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
- Aaron Racicot
- Dave Patton (chair)
- David Percy
- Jason Birch
- Jeff McKenna
- Jody Garnett
- Perry Nacionales
Next Committee Meeting
The date/time for the next meeting is tentative
- date: 2007/09/05
- time: 10:00AM PDT
- meeting will be via Conference Call
- Agenda:
Previous Committee Meetings
List of workshop submissions
FOSS4G2007_Workshop_Submissions
Criteria used by the workshop committee to review workshop submissions
- meets conference mandate:
- matches with the themes of the conference
- makes use of software that is both "free" and "open source"
- submission's technical requirements can be met by the conference facilities
- likelyhood of a quality workshop:
- successful workshop presented at prior FOSS4G conference
- expertise of the workshop presenter in the workshop subject matter
- any relevant input from workshop evaluations collected by FOSS4G2006, or personal experience of workshops presented by the presenter(s) at other conferences
- demonstrates practical applications
- 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:
- 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.
- 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.
Timetable for workshop submissions review process
A private mailing list ("the list") was setup March 7, 2007 for use by the workshop committee.
- March 7 to 11
- on the list, discussions about the review process
- all committee members review the documents and get familiar with the workshop submissions
- March 12
- IRC meeting to finalize review criteria and the 'scoring' system
- committee members start 'scoring' the workshops listed in the "FOSS4G2007 Workshop Submissions-Half Day" spreadsheet
- March 15, midnight PDT
- deadline for committee members to provide their 'score' for each of the half-day workshops
- March 16
- committee chair creates a summary spreadsheet of the half-day workshop submissions showing each committee member's score for each workshop, and a cumulative 'total score', with the worksheet sorted by 'total score', and make that spreadsheet available to the committee members via Google Docs
- committee members start 'scoring' the workshops in the "FOSS4G2007 Workshop Submissions-90-Minute" spreadsheet
- start discussions, if needed, to adjust the ranked list of half-day workshops
- March 18, midnight PDT
- deadline for committee members to provide their 'score' for each of the 90-minute workshops
- March 19
- committee chair creates a summary spreadsheet of the 90-minute workshop submissions showing each committee member's score for each workshop, and a cumulative 'total score', with the worksheet sorted by 'total score', and make that spreadsheet available to the committee members via Google Docs
- start discussions, if needed, to adjust the ranked list of 90-minute workshops
- March 20, noon PDT
- final deadline for any 'tweaking' of the ranked lists of the half-day and 90-minute workshop submissions
- committee chair prepares the final versions of the relevant documents/spreadsheets, which will be forwarded to the conference organizing committee so they have time to review before their meeting on March 22nd
Workshops Notes
Note: Some of the information below is out of date.
Workshop Duration and Scheduling
http://www.foss4g2007.org/program_overview.html
Hardware
- 40 computers in the rental budget
- another 20 slated as loaners from Nanaimo
- other options? (bring-your-own etc.)
Room Availability
?
Software Installation
- LiveCD for Linux
- MS4W installer for Windows
- other?
- attendees come with laptops and software installed?
Other
- local person to deal with venue's tech staff?
Questions for Organising Committee
- Number and dimension of rooms, tables (how many PCs /people can we fit in a room)
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