Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT)

Description of the Conference Series

by
Christian Freksa, University of Hamburg

History.

The Conference on Spatial Information Theory - COSIT - grew out of a series of workshops / NATO Advanced Study Institutes / NSF specialist meetings concerned with cognitive and applied aspects of representing large scale space, particularly geographic space. In these meetings, the need for a well-founded theory on spatial information processing was identified.

The conference series was established in 1993 as an interdisciplinary biannual European conference on the representation and processing of large scale space information after a successful international conference on the topic had been organized by Andrew Frank et al. in Pisa in 1992 (frequently referred to as "COSIT zero").

After two successful European COSIT conferences with strong north-American participation (COSIT '93: Italy; COSIT '95: Austria), the conference became a truly international enterprise. COSIT '97 was held in the United States. COSIT '99 is scheduled to take place in Germany.

Conference Topic and Disciplines.

All aspects of "large scale" space, i.e. spaces too large to be overlooked at once, are addressed. This includes spaces of geographic scale and smaller spaces in which humans, animals, or autonomous robots have to find their way around. Spatial information theory also deals with the description of objects, processes or events in spatial environments and forms the basis for the construction of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and for spatial information and communication system design in general.

COSIT brings together researchers and methodologies in the area of spatial information theory from different disciplines, in particular

COSIT covers theoretical implications of empirical investigations, formal models, applications, and spatial information technology.

Profile of the Conference and Conference Site.

The aim of COSIT is to bring together researchers from different disciplines for an intensive scientific exchange. The objective is to present and discuss a restricted number of papers - the most innovative and significant recent contributions - rather than to cover all advances in the field. The conference is designed as a single track meeting to ensure that all conference participants can get involved in the discussions of the selected papers. As a consequence, many participants will not present their own research in an oral presentation but will play an active role in the discussions of the selected papers or present a poster, instead.

COSIT conferences are held at somewhat remote but easily accessible. The participants stay together for the full period of the meeting to promote intensive interactions without distractions. COSIT is not backed by one or several scientific societies but is organized as an independent enterprise.

COSIT typically has had about 100 participants, 1/3 university professors, 1/3 researchers from universities and industry, and 1/3 advanced students (including Ph.D. candidates).

Conference Program.

An interdisciplinary international program committee supported by a scientific committee selects the most innovative contributions from original full papers submitted in response to a widely distributed call for papers. The program committee makes every effort to optimize the quality of the scientific program rather than to maximize the number of contributing authors. The conferences are organized in a highly interactive way using the internet. This allows for an efficient and effective interactive review process. At the conferences, internet connection is provided to the conference participants to meet the communication needs of the participating scientists.

The conferences start with a day of state-of-the-art tutorials to help bridge the boundaries between the different disciplines involved in the conference topic. On the first day of the conference, also workshops on special topics are held.

The second to fourth days are dedicated to the formal presentation and discussion of the research papers and to poster sessions. One of the evenings is reserved for "Birds of a feather" sessions where the participants split up into theme-oriented dinner discussion groups. After two and a half days of intensive work inside the conference center, the afternoon of the third day is reserved for a joint excursion to a nature resort; these excursions usually are heavily used for discussions on issues raised in the preceding presentations.

On the fifth day, the "doctoral consortium" is held, a forum where Ph.D. students present and discuss their ongoing research with one another and with experienced research advisors.

Conference Proceedings.

All COSIT conferences have been published by Springer-Verlag (Berlin / New York) in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.