[OSGeo-Conf] Lessons learned 2014 & 2015

[Venka]

Till, first of all congratulations to you and your team for
the very successful organization of FOSS4G-2016.

Based on my experience as Academic Track (AT) for FOSS4G-2015 and
my involvement in organization of Academic Tracks in other
FOSS4G events, I would like to suggest the following;

1) Recruit an Academic Chair (and co-chair) who will manage
the AT in interaction with the AT Committee

2) Have a dedicated mailing list for the AT committee to
interact regarding select of presentations and organization
of AT track.

2) Make sure that the AT Chair and co-chair are physically present
at the FOSS4G event to ensure smooth conduct of the AT sessions
and also selection of presentations for OSGeo student awards.

3) Academic chair must also ensure that AT sessions chair are
selected well in advance.

4) Provide evaluation form to the AT session chairs, to
evaluate each presentation and give their recommendation for selection 
of presentation for student award and also recommend presentation for
publication in academic journals subsequent to the conference.

5) Have the conference staff to collect the AT evaluation forms
and hand over to AT chair or co-chair for selection of
presentation for student award and journal publication.

6) Have the AT chair organize a student awards selection committee 
comprising of AT session chairs and have the committee
come up with the names of awardee at least one hour before
the student awards ceremony.

6) Ensure that the AT Chair or co-chair interact with the LoC to
get high quality certificates for the student awards and get it
signed by the conference chair and OSGeo President at least 30
minutes before the awards distribution ceremony.

7) Interact with the LoC during the event and arrange for the
cash prize for the OSGeo Student award to put in an nice envelope
with the OSGeo logo before handing it to the winning student.

8) Have the AT Chair and co-chair take up the publication of a digital
AT track Proceedings based on full paper submission. Having a full
paper published in the AT track proceedings is important for students
and generally AT track presenters.

9) Have the AT track chair and/or co-chair to have selected AT track
papers published in peer-reviewed journals within 6-8 months. The sample
copies of journal are displayed at the next FOSS4G event. (BTW, selected
papers from AT track at FOSS4G-2015 were published in multiple issues
of the "Spatial Information Research" [1] and sample copies were 
displayed and distributed at FOSS4G-2016).

10) Have more poster presentations. Poster presentation require only a
panel to mount the poster. Larger number of poster would ensure that
we will need to reject fewer presentation for the lack of time.
In a conference with 900 participants at a big convention center, the
poster session could easily accommodate 40-50 posters.

11) Ensure that there is a "core time" for poster session when the 
poster presenters are available in front of their posters to answer
questions.

12) Also, have a Poster Session Chair/co-chair to assist in the
conduct of poster session and also provide evaluation of posters
for OSGeo Student Poster Award.

Best

Venka

On 2016/09/02 21:30, till.adams at fossgis.de wrote:
> Dear former chairs!
>
> While filling the WIKI page "lessions learned 2016" [1] I noticed, that
> there is no content from 2014 [2] and 2015 [3].
> Although your FOSS4G's are already some days ago, I guess, that future
> chairs/LOC's still are happy to have your advice.
>
> It would be great if you could put in at least some few thoughts you are
> still aware of.
>
> Regards, Till
>
>
> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2016_Lessons_Learned
> [2] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2014_Lessons_Learned
> [3] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2015_Lessons_Learned
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