[Journal] Next steps

Thu Oct 1 18:08:33 EDT 2009

This has been a very good discussion. At some point it may be helpful
to lay out our options for moving forward, and then see what type of
support each option would have.

We can still discuss this more, but it sounds like our options
currently look like this:

(1) Continue with the current style and content of the journal. We
will cover news, topical articles, and include interviews, but will
also include peer reviewed journals when they are submitted.

(2) Move the Journal more towards a true scientific or academic
publication. This means we shed some of the content more appropriate
for a newsletter or trade magazine, and focus on making things a
little more formal and rigourous.

(3) Move all scentific/academic articles to [A] a separate publication
focused on these types of articles or [B] some type of collaboration
or partnership with JOSIS.

(4) Offer the scientific and academic issues as a supplement to the
main journal. We are dealing only with a digital publication, so its
not like we would be wasting paper with this approach. If the
scientific/academic articles were packaged as a supplement we could
have different branding, review processes, and publication frequency.

I think we need to make a decision on one of these four (4) options
(maybe there is another option I am leaving out?) before we can settle
on the issue of deadlines, review processes and publication frequency.

My gut tells me it may be difficult to satisfy everyones needs for the
formality and prestige of a scientific/academic journal with a journal
that also reaches out to the more "common man". It seems like some of
the recent push for changes is from a desire to have a journal that
more closely resembles a scientific academic/publication.

I could be wrong.

If we decide we could live with Option 1 or Option 4 as I describe it
above, then I would recommend putting together a group of editors that
would specifically care for scientific/academic article submission and
publication. They could work under the direction of the main journal
editor. I think Option 1 means we leave in the annual report issue and
the issue focused on the conference.

I will plan on staying involved at some level no matter what way we
move forward, as I enjoy writing and editing. :]

Maybe it is time for an informal tally? Should we see which option
people would put their weight behind?

Landon

On Thu, Oct 1, 2009 at 1:49 AM, Micha Silver <micha at arava.co.il> wrote:
> Rafal Wawer wrote:
>
> Hi Micha,
> But is the somewhat innertive way of the hitherto development of the journal
> encouraging enough for the authors? So far I put texts on 2 news and 1
> event, reviewed 1 paper and I cannot see ANY of these published. I do not
> mean to critisize, as we are all contributing volontairly, but to make
> authors and others involved not to feel wasting the time, the Journal needs
> IMO clear goals, strategy and time schedule. So to have the problem of huge
> number of scientific papers coming, the Journal should be nicely organized
> and fluent in its work first. (-;
>
> Yes, that's exactly what I mean.
>
> When the author announces an OSS event in the news or events sections -
> ususally some 4-6 months in advance; it should appear early enough for the
> readers to be able to act.
>
> Indeed.
>
> The quesiton is - will the input be that big at the beginning? I rather
> doubt it, so maybe it would be better not to set up number of issues a year
> but to issue numbers when they fill certain "volume", as I think it was done
> before.  Is it what you meant Micha?
>
> If I'm not mistaken, we've had in the past situations with a backlog of a
> few articles that did not appear in a timely manner, only because the
> Journal was a bit slow in coming out. I'd rather like to reach 4 issues a
> year, even if each is small at the beginning.  Then if/when the demand grows
> and depending on editors time we make decisions along the way.
>
> In that case it would be rater a magazine, "self-organizing" its actual
> content, occassionaly scientific. When number of scientific papers will grow
> above our review capacity, we will worry then. (-; Looking at the 2007 vol2
> issue I would keep that structure, adding a chapter for purely scientific
> content.
>
> Fine.
>
>  Regardless of the final setup I propose to change the name to something
> like "Journal of Open (Source) Geomatics" as more descriptive for the
> non-OSGeo audience.
>
> I'd remove the parentheses.
> Regards,
> Micha
>
>
> Regarding JOSIS. After all, the authors are free to choose the jurnal they
> publish in - should we choose for them? At this point JOSIS has starting
> position and no IF, as the journal of OSGeo. On the other hand however
> publishing papers related to FOSS4G in JOSIS could also raise awareness in
> the wider spatial community about the usability of OSS.
>
> Best regards:
> Raf
>
>
> Dr. Rafal Wawer
> K.U.Leuven
> R&D Division SADL (Spatial Application Division)
> Celestijnenlaan 200e bus 2224
> BE-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
> Belgium
> tel. 0032 16 329731
>
> ________________________________
> From: newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> [mailto:newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Micha Silver
> Sent: 01 October 2009 09:22
> To: Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)
> Cc: newsletter at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Journal] Next steps
>
> Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
>
> Hi all, good discussion, thanks.
> It seems that some of you are more familiar with the JOSIS work - how do you
> know about it?  I don't see much on their site to help me understand how
> much they have published or how active they are.  So I'm ambivalent about it
> at present.  I loko at their current and archive pages and only see a couple
> articles in total.  Where is the meat?
> Most of the encouraging increased interest shown in an OSGeo Journal has
> been around the scientific and peer review side - so I'm starting to get
> mixed messages.  We were agreeing to not make it simply a newsletter for
> internal OSGeo stuff but to raise the bar and focus as much as possible on
> articles that, it seems to me, would be moved to JOSIS.  Or are some
> proposing we do something collaborative rather than exclusive?
> Sorry, I'm just not clear on how past discussions fit into the JOSIS ideas.
> Please help me understand your confidence in their approach.  I'm all for
> sharing our content with other journals where fit. I'm also very interested
> in trying out a newer magazine style - but I digress...
>
>
> Since the Journal has been somewhat in the doldrums recently, I think the
> best approach is to just continue putting out issues in more or less the
> same format that has been used so far (but at shorter and more predictable
> intervals). When requests for publishing technical articles and for peer
> review start flowing in faster than the editors can handle, then we can
> consider splitting, or "outsourcing" to JOSIS.
> The original GRASS newsletter grew into the current journal as a kind of
> natural upgrade, with the establishment of OSGeo. The next step up to a more
> professional journal should also become obvious as more articles are
> submitted covering more areas in greater depth.
> --
> Micha
>
> Tyler
> "Suchith Anand" <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> I can contact JOSIS team to explore the possibility of having special
>
>
> issues on
>
>
> Open Source GIS from selection of scientific articles of OSGeo conferences
>
>
> and
>
>
> other events. The editors (2-3) for each special issue will be experts
>
>
> from
>
>
> OSGeo and will be different for each special issue (so there will be
> distribution of workload).
>
> Tyler, please let know your thoughts.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Suchith
>
> Dr Suchith Anand
> Centre for Geospatial Science
> Sir Clive Granger Building
> University of Nottingham
> Tel: (0)115 846 8408
> http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/cgs_suchith_anand.html
>
>
> <https://owa.nottingham.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/cgs_suchith_anand.html>
>
>
> http://www.opensourcegis.org.uk/
>
>
> <https://owa.nottingham.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.opensourcegis.org.uk/>
>
>
> http://ica-opensource.scg.ulaval.ca/
>
>
> <https://owa.nottingham.ac.uk/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://ica-opensource.scg.ulaval.ca/>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of Sunburned Surveyor
> Sent: Wed 30/09/2009 15:33
> To: newsletter at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Journal] Next steps
> Dan wrote: "I see this as a bit of an extreme option, but something
> that might be worth considering..."
> I don't think it is an extreme option at all, but sounds quite
> reasonable. We can steer our scientific articles to JOSIS, which will
> allow us to streamline (and possibly speed up) the production of the
> OSGeo Journal.
> This option wouldn't mean we couldn't have good peer review as part of
> our publication process in the Journal, but we could run it more like
> a traditional newsletter or magazine.
> Do we already have a good contact with the JOSIS team that could be
> used to explore this idea further?
> Landon
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 2:55 AM, Suchith Anand
> <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> I think this is good idea . In fact, i am exploring the possibility of a
> special issue of JOSIS based on selected full papers for next year's
>
>
> OSGIS
>
>
> 2010 conference. I think OSGeo should explore possibility of having
> dedicated special issues in key Geospatial journals of selection of full
> papers submitted to FOSS4G conferences and JOSIS is a good starting
>
>
> point.
>
>
> Best wishes,
> Suchith
> Dr Suchith Anand
> Centre for Geospatial Science
> Sir Clive Granger Building
> University of Nottingham
> Tel: (0)115 846 8408
> http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cgs/cgs_suchith_anand.html
> http://www.opensourcegis.org.uk/
> http://ica-opensource.scg.ulaval.ca/
> ________________________________
> From: newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org on behalf of Rafal Wawer
> Sent: Wed 30/09/2009 09:31
> To: Daniel P. Ames
> Cc: newsletter at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: RE: [Journal] Next steps
> Interesting idea Dan,
> It would consolidate efford and as the JOSIS is already a while on the
>
>
> stage
>
>
> it could attract more authors.. I guess. On the other hand the
>
>
> publications
>
>
> on FOSS4G may dissolve in overall spatial pot, next to papers on
> proprietary solutions (-;
> The future journal of OSGeo, we were discussing about, is to be seen as
> addressing all the aspects of FOSS4G: news, events, scientific papers,
> applications, education, etc. Personally - it is what I would like to
>
>
> have
>
>
> as a reader... but my background is also scientific. For ICT specialists
>
>
> as
>
>
> well as for GI experts and users the scientific content may not be that
> important.
> Certainly Dan's idea is worth considering!
> What I like in the setup of JOSIS is the mechanizm fo discussions on
> submitted papers. Nice idea to have it along with the review and not as
> usuall - after publishing.
> Best regards:
> RAf
> Dr. Rafal Wawer
> K.U.Leuven
> R&D Division SADL (Spatial Application Division)
> Celestijnenlaan 200e bus 2224
> BE-3001 Leuven-Heverlee
> Belgium
> tel. 0032 16 329731
> ________________________________
> From: newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
> [mailto:newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Daniel P. Ames
> Sent: 30 September 2009 08:14
> To: Barry Rowlingson
> Cc: Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo); newsletter at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Journal] Next steps
> Barry, I'm glad you mentioned JOSIS. I was about to comment on this
>
>
> myself,
>
>
> and you beat me to it! These folks have some ideals that are fairly well
> aligned with OSGeo ideals and it would be nice to support them. I suppose
> there are a couple of ways to do that. One is to contact them about some
> kind of a merger whereby JOSIS accepts some OSGeo people as board members
> and in return OSGeo adopts JOSIS as it's officially sanctioned outlet for
> research publication. I see this as a bit of an extreme option, but
> something that might be worth considering... - Dan
> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 9:29 AM, Barry Rowlingson
> <b.rowlingson at lancaster.ac.uk> wrote:
>
>
> Has everyone else seen JOSIS:
> http://josis.org/index.php/josis/index
> it seems to be run on volunteer effort, and needs 3 editors-in-chief
> and a whole load of luminaries on the editorial board. Plus
> who-knows-how-many reviewers (they just got one more).
> They're also using OJS for journal management, and seem to have open
> comments on pre-published articles.
>  They don't seem to say how often they publish an issue though.
> Perhaps these days the concept of an 'issue' is becoming meaningless,
> and articles should just be published when the editor gets the reviews
> and gives the okay? Click a button and there it is in everyone's RSS
> feed.
> Barry
> _______________________________________________
> newsletter mailing list
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>
>
> --
> Daniel P. Ames
> ----------------------------------
> www.danames.org
> dpames at gmail.com
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