Open Geospatial Science and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The last decade has seen a rapid growth in open source geospatial software and open data developments. Building upon the broader progress in open science, the synergies in the developments in open source geospatial software, open data, open standards, open hardware and open access to research publications have been key in accelerating the advancement for open geospatial science and applications. A combination of factors are driving this momentum, including the contributions made by hundreds of developers and the leading role played by the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo), aiming primarily to support and promote the collaborative development of open source geospatial technologies and data. For the geospatial community this has offered exciting opportunities for expanding both research and education for the future. By combining the potential of free and open GI software, open data, open standards, open access to research publications, open hardware, etc. will enable the creation of a sustainable innovation ecosystem for advancing the discipline and accelerating new discoveries to help solve global cross disciplinary societal challenges from climate change mitigation to sustainable cities.

We invite original research contributions on all aspects of open source geospatial software and its applications, and particularly encourage submissions focusing on the following themes for this Special Issue.

• The use of open source geospatial software and data, in and for scientific research
• Academic endeavors to conceptualize, create, assess open source geospatial software and data, and teach such usage.
• Use of Open Data and Big Data
• Data quality, software quality
• Open source implementations
• Open SDI
• Community building
• Assessment of costs and benefits of open source applications and open source business models
• Architectures and frameworks for open source software and data
• Teaching geospatial sciences with open source solutions and open data
• Open Source GIS application use cases: government, participatory GIS, location based services, health, energy, water, climate change, etc.
• Human computer interfaces and usability in and around Open GI systems

Important Dates

Abstracts Due: 15/08/2014
Approved Abstracts: 10/10/2014 (put as planned papers online)
Manuscripts Due: 30/01/2015
Decision to Authors: 05/04/2015
Final Papers Due: 15/05/2015

There will not be any article processing fees for full paper articles received before 28th Feb 2015 and will be published free if they are accepted.

We welcome all contributions including case studies, work in progress and demos.

Dr. Suchith Anand
Prof. Thierry Badard
Prof. Franz-Josef Behr
Prof. Serena Coetzee
Dr. Luciene Delzari
Dr. Barend Kobben
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.