Global Geospatial Conference 2012

Spatially Enabling Government, Industry and Citizens

The joint GSDI World Conference (GSDI 13), the 14th GEOIDE Annual Scientific Conference, the 7th 3DGeoInfo Conference , and the Canadian Geomatics Conference 2012 will take place in historic Quebec City, Canada at the Quebec City Conference Center in the heart of the city. Primary partners in organizing this conference include the GSDI Association and GEOIDE.

This call supports three primary forms of publication:
(1) a normal conference proceedings with abstracts and full non-refereed and refereed articles published on a CD or USB drive and archived on the web,
(2) a pre-conference published book of fully refereed articles titled "Spatially Enabling Government, Industry and Citizens: Research and Development Perspectives" to be distributed to all conference participants and archived on the web, and
(3) a pre-conference selection of articles for publication in the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research (IJSDIR) to be selected, refereed, revised and published prior to and in affiliation with the conference.

(1) Call for Conference Proceedings Submissions
Abstracts should be 250-500 words in length and will be reviewed by the GSDI-13 Conference Program Committee. Authors are limited to a maximum of two conference paper abstract submissions, whether as lead or secondary author.

Presentations will be organized in tracks, but authors are invited as well to submit presentations that fall outside of these topical tracks. The tracks identified by number are as follows:

Spatially enabling government through information infrastructure development in support of such applications as land administration, disaster prevention and management, emergency response, transportation planning, e-government such as online permit and license services, environmental monitoring and similar spatially-dependent functions of government.
Spatially enabling industry through information infrastructure development to improve decision making in support of applications such as enterprise operation management, facilities and property management, fleet management, product tracking, direct marketing, environmental and resource management and through development of consumer products and services. This conference has a special interest in highlighting existing and emerging uses of spatial technologies in the energy sector with emphasis on uses within the oil, gas and renewable energy industries including uses for site evaluation and pipe and power line siting and management.
Spatially enabling citizens through emerging participatory, inclusive or collaborative approaches in developing geospatial content and building infrastructure. This topical area includes efforts and approaches incorporating concepts such as participatory GIS, volunteered geographic information, crowd sourcing, use of mobile technologies and real-time wireless feeds, geoweb tools, data commons sharing approaches, and open source or cloud-shared software approaches.
Experiences and case studies reporting on spatial data infrastructure development in all of its existing and emerging forms at local, regional, national and multi-national levels and their evaluation.
Technical challenges in design and development of depositories, portals, and registries for geographic data, metadata and services including but not limited to issues surrounding interoperability, content and meta data standards, web map services, web feature services, web coverage services and catalogue services as well as emerging architecures incorporating such concepts as cloud computing.
Legal, economic and institutional challenges in implementing spatial data infrastructure concepts, components, systems and geospatial technologies. These challenges and the approaches to addressing them might include but are not limited to such topics as (a) barriers to and methods for achieving success in sharing geospatial data, (b) alternative methods and models for planning, financing and implementing spatial data infrastructure or related initiatives, and (c) policies supporting creation and responsible management of spatial data infrastructure resources.
Basic and applied research in advancing spatial data infrastructure theory and concepts including but limited to studies addressing spatial data integration, interoperability, presentation of spatial information, quality issues, space and time aspects of social networking, spatial decision-support systems and social science research germane to the use, value and management of geospatial information.
Assessment and measurement in determining whether infrastructure initiatives are actually achieving such goals as: (a) increasing efficiency and effectiveness in the management of information; (b) helping to advance health, education, social welfare, security, and safety; (c) better managing resources such as oceans, forests, roads, rivers, property and housing; and (d) similar societal goals.
Education and capacity building efforts. In additional to educational initiatives and capacity builing generally, this topic includes the particular challenges faced by developing nations and progress made in developing geospatial information infrastructure and garnering international support.
Other

High-quality submissions will be accepted for presentation at the conference. Abstracts and follow-up full articles will be published in a conference proceedings volume to be made available on CD or usb drive. For follow-up full paper submissions, authors retain copyright in their work but will be required to agree to a Creative Commons License to help ensure continued global access to their work over time. All publications produced for the conference, including abstracts, full papers and presentation slides, will be openly archived eventually at gsdi.org/gsdiConferences

(2) Call for Article Submissions for the Fully Refereed Book and Fully Refereed Journal Volume

Full papers, consisting of 5,000-word manuscripts, will be thoroughly reviewed by at least three members of the international GSDI-13 Peer Review Board or by three members of the IJSDIR Review Board or a combination. Manuscripts should describe original work that has not been published before.

Papers must be written in English, include an abstract, conform with the sample manuscript template and be submitted electronically. High-quality submissions will be accepted for presentation at the conference and will be published either in a book as refereed chapters in a volume tentatively titled Spatially Enabling Government, Industry and Citizens: Research and Development Perspectives or published in the 2012 Volume of the International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructure Research (IJSDIR). Authors may express a publication outlet preference for their submission but editors retain great discretion regarding their choices. Authors will retain copyright in their work but will be required to agree to a Creative Commons License to help ensure continued global access to their work over time.

Although a full paper might be deemed of high quality, the subject matter of some submissions may be inappropriate for inclusion in the the book or the journal volume. Such submissions may still be considered as refereed submissions for the conference proceedings assuming that edits suggested by the reviewers are accommodated and submitted on time. Refereed conference articles will be so designated within the conference proceedings.

Full-length paper submissions for the refereed outlets will be expected to address fundamental theory or research in any area of spatially enabling governments, industry or citizens or any related area of spatial data infrastructure advancement. Submissions in this category might:

test or analyze innovative approaches in addressing technical, legal, economic, or institutional challenges in developing spatial data infrastructure or advancing spatially enabled societies;
critically assess current spatial data infrastructure and spatial enablement initiatives;
document and analyze successes and challenges to be found in standards efforts, data harmonization efforts, and case histories;
describe conceptual models that incorporate emerging or future technological, institutional, economic, legal or combined solutions in overcoming spatial data sharing or spatial enablement impediments;
compare or analyze existing alternative approaches or models for planning, financing, and implementing SDI or related initiatives in different countries or regions of the world and assess the effects of policy and technical choices in addressing cultural, social and economic issues;
assess whether SDI or spatial enablement projects are achieving programmatic goals or broader goals such as supporting national economic competitiveness, increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of government and advancing health, safety, and social well-being;
critically examine best practices in terms of their policy, technological, institutional and financial approaches and their ultimate effects on improving efficiency, effectiveness, and equity;
identify and assess the implications of various practices and approaches on local, state, provincial, national, trans-national and global stakeholders with a particular emphasis on their ramifications in developing nations.