[Geo4All] UN SDG mapping book updates

Fri Jun 2 07:42:49 PDT 2017

Dear all:

As the current chair of ICA Commission on Open Source Geotechnologies I
thinks can help to make some points clearer about this book.

Each commission was responsible for one goal. Ours (Open Source
Geotechnologies) was mapping inequality. The content was created in
collaboration with all Geo4All network (Geo4All Cartographic Challenge). It
was committed with our open principles: as it detailed the activities of 4
labs around the world. As this will be published by ESRI Press, and the
format will be discussed during ICC in Washington, but until now there is
no influence of the software vendor in the content of the book. The
original posters are available openly since the UN exhibition last year.

The concern that the ESRI as editor Will have some influence about the
content is legitimate, but you can be sure that I will careful during the
process to guarantee that our contributions will mirror the open source
principles.

The discussion about open publishing is welcome, but we know that we are
still not in the point that this is

One idea is maybe to create an Open Tutorial or webinar series on UN SDG
goals, maybe with the UN working group? That will complement the ICA
iniative and could be a great chance to further disseminate the potential
of Open Source and Open Education.

Em 2 de jun de 2017 10:26, "Suchith Anand" <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
escreveu:

Dear Anthony,

Free and Open discussions are the way we work and we greatly welcome
different ideas and perspectives. We value everyone's inputs and everyone
are welcome to join and provide inputs. We won't be able to even have this
open discussion in the properitery GIS vendor mail lists. You won't be able
to even send an email on GeoForAll to the properitery GIS vendor's
education maillist! You are always welcome to share your ideas to geoforall
community, GeoforAll advisory board, OSGeo Board and we will be happy to
discuss ideas.

To be clear my specific query was on this particular issue where the
voluntary contributions of  all commissions (including commission on open
source  geospatial technologies that I am a member) for the UN SDG
“Mapping” Goals are to be published as a book  . Having it sponsored and
published by a properitery GIS vendor will mean they will have their own
agenda promoted as the Mapping agenda for UN SDG.  We have so many examples
already where properitery GIS vendors have used sponsorship as backdoor to
have their agenda pushed. It is important we learn from experiences . We
are a education and scientific community and it is important we work with
all and listen to all perspectives but as this book is specifically
related to UN SDG it should not be used for any sponsorship activities from
any vendors or pushing any specific vendor agendas.

This book is done by volunteer efforts of members and should be published
as an open book through the ICA website in creative commons licence. So I
really don’t understand why this important collaborative work on UN SDG
needs to be published specifically through properitery GIS vendor
publishing house  who will have conflict of interest to open solutions and
open principles.  Open solutions and principles are also key part of
achieving UN SDG 2030.

Best wishes,

Suchith

________________________________________
From: Helena Mitasova <hmitaso at ncsu.edu>
Sent: 02 June 2017 11:14 AM
To: Anthony Robinson
Cc: Anand Suchith; geoforall at lists.osgeo.org; Menno-Jan Kraak; sg at icaci.org
Subject: Re: [Geo4All] UN SDG mapping book updates

Finally, I'll add that I think it is quite problematic that there appears to
be no collaborative decision making process by which GeoForAll speaks out on
issues like this one. If I'm wrong about that I'd be happy to be corrected.

Anthony - this is just to clarify:
we do have a collaborative decision making process  to speak out -
the issues can be presented to geoforall advisory board for discussion and
potential geoforall official statement or if it is a broader issue OSGeo
board can take it up as well. But anybody can initiate an open discussion
and I think that is what Suchith is doing - sharing his ideas and thoughts
on his issue.

Regards,

-Anthony

Anthony C. Robinson, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Geography
Director for Online Geospatial Education, John A. Dutton e-Education
Institute
Assistant Director, GeoVISTA Center
The Pennsylvania State University
sites.psu.edu/arobinson/<http://sites.psu.edu/arobinson/>

-----Original Message-----
From: GeoForAll [mailto:geoforall-bounces at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:geofora
ll-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>] On Behalf Of
Suchith Anand
Sent: Friday, June 2, 2017 9:39 AM
To: geoforall at lists.osgeo.org<mailto:geoforall at lists.osgeo.org>;
m.j.kraak at utwente.nl<mailto:m.j.kraak at utwente.nl>; sg at icaci.org<mailto:
sg at icaci.org>
Subject: [Geo4All] UN SDG mapping book updates

Dear  colleagues,

As you are aware there is some excellent work done by our ICA colleagues by
highlighting the value of cartography by “mapping” the UN sustainable
development goals. Silvana and our colleagues have done excellent work
highlighting the importance of openness in reducing inequalities.

I believe this is a very important activity  but recently  I came to know
that the book  proposal that is planned  to be developed from this is being
planned to be published through a properitery GIS vendor ‘s publishing
house. Hence I have written to Menno-Jan requesting him to consider
publication on this important issue through  any neutral academic publishing
houses as publishing this through properitery GIS vendor ‘s publishing
company is against the spirit of openness in geo education and ICA-OSGeo MoU
.  I think it is important to have both properitery and open solutions but
ICA as an organisation should be neutral . Hence very important not to
promote Properitery vendor agenda esp in UN SDG work by having the
properitery GIS vendor publishing this. As an ordinary ICA volunteer  I am
disappointed to see this.  I am grateful that Menno-Jan has understood my
concern and I hope this will be rectified asap.

I will keep you updated on the developments.

Best wishes,

Suchith

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--
Helena Mitasova
Professor
Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
North Carolina State University
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This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee
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Please do not use, copy or disclose the information contained in this
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University of Nottingham.

This message has been checked for viruses but the contents of an
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