FOSS4G'13

Barry, Rafael Moreno rafael.Moreno@ucdenver.edu ran the academic track in Denver, so he would be a good guy to get in touch with. There were a number of academics involved with OSGeo / Open Source who were involved on refereeing papers etc, so would be good to get that list from him.

We let people choose more than one option for the "type of paper" (so we didn't prevent people submitting for both academic and regular conference). This caused some logistical hassles as they were two different selection processes. I think this is in our lessons learned, but you might want to consider just letting people submit an abstract to either the academic track or the main conference but not both. But as always with these things, your call :).

Captain's log, stardate...

Suchith has invited various people to look for the AT chair:

ari.jolma@gmail.com  ; serenacoetzee@gmail.com   ; kobben@itc.nl ; helena_mitasova@ncsu.edu ; lluis@sigte.udg.es   ; cschweik@gmail.com ; Rafael.Moreno@ucdenver.edu

plus also me and now Jeremy.

Ads have gone out on OSgeo mailing list and I stuck something on LinkedIn GIS group. Anywhere else?

Can we keep an activity log in this thread whenever anyone does anything?

Thanks Barry- I think adding to this thread works well- and then for any conference calls or whatever I've been adding a short set of minutes to the wiki page on osgeo.org http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2013 nothing fancy, just a copy and paste job.

I hope all of you in the list has got all my previous mails on the AT progress. Just to recap, we have send adverts for 2 academic chairs for FOSS4G 2013 and the deadline for applying is August 20th. The info has been send to Edu, discuss, ICA-Opensource, GIS-UK, GIScRG lists. If any other lists send please inform

Helena, Rafael, Barry, Serena are the selection panel for this.

We have LOC f2f meeting on 6th Sep. As Barry, will be attending f2f meeting on 6th Sep, i will request him to give update on this for the LOC. I hope rest of you can join the meeting by teleconference. I will send the details of teleconference and how to connect next week. Please let me know if you can attend.

From now on, please use this list for email on AT updates, so we can archive for sharing knowledge for future FOSS4G Academic Tracks.

Best wishes,

Suchith

I hope all of you in the list has got all my previous mails on the AT progress. Just to recap, we have send adverts for 2 academic chairs for FOSS4G 2013 and the deadline for applying is August 20th. The info has been send to Edu, discuss, ICA-Opensource, GIS-UK, GIScRG lists. If any other lists send please inform

Helena, Rafael, Barry, Serena are the selection panel for this.

We have LOC f2f meeting on 6th Sep. As Barry will be attending f2f meeting on 6th Sep, i will request him to give update on this for the LOC. I hope rest of you can join the meeting by teleconference. I will send the details of teleconference and how to connect next week. Please let me know if you can attend.

From now on, please use this list for email on AT updates, so we can archive for sharing knowledge for future FOSS4G Academic Tracks.

Best wishes,

Suchith

@Suchith, my understanding is that Jeremy is also on the panel. I'd also like to work on how we bridge the worlds between the workshop/code sprint group and the academic track. Barry, can you assist me with this?

If Jeremy wishes to be in the selection panel , he can email me and we can add him to the selection panel.

Suchith

Suchith, on an email sent today at 1715 you wrote: "Jeremy, I will add you in the LOC AT group...". I'm just seeking clarification, I'm still slightly confused of the roles that has evolved from this process. I defer to the original comments made on Basecamp at the top of this thread on July 13th after the phone call conference. I'd like to know who the workshop and code sprint team is directly liaising with, if that's myself between the team(s) fine, but clarity is required. 

LOC AT members are Barry, Jeremy, Addy, Suchith, Mark.

If anyone else are interested please let me know and I will add them.

Suchith

Mark, As I am already overloaded with AT stuff, so please escuse me from the workshop and codesprints team. I think you, Matt, Ian, Jeremy can handle that . You can be the link between AT and workshop teams. Thanks.

Suchith

LOC AT members are Barry, Jeremy, Addy, Suchith, Mark.

If anyone else are interested please let me know and I will add them.

Suchith

Sorry, I think I've confused things here because of picking up a partial thread. I'd love to be involved in the academic track (it would be the most obvious personal benefit I suspect) but I need to reduce my load at the moment not increase it. Seeing that Barry is well engaged I'm very happy to leave this track to him and Suchith at LoC representatives. As long as our voice in making our conference is present in the track I'm quite happy to leave it to you guys. (However if at any point you want some input from me, do please ask).

Thanks Jeremy. I knew you are already overloaded , hence i wanted to get your confirmation before emailing. We will need your help later when more activities start building up. Right now the focus is to get at least some actions in place started for the AT, so we have concrete actions and milestones to build upon during the f2f meeting on 6th Sep. I believe having the wider OSGeo Edu Community strongly engaged from the start on this is important for the success of the AT and FOSS4G.

Suchith

________________________________________

Hi All,

Please find below details and time for the AT Sub Group meeting.


Date- 6th Sep 2012 (Thursday)
Time- 14:00-15:00 (UK time)
Venue - A20, Nottingham Geospatial Institute, Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham

For the AT subgroup meeting will include all LOS AT members and FOSS4G Edu key members including all from the AT Chair Selection panel.

For those attending by Teleconference, please find details below and also the attachment.


Phone numbers for access:

0844 338 7109 (UK) - preferred to the 020 number we used before
+44 (0) 20 8323 1526 (International to UK)

I've also attached a list of local dial-in numbers for different countries.


Once dialed in, the PIN to access the teleconference is 5410142#.

I will email agenda nearer to the time. I will appreciate if you can confirm your participation if possible by 25th August. Many thanks.

Suchith


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I had a very productive conversation with Suchith this afternoon and wanted to share with you our discussion.

At the F2F on the 6th the AT team will present their plans to the whole LOC covering:

• High level themes for the track
• Proposals for the appointment of AT chairs for approval by the LOC
• A draft timeline for the CfP, review etc
• Indications of interest in publication from TGIS and/or others
• Any cost implications of the AT (both financial and human resource)
• Details of academic attendance at previous FOSS4G's

The AT conference call is scheduled for 2pm and will take place in a separate room outside of the main F2F, I assume some LOC members will want to break off to join this call. We will want to have approved the AT proposals in advance of this call so that they can proceed with their planning in the call. I will schedule accordingly

Cheers

Steven

Thanks Steven for our discussion summary. Let us hope some very good candidates have applied for the AT chairs posts so our selection panel (Helena, Serana, Barry, Rafael) will be able to recommend AT chairs. If the selection panel feels that very few candidates applied or those applied were not high quality they can decide to readvertise.

Barend, as you have been leading last year's discussions with TGIS for the AT publications, could i request you to send an email to TGIS Editor John Wilson asking if TGIS is interested in special journal issue for this year's conference. Please also inform them that we will appreciate a reply before 2nd Sep, so that we can have this info for the LOC meeting. Thanks.

Barry, could i request you to present the selection panel update on the AT chairs process at Sep 6th meeting

All, i am trying to find info on stats of university/edu attendance at previous FOSS4G. If you know any info please let me know.

Suchith

________________________________________

A few emails back Suchith said

"I have requested Barry to be the representative of the LOC on the
selection panel and contribute LOC's efforts for the process."

but it seems that with Suchith's email to the search panel yesterday and
the discussions going on between Steven and Suchith that I really don't see
any point to me being on that panel. Communication between the panel and
the AT group seems to be happening directly, moderated and instigated
mostly by Suchith.

We've already duplicated effort - I sent an email out to Rafael on Monday
asking if there was any news - and then I see Suchith has done the same
yesterday. Was that my job as rep on the panel? Suchith clearly doesn't
think so.

So I don't see why my name is on the panel. I doubt I'll know any of the
applicants well enough to help make a good decision on choice of chair, and
any role in steering the panel or liaising with the rest of the LOC or AT
team is being duplicated by other activities, and contact between the
selection panel and the AT team is happening directly.

Basically, don't expect me to know anything we don't all know come the
meeting on the 6th.

Barry, i understand that Rafel is away hence no emails from him. I really think it is important to have a LOC member in the panel to give ideas and inputs for this. Hence i requested you to be the LOC member in the panel. I really hope you will help and contribute for this.

Best wishes,

Suchith
________________________________________

Suchith, everyone,
Sorry for delay in getting to my email. I had to extend my time away from electronics until today.

This morning I will do all the catching up regarding the selection of the 2 chairs for the Academic Track 2013.

Apologies and thank you.
Rafael

_______________________________________________________
Rafael Moreno, Ph.D.
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies
University of Colorado Denver
Campus Box 172
1200 Larimer Street NC 3524
Denver, CO 173364
Phone: 303-352-3762
Fax 303-556-6197

Hi all,

Just had John Wilson, editor of Transactions in GIS answer to our enquiries:

On 18-09-12 01:01, "John Wilson" <jpwilson@dornsife.usc.edu> wrote:
"Barend,
 
Apologies for my tardiness but we have been reviewing many of the protocols used for Transactions in GIS as we struggle to adapt to the tremendous increase in both the number and quality of submissions following our inclusion in SCI [1]  just 11 months ago. That said, we will likely scale back the number of special issues we publish in the coming years. However, your conference and topic area are important and the opportunity to publish a special issue around FOSS 4G sits at the top of our priority list.
 
We would therefore propose that we plan for a special issue in 2013 that would be published on Early View as soon as it was completed and then in print form in early 2014. We would want to publish only the very best manuscripts so there is no minimum number of manuscripts or pages for such an issue (we could flesh out the issue by publishing regular manuscripts towards the end of this issue for example) and the maximum length would be 160 pages (i.e. a full issue).
 
Let me know soon whether or not this offer is attractive and we can take things forward from there (if appropriate).
 
With kind regards,
 
John"

Although it does mean that our original plan of having a printed issue at the conference is impossible, the papers would be published (on-line) at the time. I assume we should go along and accept his offer. I'll wait for your feedback/comments until tomorrow afternoon, and then answer him  officially.

[1] - for the non-brownie-points-dependent-people among us: Their inclusion in SCI means it's now a journal which in most academic environments earns you more points than 'normal' ones...

Get's the vote from me, sounds like a good outcome and getting this buttoned down before we announce the call fro papers would encourage submissions

This is good news. Having journal publication confirmed will help with getting good and high quality response for the CfP

Suchith

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Barend,

I think we should definitely go with TGIS. Although getting high quality academic papers, especially in terms of writing (the work was always great)
has had its challenges for FOSS4G, it has been getting better and I am sure we will have enough for a great special issue.
I think you can answer John officially that we are interested and committed to produce the special issue of TGIS on FOSS4G.

Helena

Helena Mitasova
Associate Professor
Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences
2800 Faucette Drive, Rm. 1125 Jordan Hall
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8208
hmitaso@ncsu.edu

"All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.”

It's a while after your post, Barend, but I certainly support the offer from TGIS.

Quick update: I have answered John Wilson that we gladly accept their offer and asked him to provide further details on how to best organise things with regard to submission (systems). In the mean time, we should start on the Call for Papers. My proposal is that I will try to come up with a first version this week and send that around for comments, additions, etcetera... I will also start a list on BaseCamp with possible reviewers emails and invite you to add to that too.

One possibility would be for us to use their Manuscript Central system for
submissions, but I assume we'd have to have control over reviewers and for
Barend to operate as editor.

Am still waiting for OSGeo sysadmins to give us an OCS instance to play
with.

Using the TGIS Manuscript Central System is a good idea to manage submissions. I suggest to start using this system starting with the full-paper submissions for selected presentations. No abstracts.

I can set up ab OCS installation.

Franz-Josef

While it is indeed prudent to talk about the method of getting papers, I feel we should be clarifying the research objectives and themes for the CfP, then releasing a  preliminary CfP as a first priority. This would be in accordance with our intended date of preliminary release, (http://2013.foss4g.org/dates/) ie. the 17th of September.

Having a publication of the standing of TGIS is great as is discussion on platforms. However (I feel) we should be focusing on the CfP proper, we've got until w/c 22nd of October. I'm anxious to ensure we keep to the timetable we've set ourselves.

This will allow the academic corpus time to polish, finesse (and dare I say start) the groundbreaking, phenomenal and relevant research we want at FOSS4G.

I've started a pad for themes for the CfP: 

https://basecamp.com/1920286/projects/762306-foss4g-13/documents/1334772-untitled

From this can we all collaborate to create the best CfP that FOSS4G will have ever seen?

I Agree on all that (to be modern I guess I should just've typed: +1 ). As I wrote on Monday "..I will try to come up with a first version this week..." and instead of mailing around I will do that in the 'pad' Mark set up, so indeed all can join in.

I am sorry, but I still do not have access to the documents on basecamp.
Barend, on our Skype meeting, you had some good ideas about the CfP...

I am back on the grid. Good work Mark, i have added a few ideas and comments. Would like to see some techie stream for programmers and a theme that entices applied GIS from non-core geography subjects.