Apologies for any cross-posting.
Dear Colleagues,
Attached is the draft agenda for the 3rd GeoNetwork opensource workshop, that will be held from 5 to 9 November in Rome.
For those who already did so, sorry for including you here, just ignore the rest of the message 
Ciao,
Jeroen
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Dear Colleagues,
The FAO Natural Resources Management and Environment Department has the pleasure to inform you that the GeoNetwork opensource third annual workshop will be held from 5 to 9 November 2007 at FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy.
GeoNetwork opensource is a free and open source, simple and efficient management tool for geospatial data. It allows easy sharing of geographically referenced thematic information between UN Agencies, NGO’s and Partners Institutions.
On Monday and Tuesday there will be two technical sessions dedicated to GeoNetwork opensource 2.1. One focuses on the end user perspective while the other one gives an overview on the underlying techniques that GeoNetwork is based on, site customization and server installation.
The Project Steering Committee sessions will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, where existing GeoNetwork opensource nodes are presented and evaluated. Emerging discussions about achievements as well as requirements shall lead to a work program and a project strategy for the forthcoming year.
Proposals for a 15 minutes presentation of your GeoNetwork experiences and requirements are welcome!
In parallel depending on interest we will organize technical sessions on Open Source Web-Mapping and Desktop GIS Applications. These technical sessions will take place from Monday to Friday.
We expect the participation of about 80 people from a number of UN agencies such as FAO, WFP, UNEP, WHO, OCHA and UNHCR, strategic partners including CGIAR, ESA, INSPIRE and FGDC as well as other GeoNetwork community members.
Below you will find a short summary of the technical sessions. Due to the limited number of places available, those interested in participating in the hands-on technical sessions are kindly invited to register as soon as possible using the following email address: martin.seiler@anonymised.com Please note that this list is still subject to change.
No fee is required to attend the workshops while travel and accommodation expenses are to be borne by the participants.
Don't hesitate to forward this invitation to people that might have an interest in participating.
Please send confirmation of your attendance by e-mail or fax to martin.seiler@anonymised.com or fax: +39 06 5705-3369).
Yours sincerely, on behalf of Jeff Tschirley, FAO-NRCE Chief,
Jeroen Ticheler
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Workshops:
*GeoNetwork opensource focused on Users*
Introduction on using GeoNetwork for the search and creation of metadata.
*GeoNetwork opensource focused on Administrators*
Introduction to GeoNetwork site administration.
*GeoNetwork opensource focused on Developers*
Introduction to the technical backgrounds of GeoNetwork.
*GIEWS Workstation*
The GIEWS Workstation is a geographic (GIS), web-based information system managing spatial data-sets, satellite images, tabular and text data, designed to fulfill the growing demand for food security-related information at global, national and sub-national levels (e.g. localized agricultural production, international market trends, health and nutrition, etc.).
The Workstation is funded by the European Commission within the framework of the EC-FAO Food Security Information for Action Programme.
*WFP Handheld Data Collection*
Data collection in the field is a major activity and source for food insecurity and vulnerability analysis. PDAs have been used and will become ever more common in this activity. The tool developed by WFP includes the use of GPS in the data collection process.
*GRASS/QGIS*
The "Geographic Resources Analysis Support System" is an open source Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization.
QGIS, another open source GIS can be used as a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for GRASS.
The workshop will comprise of an introduction to the software packages as well as a practical hands-on session.
*OpenStreetMap*
OpenStreetMap is a project aimed squarely at creating and providing
free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. The
project was started because most maps you think of as free actually
have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people
from using them in creative, productive or unexpected ways.
The project collects data with GPS units, upload into a common database, and draw roads and geographic features, all with open source software and complete open access, like a wiki.
*Open-Source WebGIS Platform to support Returnee Monitoring in West Darfur*
A pilot Open-Source WebGIS infrastructure (HR-WebGIS) developed to support returnee monitoring in Southern West Darfur (Sudan) for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will be presented in this session.
*UN Spatial Data Infrastructure for Transport
(UNSDI-T) framework*
The UNJLC presents this SDI, that is developed to support the logistic of UN Organizations and missions.
*gvSIG*
gvSIG is an open source tool oriented to manage geographic information. It is characterized by a user-friendly interface, with a quick access to the most usual raster and vector formats. In the same view it includes local as well as remote data through a WMS, WCS or WFS source.
The workshop will comprise of an introduction to the software packages as well as a practical hands-on session.
*OpenLayers*
OpenLayers is a free JavaScript-library for displaying dynamic maps in a web browser.
The workshop will comprise of an introduction to the software packages as well as a practical hands-on session.
*Spatial ETL powered by Talend: Towards an Open Source spatial ETL*
Talend and Camptocamp deliver open source geospatial ETL. Camptocamp's Spatial Data Integrator, Powered by Talend, is a data integration solution specialized in the manipulation of geographical data
The workshop will comprise of an introduction to the software packages as well as a practical hands-on session.