IGC2008


 * Event Owner User:Daoane

IEI-20 Free and open source geospatial software: applications in Earth Sciences and recent development
An immense amount of spatial data are collected by earth-scientists every year, e.g. geophysical investigations, remotely sensed data and information acquired during field-work. This information has to be stored, interpreted and, ideally, published and shared within the Earth Sciences community. To tackle this challenge without the help of dedicated geospatial software and networks is unthinkable. Unfortunately, proprietary software-solutions tend to be expensive or downright unaffordable for scientific institutions, particularly in less developed countries and data sharing is impeded by proprietary formats. However, during the last two decades several alternative software packages were developed in the open-source community and are available for free. The functionality of these highly flexible software solutions includes, amongst others, classical GIS and remote sensing task, virtual reality and geospatial data storage and sharing. Furthermore, the open source nature of the software allows for peer review of the programme code and therewith a good understanding of the processes operating on the users' data. This symposium attempted to provide a forum to present and discuss all aspects of scientific work in Earth Sciences which utilises and/or is related to free and open-source geospatial software. Its main intention was to make the geoscientific community aware of the diversity, power and advantages of free and open source geospatial software and to attract new users.

Although the session got only 9 contibutions (5 oral and 4 poster presentations; 2 were cancelled), the authors represented the whole width of the open source community with affiliations at universities, public service, research institutes, industry and high school. Equally broad were the topics of the presentations, covering latest free and open source software development, its use in research, outreach and teaching and spatial data infrastructure, e.g. spatial data storage and its publication and sharing via internet. Surprisingly large was the interest in the session and the audience was about 90-100 people during Paul Wessel's talk about the Generic Mapping Tools. The apprehension that the audience would disperse in the break due to the cancelled talks did not become true and a lively discussion developed about free and open source geospatial software in general and its utilization for geology in particular. The relatively good attendance and a poll to the audience which indicated that only about 20% of the attendees were activily using free and open source software shows that session has been successful and our intention has been achieved.

Geoscience Information Super-Session at the 33rd IGC Geoscience World Congress 2008
The Geoscience Information Super-Session has been proposed to and accepted by the organizers of the 33rd Geoscience World Congress 2008 (IGC 2008) http://www.33igc.org/ (6th to 14th August 2008 in Oslo, Norway). This symposium is intended to cover all aspects of geoscience information in four parallel sessions which will last three days.

Two OSGeo-related sessions have been proposed to the topical symposium. One has been included in the framework of the symposium, the other is a possible amendment if interest (number of submitted abstracts) is large enough. The success of both sessions is strongly dependent on participation from the OSGeo community. The IGC will bring together 8000+ geoscientists from all over the world and be an outstanding opportunity to present your OSGeo related work.

For up-to-date details about the congress and abstract submission see http://www.33igc.org/). Don't forget to specify the OSGeo sessions (IEI-20) on your abstract submission :)

Postponed abstract deadline Friday 7th March 2008!

GFOSS Session
Included as 4.3 in the framework (see below).

Title: Free and open-source geospatial software: applications in Earth Sciences and recent development.

Description: An immense amount of spatial data is collected by earth-scientists every year, including information collected during field-work, geophysical and remotely sensed data, maps, etc. This information has to be stored, interpreted and, ideally, published and shared within the Earth Sciences community. To tackle this challenge without the help of dedicated geospatial software and networks is unthinkable. Unfortunately, proprietary software-solutions tend to be expensive or downright unaffordable for scientific institutions, particularly in less developed countries. However, during the last two decades several alternative software packages were developed in the open-source community and are now available for free. The functionality of these highly flexible software solutions includes, amongst others, classical GIS and remote sensing task, virtual reality and geospatial databases. This symposium attempts to provide a forum to present and discuss all aspects of scientific work in Earth Sciences which utilises and/or is related to free and open-source geospatial software.

Convenors (preliminary):

Henning Lorenz Department of Earth Sciences Uppsala University Villavägen 16 752 36 Uppsala Sweden e-mail: henning.lorenz AT geo.uu.se

and

Markus Neteler Fondazione Mach - Centro di Ecologia Alpina 38040 Viote del Monte Bondone (Trento) Italy http://www.cealp.it     e-mail: neteler AT osgeo.org

Contact: Henning Lorenz

Public Geodata Session (not implemented)
Title: The necessity of public geodata in research co-operation

Notes: Open access to geographic data - information available to use, re-use and redistribute without legal or financial constraints - is growing in importance in scientific and research communities. Open source software and open standards for data exchange and query are rapidly accelerating what can be achieved by sharing and recombining data more openly.

Within the Open Source Geospatial development community, simple protocols for data exchange, discovery and reuse are developed iteratively through the best practise of experts. Collaborative production of metadata models and ontology maps for different domains enable kinds of re-use and discovery that restore a spirit of research to data investigation. Academics and scientists may find striking new realisations once their data can be combined in as many different ways with as many different data sets as possible.

Public geodata is largely that whose collection and maintenance is paid for by the state. New technologies allow for a more distributed data truthing and gathering process by locals familiar with the terrain. Between the public domain model whose financial support is being threatened in the US; and the European model which has largely featured a proprietary, "cost-recovery" attitude towards data maintenance; there is a middle way. This symposium will look at methods for practically avoiding the negative effects on data availability and reuse that a proprietary, protective licensing policy towards geographic data may cause. It provides a forum to explore the barriers and facilitators around reuse of geographic information.

The symposium also effects to gauge interest within the geomatics community in establishing an precedent for Earth Sciences interoperability of data and standards across Europe. In the US, the Conservation Commons ( http://conservationcommons.org ) and Information Commons for Science ( http://informationcommonsforscience.org/ ) may be strong models to look forward to.

Framework for a Geoscience Information Super-Session
Overall coordination: Ian Jackson, John Broome and Udo Strauss

OP Opening Plenary Session (half day) Overall coordinators to Chair

GIS-S-CP Closing Wrap-up Plenary Session (quarter day) Session coordinators to facilitate

GIS-S-1 Session One: Data Capture and Acquisition Coordinator: Guy Buller

Possible Sub-Sessions:

GIS-S-2 Session Two: Information Management Coordinator: John Broome

Possible Sub-Sessions:

GIS-S-3 Session Three: Information Dissemination and Delivery Coordinator: Ian Jackson

Possible Sub-Sessions:

GIS-S-4 Session Four: Information Technology and Systems Coordinator: Udo Strauss

Possible Sub-Sessions:

GIS-S-5 Session Five: 3 and 4D modelling and visualisation Coordinator: Andy Howard

Possible Sub-Sessions:

GIS-S-6 Session Six: Short-Sharp-Share Coordinator: Harvey Thorleifson

For up-to-date details about the congress and abstract submission see http://www.33igc.org/). Don't forget to specify the OSGeo sessions on your abstract submission :)

--daoane 14:39, 16 April 2007 (CEST)