[OSGeo-Edu] another request for help.... Victor, Jorge, Venka, Scott, Moritz, Maria, Helena, Landon and anyone else!

[P Kishor]

Greetings Charlie and others:

Lovely to see the momentum and energy in getting the stuff organized
and out. This is important work, and you all are doing it right.

I have a couple of tangential things to add, more in terms of
spreading awareness about edu-OSGeo than anything else --

On 2/12/08, Charlie Schweik <cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu> wrote:
..
>
> ANYONE ELSE - please let me know if you've accomplished something in
> 2007 that helps the group move forward, or if you are planning on
> undertaking something in 2008.
..

Pretty much the whole of last year I participated in pretty much the
entire process of development of the Science Commons Open Access Data
Mark, from the initial discussion at the National Academies at the
workshop on "Information Commons for Science" to the Brazil workshop
on "Strategies for Permanent and Open Access to Scientific Data" to
the final workshop in Paris on "Common Use Licensing of Scientific
Data." I made sure to keep one limb of the discussion dipped in the
geospatial pool.

While assisting in the review of a National Research Council report at
the Board for Earth Science Resources last summer, I kept on bringing
the discussion back to open geospatial education. My success in that
was limited, but I think continuing to be vocal about this eventually
makes a difference -- the squeaky wheel *does* get more grease.

I also kept on being the squeaky wheel at the "Specialists Meeting on
Volunteered Geographic Information" at Santa Barbara last year.

I also have reason to believe that my interaction with and
visit/presentation at INPE last summer played some role in getting
INPE to become an OSGeo supporting sponsor.

All of the above was done while wearing the edu-OSGeo badge (among
other badges), so while it didn't advance the "creating educational
material" agenda, I hope it advanced edu-OSGeo name-recognition.

Going forward, I have two events in the hopper -- in two weeks I will
be giving lectures at a data and management workshop in Panama City
organized by the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research
(IAI) and CATHALAC, and then later in spring I will be presenting a
paper at AAAS. In both events I will underscore the need for open
geospatial data and education information, and in both events I will
be wearing the edu-OSGeo badge as well along with other badges.

Hope some of this is appropriate to enter into your report.

Warm regards from a brutally cold Madison, Wisconsin.

--
Puneet Kishor