FOSS4G2008 Workshops

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Introduction
The FOSS4G2008 Workshop Committee is responsible for the organization of both Workshops and Labs. Workshops are 3-hour classroom sessions, and Labs are 90-minute classes. The committee reports to the FOSS4G2008 Conference Committee.

FOSS4G Workshop Committee Members

 * Burnie Nawn (Coordinator)
 * [Gavin Flemming]
 * Graeme McFerren
 * Dave Patton (chair)
 * Jeff McKenna

Next Committee Meeting
The date/time for the next meeting is tentative
 * date: 2007/09/05
 * time: To be confirmed[]
 * meeting will be via
 * Agenda:

List of workshop submissions
[]

Criteria used by the workshop committee to review workshop submissions

 * 1) meets conference mandate:
 * 2) matches with the themes of the conference
 * 3) makes use of software that is both "free" and "open source"
 * 4) submission's technical requirements can be met by the conference facilities
 * 5) likelyhood of a quality workshop:
 * 6) successful workshop presented at prior FOSS4G conference
 * 7) expertise of the workshop presenter in the workshop subject matter
 * 8) any relevant input from workshop evaluations collected by FOSS4G2006, or personal experience of workshops presented by the presenter(s) at other conferences
 * 9) demonstrates practical applications
 * 10) expected level of interest in the workshop topic

Scoring
The range of scores to be used is 0 through 5: 0 = does not meet any of the criteria 1 = barely meets some of the criteria, and doesn't meet some of the criteria 3 = average 5 = meets or exceeds all of the criteria The goal is to end up with a score in the range of 0-5 for the workshop. Two ways to do the scoring:
 * 1) Use the provided spreadsheet, which allows for a score for each criterion. Divide the "Total Score" by 4 to get the 'score for the workshop'. Doing it this way makes it easy to see any workshops that received a zero for any criterion. Despite the 'total score', workshops that have a zero score for any criterion deserve further examination as to their suitability for the conference.
 * 2) Use the provided spreadsheet, but just assign an overall score of 0-5 for the workshop. If, as part of doing this, you think a workshop would score zero on any criterion, make a note, and bring it up in the discussions, because workshops that have a zero score for any criterion deserve further examination as to their suitability for the conference.

Workshops Notes
Note: Some of the information below is out of date.

Workshop Duration and Scheduling
http://conference.osgeo.org/index.php/foss4g/2008/schedConf/program

and

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_2008_Programme

So, 6 workshops (3-4 hours) and 20 labs (1.5 hours) are planned for. Most submitted proposals are for workshops as opposed to labs (by 27 to 16). FOSS4G2007 had 12 workshops and 16 labs. That seems more sensible. So, what are the options, considering that the conference as a package doesn't really allow for swapping of labs and workshops?
 * We can up the workshops to 8 by holding evening sessions (will attendees come? would it be unfair to make these slots for deeply technical content, e.g. coding?), but that may still not be enough.
 * We can break up Venue2 into 2 smaller venues and run a workshop parallel to the 2 lab threads. This means that 25% less people can attend. With evening slots, this would bring workshops up to 13
 * We can try for offsite venues
 * Centre for High Performance Computing
 * City of Cape Town GIS Lab
 * UCT Geomatics Lab
 * We can try to a secure slightly bigger second venue to be split

Questions for Organising Committee

 * Number and dimension of rooms, tables (how many PCs /people can we fit in a room)
 * Venue 1 is Roof Terrace and can hold 100 people
 * Venue 2 is Room 1.40 and can hold 96 people
 * Venue 2 can be split into two rooms holding 24 people each (reduced config apparently due to strict fire and building regulations).


 * Can the Workshops and labs be themed?
 * With only two (maybe three venues) it is tricky - perhaps into 1) Desktop GIS and Analysis, 2) Internet GIS

Feedback from Past Conferences (things to note)

 * overcrowded workshops are bad
 * registrants could possibly list their "top 4" workshop selections
 * LiveCD for linux workshops very successful
 * grouping workshops by room "theme" successful (MapServer room, GRASS room, ...)
 * foss4g2006 workshops wiki : http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Foss4g2006_wks
 * foss4g2006 workshops rooms : http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/FOSS4G2006#Rooms
 * foss4g2006 number of attendees per workshop : http://www.foss4g2006.org/site/pdf/WksNbOfAttendees.pdf