As you sit polishing your gem of work, we wanted to give you a sense of the breadth of categories we’ll be recognizing — a nod to open software, one for open data, one for web maps, one for static maps — and on. There’s something for every map here; see categories below.

We are very much looking forward to reviewing your submissions — happy (and brilliant) mapping!

Best open source software integration 

Awarded to the map which displays the most innovative and purposeful use of open source software. The map need not be constructed entirely using open source software or, indeed, using a wide variety. Judges will be looking for sound choice, application and innovation.

Best open source data integration 

Awarded to the map which makes the most innovative use of open source data. The map need not use a wide variety of sources or be entirely composed of open data sources but the open data component must be a well-marshaled, purposeful and core component of the final map.

Best static map (digital display) 

Awarded to the map which, in digital form, presents a well-composed static display of a theme of the author’s choice. The map should be complete and function without additional material. This category might also be used for those who wish to submit a digital version of a printed map.

Best web map application 

Awarded to the map which makes the most innovative use of web map application platforms, including online or mobile. The map should make use of emerging mapping paradigms including interactive and multiscale approaches, and function as a portal to further information where appropriate.

Best overall cartographic display 

Awarded to the map that displays the most impressive cartography. This will be a map that goes well beyond the basics and exhibits excellence in aspects of cartographic design and production.

Best anti-map map 

Awarded to the map that displays the least map-like form and function yet manages to perfectly capture and communicate the intended geospatial message. This category is intended to encourage diversity in style and approach because not every geospatial theme needs a map…

Most unique map 

Awarded to, quite simply, the map that judges find to be the most unique in terms of theme, design or function.

People’s Choice Award

No open source event is complete without a good shot of vox populi. Input will be gathered from your fellow maptastic spatial folk, and may the best map win. We don’t need no stinking judges; we have a community of bright, vibrant people with eyes for design and data — and, just perhaps, some strong opinions.

The post Future winners, meet your targets! [two days until Map Gallery deadline!] appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.

June 26, 2014

Portland, Oregon, USA

Call for Maps!

We invite contributions to the FOSS4G Map Gallery to build an exciting and vibrant exhibit of the very best in mapping. This Map Gallery will not only demonstrate the work of delegates but also act as a reference point for the current state of mapping more widely. We encourage all delegates to share one example of their work and help us create a cartographic record of the FOSS4G 2014 conference.

Contributing to the FOSS4G Map Gallery is simple: make a map involving open source technology or open data, and share that map online! Details of the format and mechanism to share your work are provided below.

Making your map

Make your map using whatever combination of technologies and data you choose. Your map can be the result of a commercial venture or a personal challenge. The map exhibit will feature work in digital form; your map may be a PDF or a may be fully interactive web map application. You will be asked to provide a short description of your map and a statement of the methods, software and data you used in your map design and production and you are also eligible to enter your map into one of the the various competition categories…yes, there’s prizes up for grabs! The only other criteria for submitting your work is that it should have been created during 2012-2014.

Submitting your map

The submission form will open on June 26th and close on August 31st; that’s nine weeks to pull together the projects you’ve been working with over the last year. You are encouraged to submit your application via the FOSS4G web site.

Fame and glory!

There are several optional competition categories, and each will be judged by a panel of independent experts. The winners of each category will be announced during the conference. There will also be a People’s Choice Map Prize. Delegates at the conference will be encouraged to explore the map exhibit during the conference and vote for their favorite map.

The FOSS4G Map Gallery

During the conference, submitted maps will be displayed in several ways. A digital map gallery will showcase work from all participants and delegates will be encouraged to visit the map exhibit and explore the entries. Maps will also be displayed throughout the venue on large format projected displays as well as be used in between sessions. Your maps will gain considerable exposure, and there may be no better way to network than being able to say “hey…that’s my map!” and start a conversation.

The post FOSS4G Call for Maps appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.

But just in case you were curious, here’s where our presenters are from. If a presenter has more than one talk, they are counted once for each talk. This count doesn’t include Keynotes, Invited Talks, or the Academic Track.

Accepted Presentations by Country

Breakdown of US States:

The post Where our presenters are from appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.

Let’s start with some numbers. There were 287 abstracts submitted, 176 were accepted. There was a community review and a separate review by the program committee. Both reviews were blind, without knowing the author’s name.

Next the program committe met several times using a Google Docs spreadsheet which had the community rank, reviewer’s rank and the submitted details in it. This time it was including the author’s name.

The selection process

Step 1: Get rid of the lowest ranked ones

We were picking a number to elminitate the abstracts that had *both* a low rank (less thank 175) by the community and by the reviewers. This way we got the numbers down by 60, to around 230.

Step 2: Limit presentations by author

The abstracts were sorted and we went trough them to limit the number of presentations to a maximum of two per person (with exceptions: some people are so active in the FOSS4G community, that they represent so many different projects, so that it make sense to have them give more than two talks. More on that later). We removed the lowest ranked ones, taking the community as well as the reviewers vote into account. This brought us down by 10 to around 220.

Step 3: Go through the low ranked ones

We sorted the abstracts by the community ranking and went from the bottom up on a one by one, looking at the ones with a low ranking from the reviewer’s first. This got the count down by 20 to around 200.

Step 4: Limit presentations by author again

Going through all the abstracts that are by authors that have more than one talk. Decided on a case to case basis on whether to kick one out, to ask the author to combine the talks, or to leave the two abstracts. Some authors still had more than two abstracts, those were also highly ranked. Hence we decided to make them invited talks.

After this we had only a few people with two talks and no one with more than two talks. This lowered the number by 20 to around 180.

Step 5: Group talks by topic

At the end of the first meeting, we got the count down to a number that would make things roughly fit into the schedule. The task until the next meeting was to group the tentatively accepted talks by topic, so that the talks can be put into the schedule.

Step 6: Finding/discussing topics and wait list

In the second meeting we were trying to find common topics for the talks to put them into slots. We ended with several categories and were sometimes even able to find three related talks that will make it into one slot. During this phase we also identified talks that didn’t really fit into our program. Last thing for the meeting was the preparation of a waiting list in case presenters can’t make it to the conference.

We ended up having the 176 talks in 26 categories and 20 presentations on the waiting list.

Impact of the community vote

The final program compared to the community voting is probably the most controversial topic. Here’s the result: when you remove the presentations that weren’t accepted, due to being from the same author, only 17 presentations from the top 176 community voted ones were rejected. That’s a 90% overlap between the community vote and the final program.

The committee tended to defer to the community vote when the appropriateness of a proposal was in doubt. When the committee made decisions that were contrary to the community voting, it was usually for one of a three reasons:

• Authors with numerous proposals
• Proposals that were felt to be very similar to other, higher-ranked, proposals
• Proposals that covered topics the committee felt were neglected, or were up-and-coming topics that deserved attention

The post Abstract review process for FOSS4G 2014 appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.

Our default travel grant includes a complimentary admission to the main conference, and four nights  in the conference hotel. Alternatively, applicants may request funds just for registration waiver, or for transportation instead of lodging. In exceptional cases, we may award both lodging and travel funds.

Because we believe that a diverse community is a stronger community, we have set aside 50% of our funds for women and minorities — communities that have traditionally been under-represented in the open source community.

Because our funds are limited, we’re also asking other attendees to help us be more inclusive. When you register for the conference, please donate to our travel grant pool. Your donation can help us achieve our goal of being the most inclusive, most diverse FOSS4G yet. If everyone donated just $20 dollars, we could easily fund 20 additional attendees.

The post Travel Grant Details Available appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.

Consider your reviewers. They have to:

1. Read your proposal,
2. understand what it is about,
3. decide if its similar (but not too similar!) to other proposals,
4. consider if it would have an audience,
5. consider who that audience is,
6. consider how it would fit into the program,
7. and finally, rank it.

And they have to do this 400+ times. It’s exhausting. The best thing you can do to improve your submission is: make the reviewers’ job easier.  As a bonus, when your paper is accepted, you’ll make your audience’s job easier, too.

So how do you make it easy on the reviewers?

Keep the title simple and straightforward

Overly clever or obtuse titles make it harder to understand what your presentation is about.

Keep the description as short as possible, but no shorter

Einstein is often quoted, probably apocryphally, as saying “everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”. Regardless of who came up with it, it’s good advice.

Be clear about the audience and their skill level

Is this targeted at developers, end-users, a general audience? Are they beginners, advanced? Be explicit.

Get another person to read through your proposal

You’re probably submitting close to the last minute (admit it, you know it’s true). Writing a good proposal takes time, and if you don’t have time to step away from your proposal and come back to it later, you’re probably going to end up with a worse proposal. Have another person read through it, and ask them if it’s clear. If they have questions, your reviewers will have questions. (We don’t like questions — it makes our job harder.)

If you can’t have someone else review it, read it out loud to yourself. Yes, it feels weird to be talking to yourself in an empty room, but there’s no quicker way to know if your proposal is clear. Trust us on this one.

Write your proposal early

A proposal written at the last minute is inevitably a poorer proposal. Take the time to do it well.

Remember, proposals are due April 15th. We’re looking forward to reading yours!

The post Advice on writing submissions appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.

Bostock designs interactive graphics for The New York Times. He is also the author of D3.js, a popular open-source library for visualizing data using web standards, and TopoJSON, an extension to GeoJSON that encodes topology.

D3.js is one of the most exciting visualization technologies to appear recently, and we’re very excited to have Mike at FOSS4G. You can see some of his work at his website and be sure to check out his numerous elegant D3.js examples at http://bl.ocks.org/mbostock.

The post Mike Bostock to Open FOSS4G 2014 appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.

The logo’s central element is a slab of wood, recalling Portland’s history of timber production. Though the timber industry is no longer as dominant as it once was, the slab motif can still be seen at Portland Timbers soccer games, where a slab is sawn off a log for each goal scored by the home team, and presented to the player(s) in front of their supporters. There’s even a section of town known as Slabtown, reflecting the lumber production that once occurred there.

The slab’s rings are derived from the topographic contours of Mt. St. Helens, the volcanic Cascade Range’s most active member – it erupted most famously in 1980. The volcano sits just 80 kilometers north of Portland.

(Don’t be surprised if a Timbers game and a trip to Mt. St. Helens appear as field trips.)

The bird is a not-so-subtle reference to a skit on the TV Show Portlandia, which satirizes the city’s inhabitants. The bird’s name is Helen.

The skit itself is a sly take on the Do It Yourself culture that Portland prides itself in. You’ll hear more about Portland’s DIY culture – the organizers have adopted it as the conference theme.

Finally, the ribbon that ties each year’s logo to past years contains the reminder that 2014 marks the 10th anniversary of FOSS4G – we hope you’ll join us in making this the best FOSS4G yet.

Logo availability and use

Multiple versions of the logo are available in formats suitable for digital or print.

The logos are made available for use , without modifications other than size, in the promotion or discussion of FOSS4G 2014. Detailed guidelines are available here. If you have questions about the use of the logo, please contact foss4g2014-media@osgeo.org.

The post 2014 Logo Unveiled appeared first on FOSS4G 2014.