WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 in Hong Kong
WikiSym + OpenSym took place in Hong Kong on August 5-7, 2013. The event emphasized the open collaboration aspect of WikiSym both for researchers as well as practitioners. The event was organized by the International Symposium on Open Collaboration. T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in this event.
See the event details posted on wikisym.org and also read the blog entry posted by Dirk Riehle on opensym.org.
A Short Report on WikiSym + OpenSym 2013
WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 took place at Hong Kong’s Cyberport facility. 98 registered participants from around the world enjoyed a two-track program centered on the common topic of open collaboration. Four keynotes and invited talks covered topics of open access, open educational resources, Wikipedia research, and open science. Open access, open source, and traditional wiki research contributed several sessions. A main thread was Wikipedia research, which was strongly represented at the conference, perhaps not surprisingly given that we had co-located WikiSym with Wikimania, the Wikipedia user conference. Social media coverage was strong, as can be seen from Twitter and Google Plus searches.
A host of community events, including demos, posters, and workshop on the topic of open collaboration rounded out the program. Even though most participants were international’s, events on open data in business and the GLAM sector added a local flavor to the event. Participants also got a taste of the richness of the city of Hong Kong, for example through the conference banquet at Top Deck, a restaurant ship that provided an enjoyable mingling opportunity and an excellent food to conference participants.
All tracks and events are supplemented by an open space track. Open space is a technique for organizing events to allow otherwise passive participants to become an active part of the conference. Open space is like an “unconference”, just more organized and much more effective. Open space has a long and distinguished history at WikiSym. Using open space, WikiSym + OpenSym activates not only traditional speakers but every participant, creating the desired synergy between all strands of open collaboration researchers and practitioners.
 |
|---|
| Some of the event participants, photo by Subhashish Panigrahi |
Finally, a few links of WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 reporting from this blog:
- WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 Starts Today!
- WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 Day 2, Remembering John Riedl
- WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 Day 3, Phil Bourne on the Era of Open
The proceedings are available from the event’s website.
Sponsors of WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 were the Wikimedia Foundation, Google, InvestHK, Cyberport, and EuroCham Hong Kong. The event was held in-cooperation with the ACM SIGWEB and SIGSOFT and was fiscally sponsored by The John Ernest Foundation.
Next year’s conference, OpenSym 2014, will be held in Berlin, Germany, on August 27-29, 2014. Please see here for the initial call for submissions (papers).
