Call for Papers and Geo: The Big 5

The call for papers for Geo: The Big 5 is now open and we have already received a number of abstracts. However it has emerged that there is some confusion over what can be submitted and where and just as importantly who selects it. The idea of the submissions page on the website was to keep things as simple as possible as it has been suggested that the somewhat convoluted admissions process has put people off in the past.

The first point to note is that we are running the call for all events at the same time so if you have a paper that you would like to present at the Big Data event in September you can send it in now.

Secondly it is very important to reiterate that there are two streams at each of the single day Big 5 events (more at GeoCom) and this is reflected in the call for papers. Each event has a theme (Future Cities, Open Geospatial etc) and we welcome paper submissions under the relevant theme for each event. This will take up one stream at the event designed to cater for a UK wide audience. The selection of papers for this stream will be undertaken by the events Action Working Group (AWG) with advice from relevant SIGs.

The second stream at each conference will consist of case studies and best practice from the wider field of geo that are of interest to the local area (and we’re taking a broad definition of local here). For example for the Future Cities event in Glasgow there will be a second stream of content populated by case studies showcasing the work of Scottish organisation and at the Policy event in Wales there will be case studies form Welsh organisations and so on. The local National/Regional group will be heavily involved in selecting the content for this stream (alongside advising on the main stream). The ultimate goal being to have an event that is significant across the UK GI industry that also provides a forum for the constituent nations and regions of the UK to showcase issues and work that is of interest to the local GI community.

Finally if you have a great paper on Future Cities for example but can’t make the Glasgow conference we will also be carrying the Big 5 themes into the annual conference (along with some others) so you can always submit now to present it there. The GeoCom conference will be wrapping up the themes from the other conferences and the best papers from each of the one day events may well feature.

Basically we don’t want to put people off applying, the Big 5 themes are there to guide the debate through a series of exciting events not to be a barrier. If you have done something exciting and innovative in GI then the AGI want to hear about it and give you the chance to show it off to the wider industry!