\begin{article}
\title{From the Academic Track Chair}
\author{Prof. Thierry Badard}
\maketitle


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The FOSS4G 2009 academic track aimed to bring together researchers, developers, users and practitioners -- all who were carrying out research and development in the free and open source geospatial fields and who were willing to share original, recent developments and experiences.

The primary goal was to promote cooperative research between OSGeo developers and academia, but the academic track has also acted as an inventory of current research topics. This track was the right forum to highlight the most important research challenges and trends in the domain and let them become the basis for an informal OSGeo research agenda. It has fostered interdisciplinary discussions in all aspects of the free and open source geospatial domains. It was organized to promote networking between the participants, to initiate and favour discussions regarding cutting-edge technologies in the field, to exchange research ideas and to promote international collaboration.

In addition to the OSGeo Foundation\footnote{OSGeo: Open Source Geospatial Foundation: \url{http://osgeo.org}}, the ICA (International Cartographic Association) working group on open source geospatial technologies\footnote{ICA open source working group: \url{http://ica-opensource.scg.ulaval.ca/}}) was proud to support the organisation of the track.

The coordinators sought to gather paper submissions globally that addressed theoretical, technical, and practical topics related to the free and open source geospatial domain. Suggested topics included, but were not limited to, the following: 
\begin{itemize}
\item{State of the art developments in Open Source GIS}
\item{Open Source GIS in Education}
\item{Interoperability and standards - OGC, ISO/TC 211, Metadata}
\item{Spatial Data Infrastructures and Service Oriented Architectures}
\item{Free and open source Web Mapping, Web GIS and Web processing services}
\item{Cartography and advanced styling}
\item{Earth Observation and remote sensing}
\item{Spatial and Spatio-temporal data, analysis and integration}
\item{Free and Open Source GIS application use cases in Government, Participatory GIS, Location based services, Health, Energy, Water, Urban and Environmental Planning, Climate change, etc.}
\end{itemize}

In response to the call for papers, 25 articles were submitted to the academic track. The submissions were highly diversified, and came from USA, Canada, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, Romania and Turkey. Selection of submissions were based on the full papers received. All submissions were thoroughly peer reviewed by two to three members of the international scientific committee and refereed for their quality, originality and relevance. The scientific committee selected 12 papers (48\% acceptance rate) for presentation at the FOSS4G 2009 conference.  From those, 6 papers were accepted for presentation in the proceedings of the academic track, which are published in this volume of the OSGeo Journal. They correspond to the 6 best papers assessed by the international scientific committee.

The accepted and published papers covered a wide range of cutting-edge research topics and novel applications on Free and Open Source Geospatial technologies. I am particularly proud and happy to see some very high quality scientific contributions published in the OSGeo Journal. This will undoubtedly encourage more interesting research to be published in this volume, as our OSGeo journal is an open access journal. In addition, it helps draw attention to this important project of the OSGeo Foundation. I hope the publication of these proceedings in the OSGeo journal will encourage future scientists, researchers and members of academia to consider the OSGeo Journal as an increasingly valuable place to publish their research works and case studies.

As a concluding note, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the individuals and institutions that made the FOSS4G 2009 academic track possible. First, I would like to thank the international scientific committee members and external reviewers for evaluating the assigned papers in a timely and professional manner. Next, I would like to recognize the tremendous efforts put forward by members of the local organising committee of FOSS4G 2009 for accommodating and supporting the academic track. Finally, I want to thank the authors for their contributions, efforts, patience and support that made this academic track a huge success.

\address{
January, 2011 \\
Prof. Thierry Badard \\
Laval University, Canada \\
Chair, FOSS4G 2009 Academic Track \\
Co-chair, ICA Working Group on Open Source Geospatial Technologies }

\end{article}
