[Journal] [Fwd: Re: Next steps]

Thu Sep 24 14:39:16 EDT 2009

Too many great ideas this week ;-) !

Originally we started as a "newsletter" for the OSGeo community.  It
think no one will argue about continuing to move away from that toward
something more substantial.  We keep some ties back to OSGeo for news,
updates, etc.  

The Annual Report is certainly a special issue - but if OSGeo Journal is
an official journal of OSGeo, then having it publish the annual report
makes sense and is similar to other Journals I've seen.  Or maybe I'm
just thinking of magazines.  

I also really really need help compiling it, so appreciate any editors
that like to help there too.  The point is, I have to personally take 3+
months to compile it - during that time there will be no other Journal
published anyway and I don't want us all to drift away and forget just
because the less interesting Annual Report is on the table.

That said, don't worry about Annual Report we can push it around and
make it as visible/invisible as needed.  E.g. create a separate system
instance for it so it does not appear under the "Journal" banner.  

Which leads me to consider Rafal's question about the title of the
Journal.  Currently: "OSGeo Journal - The Official Journal of the Open
Source Geospatial Foundation".  Yes, that is now too limiting in my
opinion too.   Thank you for not being afraid to bring up the point :)

I'll go and start a couple more threads so we can keep the thoughts
focused... stay tuned!

Tyler

On Thu, 2009-09-24 at 11:38 +0200, Rafal Wawer wrote: 
> +1 for all idea from Dimitris :)
> 
> Room for scientific content: algorithms, scientific case studies, validation, etc.
> Room for applications: real life case studies, eGovernment (a huge market next door, growing in Europe)
> Room for theoretical papers on the development
> Room for the market analyses
> Room for texts on education (4 eg. Van Orshoven, J.,  Wawer R. and Duytschaever K., 2009. Effectiveness of a train-the-trainer initiative dealing with free and open source software for geomatics.) 
> Room for news and events (announcements and post-reports)
> Invited papers
> Books' review
> 
> Annual Report further away - maybe in some kind of sub-issue. (?) 
> BTW is the name "OSGeo journal" descriptive enough? Does it say what the journal is about? Just speculating (-; Maybe something like "(Global) Journal on Open Source Geomatics"? Then the Annual Report along with the announcements could stay within OSGeo Journal, as it was 
> (-:
> 
> 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
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:newsletter-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Jacolin Yves
> Sent: 24 September 2009 10:13
> To: newsletter at lists.osgeo.org
> Cc: Dimitris Kotzinos
> Subject: Re: [Journal] [Fwd: Re: Next steps]
> 
> Le Thursday 24 September 2009 10:07:45 Dimitris Kotzinos, vous avez écrit :
> > Hi Tyler, all
> >
> > i think that the discussion is reaching an interesting point, and this 
> > is in my opinion the character that we want the Journal to have. I 
> > will put forward my opinion on that but before I would like to comment 
> > on the number of issues / timing matter:
> > I think that we should be a bit careful and pragmatic. I think that 
> > going from one issue (or even none if we do not count the Annual 
> > Report, and I think that we should not) to 4 issues per year is a 
> > giant step forward and we should make sure before that we can support 
> > it. As far as I know and understand I think that 4 issues is a really 
> > tough issue to handle as we are at the moment.
> >
> > So back to the Journal's character:
> > I think that the Journal's character and scope should cover as much as 
> > possible the needs of the community but not all of them at once and 
> > should be able to bring new people into the crowd.
> > So I do not agree for example that the basic aim of the journal should 
> > be to disseminate news and release information about the OSGeo Projects.
> > All projects have associated web sites and even blogs that do the 
> > dissemination job properly, so in that sense my question is: what is 
> > the added value that one would find in a Journal like that beyond 
> > project news (please do not misunderstand me: I think that we still 
> > need to disseminate project news but this cannot be our core idea).
> >
> > So I suggest that we have in each issue:
> > - one invited vision paper (that could be the issue theme)
> > - a sub-issue dedicated to academics with different ISSN and a review 
> > committee so as to eventually make it a respectable scientific journal
> > - the rest as they are, but a bit more "edited" to comply with the 
> > general idea
> > - we should also disconnect the Annual Report from the Journal (or 
> > just have it as an annual special issue every March) I won't elaborate 
> > more but this suggestion brings some work to the journal's committee 
> > already so I would like to be more careful towards how much we ask.
> >
> > But I think that the discussion on what kind of journal we want is a 
> > crucial one.
> >
> > Sorry for the e-mail's length,
> >
> > Dimitris
> Hello,
> 
> +1 for all idea from Dimitris :)
> 
> share case studies, point of view, etc are "better" that release info :)
> 
> Y.
> --
> Yves Jacolin
> 
> Ne demandez pas si vous pouvez contribuer, contribuez ! :)
> ---
> http://softlibre.gloobe.org
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