First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Preliminary Announcement July 2007

A conference of possible interest to members
-------
First International PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference: Preliminary Announcement

The Public Knowledge Project is pleased to announce that the first international PKP conference will be held from July 11–13, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The conference will promote and celebrate the quality use of the PKP open source software suite – Open Journal Systems (OJS); Open Conference Systems (OCS); and the Open Archives Harvester.

The conference will appeal to all segments of the PKP community: software developers and technical support specialists; journal publishers, editors, and staff; librarians; and researchers in scholarly publishing. As well, prospective and first time users of OJS and other PKP software will be able to learn more about the systems and establish contacts with the PKP community. Experienced implementers and developers will have an opportunity to participate in technical sessions and exchange information. All attendees will be able to attend a range of topical sessions on trends in scholarly communication and publishing, open access initiatives, open source software, academic and library communities, and future plans for OJS, OCS, and the Open Archives Harvester.

A call for papers and presentations will be issued in the near future. An official conference website will also be available shortly with more details on the conference including a preliminary schedule. The conference will commence with an opening keynote session on the evening of July 11 with John Willinsky, the founder of the Public Knowledge Project and creator of the OJS software. There will be several pre-conference workshops on July 11, and the main conference program will present a combination of concurrent and single track sessions concluding at noon on July 13.

The conference will be hosted at Simon Fraser University’s downtown campus and will be adjacent to a wide range of accommodations, restaurants, and other popular tourist destinations. Please mark the July 11–13 dates on your 2007 calendars. The PKP partners look forward to welcoming you to this inaugural event.

The Public Knowledge Project is a federally funded research initiative at the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University on the west coast of Canada. It seeks to improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research through the development of innovative online environments. PKP has developed free, open source software for the management, publishing, and indexing of journals and conferences. Open Journal Systems and Open Conference Systems increase access to knowledge, improve management, and reduce publishing costs.

NOTE: It is anticipated there will be a library stream and/or preconference to talk about library roles.