\begin{article}
\title{Editorial - FOSS4G 2011 Academic Chair}
\author{Rafael Moreno\\University of Colorado Denver\\
Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences}
\maketitle

\section{The growing interest in Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial applications (FOSS4G) requires specialized publication venues.}

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The FOSS/FOSS4G movement is attracting increasing attention from end users, developers, businesses, governments, educators and researchers around the world (e.g. Weber 2004, CRM-Reviews 2006, Faber 2007, Garbin and Fisher 2010). This attention is in part sparked by (and in turn it demands) more access to information about FOSS4G and its applications. Specialized high quality publication venues like the OSGeo Journal are critical to providing access to the latest developments, to enhancing communication, and to advancing the state of the art of FOSS4G.  The importance of this role cannot be emphasized enough. Applications and studies that are not properly documented and analyzed have little or no impact on highlighting current challenges and needs for improvement, pointing to promising directions for future developments, disseminate the benefits and challenges of using FOSS4G, and promoting the use of FOSS4G in suitable applications and contexts. The FOSS4G community must keep this need in the forefront of its priorities and avoid the mistake of developing outstanding software and applications that are "best kept secrets" to most of the end users, developers, businesses, governments, educators, and researchers that can benefit from their features and development philosophy.  

FOSS and FOSS4G under certain circumstances can be superior alternatives to their proprietary counterparts (Moreno-Sanchez et al. 2007, Wheeler 2007). The reasons for FOSS adoption should be based not only on their no-cost feature or the access to the source code. FOSS and FOSS4G should be evaluated on par with commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software following the criteria suggested by Wang and Wang (2001) and Ven et al. (2008). A growing number of commercial services, studies, and resources are available to assist potential users in choosing and deploying the best FOSS/FOSS4G for their specific informational needs (e.g. Holck et al. 2005, Woods and Guliani 2005, Ven et al. 2008, The FOSS Evaluation Center\footnote{The FOSS Evaluation Center \url{http://foss.technologyevaluation.com/}}, OpenGeo\footnote{OpenGeo: \url{http://opengeo.org/products/suite/}} ). Though findings are varied as to the strengths and weaknesses of FOSS for specific contexts and purposes (Erlich and Aviv 2007, Ven et al. 2008), today it is clear that FOSS/FOSS4G not only provide healthy competition for proprietary solutions but also opportunities for mutual benefit and complementarity. There is a need to study and discuss the impacts of these interactions on advancing the current state of geospatial software, as well as on enhancing the delivery of the systems and geospatial information demanded by citizens, businesses, governments, educators and researchers around the world. 

The interest in FOSS4G is reflected in the growing number of presentations and increased attendance at the annual FOSS4G international conference. The 2011 event held in Denver had over 900 participants from 42 countries, 24 workshops, and 150 presentations. The presentations and discussions made evident the speed of progress, high level of maturity and advanced capabilities of many FOSS4G projects. This issue is dedicated to papers selected from the Academic Track of this conference. These papers were reviewed and chosen for this issue by the 2011 International Scientific Committee of this track (See closing section Appendix \ref{sec:app1}). 

In the first paper Butt and Li present a system that incorporates FOSS groupware and the delivery of maps in real time over the Web for enhancing public involvement in decision making in Canada. 

In the second paper, Cavner et al. from Kansas in the USA describe their plans and ongoing development efforts for producing macroecology and biogeography tools dealing with large species presence data structures using the Open Geospatial Consortium Web Processing Service (WPS) specification and Quantum GIS (QGIS) as a WPS client. 

In the third paper, Hollander describes how a non-hierarchical clustering algorithm (Partitioning around medoids or PAM) is used in California USA for landscape regionalization making use of GRASS\footnote{GRASS GIS: \url{http://grass.osgeo.org/}} and R\footnote{R Project: \url{http://www.r-project.org/}}. 

Next, Donchyts et al. from the Netherlands developed a new Application Programming Interface (API) which simplifies working with geospatial coverages as well as other data structures of multi-dimensional nature. The API is made available as a set of Open Source code libraries in C\#. 

In the fifth paper, Jennings describes how difficult economic times in California USA forced a community college to explore options and choose FOSS4G Remote Sensing (RS) software, Optiks\footnote{Optiks: \url{http://opticks.org/confluence/display/opticks/Welcome+To+Opticks}}, to teach their RS course successfully without reducing the breadth and depth of the knowledge and skills imparted in the course. 

In the next paper Boerboom from the Netherlands presents the challenges and future directions for integrating web-based services from the GIS and decision sciences domains. He uses as case study the development of forest management plans for adaptation to climate change in Europe. The formulation of these plans takes place in multiple regions and requires multi-criteria evaluation of vulnerability and adaptive options. 

Finally, Knudsen et al. from the Danish National Survey and Cadastre describe the geographic transformation system used in this agency to transform Danish map projections and datums, and how it has been recently integrated into PROJ\footnote{PROJ: \url{http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/}} the leading Open Source cartographic projections library. 

The papers in this issue are part of the exponential growth in the number of studies and publications documenting applications of FOSS/FOSS4G in diverse areas of expertise and in varied technological, institutional, economic and socio-cultural contexts around the world. The FOSS4G community must continue its efforts to document and give wide dissemination to these experiences and developments to advance the state of the art of FOSS4G and to help it attain the recognition and place it deserves in the Information Technology and geospatial technologies world.  The existence of the OSGeo Journal plays a major role in achieving these goals. 

\section{References}
\begin{description}
\item [CRM-Reviews 2006.] 50 Open source success stories in business, education and government CRM Articles October 31, 2006 \href{http://www.crm-reviews.com/50-open-source-success-stories-in-business-education-and-government/}{WWW Document}\footnote{CRM-Reviews 2006: \url{http://www.crm-reviews.com/50-open-source-success-stories-in-business-education-and-government}}
\item [Erlich, Z. and Aviv, R. 2007.] Open Source Software: Strengths and weaknesses. In St. Amant K and Still B (eds) Handbook of research Open Source Software: Technological , economic and social perspectives. Hersey PA, IGI Global pp. 184-196.
\item [Faber, S. 2007.] Geoserver and Open Standards: A success story FOSS4G 2007 September 24-27, 2007 Victoria, Canada (available online at \href{http://2007.foss4g.org/presentations/view.php?abstract_id=8}{2007.foss4g.org}\footnote{Geoserver and Open Standards: \url{http://2007.foss4g.org/presentations/view.php?abstract_id=8}}) 
\item [Garbin, D. and Fisher, J. L. 2010.] Open Source for enterprise Geographic Information Systems. IT Professional November/December 2010: 38-45. 
\item [Holck, J., Persen M.K., and Larsen, M.H. 2005.] Open Source Software acquisition: Beyond the business case. In 13th European Conference on Information Systems 26-28 May 2005 Regensburg, Germany. (Available at \href{http://csrc.lse.ac.uk/asp/aspecis/20050130.pdf}{Open Source Software acquisition}\footnote{Open Source Software acquisition: \url{http://csrc.lse.ac.uk/asp/aspecis/20050130.pdf}})
\item [Moreno-Sanchez, R., Anderson, J., Cruz, J. and Hayden, M. 2007.] The potential for use of Open Source Software and Open Specifications in creating web-based cross-border health spatial information systems International Journal of Geographical Information Science 21: 1135-1163.
\item [Ven, K., Verelst, J. and Mannaert, H. 2008.] Should you adopt Open Source Software IEEE Software May/June 2008: 54-59 (Available at \href{http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4497765}{Should you adopt Open Source...:}\footnote{Should you adopt Open Source...: \url{http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=4497765}}) 
\item [Wang, H. and Wang, C. 2001.] Open Source Software Adoption: A Status Report. IEEE Software 18: 90-95.
\item [Wheeler, D.A. 2007.] Why Open Source Software/Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers! \href{http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html}{WWW document}\footnote{Why Open Source...: \url{http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html}}
\item [Weber, S. 2004.] The success of open source Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press.
\item [Woods, D. and Guliani, G. 2005.] Open Source for the Enterprise Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards. Sebastopol, CA, O’Reilly \& Associates.
\end{description}

\section{Appendix 1: Members of the 2011 FOSS4G Conference Academic Track (in no particular order)}
\label{sec:app1}
\begin{description}
\item [Tyler Erickson] Michigan Tech Research Institute, USA
\item [Serena Coetzee] University of Pretoria, South Africa
\item [Maria Brovelli] Politecnico di Milano campus Como, Italy
\item [Helena Mitasova] North Carolina State University, USA
\item [Thierry Badard] Laval University, Canada
\item [Venkatesh Raghavan] Osaka City University, Japan
\item [Songnian Li] Ryerson University, Canada
\item [Jeff McKenna] Geteway Geomatics, Canada
\item [Rafael Moreno] University of Colorado Denver, USA
\end{description}
\end{article}

