OpenSym 2014 is the conference for researchers and practitioners of open collaboration concepts, processes, and technology, as found in open access, open data, open educational resources, IT-driven open innovation, open source, wikis and related social media, and Wikipedia research and practice. OpenSym, formerly called WikiSym, brings together these different strands of open collaboration research and practice in one unifying event, scheduled for Aug 27-29, 2014, in Berlin, Germany.

The conference features a research program comprised of multiple traditional research tracks and a community program geared towards industry and practitioner interests. Research submissions are peer-reviewed by a research track program committee under the leadership of a research track program chair, see the calls for submission. The conference proceedings are archived in the ACM Digital Library; OpenSym allows for different types of paper submissions to satisfy the needs of the different research disciplines that contribute to the event.

A community track provides space for experience reports, workshops, tutorials, panels, and demos, both supporting and drawing on the research and practitioner program. Invited speakers will start off each conference day and close the conference. Popular past speakers include Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and Ward Cunningham, founder of wikis. Stay tuned for the speaker announcements on the OpenSym blog at http://opensym.org and subscribe to our social media feeds!

All tracks and events are supplemented by an open space track. Open space is a meeting facilitation technique used to allow otherwise passive participants to become an active part of the conference. Open space is like an “unconference”, just more organized and more effective. Open space has had a long and distinguished history at WikiSym. Using open space, OpenSym activates not only traditional speakers but every participant, creating the desired synergy between all strands of open collaboration researchers and practitioners.

OpenSym is open to sponsorship through third parties, academia, non-profits, and industry alike. In the past, WikiSym has been sponsored (repeatedly) by the Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, Google, Microsoft, SAP, British Telecom, SAPO, Bank, WikiHow, About Us, CosmoCode, XWiki, TWiki, Kaltura, University of Michigan, University of Porto, the NSF, and the ACM. If you are interested in sponsoring OpenSym 2014 feel free to talk to us!

OpenSym has in-cooperation status with ACM SIGWEB (WikiSym) and ACM SIGSOFT (OpenSym). The conference series website is http://opensym.org/os2014/. Prior conference proceedings can be found in the ACM Digital Library at http://acm.org/dl/ and on the OpenSym website at http://opensym.org/archives/. We can be reached at info@opensym.org.