Five College GIS Day

        November 2, 2007      UMass-Amherst

Join us for an illuminating day of academic applications of Geographic Information Systems!

GIS (Geographic Information Systems or Geographic Information Science) is an interdisciplinary field to view and manage information about geographic places, analyze spatial relationships and model spatial processes based on an integrated collection of computer software and data use. With software packages such as ESRI ArcGIS and Google Earth, GIS technology is pervasively used for scientific investigations, resource management, asset management, environmental impact assessment, urban planning, cartography, criminology, history, economics, marketing, logistics, etc. The real-world applications of GIS make a tremendous difference in our society.

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All day event: Aerial Photography of Massachusetts 1950s-2000, Map Collection in Du Bois Library (the 2nd floor).

Morning, noon, and poster sessions are in W.E.B. Du Bois Library Learning Commons (Ground Floor).

9:30 Refreshments

  • 10:00  - 11:00

Open Standards at MassGIS: A Success Story

Making an On-Line Map Using Your Data along with the MassGIS Web Services
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Saul Farber, Aleda Freeman

Massachusetts Office of Geographic and Environmental Information (MassGIS)

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In this two-part presentation, the speakers will begin with a general non-technical overview of their open-source web services platform, including their strategic decisions, system design, and costs. They will then demonstrate a production well-drilling application, and follow with a more technical how-to of serving some data and building a web mapping application with it.

  • 11:15  - 12:15

Corporate Toxics Information Project

Michael Ash, Ph.D,

Associate Professor, Economics and Public Policy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Affiliate, Political Economy Research Institute and Labor Relations Research Center

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Prof. Ash's research interests include environmental justice, civil rights and health, healthcare workers, and empirical microeconomics.
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  • 12:30  - 1:15    

Remarks from Anne C. Moore, the Associate Library Director for User Services

Lunch Panel: Involving GIS in teaching at Five College
How GIS skills help students learn across multiple disciplines;

Pedagogy of integrating GIS in classes.

Light lunch provided

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Thomas Millette ¨C Mt Holyoke College, Associate Professor of Earth and Environment and Director Geoprocessing Laboratory

Mark Lindhult ¨C UMass, Professor of Landscape Architecture and co-director of the Campus Planning Group

Peter Crowley - Amherst College, Professor of Geology

Denise Lello - Smith College, Professor of Plant Ecology

Steve Roof - Hampshire College, Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Science

  • 1:30  - 3:00     GIS Poster Session
    Everyone is invited to set up posters demonstrating academic applications of GIS.

The best poster will win a GPS receiver!

Submit a poster.
All attendees have a chance to get an ESRI T-shirt through raffle.

Submitted posters list

Keynote session is in Isenberg School of Management Room 137.

3:15 Refreshments

  • 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM Keynote: GIS and Spatial Social Science

Mei-Po Kwan, Ph.D,

Distinguished Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Professor of Geography, Ohio State University.

Editor of Annals of Association of American Geographers

Prof. Kwan's research focuses on urban, transportation, and economic geography, applying GIS methods to study the impact of recent social, economic, and political changes on people's everyday lives, as manifested through the geographies of their daily activities.
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All events are free and open to the public. For more information visit http://www.geo.umass.edu/gisday/.

Comments and requests should be sent to Qian Yu.

Five College GIS Day is supported by contributions from Geosciences, Library and Earth Science Information Office at the University of Massachusetts; the Spatial Analysis Lab and the Environmental Science and Policy Program at Smith College, the Department of Geology and Geography at Mt. Holyoke College, Five Colleges, Inc., Information Technology at Amherst College, and Massachusetts Geographic Information Council.