Journal
The OSGeo Journal is an open publication highlighting open source geospatial projects, software development, introductions to projects, news, event and other OSGeo Foundation updates.
This is the working page for the Journal project and its future editions. See the official OSGeo Journal homepage for links to the published journal and articles.
Journal Volume 6 is in preparation, and accepting article abstracts/proposals. Sign in on the Journal System site, register as an author and submit your articles there. An editor will be assigned and will follow up with your submission.
Peer Review
The Journal team has started to initiate peer review for most articles. Please note if you do not wish to go through peer review. This may limit your options for what section of the journal your article is published in.
Various formats for articles are accepted. The information below is for historical purposes and general guidelines - instead use and register at the OJS site to volunteer as a reviewer, editor or author.
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Content Sections and Editors
The Journal has several volunteers that collect, edit, format articles and design/proof layout. Because layout is currently done using LaTeX, more volunteers familiar with it are always appreciated. By having several editors and categories we spread the work out and reduce the overall load for each volunteer.
Editorial duties include:
- looking through submitted articles
- doing a brief review and perhaps fwd. them to another more experienced user/developer or other Reviewer
- asking certain projects to submit articles (for volumes covering one subject)
- check for layout errors, so that the final files can easily be merged with all other sections
- optionally converting content to LaTeX if needed
This is the typical outline for an edition:
| Section | Editor | Length | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editorial | Tyler Mitchell | 1/2 page | Written by Editor in Chief or invited guest |
| News | Jason Fournier | 1 page | Past 6 months or news items |
| Event Reports | Jeff McKenna | 750 words | Brief article about meetings/conferences |
| Project Introductions | Martin Wegmann | 1500 words | General introduction to one software project or particular new features of a project |
| Case Studies | Micha Silver | 1500 words | Highlighting specific application of technologies to a certain problem, user community or developer needs |
| Integration Studies | Martin Wegmann | 2500 words | Articles showing how many projects can work together in an integrated fashion, e.g. the power of GRASS, QGIS and GDAL all working together |
| Topical Studies | Dr. Markus Lupp | 1500 words | Introductions to concepts and theories, e.g. what something means, how to work with certain types of things |
| Programming Tutorials | Landon Blake | 1500 words | Tutorials showing how to use a library or application at a programmatic level |
| Interviews | Christian Ferreira | 1000 words | Introducing open source community members or organisations |
| Sponsor Perspectives | vacant | 1500 words | Introducing open source community members or organisations |
| Developer Announcements | Dimitris Kotzinos | 750 words | Announcements about recent changes/improvements to projects |
| Local Chapter Reports | Mark Leslie | 750 words | Reports submitted by representatives of local chapters |
| Proof Reading | Angus Carr | Proofing finals, along with other reviewers (below) | |
| Peer Review | Dan Ames | Editor in charge of peer review | |
| Layout/Design | Kevin Yam |
Open Positions
Interested in helping? This section lists current positions that need filling. If you have other interests, you are also welcome to add them for discussion.
- Editor, Interviews
- Editor, Sponsor Perspectives
- Spell/grammer-checker
- Reviewers - You have particular expertise and can review certain kinds of articles for content. Somewhat like a peer reviewer too, so logical questions can be turned back to authors if needed.
- Formatting/Conversion - moving non-LaTeX content into LaTeX forms (each author/section Edt.has to check for latex errors etc.)
- Sponsor - interested in sponsoring the newsletter creation?
Reviewers
Please list yourself below with name, e-mail and field of expertise to review certain articles - individual editors will contact you if necessary:
- Landon Blake - Coordinate Geometry, Geodesy, Surveying, Applications of GIS to Public Works and Parcel/Cadastral Records Management
- Micha Silver - Using GIS and GPS in agricultural pest control projects; watershed analysis
- Dan Putler - Application of GIS to marketing, retailing, and other business problems; geo-statistics.
- Yann Chemin - Satellite image processing, evapotranspiration/crop models, multi-temporal/scale, spatio-temporal, data assimilation.
- Dr. Markus Lupp - Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI), standards and processes of the OGC, Application of GIS to disaster management, urban planning and natural resource management.
- Dr. Peter Löwe - GRASS GIS, Sensor Web Enablement, Ontologies, Expert Systems, (Distributed) Artificial Intelligence, Nature Interpretation.
- Dr. Scott Mitchell - GRASS GIS, environmental modelling (especially biogeochemical, habitat, land use/land cover), spatial data analysis, spatial aggregation, decision support.
- Dr. Dimitris Kotzinos - Web GIS, mobile GIS, development of GIS and for GIS packages, semantic web and semantics in GIS, decision support systems.
- Dr. Rafal Wawer - GIS/RS for environmental and agricultural applications, environmental modelling (watershed processes, soil erosion, landsliding, spatial management), WebGIS, CAD, decision support systems.
Submission of articles
Please start by reading our guidlelines for details about licensing and content.
Your article should be written in Latex. For instructions which format/style shall be used, please have a look at this working GRASS Newsletter Latex template. If you do not know Latex yet, don't be scared as it is quite easy. You might want to have a look at the Latex Cheat Sheet to get to know a few commands, e.g. how to enumerate, make tables etc. Please send your zipped document to the respective Editors (see above).
If Latex is a problem for you or your article, please discuss it with your editor. At their discretion, editors can choose to help you convert your content into a suitable format for publishing.
Original Research and Technical Papers
All Original Research and Technical Papers are peer reviewed by volunteer reviewers in the OSGeo community. Please consider submitting your manuscripts for publication in OSGeo Journal. Original Research and Technical Papers should be submitted through the [OJS system http://www.osgeo.org/ojs].
Newsletter Software
Based on GRASS-News (which was based on R News) Latex is recommended, but other publishing packages might be considered for forthcoming issues. (For example, Scribus has been recommended.)
Contributors ought to submit articles in Latex and images as pdf (high res jpg is fine as well, kim (inside kde) can convert them easily to pdf):
links to templates will go here
- template for article
- template for inserting images
- template for inserting tables
They can be copied from GRASS-News LaTex template.
Process
- Confirm editors/volunteers
- Set deadlines
- Solicit articles
- Collect/edit/review articles
- Format to LaTeX
- Produce draft
- Set deadline for review
- Revisions
- Final production
- Press Release and promotion
Online Location
OSGeo Journal team uses a subversion code repository for managing content for the publication. It can be accessed publicly here.
Background
The OSGeo Journal builds on top of the successful history of the GRASS-News production. Volume 4 (5.8MB) of that production was a joint GRASS/OSGeo effort. Subsequent editions are broader and branded as OSGeo Journal.