Journal

The OSGeo Journal is a publication highlighting open source 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.

Edit Journal Volume 4 page if you would like to submit an article. An editor will contact you when it is time to prepare for the publication.

Content Sections

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	vacant	1000 words	Introducing open source community members or organisations
Sponsor Perspectives	vacant	1500 words	Introducing open source community members or organisations
Developer Announcements	vacant	750 words	Announcements about recent changes/improvements to projects
Local Chapter Reports	Mark Leslie	750 words	Reports submitted by representatives of local chapters

Production Team

Typical needs include volunteers to collect, edit, format articles and design/proof layout. Because layout is currently done using LaTeX, volunteers familiar with it are always appreciated. By having several editors and categories we spread the word out and reduce the overall load for each volunteer.

Each editor is in charge of:

• 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

Team Positions

• Newsletter Chair: Tyler Mitchell
  • Announcing new vol./call for articles; announce release dates
• Editor in Chief: Tyler Mitchell
  • Merging all sections, check for final version, asking all editors to submit final versions, etc.
• Editor, News: Jason Fournier
  • Compiling general new items from past 6 months
• Editor, Event Reports: Jeff McKenna
  • Compiling information about OSGeo-related events and to find summary reports that could be included as part of the newsletter
• Editor, Project Spotlights: Martin Wegmann
  • Solicit, collect, edit and reformat content
• Editor, Case Studies: Micha Silver
• Editor, Integration Studies: Martin Wegmann
• Editor, Local Chapters Reports: Mark Leslie
  • Solicit, collect, edit and format reports from local chapter representatives.
• Editor, Topical Studies: Dr. Markus Lupp
• Editor, Programming Tutorials: Landon Blake
• Layout/Design: Kevin Yam
  • Designing and changing look and feel of publication
• Proof Reading: Angus Carr
• Editor, Peer Review: Daniel Ames

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, Developer Announcements
• 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.

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.

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

1. Confirm editors/volunteers
2. Set deadlines
3. Solicit articles
4. Collect/edit/review articles
5. Format to LaTeX
6. Produce draft
7. Set deadline for review
8. Revisions
9. Final production
10. 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.