ACS GIS Symposium, "Putting the Digital South to Work"
Associated Colleges of the South
February 28-March 2, 2003
Georgetown, Texas

Notes:

Thirty-two participants from fourteen ACS institutions met to share information on teaching and research with GIS, as well as to discuss ways to develop and support the use of GIS across campuses at the consortial and national levels. Disciplines represented included: Earth and Environmental Studies, Biology, Archaeology, Economics and Business, Geology, Physics, Modern Languages, Political Science, Anthropology and Sociology, Urban Studies, Instructional Technology, and Library Science. In addition to the three attending ACS Staff members, a special guest from Middlebury College, Bob Churchill, Geography and GIS specialist, came to share information on the training workshops he conducts in conjunction with CET staff for NITLE. The goals of this symposium were to:

Suzanne Bonefas, Director of ACS Technology, opened the meeting with a brief welcome and explanation of the NITLE (National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education) plan for assisting the development of GIS at the 81 liberal arts institutions supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Session I showcased the “Digital South Project”, which raised core issues about managing and sharing data collections.

Session II was devoted to presentations of syllabi for both GIS introductory courses, as well as courses that utilize GIS. Throughout the presentations there was discussion about who was currently providing GIS training and lab support, (which ranged from IT to faculty to work-study students and various combinations thereof) the issues faced in creating an introductory GIS course, what basics were required to implement proper GIS use in other courses. Some innovative approaches included an introductory interdisciplinary team-taught GIS course, the invitation of outside lecturers showing the powers of GIS in practical applications, and the use of work-study students to provide support both to students and faculty. There was a general consensus that GIS is a powerful tool, but that courses should be project/problem/case-study based, and not simply be software training classes. Letting students be active in the learning process, and working with real data seemed to be the most effective approach pedagogically.

Challenges faced across the board were issues of networking multiple GIS stations, bandwidth for downloading/transferring data, and storage and access. A lab setting seemed optimal, until it can be determined how to get data-intensive computing into classrooms. A number of faculty and staff are teaching GIS as an overload, and the personnel and time (involved in data preparation were serious issues. The suggestion was made that prepared data could be leveraged by sharing across campuses and thereby utilizing faculty and staff time more efficiently. The session ended with an impromptu presentation for a “Pulse of the South Project,” to use GIS to track environmental and social change in the South. This would provide a means to integrate ACS research and teaching on several levels, and by sampling points of unique landscapes would generate information for the use of decision-makers.

Session III focused on the different ways GIS is emerging on campus, and the strategies used to gain administrative support, institutionalization, and connection to the wider community. One case presented entailed a core interdisciplinary team of faculty and work-study student who utilized “grass roots activity” to create a course and find housing for a lab, and subsequently staged a cross-campus seminar and “GIS day” to increase visibility and use (very successfully) on campus by academic and administrative departments. Another institution is reaching out to the local community in an effort to team faculty and students with non-profit organizations, and has brought NPO’s in for one-day training sessions. Guest speaker Bob Churchill, Middlebury College, described the NITLE one-week GIS courses, which aim to give faculty and staff a sense of the type of software available and potential of GIS through a broad range of subjects (via scripted exercises which were time-consuming in creation). Again, the emphasis is on problems, not products, and the value of looking at substantive problems and community issues.

Suggestions were made that more introductory short courses would be of value, with perhaps follow-up disciplinary-focused advanced courses, working on projects at some center, and “Train the Trainers” workshops.
The session ended with a group discussion regarding where and how GIS is best housed and supported on campus. Each of the campuses faces the questions of who pays for licenses, where's the plotter, and who pays the staffing costs, and how to avoid “turf battles”.

The “Stats” model was put forth, where most campuses have university site licenses for stats packages, which are managed and upgraded by IT staff. This might work for GIS, however, it was noted that faculty are generally the content experts.

The advantages of housing GIS in one place were enumerated as: 1) shared equipment and plotters; 2) shared software (in the absence of site licenses); 3) the potential of having a designated support person for that space. Disadvantages were considered to be: 1) it must also function as a teaching lab; 2) no single contact person (but possibly resolved by appointment of a GIS fellow); 3) faculty must leave their offices to use GIS software.

Session IV looked at the next steps for GIS development at ACS campuses. The discussion and recommendations are summarized below.

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