[Foss4g2008loc] Re: Proceedings and/or CD

[Antony Cooper]

Hi All

>>> On 10 March 2008 at 18:28, in message
<007d01c882cb$bdfff7a0$1703a8c0 at SAHAIntRSA.local>, "Inge Netterberg"
<inge.netterberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> Evening,
> 
> 1.	For the Academic track we need to publish a proceedings with an
> ISBN number. Do we want to publish this as a CD or as a book? 

An ISBN can be assigned to a book, a CD or a Web site, though not the same number for all three.  For accreditation as an academic stream, any one of the three will be acceptable.  However, books are expensive and heavy to carry, particularly with the stringent airline regulations we have now-a-days.

The best is to have a CD because it is tangible and hence more likely to be accepted as a proceedings by the bureaucrats.  I think that it is best to produce a CD of only the academic track, so that it can be shown to the bureaucrats that it is obviously ring-fenced.

However, this does not mean that the proceedings are limited to this CD.  I would suggest having a short run of the academic track CD, so that copies can be sent to the relevant libraries (as ISBN requires).  The content of this CD can then be bundled with all the other material from all the tracks of the conference (including workshops, etc), as the proceedings given to delegates.  If anyone wants the proceedings of the academic track only (to satisfy their bureaucrats), they can be cut by special request.  All the material can also be put on the relevant Web sites.

One issue that will need to be clarified in advance is that of copyright - the appropriate Creative Commons licence should be used to allow the proceedings to be put on these different CDs and Web sites.  Will anyone be allowed to place material from the proceedings on their own Web sites, etc?  This needs to be clarified in advance.

> 2.	For the general presentations track, are we going to post the
> presentations on the web, or publish it on a CD? This makes a rather
> large difference to the closing date for presentations. And some people
> in Africa have bandwidth problems.

I support both options.  Providing a discount for those delegates who do not want a CD of the proceedings will add unnecessary hassles to the registration process, and the cost difference (ie: the discount that could be offered) will be negligible.

> 3.	If we go with CD's for both the academic track and general
> presentations track or book, do we include these in the delegate
> bag or post these to delegates after the fact?

Posting them afterwards will be a hassle, particularly given the usual post-conference exhaustion experienced by conference organisers!  :-)  The CD should contain whatever is submitted by the cut-off date.  Late submissions can be added to the Web sites.  I presume that an inability to be disciplined and meet deadlines is not a general characteristic of the open source community!

> 4.	How does the "open community process" work on the selection
> of presentations?  

If you are referring to the academic track, they need to be reviewed by a team of referees.

> My suggestion is (and how the call for papers is written): 
> 
> a)       Publish all the abstracts & programme in an abstract book, with
> a pocket programme.

This is very useful for the delegates for selecting which sessions to attend.

> b)       Publish both the peer reviewed papers and general presentations
> on a CD with an ISBN number (since we have bandwidth issues in Africa).
> A selection of peer reviewed papers will be published in the SACJ

See my comments above.  Also, it is not that a selection of the papers will be published in SACJ - a selection will be submitted to SACJ for consideration for publication there.  By the way, there is a page charge for publishing in SACJ - unless this is being waived for us.

The OSGeo Journal has been mentioned.  I note that it carried the 2007 FOSS4G proceedings, but Google Scholar is not aware of it and the OSGeo Journal is not on ISI and I can't find an ISSN for it, so it is not academically accredited.  If the OSGeo Journal carries the 2008 FOSS4G proceedings, care must be taken that there is not a copyright conflict for those papers published in SACJ.

> c)       Have both of these (a and b) ready for inclusion in the delegate
> bag. This makes the submission dates for both the peer reviewed papers
> and the general presentations the same (18 August). However most
> authors tend to leave their presentations to the last minute and thus we
> may not have all the presentations for inclusion on the CD. 

I support this.  As I suggested above, the CD should contain what is submitted on time.

> Your comments please
> 
> Regards
> 
> Inge

Regards
Antony


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