[OSGeo-Edu] New OSGeo education web pages and meeting summary

[P Kishor]

On 9/28/07, cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu <cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu> wrote:
> Greetings OSGeo edu colleagues,
>
> Apologies in advance for a long email.
>
> It was great meeting many of you at FOSS4Geo. (Puneet, we missed you,
> but understood why you couldn't make it. We've tried to move forward
> and, I think, have made some significant steps.) Here's a status:

Hi Charlie and others,

I read the proceedings of the edu BOF, and am very happy to see how
much you people were able to accomplish. Occasional face-to-face
meetings are really magic after long periods of mucking around on IRC
and listservs. The sheer number of folks showing up is at the very
least an indication of the great amount of interest in education. I am
very sad to have missed this opportunity, but I simply am constrained
by financial considerations on what I can attend.

You all did a fantastic job of creating the To-do list, and many, many
everlasting thanks to Charlie for taking the lead in bring all this to
fruition. A pint of beer for you Charlie whenever and wherever we
meet.

I agree with all the items discussed in the BOF meeting, but I will
briefly comment on the one that directly involves me by name -- I
have, like many of you, been frustrated at my own performance as the
Edu Chair. I find the wiki to be diffuse, and IRC chats to be
discombombulated. This email list is the best of the worst tool to
communicate even though it is not in real time. IRC meetings have
failed to keep the interest, from my point of view, and coupled with
the difficulty in finding a good time to accommodate the interested
members from all across the world's timezones, has really become a
tool of last recourse. I have been also hampered by a few other
structural issues that I probably could have solved if I had pursued
them doggedly, but they shouldn't have been there to begin with.

Anyway, all that said, I would be happy to step down and make way for
someone more capable at leading the edu charge. On the other hand, as
proposed in the minutes, co-coordinators sharing responsibilities with
me -- "more than one set of shoulders" -- would be fantastic as well,
and I would be happy to continue Chairing with renewed energies. The
position is important but also very onerous time-wise. I am happy to
represent OSGeo in anyway that enables me to contribute most
efficiently and effectively. Send me your suggestions, and I will do
my utmost to help implement the best for edu's interests going
forward.

Now for something more exciting and positive... something that I
_have_ been doing quite well with the edu imprimatur behind me...
representing OSGeo at various fora that I have my fingers in.

As most of you know, I was in Paris this week (got back to Madison
late last night). I was invited by Science Commons (SC) to attend a
workshop on "Common Use Licensing of Scientific Data," organized
jointly with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and CODATA
(the National Academy of Science where I worked this past summer is
the US National Committee of CODATA). Many of the leading lawyers and
scholars engaged in the field of scientific data licensing were
present. The main outcome of the workshop was a charge for SC to come
up with a scientific data license much like the Creative Commons
license, but specifically applicable to science data. I hope to
continue to be involved in the process, and we should be able to see
an SC license sometime in the future. As soon as the background papers
and outcomes are out on a website, I will share them with the OSGeo
community, both via email as well as on the OSGeo wiki.

Finally, I have been invited to attend a specialists meeting on
"Volunteered Geographic Information" organized by NCGIA, Los Alamos
National Labs, and the Vespucci Initiative. "Volunteered Geographic
Information" is what I would term as community generated open
geospatial data aka user-generated content in WebTwoDotOhSpeak. This
workshop will be in mid December in Santa Barbara. Of course, just
like in Paris, I will be representing OSGeo, its interests, and its
concerns. And, of course, I will sum up the outcome via email and
OSGeo wiki after the workshop.

Many thanks and warm regards from an increasingly cool Madison.


-- 
Puneet Kishor
http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo)
http://www.osgeo.org/
Summer 2007 S&T Policy Fellow, The National Academies
http://www.nas.edu/