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: PDT
  
• meeting will be via [[]]
• Agenda:

List of workshop submissions

FOSS4G2007_Workshop_Submissions

Criteria used by the workshop committee to review workshop submissions

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

Timetable for workshop submissions review process

A private mailing list ("the list") was setup March 7, 2007 for use by the workshop committee.

1. 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
2. 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
3. March 15, midnight PDT
   • deadline for committee members to provide their 'score' for each of the half-day workshops
4. 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
5. March 18, midnight PDT
   • deadline for committee members to provide their 'score' for each of the 90-minute workshops
6. 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
7. 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