 71% of respondents reported using OpenRefine primarily in a professional setting (at least 70% of the time).

Languages used​

The question "In which languages do you use OpenRefine (both its interface and the datasets you work with)?" reveals the diversity of our community, with 37 languages reported. English is less dominant than it was two years ago, dropping from 64.1% to 55.7% this year. German, French, and Spanish remain the top three other languages, followed by a long tail of 33 other languages.

Interestingly, 40.27% of users reported interacting in multiple languages. In our next survey, it may be beneficial to separate questions about the user interface from the dataset language.

Ovall Satisfaction and Net Promoter Score​

In 2022, we asked our users to provide a general score for the software for the first time. On average, respondents rated OpenRefine a solid 8 out of 10!

This year, instead of requesting a numerical score, we calculated a Net Promoter Score (NPS), which ranges from -100 to +100. OpenRefine achieved a total score of 63.72. Among respondents, 72.57% were promoters (those who scored nine or ten) and would recommend OpenRefine, while only 8.85% were detractors (those who scored six or below).

Feature Usage​

When comparing this year's results to last year's, we found a significant increase in users who reported using OpenRefine daily, rising from approximately 10% to 33%. This raises the question of whether the change in survey methodology contributed to this increase.

Overall, we delved into greater detail this year than in the previous survey and assessed the frequency of use for different features and use cases of OpenRefine. This question format allows us to create more refined user personas by combining usage frequency with responses to other questions to help answer some design or product decisions.

Some interesting findings include that 53% of users accessed a reconciliation service at least once a month, and 41% of users published to Wikibase, Wikidata, or Wikimedia Commons.

The anomyized answer is available here if you want to investigate further (if you do, please share your findings on the forum, we would love to read them).

Frequency of usage per community​

We conducted a more in-depth analysis by correlating the frequency of OpenRefine usage with the communities identified by users (only communities with at least 10 respondents were included in this analysis). Our findings indicate that Humanities, Data Science, and the Semantic Web have the highest regular usage, with over 60% of respondents using OpenRefine at least once a week.

The survey also confirmed anecdotal feedback: while OpenRefine is important for Wikimedians, they use it less frequently compared to other communities. Only 14% reported using it daily, compared to 33% of our total user base.

OpenRefine installation and configuration​

Close to 49% of respondents currently run OpenRefine 3.8, the current stable release, while 6.04% use a development version. Additionally, 22.12% of users run an older version, consistent with the 23.8% of users running a legacy version in 2022.

88% of users installed OpenRefine themselves. In contrast, 3% of installations were carried out by IT staff, and 6.64% of users utilize a hosted version (2.65% of users maintain a hosted version, while 3.98% use it). The percentage of users running or maintaining a cloud version has decreased compared to 2022, when 5% were cloud users and 5% were maintainers.

RAM allocation​

In 2024, we introduced a new question to understand how much RAM users have allocated to OpenRefine. The larger the dataset (in terms of rows and columns), the more RAM OpenRefine will need to process it. This question serves as a proxy to evaluate how scalable OpenRefine should be and the technical savvy of our users since increasing the RAM required advanced configurations.

Only 24.8% of users allocated more RAM, while 43% used the default setting. Among users who modified the RAM, allocations varied widely, ranging from 1,400 MB (the current default) to 256,000 MB (or a whopping 256 GB of RAM). Most users, however, adjusted their settings to between 2,048 MB and 16 GB.

Reconciliation Services Usage​

In 2024, reconciliation services continued to rise in popularity, with over 30 endpoints reported. OpenRefine comes with Wikidata as the default reconciliation server, which remains the most used, boasting 109 users (or 43.95% of OpenRefine users). The Commons extension increased in popularity, growing from 6 users in 2022 to 29 users in 2024, and became the second most used endpoint.

The Getty endpoints and VIAF also maintained their popularity. The internal reconciliation service also increased from 15 users in 2022 to 24 users in 2024.

Extension and Plugin usage​

47% of respondents are unaware of extensions or do not use any (compared to 50% in 2022). Wikidata is utilized by 20% of respondents (down from 26% in 2022), while the Wikimedia Commons extension is used by 8.42%, making them the two most popular extensions. The two RDF extensions together are used by 5.72% of users, followed by the VIB-BITS extension at 4.71% and the NER extension at 3.03%.

Only 12.39% of the respondents use a third-party library to automate OpenRefine tasks. The Python client is the most popular one, with 47% usage.

Why are you using OpenRefine?​

When asked about the features that led them to choose OpenRefine over other tools, respondents indicated that

• Faceting, clustering, and cleaning of messy data remain the top features. Users reported that OpenRefine offers a user-friendly interface with visual previews and an approachable learning curve compared to Python, R, or SQL scripting.
• Tight integration with tools like APIs, and Wikibase, as well as the support of Reconciliation Services, is highly valued, especially for tasks like linking data standards or updating Wikidata, Wikibase, or Wikimedia Commons.
• Users praise its ability to process large datasets efficiently, something tools like Excel struggle with.
• Users value the flexibility with custom export formats and operation history for repeatable workflows.
• Free availability, good documentation and community-driven development resonate strongly with users.

What can be improved?​

This year's questions about improving OpenRefine were addressed in a feature prioritization survey, and the results are available on the forum. More generic improvement requests include:

• Reducing the learning curve when using advanced features, particularly for reconciliation and data merging.
• Improving the UI/UX, which involves better schema configuration and larger preview windows.
• Providing more intuitive installation and configuration options, better plugin management, and highlighting available reconciliation services.

In closing ...​

... some kind words we received in the open comment question:

A Libraries, Arts cultural sector cultural heritage, Digital humanities, Wikibase user:

OpenRefine makes a lot of cleanup and standardization tasks much easier. If it wasn't available I would cry at my desk. :)

A Digital humanities user

I can't imagine my life and thought process without OR...

A Libraries and Education / training user:

Openrefine is a lifesaver in many ways and I'm always delighted to learn new ways to use it.

A Libraries and Education / training user:

OpenRefine is the best tool for my data needs. I am so that this tool exists and is still maintained.

A Research and Academic, Wikimedia (Wikidata Wikimedia Commons…), Education / training user:

keep up the good work! OpenRefine is amazing and I would not be doing this work without it

A Libraries, Research and Academic, Arts cultural sector cultural heritage user:

If I need to do anything more than basic Excel functions, I usually go to OR. I'd be lost without it

An Arts cultural sector cultural heritage user:

It's the easiest way by far to do the work I need to do. Without it I would work in a combination of vim, awk and other bash utilities

Improving Our Tool​

We published a series of new releases this year, including the milestone version 3.8, which was downloaded a total of over 139,000 times and introduced a range of new features and improvements. Among the issues prioritized were:

• Usability including improvements to keyboard navigation, the data reconciliation experience, UI consistency and predictability, improving the Wikibase and Wikimedia Commons extension, and tons of bug fixes,
• Performance including switching out our CSV parser engine for a more efficient option and running more processes as needed,
• Security patching a range of vulnerabilities in OpenRefine, and
• General Refine Expression Language (GREL) improvements.

This is significant progress! We want to give a special shoutout to everyone who wrote, reviewed, and engaged with these PRs, contributing to a more usable, performant, and secure tool for all.

Investing in Our Community​

We know that the strength of our community is central to our shared success. Accordingly, this year we prioritized initiatives focused on increasing inclusion, alignment, and transparency within and across the OpenRefine community. We are endlessly grateful for everyone who participated in the conversations, workshops, and lively debates that fueled these initiatives.

Clarifying our Mission, Vision, Values​

Through a series of conversations with open-source project leaders, we identified the need to clarify our Vision, Mission, and Values. Starting in April, we partnered with Bocoup to facilitate a community engagement process that included interviews with users and contributors representing a range of perspectives, an interactive BarCamp workshop, and forum discussions.

This process yielded our new Vision, Mission, and Values statements, which we will be vetting and iterating on in the coming years. The vast majority of respondents in our 2024 User Survey expressed support for the statements. We are excited to integrate them into our day-to-day work as we collectively strive toward our vision:

A more informed world where working with data is easy and engaging.​

Increasing Transparency in our Governance​

We made significant progress this year toward greater transparency into our work. For instance, we updated the OpenRefine website to more clearly illustrate the project history, funding sources, and options for contributing. We also began the practice of publicly sharing minutes from our weekly Advisory Committee calls. Both of these changes allow users and contributors to better understand and engage with the advisory committee work, which lays the foundation for a more inclusive community.

Additionally, this year we reopened the conversation on how we can improve our governance and better document how we currently operate. To this end, we hosted a series of generative discussions through the forum and in community meetings, where we heard an array of thoughtful, diverging perspectives. This work is ongoing, and we look forward to further discussions in the new year.

Creating Space for Collaboration​

2024 was the year we hosted our first in-person BarCamp in Berlin! This three-day event created space for in-person and virtual participants to discuss the past, present, and future of the OpenRefine project. This summer, 14 in-person and 15 remote community members came together to workshop new uses of the tool, align on OpenRefine's status, and strategize about our priorities. Community members generated ideas and next steps through interactive sessions, such as "Approaches to Training People to Use OpenRefine," "Making OpenRefine More Useful As An Exploratory Tool," and "Strategizing Our Roadmap for User Needs." The notes from BarCamp were then shared with our forum for wider discussion. We intend to continue making space for in-person and virtual gatherings in the years to come.

Expanding Our Reach​

We reached a growing audience this year and continued our work with a range of communities, including journalists and media professionals, GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), Wikipedians and Wikimedia contributors, scientists and researchers across a range of disciplines, data analysts, and educators. More and more people are joining the community and are enthusiastic about learning, using, and teaching the tool. As librarian Thomas Guignard shared earlier this year,

Teaching OpenRefine is the absolute best – people feel so much joy that it exists.

Highlighting Our Usage​

OpenRefine was downloaded on average 15,500 times per month and received over 800 academic citations in our last full year of operation (2023). Since the start of 2024, activity on our GitHub has been bustling, with 33 active GitHub contributors, 241 issues created and 192 closed, and 223 PRs merged. Our average number of active GitHub contributors per month has remained steady for the past two years.

Additionally, we've seen a burst of activity on our forum, with 271 new users signed up in the past year, for a new total of 637 forum users. This year, 364 topics were created for a total of 1,900 messages. Our 2024 survey reflected this engagement, with 226 responses (up from 207 in 2023) across skill levels, geography, and tenure with the tool. Respondents also reported using the tool in over 30 languages.

We are deeply grateful for our active community on both GitHub and the forum, and believe our tool is strengthened by the range of perspectives we've engaged this year.

Welcoming Wikimedia Sweden​

This year, we enthusiastically embraced a new partnership with Wikimedia Sweden (WMSE), who joined us to make improvements to our Wikimedia Commons integration. This partnership took shape thanks to the Wikimedia-OpenRefine training and sustainability project. Through this partnership, WMSE developers ramped up on OpenRefine code and tackled strategic bug fixes and other enhancements to address feedback we had received since the integration was first released.

Thank You​

In our 2024 user survey, on a 1-10 scale, respondents gave an average 8.9 score for their likelihood to refer OpenRefine, with 91% indicating high likelihood of referral and more than half of respondents rating their likelihood a 10 out of 10.

In open comments, one survey respondent referred to OpenRefine as "a lifesaver," while another described it as "the best tool for my data needs." More than one respondent said that they "would not be doing this work without OpenRefine," and several expressed immense gratitude for the community at large.

We recognize that maintaining OpenRefine can be a complex endeavor, especially given our majority-volunteer contributor base. That is why we wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate the impactful tool and community it has become – thanks to all of you. We hear repeatedly from community members that the opportunity to work collaboratively toward a common goal provides a sense of comfort and purpose, in addition to the impact of the tool itself. We're looking forward to continuing this collaboration in the year ahead, and remain grateful for your partnership!

2024 Donor Shoutouts:​

We would like to thank our 2024 individual and institutional funders, including the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, the Wikimedia Foundation, Timothy Braith, Alex Eichorn, knothist, Frederic Kerloch, Mitzi, Katy Preen, Vy Nguyen, Lennart Rouxel, Luis Ascenso, M Lewis, and GitHub users @Robaa2168, @DaxServer, @timtomch, @RefinePro, @trantor, @alanorth, @ostephens, @EstebanMH-SiB, @wetneb, @anchardo.

If you would like to support OpenRefine, please consider making a donation at https://openrefine.org/donate.

2024 GitHub Contributor Shoutouts:​

Our contributors play a critical role in our success. If you're looking for opportunities to get involved, you can start here: https://openrefine.org/community.

In alphabetical order, our GitHub contributors were associated with the following accounts: @5tigerjelly, @Abbe98, @abhishekkujur1307, @Ahmed-Elgamel, @akashinde, @amparab, @Ash-Crow, @ayushrai206, @ComgLq24, @cooperzoe, @DaxServer, @dino2580, @dori4n, @elebitzero, @EliasStihl, @fivecut, @frafra, @GittyHarsha, @growfrow, @Hisiste, @Huishin-pie, @IjayAbby, @jenny-Musah, @jnchen1, @Kurocifer, @lozanaross, @Lydiaofficial, @mahikaajain, @payalsaraljain, @pkumar2001, @prashasti-7, @Redeem-Grimm-Satoshi, @santi4o, @sebastian-berlin-wmse, @skhoylow8, @SoniaSun810, @SrinathKadam048, @steve-kasica, @sunil-atheer, @sunilnatraj, @surajbora59, @t8210103, @tejasbhosale17, @teolemon, @tfmorris, @thadguidry, @tledoux, @tsukipedia, @VhugoJc, @wandernauta, @wetneb, @WR-Smiley, @wsmmxmm, @Xiayucheng1212, @xinluz6, @yeungven, @zyadtaha.

About the role​

• Role: Developer & Contributor Engagement
• Job Type: Part-Time Contract
• Duration: 9 months with possible extension.
• Job Location: Remote
• Total funding available for the position: USD 90,000 annually

Role Summary​

This part-time role for an OpenRefine Developer, contracted through Code for Science & Society Inc. (a 501(c)(3) charitable organization in the USA), will focus on enhancing OpenRefine's stability, reliability, and quality to support the project’s long-term sustainability. This role is funded by the EOSS-5 grant.

Key responsibilities include bug fixes, quality improvements, and ongoing maintenance, with an emphasis on features supported by grant funding. Over time, the developer will expand into release management, security maintenance, and mentorship within internship programs (e.g., GSoC, Outreachy).

Core Responsibilities​

• Bug Fixes & Quality Improvements (45%)
  • Prioritize and address bugs within the codebase to enhance stability and performance.
  • Improve reproducibility features (per EOSS-5 grant requirements).
  • Implement quality improvements through refactoring, optimization, and code maintenance.
• Community Engagement & Contributor Support (30%)
  • Actively participate in community forums to support OpenRefine users and volunteers, answering questions and offering guidance.
  • Organize and participate in monthly calls with contributors to support engagement, answer technical questions, and encourage active participation.
  • Mentor existing contributors to help them grow in responsibility and impact within the OpenRefine community, providing code review, guidance, and encouragement.
  • Represent OpenRefine at relevant conferences and events to attract new developers, raise awareness of the project, and build connections within the broader open-source community.
  • Support programs, such as Google Summer of Code (GSoC), Outreachy, and other internship programs by mentoring interns, reviewing contributions, and fostering a supportive learning environment.
• Pull Request Reviews & Ticket Triage (25%)
  • Once familiar with the codebase, actively engage with community-submitted pull requests, providing constructive feedback and participating in collaborative review processes.
  • Assist with issue triage to identify and prioritize project goals issues and opportunities.
• Progressive Onboarding into Release Management & Security Updates
  • Upon receiving commit privileges, assist in merging pull requests to support the workflow of community contributions.
  • Take on Release Manager responsibilities to prepare and publish new releases, coordinating with the community on release planning.
  • With further onboarding, address security advisories and implement required updates and patches to maintain OpenRefine’s security.

Work Environment & Reporting Structure​

This is a fully remote role with flexible working hours, allowing the developer to organize their time freely over each month. This role requires a self-motivated, independent approach, with minimal direct supervision. The OpenRefine Developer will primarily work with volunteers, including members of the Advisory Committee and most technical contributors. The OpenRefine community collaborates asynchronously through public forums and GitHub, accommodating the diverse time zones and work patterns of contributors. Occasional travel may be expected to attend relevant conferences and meetings, enabling valuable in-person engagement with the OpenRefine community and the broader open-source ecosystem.

The developer will report primarily to the Project Manager, who will provide guidance on project goals and prioritization. Additionally, the OpenRefine Advisory Committee will serve as a resource for strategic direction and administrative support in collaboration with Code for Science & Society Inc. Weekly check-ins with the Advisory Committee and Project Manager will give the OpenRefine Developer the chance to report back on their work, gain an understanding of OpenRefine’s broader objectives, and receive ongoing support as needed.

For technical supervision and mentorship, the developer will work closely with the OpenRefine Committer Group, which consists of both volunteer contributors and paid contractors. This collaboration will help the developer integrate into the codebase and adhere to OpenRefine's development standards. The Committer Group is responsible for setting the project's technical roadmap and reviewing merge requests.

Skills​

Required:

• Java Proficiency: As OpenRefine’s core codebase is Java, strong experience in Java is crucial.
• Web Development: Familiarity with HTML, JavaScript, and CSS for front-end adjustments and minor feature development.
• Git and GitHub Expertise: Proficient with Git for version control and GitHub workflows (pull request reviews, branch management, release workflows).
• Self-Motivated and Adaptable: Comfortable working independently in a remote setting, with a proactive approach to problem-solving.
• Community-Driven and Collaborative: Experience working collaboratively in open-source or community-driven projects, with the ability to engage and motivate volunteers.
• Mentorship and Collaboration: Demonstrated ability to mentor contributors, provide constructive feedback on pull requests, and foster a supportive, growth-oriented environment.
• Effective Communication: Strong written communication skills for explaining technical concepts clearly to community members, volunteers, and contributors.

Nice to have:

• Open-Source Experience: Prior contributions to or maintenance of open-source projects.
• Conference and Public Speaking: Willingness to present OpenRefine at conferences, meetups, and workshops to promote the project and attract new developers.
• Release Management Familiarity: Some experience with release processes, ideally including automated build and deployment systems.
• Data Processing Knowledge: Familiarity with data cleaning, transformation, or processing concepts relevant to OpenRefine’s core use cases.

Hiring Process​

We invite applicants to send their CV and a short motivation statement at hiring@openrefine.org. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

OpenRefine is fiscally sponsored by Code for Science and Society (CS&S). CS&S is an equal-opportunity employer committed to hiring a diverse workforce at all levels of the organization, thereby creating a culture that allows us to better serve our clientele, our employees, and our communities. We value and encourage the contributions of our colleagues and strive to create an environment where everyone can reach their full potential and drive outstanding results. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, age, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, gender identity or expression, or any other basis protected by local, state, or federal law. This policy applies with regard to all aspects of one's employment, including hiring, transfer, promotion, compensation, eligibility for benefits, and termination.

To continue using the Google Drive and Google Sheets integration, users need to obtain their own application credentials from the Google API Console.

The Barcamp took place from June 16 to June 19, both online and in Berlin. There were 14 in-person participants and 15 remote attendees.

Here are the main takeaways and highlights from our event with a link to the summary of each session on our forum for you to continue the conversation.

Before the event​

We invited participants to suggest sessions using the Barcamp Session Proposal page. Other participants were able to comment on each session. At this stage, the goal was to socialize the topic of discussion rather than make the planning itself.

Monday​

As it was our first BarCamp, we were still determining how much content we would have to accommodate a two-day-and-a-half conference. We initially set up Monday as a travel day with an optional session. Setting the morning as travel time worked well for those coming from North America and other European countries.

Monday morning was a travel day for participants. Later in the morning and afternoon, a small group of contributors arrived early at the event space to prepare the room (including adding signage for participants to find the room), set up, and test the audio and video materials.

We used the rest of the afternoon to get to know each other and discuss the next two days' agenda. It is important to note that most of the contributors present only interacted via the mailing list, forum, or GitHub. For the majority, it was their first live interaction.

Each person who proposed a session had 5 to 10 min to present it and other participants to ask questions to clarify and help refine the scope. This format gave us a sense of the community's interest and helped us determine how long we should set aside for each topic. One of the challenges at this stage was staying on track to only scope the session rather than discuss the topic. During the break, we invited online and in-person participants to vote and/or comment on the Barcamp platform.

After the session, we aggregated the votes in Google Documents. We then started discussing the scheduling of each session and identifying who would be the facilitator, the note-taker, and the stream-sitter. During the scheduling, we considered the time difference with North America and scheduled the most anticipated session to ensure maximum participants could attend.

Setting plenty of time for this exercise was a good point of the BarCamp. We were not stressed about the planning and had time to get to know each other and remove ambiguity around the proposition. Once the calendar was set up, a small group of volunteers updated the BarCamp website with the different sessions along with the Google Calendar so remote participants could see the schedule in their timezone.

For the next time, we should set a clearer event start time guideline. Because we set up the afternoon as optional, some participants had scheduling conflicts, and we did not have a full room.

At the end of the day, the group in Berlin went to a biergarten as a social activity.

Tuesday​

Presentation of OpenRefine status (30 min)​

References

• Barcamp page
• Video recording
• Slides
• Forum thread

Martin presented the progress update regarding the current grant, grant application, budget and upcoming plan for the next 12 to 18 months. We invite you to refer to the slide deck and video recording for more details.

If only OpenRefine could be more like ... (60 min)​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

This session was a roundtable where participants presented other software from which OpenRefine should take inspiration.

Making OpenRefine more useful as an exploratory tool​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

In this session, we discussed how crucial data visualization is for research. When you get new data, evaluating its quality and creating visual representations is important. However, doing this in OpenRefine is difficult because the interface needs better visualization features, and the facets need to be bigger. Currently, the process involves:

1. Cleaning the data in OpenRefine.
2. Exporting the data to create visualizations in R or Excel.
3. Identifying any outliers.
4. Going back to OpenRefine to address any issues that were identified.
5. Repeating the process if further inconsistencies are discovered.

Support OpenAPI in OpenRefine​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

This session explored how OpenRefine can better integrate with the OpenAPI standard when

1. During project creation
2. When we add a column
3. When doing reconciliation
4. To publish update to the API endpoint

We also discussed the limitation of the Export to XML/JSON feature.

Clarifying OpenRefine's vision, mission and value​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

Bocoup hold a two hours workshop to present the results of their initial research and gather feedback. You can read more about the output of the session and continue the conversation on our forum.

Tuesday evening​

We ended up Tuesday at a local pizzeria.

Wednesday​

Improving contributors' pathways​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

This session focused on reviewing and enhancing the contributor guides for various roles within OpenRefine, particularly designers and support/helpdesk contributors. The discussion emphasized the need for clearer user experience leadership, better documentation, and more accessible design frameworks to support community engagement effectively.

Using OpenRefine with wikidata, wikibase and Wikimedia commons​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation. Notes are merged with the Reconciliation in OpenRefine sessions

The session focused on the workflows and challenges of using OpenRefine with Wikidata, Wikibase, and Wikimedia Commons, noting the complexities of multi-step reconciliation and data preparation. Different use cases were presented, including integrating OpenRefine with GLAM projects and Wikibase instances. The need for better support, documentation, and collaboration between OpenRefine and Wikimedia communities was underscored.

Reconciliation in OpenRefine​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation. Notes are merged with the Using OpenRefine with wikidata, wikibase and Wikimedia commons sessions
• Thread open by Susanna Ånäs: Working group for reconciliation user interfaces

The session provided an update on recent developments in OpenRefine's reconciliation process, including a redesigned dialog that separates service selection and reduces the number of shown results to improve user experience. Antonin introduced the Entity Reconciliation Community Group, which aims to create a standard protocol for reconciliation services, operating independently of OpenRefine. Discussions focused on improving the user experience with better scoring and suggestion mechanisms, and clarifying roles to help users understand the different responsibilities of OpenRefine and external reconciliation services.

Approaches to training people to use OpenRefine​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

In this session, trainers shared their experiences and materials, emphasizing the importance of tailored content and practical exercises, such as "bring your own data" sessions. We discussed strategies for effective teaching, including the structure of training sessions, managing different skill levels, and providing ongoing support through office hours and webinars.

OpenRefine as a service​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

During this session we discussed different hosting scenarios for OpenRefine, and the needs for multi-user functionality. Toward the end of the session we covered implementing a public OpenRefine API to streamline workflows and the concept of user authentication for better access control.

Strategizing our roadmap for user needs​

References

• Barcamp page
• Forum thread summarizing the conversation.

This session was highly productive, and help us strategize how we can continue the work on the different topic discussed during the Barcamp. We proposed using high-level epics or goalposts to effectively manage long-term goals and improve transparency. The group emphasized the importance of collaborative working groups and realistic timelines to align with our volunteer-driven efforts. The session also highlighted the potential benefits of introducing a product owner role to guide and refine our roadmap, fostering a structured yet flexible approach to project development.

Post Event Survey​

We ran an post event survey to collect feedback and recieved 9 answers. We received 6 answers from in person participant and 3 from remote attendees.

The OpenRefine Barcamp, which brought together both in-person and online participants, was designed to foster community engagement and collaboration. Survey feedback indicated that most participants felt the event was appropriately timed (6 answers), although some thought it could have been longer (3 answers) to accommodate more in-depth discussions.

Participants who joined online had mixed experiences with Zoom, generally finding it fair (1 answer), good (3 answers) to excellent (1 answer), while the quality of video and audio was mostly satisfactory (1 excellent, 2 good, 2 average). The use of Telegram for chat was positively received (1 excellent, 8 good) by both online and in-person attendees, who found it easy to participate in conversations (2 excellent, 6 good and 1 average). However some participants found that following multiple conversation platforms simultaneously (zoom, etherpad, telegram) was challenging. In-person participants praised the event space at Tuechtig (4 excellent and 2 good) and the food served (6 excellent), with ratings ranging from good to excellent.

Communication before and during the event was also well-regarded (7 good, 1 excellent). Most respondents were pleased with the travel reimbursement process (2 good and 2 excellent). Encouragingly, a significant majority expressed interest in attending future Barcamps (8 yes, 1 maybe), underscoring the event's overall success. Some suggested to have more hands-on session like we do in hackhatons to write code or update the documentation.

Several participants indicated that they would take actions post-Barcamp to contribute more to OpenRefine, improve documentation, and engage with the community. Several appreciated the opportunity to connect with other contributors and sharing their experiences.

The event will start Monday afternoon:

• 14:00 CEST (12:00 UTC): Introductions round and opening of the event.
• 14:30 CEST (12:30 UTC): Collaborative review and scheduling of the proposed sessions (which you can still submit).
• 16:00 CEST (14:00 UTC): Break
• 16:30 CEST (14:30 UTC): Allocation of volunteering shifts (session facilitation, note-taking, Zoom caretaking)

The sessions themselves will then take place on Tuesday and Wednesday, following the schedule established on Monday. The schedule will be published on the BarCamp's website.

We are looking forward to kicking off this gathering with you!

Zyad already contributed several pull requests in the last week. However, this is the opportunity to welcome him into the community formally! The Google Summer of Code internships will run from May 27 to August 26.

We thank all the applicants for their work during the contribution period and encourage them to continue working on free and open source software. The number of interns we can accept is limited by our mentoring capacity.

Thanks go to our many contributors who have helped shape this release in a variety of ways. Please report any issues with this release on our forum or GitHub.