[Ica-osgeo-labs] OSGeo-Live - GSoC 2015

Sun Mar 22 06:05:47 PDT 2015

Hi Patrick, all, 

Fully agree that we need to de-silo and find the overlap in all of our FOSS work, wherever possible.

In addition to the potential for this for undergraduate/postgraduate teaching programs already mentioned by Maria, Rafael, Charlie etc, i can also see the potential  if we can somehow make use of World Wind examples for school teacher training  in developing countries especially.

If you remember some months back we had some ideas/discussions on building educational tools for Spatial literacy using OSGeo technologies and open data and i can see potential for synergies with the ideas put by Massimo.

The reason i believe this is important is that it can then provide opportunities for learning spatial technologies for wider number of students globally . For example, if there is a school teacher in a government school in rural India or Africa or South America and their school now has 3 or 4 computers (very basic hardware ), with basic internet connection , then they can make use of this to teach thier secondary level students on urban developments ,  climate change effects etc . Again low cost hardware along with free and open software is key esp. in developing countries, and with Charlie's links with "Public Laboratory for Science"  etc in future we can think more ideas in expanding this.

All ideas welcome.

Suchith

________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Hogan, Patrick (ARC-PX) [patrick.hogan at nasa.gov]
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2015 10:34 PM
To: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] OSGeo-Live - GSoC 2015

Dear OSGeo and GSoC activity,

Any reason why we shouldn’t include our interest in a CitySmart app as another target?
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/GeoForAll_UrbanScience_CityAnalytics
Being successful here, winning that is, will look great on a resume! And a crystal trophy ain’t a bad thing either.

And no reason why the Europa Challenge couldn’t also be used to ‘double-down’ on their effort, whether for this year or an expansion of their work for next year’s Europa Challenge. We have no limitation on where the OS app was previously applied!
http://eurochallenge.como.polimi.it/

And many of these capabilities/functionalities wonderfully described by Massimo should probably be tailored specifically for how they would be applied into the Osgeo/GeoForAll CitySmart App, and written into that wiki. We need to de-silo and find the overlap in all of our FOSSy work, wherever possible.

-Patrick

From: ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Massimo Di Stefano
Sent: Saturday, March 21, 2015 1:09 PM
To: Charles Schweik
Cc: ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] OSGeo-Live - GSoC 2015

Hi Charles,

thank you so much for your feedback.

This is an extract from the GSoC proposal :

            Discuss with mentors about the topic oriented notebooks, the idea will be to build the notebooks in section and subsections like a book. So i need to spend the first and perhaps second week to organize a precise outline. The following is a first attempt to make a list of possible main topics (dedicating up to 12 days for each topic) :

            • data types : vector, raster, I/O & subsetting (include sql basic)

            • datum and projections : work on coordinates conversion and datum transformation (simple points), reprojection of geospatial data (use of EPSG code and custom defined projection)

            • raster algebra : first simple examples based on numerical array; last more complex example based on real use case (filtering, masking, general statistics) - working with satellite data can be a good topic (a full section dedicated to landsat 8 processing, depending on time/resources this can be extended to modis data as well)

            • web data access: define what OGC standards are, and study a solution to access web based resources (focus on OGC std, only mention netcdf which will have it's own section)

            • time series of gridded and ungridded data (this section will be dedicated to netcdf data access and processing)

            • intro to geostatistic (combined use of R, GRASS and Python) (simple statistic, bivariate statistic, interpolation, time series analysis)

            • use of the notebook to process raw data and publish the results in simple web-gis projects based on mapserver and  js libraries

*note: the list above is a list of topics I identified as possible candidate to be included in this GSoC. With the mentor advise, based on the time frame and complexity we want reach for each topic, I will identify the ones to implement (if not all)

I’m planning to dedicate the first two weeks (along with other tasks) to work with my mentors to identify the topics and content to focus on.
 I have already an idea on how to develop each topic but I’ll need help and guidance from expert educators in choosing the right “topic oriented notebooks”.

Of course I’ll be happy to implement part of those notebooks adapting existent documentation.
For this Idea i’ll try to make use of the dataset already installed on the live, however i consider the use of data available as web resource if needed.

Please let me know if the list of topics make sense for you.

I attach here few example usage of the notebook.
but maybe useful to give you an idea  about the notebook approach.

*Note: this is not educational material which will have a different form (more theory and better structure [introduction, numbered sections, references and appendix])

essentially in a notebook is possible to render anything that a browser can render (images, video, latex, hyperlink etc ..)

Examples:
            • notebook using GRASS GIS
            • An example notebook based on a presentation I gave at AGU 2014 :
            • this is a raw json file (an Ipython notebook)
            • https://gist.github.com/epifanio/349e64e982f6ce295825
            • which can be rendered in html :
            • http://nbviewer.ipython.org/gist/epifanio/349e64e982f6ce295825
            • or as a slide show : http://slideviewer.herokuapp.com/urls/gist.githubusercontent.com/epifanio/349e64e982f6ce295825/raw/e3304d45ad745e6588faa8072f2f6c0774fce388/AGU-2013-H52E02-MDS?create=1#/
            • (note it is the same file rendered in different ways)
            • Notebook showing axcess to netcdf:
            • http://epinux.com/shared/The_Perfect_Storm_1991.html
            • My Ocean acoustic report:
            • html output http://nbviewer.ipython.org/gist/epifanio/7455aa1d43b9b467aa04
            • pdf output http://epinux.com/shared/Ocean_Measurments_SONAR.pdf
            • very basic openlayers example output generated by running notebook where raw data were processed to generate new layers
            • http://epinux.com/shared/oceanmapping/index.html
            • http://epinux.com/shared/index.html

I'll provide to each mentor an account on my personal server where i have all the software infrastructure installed.  This will replicate the same software environment present on the OSGeo-Live. Each user will have a clone of the github repository where the code for this idea will be developed.  this will speed-up testing and debugging. Moreover, each notebook can be simply shared as html link and made publicly available.

Please let me know your thoughts,

Cheers,
Massimo.

On Mar 21, 2015, at 6:22 AM, Charles Schweik <cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu<mailto:cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu>> wrote:

I'm not against saying that, but I think it would be good to find someone to advise who will be teaching the topic/content in the next year.

Massimo, do you know what specific topics/content you are going to focus on?

Cheers,
Charlie

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 10:42 AM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi Charlie,
Thanks for your feedback.

Is there any chance you could strengthen your statement to say:
"I hope to be co-teaching a web-GIS class at UMass next spring. Details haven't been finalised yet. However, in anticipation, I am offer to commit some of my time to help advise Massimo in creating content which will likely be of use to GIS trainers such as myself."

Regards, Cameron
On 21/03/2015 7:30 pm, Charles Schweik wrote:
Two comments from my end:

1) One connection returns to our ongoing quest to build a working educational content inventory system for education that is on the web. So connecting that idea to the material that Cameron and others have been maintaining on the Live DVD production process is important. This will be an important issue we take on at FOSS4G EU in Como in July. So Massimo, you could help us in this context, potentially.

2) Open source web GIS class

On my end, *I may* be co-teaching a web-GIS class at UMass next spring. Not yet sure, and my collaborators and I aren't sure what technologies we would use for student projects. But if open source web-GIS is something you might do, and if I do end up designing a course, I could potentially help review your material.

Others? I agree with Cameron -- a nice opportunity here potentially.

Cheers,
Charlie Schweik

On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 4:46 AM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi OSGeo Education folk and Massimo,

Massimo, I think your Google Summer Of Code education idea is very compelling. As you are aware, I've volunteered to mentor from an OSGeo-Live perspective.

What I find incredibly compelling about your idea is that you are proposing to provide technical material to be used directly by OSGeo Educators. However, what is missing is endorsement from a number of educators validating that the material created will be used.

OSGeo educators, please do step up if you can, and say:
"This proposal will result in material that I expect to use within my OSGeo training course(s) XXX. I volunteer to help Massimo define the scope of material to cover."

Regards,
Cameron

On 19/03/2015 8:17 pm, Suchith Anand wrote:
Hi Massimo,

Thank you for informing this excellent project idea. I really hope this project will be successful as i can see the potential for expanding this by other educators. Please do keep us updated. Thanks.

Best wishes,

Suchith
________________________________________
From: geoforall-northamerica-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:geoforall-northamerica-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> [geoforall-northamerica-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:geoforall-northamerica-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of Massimo Di Stefano [epiesasha at me.com<mailto:epiesasha at me.com>]
Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2015 10:16 PM
To: geoforall-northamerica at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:geoforall-northamerica at lists.osgeo.org>; ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [GeoForAll-NorthAmerica] OSGeo-Live - GSoC 2015

Hi,

sorry for any cross-posting,

I’m applying as Google Summer of Code student for the OSgeo-Live project.
My idea, described here [1], focus on free and open source software for education, so i thought it can be of interest to this list.

Thanks for your valuable feedback,

Massimo.

[1]  http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Live_GIS_GSoC_2015

This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee
and may contain confidential information. If you have received this
message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it.

Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this
message or in any attachment.  Any views or opinions expressed by the
author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your
computer system, you are advised to perform your own checks. Email
communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as
permitted by UK legislation.

_______________________________________________
ica-osgeo-labs mailing list
ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ica-osgeo-labs

--
Cameron Shorter,
Software and Data Solutions Manager
LISAsoft
Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 9009 5000<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>,  W www.lisasoft.com<http://www.lisasoft.com/>,  F +61 2 9009 5099<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>

_______________________________________________
ica-osgeo-labs mailing list
ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs at lists.osgeo.org>
http://lists.osgeo.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ica-osgeo-labs

--
Charlie Schweik

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dept of Environmental Conservation and Center for Public Policy and Administration

Personal website: http://people.umass.edu/cschweik
Publications: http://works.bepress.com/charles_schweik/

Author, Internet Success: A Study of Open Source Software (MIT Press, 2012) - see http://tinyurl.com/d3e4545

--------------------------------------------
Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
A: http://five.sentenc.es<http://five.sentenc.es/>

--

Cameron Shorter,

Software and Data Solutions Manager

LISAsoft

Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,

26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009

P +61 2 9009 5000<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>,  W www.lisasoft.com<http://www.lisasoft.com/>,  F +61 2 9009 5099<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>

--
Charlie Schweik

Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Dept of Environmental Conservation and Center for Public Policy and Administration

Personal website: http://people.umass.edu/cschweik
Publications: http://works.bepress.com/charles_schweik/

Author, Internet Success: A Study of Open Source Software (MIT Press, 2012) - see http://tinyurl.com/d3e4545

--------------------------------------------
Q: Why is this email five sentences or less?
A: http://five.sentenc.es<http://five.sentenc.es/>

This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee
and may contain confidential information. If you have received this
message in error, please send it back to me, and immediately delete it. 

Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this
message or in any attachment.  Any views or opinions expressed by the
author of this email do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
attachment may still contain software viruses which could damage your
computer system, you are advised to perform your own checks. Email
communications with the University of Nottingham may be monitored as
permitted by UK legislation.