Call for papers

Submit your presentation

State of the Map Europe 2024 in Łódź, is organized in the year that marks the 20th anniversary of the project. We want this conference to be unique and dedicated not only to the future of the project, but also celebrate its history.

We especially invite proposals, not only directly related to the project, the community around it, but also to the use of data.

We would love to see your submission for one or more of these topics:

OpenStreetMap,
community and OSM Foundation,
mapping,
cartography,
software development,
data analysis & data model,
use of OSM data,
OSM user experiences,
anything else OSM related.

Submission Types

The table below lists the available submission types.

Lightning Talk

10 minutes

Lightning talks will be short 10 minute talks. There will be some spaces for last-minute in-person talks.

Oral Presentation

20 minute talk + 10 minute discussion

Classic oral presentation of about 20 minutes for the talk itself followed by a discussion session. This is the preferred submission type.

Extended Oral Presentation

40 minute talk + 15 minute discussion

40 minutes for the presentation and 15 minutes for Q&A. These are for topics you want to explore in more depth. You should outline why your presentation deserves more time.

Panel Discussion

1 hour

Panels are for hot or controversial topics around OSM community, mapping and data. For example gender diversity, legal questions or the future of the OSM database. You should outline the format on how you intend to organise the discussion and make sure to invite the key players for the discussion. We welcome panels that include the audience. A designated moderator is therefore strongly recommended.

Workshop

hour and a half

Workshops are sessions in which the participants are actively involved, for example by following some steps on their own devices. We welcome workshops that cover basic beginners’s topics as well as innovative technologies. Please communicate any requirements for participants in order to attend your proposed workshop regarding technical equipment. Please ensure that your participants shouldn’t be told to create an account at a business platform or a platform with user tracking. Or, if so, communicate that clearly in your submission and provide guest accounts for your participants.

Other

?

Your submission does not fit into any of these submission types? Please get in touch with the programme committee via email (cfp@openstreetmap.pl) before the end of the call for participation.

Other session types

We plan to provide space for other session types which cannot be submitted in advance. Details will be announced before the conference.

Birds of a Feather

Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions are informal, spontaneous discussion rounds centered around a specific topic. It is not possible to submit a BoF session in advance. BoFs are about to be organized during the conference according to the needs of participants.

Free Space for discussion

The organizer in certain cases may provide free discussion space for working groups, OSM local branches and local communities

Rating Criteria

In rating submissions, we are going to apply the following criteria:

OSM as the subject: A submission where OSM is the main subject or an important ingredient is rated higher than one that is more generic (e.g. a general talk about GIS software).
Preference of “open”: A submission about open data and open source software is preferred over the one that deals with proprietary data or proprietary software and closed platforms.
Preference of innovation: A submission about something new, or something not discussed at previous conferences, is preferred over one that discusses more widely known issues (exception: OSM Basics).
We are hoping for talks from a multitude of speakers and hence we would prefer accepting a talk from a “new” speaker over accepting a second talk from someone who has already an accepted talk.
We may also try to avoid accepting too many talks from members of the same organisation.
We prefer talks from members of underrepresented groups.
We value transparency. We prefer submissions that disclose affiliations and sponsors of their work.

In rating submissions, we are going to apply the following criteria:

We might ask if several speakers can merge their talks.
We might also ask if a change of format would be possible (for example we might suggest the lightning talk format instead of a regular oral presentation when we find there is not enough content for a complete talk, but an interesting subject).

Language

The conference language of State of the Map Europe is English. All presentations shall be held in English. It is an important aspect of the conference that participants can interact with the speakers for questions and discussions. Non-English speaking participants are welcome to meet in the Birds of a Feather sessions.

Publication

By default, video recordings and slides of the lectures are to be published under the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) license. If, for some reasons, you cannot issue your content under the CC BY 4.0 license indicate why and which other free licenses are you willing to accept.

Fees

State of the Map Europe is a non-commercial event where neither organizers nor speakers are paid. Contributors do not have any special privileges when it comes to conference fees, however the organizing committee reserves the right to waive this requirement for key speakers.

Programme Committee

Your submissions will be reviewed by the Programme Committee consisting of OpenStreetMap community members from various parts of the world. The Programme Committee is aware of possible conflict of interest situations. We try to balance that in the composition of the committee. Nevertheless, we have imposed some rules upon ourselves to handle conflict of interest situations:

We do not rate submissions from our workmates, clients or relatives.
We act carefully and are aware about possible conflicts (especially the situation of horse trading). We act particularly carefully in cases associated to a sponsor.
We communicate to other Programme Committee members when we are in a conflict of interest situation.
We report any outside attempt of influencing their decisions.

We hope this detailed “Call for participation” helps to increase the transparency of our programme selection process. Questions are welcome. You can reach us at the following email address: cfp@openstreetmap.pl.