[OSGeo-Edu] Re: edu.OSGeo publicity material

[P Kishor]

Very pertinent points by Ari. My response below --

On 6/5/06, Ari Jolma <ari.jolma at tkk.fi> wrote:
> Looks nice. I have a few comments:
>
> - What are "OSGeo endorsed tools"? Will there be a list of such? Maybe
> we could say something like: OSGeo and other free software.

Well, "OSGeo" is not a software, so "OSGeo and other free software"
may be confusing. My sense is that OSGeo would "endorse" a
non-exclusive list of GFOSS tools. That list would always welcome
other tools with open arms, and would probably end up "endorsing" them
eventually. The process of "endorsing" could be as informal as simply
by usage. In any case, see my modified text below.
>
> - Some "Methods" are a bit uncompatible with "Goals", e.g. goal:
> "Produce a data package for use in tutorials", method: "Provide data
> packaged suitable for use".

Yes, the language was not very careful. I grabbed it from the website.
Good opportunity to clean that up. Once again, see the modified text
below.

>
> - The images down right are a bit uninteresting. Perhaps they could
> somehow show or image the tools, research data, or geospatial
> research... perhaps something like this: http://map.hut.fi/edu.doc (Word
> document) the colors in that picture may be too striking but it shows
> the idea: use QGIS, PostGIS (that's a pgadmin window), and free tools to
> create tools for research & beyond.

Totally agree with that. Here, I will reply to Tyler's email as well.

On 6/5/06, Tyler Mitchell <tylermitchell at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Ok, I will have a look and pull the text into my template.  I'm using
> Scribus (http://www.scribus.net).
>
> My PDF file likely also included all fonts embedded and all images at
> 300DPI.  This will allow maximum portability and reproducibility.
>
> We have to be careful with any images, ensuring that we are not
> infringing anyone's rights.  If you have an image that you know the
> source of or is unconstrained, please pass it my way.
>


I thought as much. What I provided was just a proof of concept. I know
that the requirements for printing would be much higher. I could go
out and grab some photos at very high resolution (my Olympus DSLR
E-300 is yearning for some use), but you are probably in the best
place to prepare something most suitable for your printers.

That said, what Ari says is very valid. Just the way I academified the
bland map clip in the upper left quadrant, the collage of photos in
the lower right quad can also be made more interesting. In particular,
screenshots from some of the "endorsed" tools -- MapServer, GRASS,
qGIS, an ERD from PostGIS -- might make for more relevant and
interesting photoscape.

Anyway, here is the modified text. You might notice one structural
change -- Every Goal is now a single bullet, thereby keeping each
workgroup's goal focused. The Goal is to be achieved by 3 Methods each
(everything seems to come in three). Besides that, the language is
cleaned up, more focused, and redundancies are removed. This time I am
doing this in a plain text editor. I hope each bullet fits in the
one-line width of the "Activities" box in the lower left quad (I
dislike bullets more than one-line wide... after one-line, they are
not bullets; they become paragraphs). If not, please edit as
appropriate.

Once we finalize this for the brochure, I will replace this into the
website so as to be consistent all around.

Many thanks y'all. Very nice, all this.

---- text ----
edu.OSGeo

The Education and Curriculum Committee aims to create and promote
educational and curriculum material that supports the use of
Geospatial Free Open Source Software (GFOSS).

Our intent is to provide appropriately licensed material accessible to
a broad audience including academia, professionals, and general
public. Material supported through this project would directly or
indirectly build and strengthen the open source geospatial user and
developer communities.

We hope to accomplish this by developing a list of OSGeo endorsed
tools, and integrating their use in curricula that teach geospatial
concepts. We also hope to create curricula to teach skills necessary
for active participation in supported OSGeo software and data
projects. The committee seeks strong cooperation with academic
research projects.

Activities

Data Package Group
Goal
• Produce data packages for use in tutorials and GFOSS projects
Method
• Work with the Public Geospatial Data Committee
• Create data packages with local level of detail
• Use standard data packages as a reference in writing tutorials

Education Resources Group
Goal
• Promote the use of GFOSS in all levels of education
Method
• Find people to test and use what we will develop
• Collect links to and describe educational resources
• Develop an "Introduction to GIS" course

Research Outreach Group
Goal
• Promote the use of GFOSS in higher research
Method
• Work with developers to identify research needs
• Support researchers in their usage of GFOSS
• Support research projects that develop GFOSS

-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Inst. for Env. Studies, UW-Madison http://www.ies.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation https://edu.osgeo.org/