[Foss4g2009] FOSS4G Program

[Dave Patton]

On 2008/10/09 8:52 PM, Janelle Driscoll wrote:
> Hi Organising Committee,
> 
> Following on from our meeting yesterday it was advised that there
> will be no abstract submission form provided by tour Hosts. I just
> wanted to touch base to see how the program is going to be developed.
> Are you planning on having a call for workshops and labs but using
> the open source software? Are you planning on having a call for
> abstracts but using the open source software? How are you going to
> pass this information to Tour Hosts? I have attached the draft
> program timeline for you. You will see in this timeline that we were
> planning on developing these online forms in November this year;
> therefore we need to clarify how this process will run by the end of
> October.

For 2007, it was done via custom solutions developed by Paul.
For 2008, the OCS software was used.
For 2009, OSGeo wants the OCS software to be used.
http://pkp.sfu.ca/?q=ocs

In 2007, there were three calls - one for Workshops/Labs,
one for Presentations, and after Presentations were selected,
one for Posters(i.e. those who submitted a Presentation
abstract and weren't selected might want to present a Poster).

In 2008, in addition, they had an "academic track" for Presentations,
and that would need to be handled somewhat differently
(peer reviews, etc.).

As for how we are going to "pass this information to Tour Hosts",
that's the beauty of Open Source software :-)
We can pretty much 'do whatever is needed'. Assume for a moment
that a 'set of abstracts' has been received(via OCS). That 'set'
might be for Workshops/Labs, Posters, or Presentations. Now, what
information do you(TH) need, and in what electronic format(s)?
Rather than building an interface between your software and the
OCS software, I'm thinking the most expedient option is to simply
'export data' from OCS and you 'import data' on your end, but
people who worked with the OCS software for FOSS4G2008 would
have the best perspective.

> We also need to look at who will be on the program committee.

For Presentations, everyone! :-)
In 2007, all submitted abstracts were made available
via the website, and "the community" was allowed to vote
on them. The actual decisions about which to include
in the program were made by a subset of the OC.
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G2007_Lessons_Learned#Presentations

For 2007 Workshops/Labs, there was a Workshops Committee,
and their recommendations were submitted to the OC
for approval.

For 2007, there was no separate "Program Committee".

> Also at sometime we need to talk about the venue for the code sprint.
>  Should I start looking for venues for a week long code sprint? If so
>  will there now be a registration fee for the code sprint?

My gut feeling is that it is too 'up in the air'
as to what is needed/wanted to do that yet, but
also that, in a sense, the Code Sprint is "outside"
the actual conference, so therefore I wouldn't want
to see us spending time on it when we have lots of
things to deal with as far as the conference goes.
Is there perhaps someone from the Aus/NZ chapter
who isn't on the OC who could take on the role of
"Code Sprint Coordinator"?

-- 
Dave Patton
CIS Canadian Information Systems
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

OSGeo FOSS4G2007 conference:
Workshop Committee Chair
Conference Committee member
http://www.foss4g2007.org/

Personal website:
Maps, GPS, etc.
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/