[Journal] Next steps

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Thanks for weighing in Landon.
I'm interested in #1 for short term and #2 for longer term, assuming success
of #1 in an efficient way.  

As Rafal pointed out earlier.. it's one thing to have a set of articles,
that take a month or two to get published, but if we are also handling
news/announcements, they tend to get stale and languish.  So I expect we'd
handle those slightly differently even under the 1st scenario - giving them
a bit of a different schedule at least.

Tyler

"Sunburned Surveyor" <sunburned.surveyor at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> --
>> Daniel P. Ames
>> ----------------------------------
>> www.danames.org
>> dpames at gmail.com
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