[Board] Long term plans for "Geo for All" web resources

Wed Feb 4 06:50:21 PST 2015

OSGeo Board,

Could i please bring this to your attention and request you to discuss this in your Board meeting tomorrow. To give you some background (you will get more details in the forwarded emails below from ica-osgeo labs lists ) we are grateful for OSGeo for allocating 5k USD in last year OSGeo budget [1] for ICA-OSGeo labs student travel funds which we did not use. Based on discussions with colleagues, one of the key areas which would like to have long term plans in place is our website. As Nimalika Fernando  from Sri Lanka very rightly summarized  "For people like me who are from developing countries and initiated OSGeo Labs, this web site is the main reference point. It acts as the umbrella, linking everybody, which I feel matters much. Personally, it helped me to convince others about the value of this initiative."

The website has been key in expansion and  we are thankful to colleagues at University of Southampton who had kindly developed and maintained this website for us for free but as we are growing rapidly we need to make sure they have at least some resources to expand and help other colleagues in our network to setup their own local websites etc.

Sometime  even things like setting and maintaining a local website (which might sound easy to many of us) is a  big hurdle esp. for academics in developing countries (and i very much know this from my own background coming from  India).  So it is important that we are able to help in whatever way possible for this and we need make sure that Jason Sadler (cc in) and other colleagues at Southampton have at least some modest resources at their disposal for this to help and guide colleagues who need help by build templates etc to for this.

Based on discussions in the mail lists, we decided that investing in the website and web resources  are key for us (and the website benefits all the labs members), so we wish to request that from the 5k USD allocation for ICA-OSGeo labs , 3500 USD is used for the website for 2015 with 1000 USD in future for annual maintenance efforts.

If any information needed, please feel free to contact me.

Best wishes,

Suchith

[1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2015

________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Suchith Anand [Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2015 9:21 AM
To: nimalika fernando
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo's spending budget for 2015

Thanks Nimalika for your efforts. It is a great pleasure to have you all with us and we will work together for this. We will also use the International Map Year opportunity to educate and inform policy makers, general public and students on the importance of openness in Geoeducation for enabling more opportunities for the future. If you are planning to run any OSGeo related events, training programs, summer schools etc, let us know and we can help you provide the info in our website to dissiminate widely.

Best wishes,

Suchith
________________________________________
From: nimalika fernando [nimalikaf at gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2015 7:15 PM
To: Suchith Anand
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo's spending budget for 2015

Hi Suchith,
I appreciate the idea of allocating funds for GeoForAll web site related work. For people like me who are from developing countries and initiated OSGeo Labs, this web site is the main reference point. It acts as the umbrella, linking everybody, which I feel matters much. Personally, it helped me to convince others about the value of this initiative.

Thanks!

Nimalika
Sri Lanka

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 6:17 AM, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote:
Good point Phil. We will budget in 3500 USD for the website for 2015 with 1000 USD in future for annual maintainance efforts.

Jason- Is this agreeable to you?  Please let us know. Thanks.

Suchith
________________________________________
From: Phillip Davis [pdavis at delmar.edu<mailto:pdavis at delmar.edu>]
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2015 2:07 PM
To: Suchith Anand
Cc: Jason Sadler; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo's spending budget for 2015

Assuming modest rate of $500 per day, the $2500 would represent about 5 days of effort, which has now been completed.  I would recommend perhaps $1000 in future annual payments for the two day annual effort required to maintain the site. I’m assuming there is no hosting fees.

Cordially,

> On Jan 19, 2015, at 8:00 AM, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote:
>
> Hi Jason,
>
> Thank you for this info. The website and infrastructure  that you and your colleagues have build for "Geo for All" has been very important for building this whole initiative and i see this as an integral part for our future expansion.
>
> Is it okay if we budget in 2500 USD for the website requirements.  Please let us know and we can put forward this to the OSGeo Board.
>
> Thanks again for your help with this.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Suchith
> ________________________________________
> From: Jason Sadler [jds at geodata.soton.ac.uk<mailto:jds at geodata.soton.ac.uk>]
> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2015 12:32 PM
> To: Suchith Anand
> Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
> Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] FW: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo's spending budget for 2015
>
> Hi Suchith, all,
>
> The GeoforAll website was set up using our own CMS and associated
> tools for news/events, etc and customised from an existing template.
> We probably spent 4-5 days on the development, including the
> incorporation of the live lab list and map functionality.
>
> New copies of the site could be created based on the same structure
> with a day or so's work maximum.  We typically spend a day or two per
> year on the hosting and maintenance of a website depending of course
> on how demanding the users are!
>
> I'm sure there are also a range of additional developments we could
> carry out with some budget to take the website forward, or provide
> something for other labs to take on.
>
> Best regards,
> Jason
>
> --
> Jason Sadler
> GeoData Institute
> University of Southampton
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:26:34AM +0000, Suchith Anand wrote:
>> Thanks Jason. That is very important point.
>>
>> One of things we should plan is to have a web based template for all labs from the main geoforall website to report activities (new courses, events, training programs etc)
>>
>> As the webmaster of GeoforAll it will be good if you give us an idea of the development costs for the same as it will benifit all our labs.
>>
>> All - If any of you have further ideas on what functionalities we need for the website which will benifit all the labs , please let us know and this is a great opportunity for this.
>>
>> Suchith
>>
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Jason Sadler [jds at geodata.soton.ac.uk<mailto:jds at geodata.soton.ac.uk>]
>> Sent: Monday, January 19, 2015 9:21 AM
>> To: Suchith Anand
>> Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] FW: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo's spending budget for 2015
>>
>> Hi Suchith,
>>
>> I wasn't aware of a budget previously!  Could some of this money be
>> used for further development of the geoforall website?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Jason
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 01:09:47AM +0000, Suchith Anand wrote:
>>> Thanks Jeff for this info.
>>>
>>> Colleagues - please put in any ideas you have for the ICA-OSGeo labs activities in OSGeo budget for 2015. We had 5000 USD allocated last year which was not even used!  We did discuss awarding Open Geospatial Science award for the best student competitions at FOSS4G events and we did setup a Advisory team also, so i suggest that we dont lose the momentum for this and plan this.  For example NASA World Wind Europa challenge is a good one that is already in place.  I suggest that Maria and Patrick take the lead for this and we allocate 1000 USD for the best student team of this competition.
>>>
>>> Also i remember Jeroen Ticheler (GeoCat) kindly agreed for supporting a student award at FOSS4G main conference.
>>>
>>> Jereon - if you are happy with us going ahead on this, we can contact the LOC chair  and inform award for the best student paper for FOSS4G 2015 in Seoul
>>>
>>> I request your suggestions/ideas for any ideas you have on education activities promotion.So please send us your ideas asap.
>>>
>>> Suchith
>>>
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> [discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Jeff McKenna [jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com<mailto:jmckenna at gatewaygeomatics.com>]
>>> Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2015 7:02 PM
>>> To: osgeo
>>> Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo's spending budget for 2015
>>>
>>> Hello community!
>>>
>>> It's important that we now come up with a budget for the OSGeo
>>> organization for 2015.  This is a great opportunity for committees such
>>> as our Systems Architecture committee, or the Marketing committee, to
>>> request funding to be put aside for spending for specific needs.
>>>
>>> Thanks to a nice brief financial report from our Treasurer Mike Smith at
>>> the last Board meeting[1], we know that we have approximately 250,000
>>> USD cash on hand, plus another 100,000 USD to come from Portland FOSS4G
>>> profits shortly.
>>>
>>> I have started a template to record our 2015 budget in the wiki[2] and
>>> the OSGeo Board will work with committees to update it;
>>> please if you have a specific need for funding (servers, marketing
>>> materials, anything) speak up here and we would like to put aside the
>>> funds for your needs for 2015.
>>>
>>> Thanks everyone,
>>>
>>>
>>> [1] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2015-01-15#Minutes
>>> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Budget_2015
>>>
>>>
>>> -jeff
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:Discuss at lists.osgeo.org>
>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>> --
>> Jason Sadler
>> GeoData Institute
>> University of Southampton
>>
>>
>>
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>> University of Nottingham.
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>>
>
>
>
>
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--
Nimalika Fernando

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_______________________________________________
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Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this
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This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
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