After a bit of work we believe we have solved most of the practical problems that have to be taken care of before starting a free journal. This is probably the easy part. Now we have to decide if it is a good idea or not.
The aim is to have a high quality journal for the CG community that is run by the CG community and free to everyone (really free, no cost to publish and no cost to access). Obviously such a journal needs the support of the CG community to be successful. The work should be shared among the community, i.e., the editorial board and editorial manager(s) should be replaced regularly.
Starting it would require a strong commitment from everyone involved (including the editorial board) for the first few years. So do we want a free CG journal? Please let us know what you think by commenting and/or filling in the poll.
You can select "Yes", "No" or "No, but someone else should". The third option is there to capture anyone that is positive to the idea but believes that he or someone else is better suited to do it. We're doing this with the aim to get a free journal in the community and if someone else wants to do it we would be happy to give our support.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Progress report 1: open CG journal
After a bit of work and a lot of help from Pat we've made some progress.
- The Open Journal System seems to be a usable journal management system (although far from optimal). To get it going one needs to rewrite most of the information pages and pre-prepared mails, but it's possible.
- The most suitable copyright agreement we could find is the Creative Common Attribution 3.0. The only restriction is "Whenever a work is copied or redistributed under a Creative Commons licence, credit must always be given to the creator.".
- We need a latex style file. Any suggestions on what needs to be included in the style file? Theorem-environments, paper size, font size, font, figures...
- Name of the journal? Any suggestions? Journal on Computational Geometry (JoCG)? When the name has been decided we can easily get a domain name and an ISSN.
Anything else?
- The Open Journal System seems to be a usable journal management system (although far from optimal). To get it going one needs to rewrite most of the information pages and pre-prepared mails, but it's possible.
- The most suitable copyright agreement we could find is the Creative Common Attribution 3.0. The only restriction is "Whenever a work is copied or redistributed under a Creative Commons licence, credit must always be given to the creator.".
- We need a latex style file. Any suggestions on what needs to be included in the style file? Theorem-environments, paper size, font size, font, figures...
- Name of the journal? Any suggestions? Journal on Computational Geometry (JoCG)? When the name has been decided we can easily get a domain name and an ISSN.
Anything else?
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
A free CG journal?
For the last few years I've been discussing the possibility of setting up a free computational geometry journal with my colleagues. For me the two main reasons of having a free journal is the price we pay for a subscription (CGTA costs EUR 1,041/year) and the copyright transfer.
The idea would be to make the journal completely free which would require it to be as low maintenance as possible. The aim is to make the journal belong to the community and hence minimize the workload on individuals. How can this be achieved and what are the issues that must be considered?
It doesn't sound hard, but I'm sure I forgot lots of issues. Comments and ideas are highly appreciated.
The idea would be to make the journal completely free which would require it to be as low maintenance as possible. The aim is to make the journal belong to the community and hence minimize the workload on individuals. How can this be achieved and what are the issues that must be considered?
- The journal should work as a traditional journal with the difference that papers are only published on-line and are free to access by anyone.
- The editorial board (including the Editors-in Chief) should be changed regularly. I believe 3-5 years is a reasonable time to serve as an editor.
- Fairly large editorial board, say 30 (reliable) researchers. Try to distribute the papers among the editors.
- The editors have to take greater responsibility throughout the process - from submission to publication. For example, the editor has to check that the final version is in the required format. One should also allow the editors to have more power, for example, if authors don't follow the stated procedures then the editor should have the right (within reason) to reject it, all to minimize work for the editors.
- Aim to only accept high quality research since this will decrease the number of submissions (at least in the long run). Since the journal isn't making any money it doesn't have to publish any issues if there are no papers accepted.
- Where to host it? If we buy a domain name then it doesn't really matter where we host it and we could move it if necessary. A domain name is cheap so this isn't a problem.
- Free Journal management systems are available. I played around with Open Journal Systems which might be adequate (needs to be investigated further).
- How to get ranked? If the journal is successful it will get ranked sooner or later. Is this a problem initially?
- Name of the journal? Suggestions?
It doesn't sound hard, but I'm sure I forgot lots of issues. Comments and ideas are highly appreciated.
Friday, January 2, 2009
2008 - the year of reviewing
The other day I thought about what I've been up to in 2008. Looking back I felt that I've been very busy but haven't had enough time for research. At the same time last year I had approximately 12 months of exciting "2008-time" in front of me to do something new and intersting, so how did I waste it:
- 1 month vacation
(I miss the 43 vacation days I had while doing my postdoc in the Netherlands...if it wasn't for the weather and the food I might even consider going back)
- I spent almost 2 months travelling (research visits and conferences).
- 2 months reviewing papers!!!
Yes it's true! I spent almost two months of 2008 reviewing papers. I'm sure you wonder how it can add up to two whole months. Well, I reviewed 9-10 journal papers. Each of them required 2-3 days of full time work (on average). I reviewed roughly 60 conference papers - each of them took 2-3 hours to review (on average). In total 25 days of journal reviewing and roughly the same amount of conference reviewing. Scary stuff! This is almost 20% of my work time in 2008! What do I have to show for it? Well, I actually got a free book from Springer (reviewing for DMKD) and a "Certificate of Recognition" from CGTA as a "Top reviewer"...Yeah!
This left me with 7 months for research, teaching and administration. Obviously this has to change in 2009. Either I decrease my vacation (don't think so) or the amount of time I spend on travelling and reviewing. If you read this far then you probably realised that this post is just a long excuse on why I have to turn down review requests in 2009.
- My four 2008 highlights were SWAT (I really enjoyed being the pc chair even though it took a lot of my time), Mohammad Farshi's and Damian Merrick's PhD graduations and that I had a record number of journal publications (7).
Happy New Year!
- 1 month vacation
(I miss the 43 vacation days I had while doing my postdoc in the Netherlands...if it wasn't for the weather and the food I might even consider going back)
- I spent almost 2 months travelling (research visits and conferences).
- 2 months reviewing papers!!!
Yes it's true! I spent almost two months of 2008 reviewing papers. I'm sure you wonder how it can add up to two whole months. Well, I reviewed 9-10 journal papers. Each of them required 2-3 days of full time work (on average). I reviewed roughly 60 conference papers - each of them took 2-3 hours to review (on average). In total 25 days of journal reviewing and roughly the same amount of conference reviewing. Scary stuff! This is almost 20% of my work time in 2008! What do I have to show for it? Well, I actually got a free book from Springer (reviewing for DMKD) and a "Certificate of Recognition" from CGTA as a "Top reviewer"...Yeah!
This left me with 7 months for research, teaching and administration. Obviously this has to change in 2009. Either I decrease my vacation (don't think so) or the amount of time I spend on travelling and reviewing. If you read this far then you probably realised that this post is just a long excuse on why I have to turn down review requests in 2009.
- My four 2008 highlights were SWAT (I really enjoyed being the pc chair even though it took a lot of my time), Mohammad Farshi's and Damian Merrick's PhD graduations and that I had a record number of journal publications (7).
Happy New Year!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Computer Science in Lund dissappears
I should have written this post a long time ago but for some reason I was hoping the decision would change.
I did my undergrad and PhD at the computer science department at Lund University in Sweden. Sadly it seems as the department will be closed down. The decision (Swedish) was taken by the faculty board in November 2007. As far as I can tell the decision was taken purely on a financial basis (even though the department is tiny compared the departments of biology, chemistry and physics).
The research at the department focused on algorithmics and AI and the small algorithms group was headed by Andrzej Lingas. The group, that among others also includes Thore Husfeldt and my former supervisor Christos Levcopoulos, has always been very active and produced high quality research and PhDs. When I was a PhD student there was a rather big group of successful students, for example, Andreas Björklund, Anna Pagh, Jesper Jansson, Mikael Hammar and Jesper Larsson.
From next year there will be no Computer Science education in Lund (however, there will still be a computer engineering program at the faculty of engineering). As far as I know it is unique for a large university. It will be very sad not to be able to visit my old department when I go back to Sweden.
I did my undergrad and PhD at the computer science department at Lund University in Sweden. Sadly it seems as the department will be closed down. The decision (Swedish) was taken by the faculty board in November 2007. As far as I can tell the decision was taken purely on a financial basis (even though the department is tiny compared the departments of biology, chemistry and physics).
The research at the department focused on algorithmics and AI and the small algorithms group was headed by Andrzej Lingas. The group, that among others also includes Thore Husfeldt and my former supervisor Christos Levcopoulos, has always been very active and produced high quality research and PhDs. When I was a PhD student there was a rather big group of successful students, for example, Andreas Björklund, Anna Pagh, Jesper Jansson, Mikael Hammar and Jesper Larsson.
From next year there will be no Computer Science education in Lund (however, there will still be a computer engineering program at the faculty of engineering). As far as I know it is unique for a large university. It will be very sad not to be able to visit my old department when I go back to Sweden.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
CATS 2009 accepted papers
CATS 2009 list of accepted papers is out.
I heard rumours (Prabhu and Tasos) that CATS got roughly 50 submissions this year. This is a huge increase from recent years when we've had approximately 30 papers per year.
The conference will take place in Wellington the 20-23 of January.
I heard rumours (Prabhu and Tasos) that CATS got roughly 50 submissions this year. This is a huge increase from recent years when we've had approximately 30 papers per year.
The conference will take place in Wellington the 20-23 of January.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Attending ACM GIS 2008
The last stop on my around the world trip is Los Angeles and ACM GIS. The conference venue is in a big hotel complex in Irvine somewhere. If I look out the window of my room I see a lot of big buildings but not a single person...scary. I arrived on Thursday afternoon but I was so jet lagged that I fell asleep and missed the last session and the banquet. I woke up at 2:30am on Friday morning and could finish my slides well before my presentation at 9am.
I attended all the talks on Friday. Not much to report, some interesting talks but nothing that stood out. Should try to remember to write a post discussing conference venues, i.e., (remote) hotels vs. universities. Looking forward to get back to Sydney after all the travelling.
I attended all the talks on Friday. Not much to report, some interesting talks but nothing that stood out. Should try to remember to write a post discussing conference venues, i.e., (remote) hotels vs. universities. Looking forward to get back to Sydney after all the travelling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
