Title: Building the infrastructure to support ArcGIS at Washington & Lee

Overview
Applications for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software are obvious in many disciplines, and of central importance in several of our interdisciplinary programs. The power and complexity of ESRI's products (ArcView, ArcINFO, ArcGIS, ArcIMS, ArcSDE) require a level and breadth of support that few liberal arts colleges now provide, but that we must develop to underwrite the growing demand for the use of spatial data. This project seeks to prepare Washington & Lee to make effective use of ArcGIS 8.1, a major upgrade of the ESRI product (ArcView) upon which we have based GIS development until now. It is nobody's assigned responsibility to manage the upgrade, to organize the spatial data we have, or to build the support structure, but without the support we cannot realize the substantial benefits of the new version, and in the absence of dedicated GIS support we must create substitutes.

ArcView has been used in several courses (in Geology, Politics, Anthropology), and GIS elements are now appearing in a number of projects (and are planned for deployment in others) based in the ArcIMS technology set up with R.E. Lee support during Summer 2001 (ims1.wlu.edu). An ACS project to develop a consortial support structure for spatial data is also based at W&L (home.wlu.edu/~blackmerh/acs/7xii.html), and it is certain that demand for GIS services will grow here as it is doing elsewhere.

The Project:
Two aspects of GIS support must be addressed by local efforts:

  1. campus holdings of spatial data must be organized, and
  2. online tutorials and other user support materials must be adapted from ArcView to ArcGIS, augmented, and connected with other developments in the use of GIS at W&L.
The organizational and documentation tasks will be the primary responsibility of an R.E. Lee Scholar (John Heath) who already has a practical understanding of the software and its uses from his participation in Politics 295. Participation in this project will allow him to further develop sophistication in the potentials of GIS technology, and prepare him to assist in providing support to faculty and students as GIS use expands. A second Scholar (Matt Nelson) will use his computer science background to build the interface and database structure for a GIS Knowledgebase to support campus users of spatial information, and will collaborate with the Brazil Consortium project (home.wlu.edu/~blackmerh/relee/brazil.html) to develop the means to deliver spatial data to campus and remote users. The project will be carried out with the support and consultation of other people who have been deeply involved in GIS development at W&L: John Blackburn and Skip Williams.

Details and Timetable

  1. Organizing data:
    W&L's holdings of spatial data are spread over a number of servers, and there is no central directory or integration into library information systems. Materials now on the Miley server need to be relocated to server space allocated to GIS data (acadproj/vol8); Rush's Canadian electoral and American urban politics databases are examples of material awaiting integration. A broad scattering of Web pages documents three years of explorations of GIS possibilities, and so provides what there is of institutional memory for GIS development on the campus. As data holdings and documentation grow, we need to develop a rational structure to contain and distribute data for users, a routine for creation and archiving of metadata for maps created and and spatial data acquired, and a user interface to simplify search and access. The ArcCatalog module of ArcGIS is intended to handle many data management functions, but we must explore the extent to which ArcCatalog will solve the problems of data handling in W&L's network environment, and how ArcCatalog can operate with ArcSDE, with other database systems, and with the library catalog.

  2. User support materials:
    In the absence of a person whose job it is to manage GIS implementation and to support users at all skill levels, we have built an ad hoc collection of online tutorials (miley.wlu.edu/gis/tutorials.html) and course-specific teaching materials (home.wlu.edu/~harbord/GIS_Course/index.html, among others) to guide users through the complexities of the ArcView interface, data conversion, and analytical uses of the software in the W&L network environment. ArcGIS 8.1 makes a number of fundamental changes in the capabilities of the software, mostly in the directions of end-user friendliness and integration with Internet availability of spatial data. We need to begin to use these new capabilities, but our existing online tutorials and documentation are inadequate, and need to be rewritten and reorganized. In addition, effective use of GIS on the W&L campus requires knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of the computing environment. Much of the specific knowledge will be incorporated into updated online tutorials and information pages, which must be searchable. We also need to develop collaboration tools for the user community, including an electronic log book and user forum, to communicate information about changes to the environment.

Both Scholars will use ESRI's Virtual Campus courses (to which we have access as part of our site license for ArcGIS) to familiarize themselves with ArcGIS 8.1 features, and will use this knowledge to revise existing tutorials. Their activities will also interconnect with the ACS spatial data library project, and with the spatial data aspects of the proposed Environmental Studies R.E. Lee project. Specific tasks (from 10 June through 9 August) include the following:

Benefits to students
In addition to developing enhanced skills and familiarity with specific GIS software and programming environments, Scholars will have the opportunity to participate in a team effort in interface development. The solutions they design to the problems they identify will have direct and immediate influence on the use of an important information technology at W&L and other institutions with which we collaborate.