UCSD Wins "Excellence in Education" Award
4.17.03 - Nominated by Kim Mathis of the San Diego Association of Governments, UCSD received the "Excellence in Education" award April 11 at the State GIS Conference (CalGIS) in Palm Springs, California. This award recognizes a major university in the state of California that has made significant contributions to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) over the past year.
This award is also noteworthy because it underscores one of the key areas of research for Calit², according to Director Larry Smarr's report to the institute's Advisory Board in early March. More specifically, Smarr indicated an institute focus on southern California integrated GIS and earth science, working with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and city, county, and state GIS experts (those that have the data) to build an interoperable set of all data, including infrastructural elements (fiber, gas pipelines, highways, etc.) at the highest resolution possible.
Significantly, UCSD's GIS program has allowed many students on campus and residents of the community to become familiar with GIS for the first time.
The nomination provided some interesting statistics about the UCSD activity. Over the last 18 months, the GIS program has grown from a modest technical assistance program aiding patrons in the library to a full-scale GIS resource with services, including software and hardware installation, GIS project consulting and assistance, plotting, image analysis, and spatial research in a variety of fields. In addition, three technician-level positions have been added to oversee the Geisel GIS lab. They help UCSD faculty, staff, and students as a hands-on technical resource for project and class assignments.
UCSD negotiated a software site license with ESRI to allow unlimited access to ESRI's ArcView GIS software on campus, an effort that had been in the works for nearly 10 years. In particular, thanks go to the UCSD Libraries, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, and various entities at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for paying a substantial portion of this license.
The scope and likely impact of UCSD's GIS effort can be appreciated by considering the long list of collaborators that touches nearly every part of the campus:
Academic Computing: Rick Accurso
ActiveCampus Project: Bill Griswold
Archeology: Tom Levy
Cancer Research Center: Georgia Sadler
Center for Coastal Studies: Pat Masters and Doug Inman
Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies: Jane Clough-Riquelme
Coastal Data Information Program: Randy Bucciarelli
Facilities Planning: Robert Clossin and Roger Anderson
Government and Community Relations: Sara Steinhoffer
Grounds and Landscape: Chuck Morgan
Marine Physical Lab: Heidi Hudak
MMW: Stan Chodorow
San Diego Supercomputer Center: Chaitan Baru, Ilya Zaslavsky, and Richard Marciano
Scripps Institution of Oceanography: John Orcutt-Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Steve Miller-Geologic Data Center, and Neil Driscoll-SIO Geosciences
Structural Engineering: Scott Ashford
UCSD Extension: Carolyn Lee
Urban Studies and Planning: Keith Pezzoli and Steve Erie
White Mountain Research Center: Daniel Pritchett
Others outside UCSD that are contributing to the effort include the following:
ESRI
Lenska Aerial Images
San Diego Association of Governments
San Diego State University: Eric Frost, Doug Stow, Richard Wright, and Dave McKinsey
SanGIS: Lisa Stapleton
Telesis Corporation
UCI: Tony Soeller
In providing the above list, Henderson says emphatically, "I want to thank everyone involved with the GIS program here at UCSD. It's important also to recognize the contributions that have expanded this program from a few isolated users to an active, cooperative community. My efforts and those of Geisel Library would not be successful without all the UCSD GIS users and other GIS champions."
At the recently completed CalGIS conference, Larry Smarr provided one of the two keynotes on "High-performance Geographic Information Systems." Henderson spoke on the topic "Modeling Water and Environment with GIS and 3D Visualization." The theme of the conference was "Putting the World in the Palm of Your Hand."