[Marketing] Exploring opportunities for OSGEO contributions to the GSDI Regional SDI Newsletters

[Paul Box]

Hi All.
 
I am writing to explore potential for collaboration with OSGEO to obtain newsand other SDI related content, for inclusion in the regional monthly newsletterspublished by the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association http://www.gsdi.org/.
 
Each month, three regional newsletters are published bythe GSDI, for Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean.The aim of the publication is to collate and share information relevant tofolks interested in SDI in these regions.  The Centre for SDI and Land Administration at Melbourne University has recently taken on the productionof the AP newsletter and I have been asked to act as editor. 
 
In the past, the SDI newsletters have attempted tocover a broad spectrum of geospatial news – projects, data, events, technology,applications, grants, jobs etc. We are currently reviewing the AP newsletter focus,style, content and content collection process, with an aim of obtaining moreSDI-focused material that more directlysupports the goals of the GSDI. 
 
In order to provide some context to news items, I would like to include more editorial and opinions and thus provide a picture ofwhat goes on “under the hood” of SDI/web mapping. A URL to a web mappingapplication is useful to communicate what is being done but providing additionalinformation that broadly describes the how would be really useful. Thetarget audience for the newsletters are those in the AP region trying to build towardsSDIs so the under the hood view is crucial to them.
 
Several ideas for the new look newsletter are:
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to develop regular features from keycommunities e.g. OGC round-up, Open source round-up, possibly UN 
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a series of thematic features e.g.what  is GML and why is it important incontext of SDI, coordination mechanisms/governance of SDI, an SOA primer etc. Theaim of these would be to assist colleagues in developing nations to navigatethe complex SDI landscape and conceptually stitch together the differenttechnology and other components of an SDI.
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National SDI round-up – spotlight onspecific countries with an update of activities, achievements, issues,challenges
 
As the OSGEO community plays such a key enabling role inSDI implementation, I wanted to explore ideas with you as to how best to interfacewith your community to obtain content.  Currently, the editors simply trawl the web,monitoring certain sites and filtering RSS feeds. There is currently verylittle content actively submitted by contributors at least in the Asia Pacificregion. 
 
In the next issue of the AP newsletter, available at http://www.gsdi.org/newsletters.asp from April 1, I have pulled together afew OSGEO news items. FYI, the newsletter contains an article on an SDI for Kerala Statein Indiabuilt using open source s/w that could be a useful case study. press release http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/17/stories/2008021750750200.htm-  project site - http://www.edugrid.ac.in/webgis/webgis.htm 
 
Given the importance of the OSEO community, particularlyin developing nations that are turning to open source geospatial solutions, Iwanted to explore ways in which your community could communicate keymessages/issues/developments to the broader (and largely less technically-minded)community. 
 
Specifically I would be interested in exploring possibilityof OSGEO:
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Provision of a regular featuremonthly/quarterly from OSGEO on trends/themes/issues in your space, withpointers to relevant resources 
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Contribution of thematic features articleand or op/ed contributions 
 
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on theabove and am pretty open to ideas. 
 
Cheers,
 
Paul

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Paul Box
Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration 
Department of Geomatics 
The University of Melbourne
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