Fall 1999 Headlines
Vol. 1, No. 3

BACK TO TOP

Member Applications for 2000
by Carolyn Merry, UCGIS Membership Chair

It was 5 years ago that the first 30 members first formed the UCGIS. At the June meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota, it was decided that rather than have all 30 members submit updated portfolios that we would roll these renewals in 10 members at a time. The first group of 10 member institutions that volunteered to submit our updated portfolios includes:
UC-Berkeley
Univ of Georgia
Louisiana State Univ
Univ of Maine
Univ of Minnesota
State Univ of NY - Buffalo
Ohio State University
Oregon State Univ
Rutgers Univ
West Virginia Univ
The deadline for completion of these updates is 15 December 1999.

BACK TO TOP

UCGIS Winter 2000
by Harlan Onsrud and Will Craig

You are also invited to nominate a geographic information science research or demonstration project in which your university is involved for presentation at this Washington D.C. meeting. Project presentations are tentatively planned for Tuesday morning February 8 at a location on Capitol Hill. Invited to the presentations will be members of Congress and their staffs, federal agency personnel involved in geographic information science research, selected individuals from related professional organizations, and all individuals attending the annual UCGIS winter meeting.

Project personnel from approximately six selected projects will present 20 minute highlight talks on their geographic information science research or demonstration projects. The projects highlighted should involve strong local/federal cooperation or a strong federal funding component that exhibits demonstrable benefits for the state or nation. The selection panel will be looking for a mix of projects that range from basic to applied research in geographic information science as well as projects that make use of geographic information technologies to advance science in a related discipline or that are addressing major social problems of local or national concern. The FGDC local demonstration projects and university involvement with these projects are obvious projects to consider but there are many other major geographic information science projects that have involved federal support that would be appropriate to highlight.

Nominations should include the following information:

1. Title of Project or Submission
2. Name, affiliation, address, phone, fax and e-mail of proposed lead presenter
3. Short project description which describes the objectives of the work, significance of the project in advancing science or addressing an important problem, activities undertaken, methods employed, and broader impacts of the activity. No more than 400 words please.
4. Funding sources and names of any collaborators on the project
5. Tentative additional co-authors, if any, of the eventual article describing the project (to be produced if selected, no more than 10 pages or 5000 words)
6. Name of a member of Congress from your state who has helped support funding for the advancement of science generally, the university generally or the project specifically. If your project is selected, this member of Congress will be invited to say a few words, as an introduction to your presentation, about the importance of scientific advancement to the well being of people in your state and/or the value of local/federal cooperation in solving pressing problems such as that addressed by your project. That is, a project from their state was competitively selected to be highlighted in this national forum and, as a member of Congress who supports the advancement of science and local/federal cooperation, we would be pleased to have them say a few words about the good work being accomplished in your state and its importance to the nation.

A photographer will be hired to take photographs and press releases will be issued to appropriate state newspapers immediately after the event - the same day.

Please submit your nomination as part of the text of an email message (not an attachment) on or before November 22 to all members of the Project Presentation Selection Committee. The members of the committee include:
Will Craig, wcraig@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Greg Elmes, gelmes@geo.wvu.edu
Bill Huxhold, hux@csd.uwm.edu
David Mark, dmark@geog.buffalo.edu
Harlan Onsrud, onsrud@spatial.maine.edu

Six agencies will be invited to give a brief (10 minute) presentation on the mission of their agency, how funding of university research is helping to advance their mission, specifically describe any current university projects involving GI science or technologies that are being funded, and mention upcoming funding opportunities. Each presentation will be followed by a 20 minute discussion period. A half hour open session will be scheduled at the end of the six presentations with a table for each agency so that individual researchers may talk one-on-one with agency personnel.

There are many agencies that we might choose to invite but we have room for only six on our schedule this year. Among the agencies that might be considered for invitation include NIH, DOT, NIMA, HUD, USGS, NASA, US-AID, CDC, DARPA, EPA, BLM, USFS, NSF, etc. Although one objective of these dialogue sessions is to learn about upcoming agency funding opportunities, another major objective is to acquaint agency personnel with UCGIS researchers, to inform the agencies about related projects that may be ongoing in the GI science academic community, and to introduce them to the research expertise encompassed by the UCGIS membership.

Specifically, here is what Will Craig needs from UCGIS members:

1. Which six specific agencies would you most like to see make presentations or have the opportunity to inform about the types of expertise that your university has available? Please consider a mix of traditional and non-traditional funding sources for GI science projects.
2. If you have an appropriate contact at one or more of these agencies, please provide me with a specific name, title, phone number and email of this contact person at each agency.
3. We will set up a web page linking all of the detailed information on funding opportunities offered by these six selected agencies well in advance of the meeting so that our UCGIS members may be well informed about each agency's funding programs prior to attending. So if you happen to have the web addresses for funding opportunities at specific agencies, please send those along as well.

UCGIS Board Meeting (Board members and committee chairs only)

BACK TO TOP

UCGIS Summer 2000
by Dawn Wright

BACK TO TOP

Articles Needed
by Dawn Wright

Scottie Barnes
Editor, Geo Info Systems
859 Williamette Street
Eugene, OR 97401-6806
Tel: 541/984-5259 Fax: 541/344-3514
sbarnes@advanstar.com or editorial-gis@geoinfosystems.com

Another outlet that wants to focus on the UCGIS is the new ESRI GIS Educators Newsletter, edited by Mike Phoenix, with the major goal of acknowledging the work of the UCGIS in the setting an agenda for the discussion of GIS and education. Mike hopes to include a contribution from the UCGIS in every issue to help the UCGIS reach a much wider audience. The newsletter will be published digitally on the ESRI Web site and mailed out in print format to anyone interested in receiving it. Please send submissions and ideas to Mike Phoenix at mphoenix@esri.com.

BACK TO TOP