[OSGeo-Discuss] Ideas/inputs needed for creating a High impact OSGeo Journal

Mon Jan 8 03:39:16 PST 2018

Dear Suchith,

thank you for your words, encouragement and initiative.

I thought about your suggestion during the holidays, and I came to the
conclusion that I can't do this job currently.

I think your Idea of working with established Journals is very good. May
I suggest to try to find an (commercial) Open Access publisher to work
with us for the Journal?

I recently witnessed this kind of process at the CAA community. They
established a (somewhat similar) Journal with Ubiquity Press [1].

This would mean, a publisher would take care of the Journal
infrastructure, copy-editing and some help (depending on the publisher)
regarding the peer-review process (at least the technical side of the
process would be facilitated).

On the other side, this would also mean, that there will be Article
Processing Charges (APC) for any future contribution. As far as I know,
you can't get it for less than about 400,- € per article. For most
academics, this fee can be payed through their projects and
institutions. Non-academics could go for crowd-funding the APC (and
maybe also some of the invested work) for a paper about a software or a
project for example?

But, this is just an idea, that could help improve the situation...

And what about the cooperation with ISPRS, that Maria Brovelli put
forward for the FOSS4G academic track? Maybe it would be possible to
cooperate with ISPRS and use their infrastructure for the Journal as well?

Best regards,
Christian

[1] https://journal.caa-international.org/

Am 22.12.2017 um 10:39 schrieb Suchith Anand:
>
> Dear Christian,
>
>
> My thanks and gratitude to Landon Blake, Eli Adamand everyone who
> helped make OSGeo Journal possible. We have some good foundations to
> build upon for the future.
>
>
> Thank you for the information and help on this. You have put some
> excellent ideas that will help us reinvigorating the OSGeo Journal for
> moving ideas and actions forward. 
>
>
> May I request you to  please consider volunteering yourself as the
> chair of the OSGeo Journal committee. I will be also joining the
> committee and also work to invite other colleagues in GeoForAll to
> join this committee. We can bring in the chairs of all FOSS4G Academic
> Committees to join the Editorial Board and Scientific Committee
> members as reviewers etc.
>
>
> We should also proactively negotiate with other GIS  journals to ask
> them to provide full fee waiver for all authors submitting for any
> special issue from FOSS4G Academic Conferences from now.
>
>
> I will from now put the discussions on this through the OSGeo journal
> mail lists. I request all colleagues interested to join this list [1].
> I will be on family holidays from tomorrow for a week and not using
> email , so will come with more ideas in 2018 :-)
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Suchith
>
>
>
> [1] https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/newsletter 
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Christian Willmes <c.willmes at uni-koeln.de>
> *Sent:* 16 December 2017 21:37
> *To:* Suchith Anand; geoforall at lists.osgeo.org;
> discuss at lists.osgeo.org; newsletter at lists.osgeo.org
> *Subject:* Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Ideas/inputs needed for creating a High
> impact OSGeo Journal
>  
>
> Dear Suchith,
>
>
> this is a great initiative, the OSGeo Journal List is
> "newsletter at lists.osgeo.org" <mailto:newsletter at lists.osgeo.org>.
>
>
> I aimed for improving the Journal some year(s) ago, but at this time
> the guys running the journal were not in favor of this ideas.
>
>
> See this thread:
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/newsletter/2015-October/001188.html
>
>
> And this one:
> https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/newsletter/2015-November/001205.html
>
>
> (I recommend to also read also the answers to these mails in the
> archives.)
>
>
> Though, the Landon Black (OSGeo Journal Chair at this time) recently
> stepped down.
>
>
> See: https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/newsletter/2017-October/001245.html
>
>
> No one answered his mail until now, so effectively this committee is
> without a Chair currently...
>
>
> The Journal is found here: https://journal.osgeo.org/index.php/journal
> <https://journal.osgeo.org/index.php/journal>
>
>
> And official information is found here: http://www.osgeo.org/journal
> <http://www.osgeo.org/journal>
>
>
> I would support, If you and others would step up to improve the
> current situation.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Christian
>
>
>
>
> Am 15.12.2017 um 14:11 schrieb Suchith Anand:
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>>
>> Though we have a  OSGeo journal and I thank everyone who worked to
>> make this happen, for really making impact , it needs new ideas and
>> lot of work to really make it high impact journal. I want to start
>> the discussions in the community for ideas for making the OSGeo
>> journal a high impact journal that will attract submissions. 
>>
>>
>> I think , timing wise it is good to start planning ideas even if it
>> is long term aim. Sharing some lessons learnt from GeoForAll, we
>> initially didn’t have webinar platform but we could see its potential
>> to spread our message. Initially we relied on external organisations
>> for our webinars but as soon as we had a champion (Thank you Rafael) 
>> to run this for us, we moved to use our own system in place .  For
>> our newsletters, it was Nikos who lead the initiative and build an
>> excellent team to make it happen. So having champions is important.
>>
>>
>> Similarly, it is now time for us to think ideas of our own high
>> impact journal. I have been over a decade volunteering for free as
>> reviewer for many GIS journals (like many of our colleagues). I am
>> also volunteering for editorial boards of journals. Though I support
>> the idea of open access journals , I think it is important the costs
>> of publishing in open access journals comes down.  I don’t know the
>> answer to how to make this possible but I think if there is lot of
>> competition, then costs will come down. 
>>
>>
>> Will any one be interested to be Champion for reactivating our OSGeo
>> journal and working to create a high impact Open access journal that
>> ideally can be free for those publishing. Lot of things need to be 
>> worked on to make this  possible. The Champions  needs to bring
>> together a strong Editorial Board,  and maybe have a new name for the
>> journal - *International journal for Open Geospatial Science and
>> Applications .** *
>>
>>
>> The Champions should put processes and systems in place . For OSGeo,
>> we now have thanks to Charlie and FOSS4G 2017 LOC , we have some
>> basic systems that can be use for the review process etc. We have lot
>> of good papers submitted every year in the FOSS4G  Academic Tracks
>> (both global and regional)  who will all benefit but it needs a
>> champion and a team to make this possible. I am willing to volunteer
>> as one member for the Edition Board for this and review papers for
>> free etc but I am unable to lead this because of my focus and work in
>> GeoForAll. So anyone is willing to  champion ideas for this, please
>> come forward. 
>>
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>>
>> Suchith
>>
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
> -- 
> Christian Willmes	
> AG GIS & Fernerkundung      | GIS & RS Group
> Geographisches Institut     | Institute of Geography
> Universität zu Köln         | University of Cologne
> Tel.: +49 (0)221 470 6234
> http://www.geographie.uni-koeln.de/14126.html
> http://www.sfb806.de
> http://crc806db.uni-koeln.de
> http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5566-6542
>
> 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.

-- 
Christian Willmes	
AG GIS & Fernerkundung      | GIS & RS Group
Geographisches Institut     | Institute of Geography
Universität zu Köln         | University of Cologne
Tel.: +49 (0)221 470 6234
http://www.geographie.uni-koeln.de/14126.html
http://www.sfb806.de
http://crc806db.uni-koeln.de
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5566-6542