[OSGeo-Discuss] Call for Papers for FOSS4G 2013 Academic Track

[Andy Turner]

Hi,

There are many ways to do this.

In my experience some academic conferences that have peer reviewed outputs have developed the following Modus Operandi (I don't know how normal this is):
1. Abstracts and/or Modified Abstracts or Full Papers (and sometimes Posters) are published in Conference Proceedings (each having been selected based on a submitted Abstract).
2. A selection of Full Papers are then invited to be submitted for review to a journal special issue. (This sometimes requires that they are reformatted.) Only those that then get through a peer review process are then published in the peer reviewed journal special issue.

An academic, should get credit for:
1. Having an Abstract accepted and presenting a Full Paper or Poster. (Posters tend to be worth less in some respects, but they are still good. Having something in the Conference Proceedings is good even if a presentation at the conference does not happen, though it is usually expected that a presentation of some form is made at the event.)
2. Getting an article published in a peer reviewed journal special issue.

I have had articles rejected at the final stage which is a pain, as is not being invited to submit a Full Paper to the special issue review process. However, a rejected article can be published online and for additional credit by any academic so long as it has evolved sufficiently from what made it into the proceedings. Peer reviews of rejected articles although rejections can be useful in any case. Contributors may decide to re-submit an article for peer review elsewhere if that seems appropriate.

FWIW, I think that adding the step of inviting and reviewing Abstracts is a good one. If this is done far enough in advance then folk can outline what they plan to do before doing it. There is a danger though with this, that come the event, not so much progress has been made and there is little to present. To avoid this, some conferences only allow submission of work that has been or is largely completed, but this becomes a less attractive option with increasing time from the Abstract submission/decision date and the date of the event/date when Modified Abstracts or Full Papers are due.

One further point is that IMHO, the more open the review process is, the better.

HTH

Andy
http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.turner/
 

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of b.j.kobben at utwente.nl
Sent: 25 January 2013 11:26
To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Call for Papers for FOSS4G 2013 Academic Track

Dear Venka and Massimiliano,

I feel we have to defend the Foss4G2013 AT a bit here (as AT co-chairs we
should ;-)

It is actually not true that "Previous FOSS4G's had abstract review by the
academic committee
and selected authors were asked to submit full papers closer to the
conference dates."
Both in the 2010 and 2011 conferences we had submission of full papers,
not abstracts. 

The reason for this is that academics nowadays need to publish, if we want
or not, and that means we have to offer a possibility of official
publishing for the AT papers. The only way to achieve that is have journal
outlets secured well beforehand and for that you need to set up a "Journal
Type" submission and reviewing system, which means selection of full
papers. Having to first select promising abstract, then ask these people
to write full papers, and then have these properly peer-reviewed, all
before the conference publication deadline, would mean we'd need an even
earlier deadline.
This by the way is nowadays accepted academic practice at conferences that
offer Jopurnal publication outputs.

I agree that 7 months before the conference seems like a very early
deadline, but for the reviewing process, the editing and processing of
accepted papers and preparation of manuscripts for publication, it
actually is quite a tight time table. Note that the advantage is that if
your paper is accepted, you are assured of it being actually published at
the conference date, something may academics are keen for...

Note also that the normal (non AT) tracks at Foss4G continue to offer
submission and reviewing based on abstracts.

We will have this year (as in previous years) an Academic Committee. These
are the people that will be asked to do the full paper reviewing, and we
have just this week invited candidates and have asked them to agree to do
this important task. The list will appear on the site once the reviewing
process starts.

I hope this answers some of your questions.


For further questions, comments and remarks, please don't hesitate to
contact the Academic Track co-chairs:

* Franz-Josef Behr (Stuttgart University of Applied Sciences):
franz-josef.behr at hft-stuttgart.de
* Barend Köbben (ITC-University of Twente): kobben at itc.nl



 



On 2013/01/23 18:49, Massimiliano Cannata wrote:

>From the web page:


"""
We invite academics and researchers to submit full papers in English,
of maximum 6,000 words, before the deadline of 1 February 2013.
Templates for submissions in a variety of formats can be found here,
and detailed requirements, regarding layout, formatting and the
submission process, can be found on the FOSS4G 2103 Academic Track
submission pages at http://2013.foss4g.org/ojs/
"""

This is clear...

but then my question is:
- Why do I have to submit a paper without knowing if I'm going to be select
for presentation?
- And why 7 months before of the conference?

It looks to me quite strange...
Previous FOSS4G's had abstract review by the academic committee
and selected authors were asked to submit full papers closer to
the conference dates.

I see that we do not have an academic committee in place for FOSS4G 2013
and I agree with Maxi that the submission 1 Feb 2013 deadline for
FOSS4G-2013
Academic track is too early.

Venka


_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
Discuss at lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss