OSM Science 2024 (aka the Academic Track of State of the Map) is a meeting focused on the scientific study of OpenStreetMap. Its 7th edition will be part of the State of the Map 2024 conference, taking place on September 6-8 in Nairobi (Kenya), where a full day of sessions will be dedicated to scientific research about, and with, OpenStreetMap (see past editions: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018). The goal of OSM Science 2024 is to showcase the research and innovation of scientific investigations into OpenStreetMap, while at the same time providing a bridge to connect members of the OpenStreetMap community and the scientific community through an open passage to exchange ideas and opportunities for increased collaboration. We expect empirical, methodological, conceptual, or literature-review-based contributions addressing any scientific aspect related to OpenStreetMap, in particular, but not limited to, data collection, integration and quality analysis in OpenStreetMap; contribution patterns and the human/social dimensions of the project; integration of Artificial Intelligence techniques and other applications in which OpenStreetMap takes a central role.
Authors are invited to submit extended abstracts using the State of the Map 2024 Pretalx submission system. Deadline for submission is 24 May 2024.
Abstracts should be between 800 and 1200 words. These limits will be strictly enforced for a fair and balanced review process.
Abstracts must be scientifically rigorous, and the content should be logically structured as follows (without the need to include subsections): introduction/background, where the problem addressed is introduced; main aim or purpose of the study; brief description of the methodology and findings achieved; final discussion highlighting the scientific contribution of the study and its practical benefits/implications. Contributions describing mere applications of OSM data with no scientific novelty/innovation will be rejected.
In the evaluation of proposals, the scientific committee will pay attention to the reproducibility of the research (where this is applicable). Reproducibility is ensured when the research makes all artifacts (input data, computational steps, methods and code) openly available to obtain consistent results. When available, the code shall be released under an open source license. Additionally, precedence would be given to authors who will present physically at the conference.
Abstracts are to be submitted online in plain-text format (no images or figures).
Abstracts will be evaluated by the scientific committee and external reviewers, when needed. Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to deliver an oral presentation or a 5 minute lightning talk during the OSM Science 2024 sessions at the conference, or to present a poster (in case a poster session will be organised). Building on top of the successful proceedings of previous editions of the Academic Track (2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019), authors of the selected submissions will be required to submit extended abstracts. These extended abstracts will be published in the OSM Science 2024 Conference Proceedings, each with a distinct Digital Object Identifier (DOI) in Zenodo, an open access online repository.
The 2019 and 2020 Academic Track resulted in a special issue of the ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. Similarly, the scientific committee may seek to further disseminate the contributions to this conference by investigating the organization of a special issue in a relevant, open access, scientific journal. In such a case, authors of the selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper to this special issue. Successful submissions may benefit from partial or full waiver of publication fees.
Please submit your presentation proposal to our submission form.
You can reach the academic track committee via email to academic-sotm@openstreetmap.org.