[Journal] OSGEO journal
Christian Willmes
c.willmes at uni-koeln.de
Fri Nov 27 02:06:50 PST 2015
Thank you Helena and Landon for your encouragement.
I don't want to take over the Journal and replace existing volunteers,
but I would step up as a co-editor and take a defined set of
responsibilities.
I am working in academia, so I would like to work on the academic side
of the Journal. Additionally I would also help on the infrastructure side.
I could think of a team of co-editors, each co-editor responsible for a
defined set of responsibilities and according section of the Journal.
I think Landon and Dimitris have kind of similar interest in the
newsletter and annual report like contents of the journal, so you could
team up to edit this part of the journal?
Barend has carried the academic track issues in the past and did a great
job on this. I would appreciate if he would continue this excellent
contribution?
Eli does a lot of the work that is not so much valued by people who
don't look behind the scenes, like copy editing or taking care of the
web infrastructure and general issues. He should be recognized for this
commitment and also be named co-editor.
I would see the editor team right now like this:
- Landon and Dimitris: Newsletter style content and annual reports
- Barend (and maybe Franz-Josef): FOSS4G Academic Track
- Eli: Production Editor and web infrastructure
- Me (and maybe Helena and/or Venka and/or Charlie): Regular Academic
Content
I think if we would define the responsibilities and then share them on a
team of many co-editors would be a good approach to lessen the workload
on each co-editor and reactivate the OSGeo Journal.
Best regards,
Christian
Am 23.11.2015 um 20:03 schrieb Helena Mitasova:
> Christian
>
> - I am very much in support of your ideas. It may be useful to post
> this vision on the geo4all and osgeo discuss list. I am sure there
> will be volunteers willing to help out or at least encourage
> contributions and reviews. This would also help to coordinate with
> other publishing ideas such as the one proposed by Charlie focusing on
> peer reviewed educational material (which would be interesting niche
> that nobody has done so far - we could have one of the issues focused
> on that topic).
>
> Helena
>
> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 1:29 PM, Christian Willmes
> <c.willmes at uni-koeln.de <mailto:c.willmes at uni-koeln.de>> wrote:
>
> Dear Dimitris,
>
> its great to hear, that you are also interested in working on the
> OSGeo Journal.
>
> Regarding your proposal and ideas, I see the OSGeo Journal more as
> an academic journal, just look at the history of published issues
> [1]. Five academic tracks proceedings, I did not counted the
> single academic papers, but it will amount to 30-40 papers I think.
> I am in favour to also have community reports, if they are
> provided (what was not abundantly the case in the past either).
>
> But here is my analysis of and vision for the Journal.
>
> First, the Journal has failed to build enough academic merit, that
> researchers seriously consider to submit their work to the Journal.
> Second, the articles about community activities need to be
> published and circulated within short time spans after that
> activity/event, thus a longer editing and publication process as
> inevitable for a peer-reviewed Journal is not suitable. Thus,
> these posts are ending up on blogs and also on the wiki. And I
> actually think, that this is the better forum for this kind of
> content, including lots of photos, web links and also videos, etc..
>
> So, I would suggest to keep the journal more in an academic
> direction, and try to build merit, so that researchers start to
> reconsider submitting to the OSGeo journal. One big point in this
> is, that the Journal should be the default publication for FOSS4G
> academic track contributions. Of course, attracting academics with
> the possibility of publications in a higher ranking journal like
> Transactions in GIS in the past, for some few best submissions
> each year should be also the case in the future as a major
> attractor for academics. This practice would also yield more
> submissions to be published in the OSGeo Journal.
>
> I think the OSGeo Journal can and should take a niche, that is not
> really occupied in the Journal landscape yet. That is, articles
> presenting OSGeo Projects, including software architecture,
> licensing model, road maps, overview of dev community, etc. and of
> course case studies that focus on the application of OSGeo
> projects in education, in public sector, for development work, in
> industry etc.. These papers do not have to meet the highest
> academic standards, they primarily have the function to highlight
> OSGeo projects and to provide citable works on these OSGeo
> Projects. The submission of papers should be generally open to
> everyone, no prerequisites (like acad. degrees or something)
> whatsoever.
>
> Of course, a section on reposts from events etc. can and should
> also be maintained. I would suggest that we have at first one
> Issue per year (additionally to the FOSS4G academic track) that is
> open from the beginning of a year to the end, and adds
> submissions, as soon as they are reviewed and edited to this
> issue. Its no problem if there are at first very few papers in an
> issue, it is more important, that we start to publish again. We
> should keep it as simple as possible, not overarching criteria,
> such as themes etc.. The only important criteria should be, that
> it has something to do with OSGeo. Quality and validity is checked
> and if needed improved during the review process.
>
> So, I would like to volunteer for a Journal in that direction.
> I am open to other directions, but prefer the above depicted agenda.
>
> Regards,
> Christian
>
> [1] https://journal.osgeo.org/index.php/journal
>
> Am 21.11.2015 um 10:08 schrieb Dimitris Kotzinos:
>
> Dear all,
>
> I was involved in the past in the OSGEO Journal and even worked as
> section editor at times.
> One problem that the journal has and will keep having is that
> it is
> based strictly in volunteer time which is in many cases
> unpredictable
> and usually not constant. The only solution I have seen in any
> open
> source project around this, is to build a team of volunteers
> so that the
> work is shared and to be flexible around the deadlines.
> So if we are some I would also offer to be involved into the
> process. I
> think that for me it would be better to be involved in
> organizing the
> process, making the calls and do less on the technical work
> (which I see
> that Christian and Eli might like more). But of course 3
> people are not
> enough to make sure that we can sustain the Journal
> publication in a
> timely manner.
>
> Given that I am also reiterating a proposal submitted back in
> 2012 [1]
> but did not receive much attention or reaction at that moment.
> There I
> share some ideas of how to share responsibilities and how to
> structure
> the journal. If you want we can use this as a starting point
> for the
> discussion and feel free to edit along!
>
> Note also that this would be kept as a foundation Journal and
> not a
> scientific journal where we focus on activities within the
> foundation,
> the local/regional chapters and the various kinds of events
> and their
> results. We can further discuss if we would like to create an
> additional
> Academic/Scientific Journal with the colleagues who are
> involved in the
> Geo4All activity.
>
> Finally, thanks to Landon for pushing the carriage for many
> years; the
> editor's job is quite lonely and sometimes also frustrating! :)
>
> My 2c,
>
> Dimitris
>
> [1] https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/A_proposal_for_the_OSGeo_Journal
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>
> --
> Christian Willmes
> AG GIS & Fernerkundung | GIS & RS Group
> Geographisches Institut | Institute of Geography
> Universität zu Köln | University of Cologne
> Tel.: +49 (0)221 470 6234 <tel:%2B49%20%280%29221%20470%206234>
> http://www.geographie.uni-koeln.de/willmes-christian.695.en.html
> http://www.sfb806.de
> http://crc806db.uni-koeln.de
>
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>
>
>
> --
> Helena Mitasova
> Professor
> Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
> North Carolina State University
> 1125 Jordan Hall
> NCSU Box 8208
> Raleigh, NC 27695-8208
> http://www4.ncsu.edu/~hmitaso/ <http://www4.ncsu.edu/%7Ehmitaso/>
> http://geospatial.ncsu.edu/
>
> email: hmitaso at ncsu.edu <mailto:hmitaso at ncsu.edu>
> ph: 919-513-1327 (no voicemail)
> fax 919 515-7802
--
Christian Willmes
AG GIS & Fernerkundung | GIS & RS Group
Geographisches Institut | Institute of Geography
Universität zu Köln | University of Cologne
Tel.: +49 (0)221 470 6234
http://www.geographie.uni-koeln.de/willmes-christian.695.en.html
http://www.sfb806.de
http://crc806db.uni-koeln.de
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