[OSGeo-Discuss] Picking a name for "OSGeo Research and Education Labs Network"

[Suchith Anand]

Hi All,

After discussing with our lab members, i am pleased to inform that we now have an official name and also short acronym (to be used for mailing list, domain name etc) which is easy to remember for the network.

"ICA-OSGeo Lab Network" is the official title of the network and OSGL for "Open Source Geospatial Labs" as the acronym for the url, subdomain name etc.

The Official full title brings and highlights two communities , the ICA (International Cartographic Association) and OSGeo together in our common aim to  support the establishment of Open Source Geospatial Laboratories and Research Centers across the world for supporting development of open-source geospatial software technologies, training and expertise. We started establishing the network of labs globally with the ICA-OSGeo MoU initiative  http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/MOU_ICA 

Individual labs (those already established and those in future) are free to select the names they wish. For example, Lab in UNMC is called Open-source Geospatial Research Lab, at NCSU it is OSGeo Research and Education Laboratory (OSGeoREL), it is Open Source Geospatial Lab in Newcastle University etc. That will also give individual nodes the flexibility to select the name for thier lab that they want under a joint lab network umberalla.

For subdomain - osgl.osgeo.org   

For mailing list  osgl at lists.osgeo.org

We would like to thank the whole OSGeo community for helping spreading the message of our education initiative. The pace of growth has been much beyond our dreams and with more applications for establishing research labs from universities across the world, we are in target to establish over 100 research labs in the next three years globally. This is the biggest growth area in Geospatial  Science discipline and will have direct benefit of thousands of students across the world. Each of these research labs will keep expanding over the years with more staff and students. 

Best wishes,

Suchith



-----Original Message-----
From: Cameron Shorter [mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com] 
Sent: 18 March 2013 20:27
To: OSGeo Discussions; Suchith Anand
Subject: Picking a name for "OSGeo Research and Education Labs Network"

All,
Suchith's OSGeo Research and Education Labs Network is becoming more and more successful, with new educational institutions being added every week or two. (Are we up to 20 to 25 Universities now?)

I see the list of emails has 46 people on it. So there is discussion about:
1. Setting up an email list for all these people 2. Setting up a landing web page, something like http://labs.osgeo.org 3. Setting up a wiki page 4. Collecting names of participants, similar to http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Advocate

But before doing all the above, we need to pick an abbreviated name for the "OSGeo Research and Education Labs Network"

Ideas floated so far:
* labs.osgeo.org (Probably the best name, but this name is current being used by projects which haven't started incubation yet).
* Osgeo Specialist Labs
* OSGeo REL - research and education labs
* OSGeoEduLabs

I'm personally in favour of the OSGeo Research Labs claiming the "OSGeo Labs" name as I believe that OSGeo Research Labs have already been using the term "OSGeo Labs" for quite some time in correspondence, the "Research Labs" are likely to become much more prominent than the current "OSGeo Labs", and I know the person who originally coined the "OSGeo Labs" term won't be offended (as it was me who originally coined the "OSGeo Labs" term).

I'd suggest moving the existing "OSGeo Labs" to "OSGeo Pre-incubation" 
(or a similar term).

I suggest that we wait for up to one week, before settling on a domain name, in order to give everyone a chance to add their comments.

--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source http://www.lisasoft.com

This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee and may contain confidential information. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it.   Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this message or in any attachment.  Any views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an attachment
may still contain software viruses which could damage your computer system:
you are advised to perform your own checks. Email communications with the
University of Nottingham may be monitored as permitted by UK legislation.