[Journal] OSGEO journal

Mon Nov 30 15:07:02 PST 2015

On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 12:53 PM, Christian Willmes
<c.willmes at uni-koeln.de> wrote:
> Thank you Venka for your forward directed comments. Some comments inline:
>
> On 29.11.2015 01:12, Venkatesh Raghavan wrote:
>>
>>
>> +1 from my side too. Perhaps it could be better to summarize this thread
>> as a wiki-page and
>> post the links to the OSGeo-Discuss and Geo4All MLs for others to add
>> their suggestions and views.
>>
> Yes, I think, as soon we have settled some basic structure here, we do this
> wiki page? I can come up with an extended version of the proposal I posted
> on friday to this list?
>
>> We could consider have a Editor-in Chief and a associate editors for
>> New-Letter section, OSGeo Journal Academic Track Issue and Educational
>> Material
>> (including conference workshop material). I would also suggest that we
>> have a Editorial
>> Board and request members who are  regularly associated with
>> organization of Academic Track
>> at FOSS4G conferences to be members and help arrange review of papers
>> etc..
>>
> That are very good points. According the editor in Chief, I think too there
> should be someone who oversees all the activities within the Journal and can
> adjust if needed. As soon we settled the structure, we can find volunteers
> who take responsibility of a section, then one of these section editors (or
> an additional person) could be editor in Chief. But the formality to do this
> is not clear to me right now. Is there something like a regular election
> cycle of the committee chair?

The default OSGeo committee guidelines are these,
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Committee_Guidelines.  Committees can
establish additional guidelines for how they operate.  I don't think
that the Journal has established any other guidelines (other than
those surrounding the specifics of academic article review processes).

Chairs are typically in place until they resign or someone else offers
to do it.  Landon has been the Editor since Tyler left.  I think that
default makes him the Committee Chair too.  If anyone wants to be
Editor or Committee Chair, I think that Landon would be willing to let
someone else have a turn.

Once we sort all of this out, we might want to pass a motion that
formalizes it and also update any web/wiki pages with the current
information.

Best regards, Eli

>
>> OSGeo Journal could be one of the options (not necessarily the default,
>> we could leave that
>> to the Academic Chairs at FOSS4G conferences to decide) for publication
>> of Academic Track
>> full papers and the authors could be provided with an option to choose
>> if they prefer. Enhancing
>> the academic merit of OSGeo Journal through listing in indexing services
>> etc. would require efforts
>> that needed to be pursued.
>>
> Yes. Good idea.
>
>> I am +1 for making it mandatory for academic track presenters to submit
>> papers that could be
>> published as and OSGeo Journal's Academic Track Proceedings. Proceeding
>> papers are
>> also helpful in selecting papers for subsequent Journal issue as they
>> provide more details of
>> the work done as compared to short abstracts.
>>
> Very good, +1.
>
>> We could also tap in to our regional conferences to publish special
>> issues of papers presented
>> there.
>>
> Yes, I thought of the regional conferences too, that would be very good, to
> have also contributions from these events.
>
> Christian
>
>
>
>> Best
>>
>> Venka
>>
>>>
>>> Helena
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 1:29 PM, Christian
>>> Willmes<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
>>>> http://www.geographie.uni-koeln.de/willmes-christian.695.en.html
>>>> http://www.sfb806.de
>>>> http://crc806db.uni-koeln.de
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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