FOSS4G Notes on Academic Track

Comments from Venka on Academic Track

Academic Chair

• Recruit an Academic Chair (and co-Chair) who will manage the AT in interaction with the AT Committee
• Have a dedicated mailing list for the AT committee to interact regarding selection of presentations and organization of the AT.
• Make sure that the Academic Chair and co-Chair are physically present at the FOSS4G event to ensure smooth conduct of the AT sessions and also selection of presentations for OSGeo student awards.
• Academic chair must also ensure that AT session chairs are selected well in advance.

Presentations, Evaluations, and Student Awards

• Beyond the review of the papers, the actual presentations should also be reviewed at the conference.
• Request that the Program Committee schedule the presentations and poster session *before* the last day of the conference, so that the committee has time to summarize their evaluations.
• Provide evaluation form to the AT session chairs, to evaluate each presentation and give their recommendation for the student award and for publication in academic journals subsequent to the conference.
• Have the conference staff collect the AT evaluation forms and hand over to AT Chair or co-Chair for selection of presentation for student award and journal publication.
• Have the AT Chair organize a student awards selection committee comprising of AT session chairs and have the committee come up with the names of awardee at least one hour before the student awards ceremony.
• Ensure that the AT Chair or co-Chair interact with the LOC to get high-quality certificates for the student awards and get it signed by the Conference Chair and OSGeo President at least 30 minutes before the awards distribution ceremony.
• Interact with the LOC during the event and arrange for the cash prize for the OSGeo Student award to put in an nice envelope with the OSGeo logo before handing it to the winning student.

Paper Publication

• Have the AT Chair and co-Chair take up the publication of a digital AT Proceedings based on full paper submission. Having a full paper published in the AT proceedings is important for students and generally AT presenters.
• Have the AT Chair and/or co-Chair arrange for selected AT papers to be published in peer-reviewed journals within 6-8 months. The sample copies of journal are displayed at the next FOSS4G event. (BTW, selected papers from AT at FOSS4G-2015 were published in multiple issues of the "Spatial Information Research" and sample copies were displayed and distributed at FOSS4G-2016).

Poster Presentations

• Have more poster presentations. Poster presentations only require only a panel to mount the poster. Larger numbers of posters would ensure that we will need to reject fewer presentation for lack of time. In a conference with 900 participants at a big convention center, the poster session could easily accommodate 40-50 posters.
• Ensure that there is a "core time" for the poster session when the poster presenters are available in front of their posters to answer questions.
• Also, have a Poster Session Chair/co-Chair to assist in the conduct of the poster session and also provide evaluation of posters for OSGeo Student Poster Award.