Using Geospatial Information Systems for Strategic Planning and Institutional Research for Higher Education Institutions

Author(s):  
Nicolas A. Valcik

This article has been updated since its initial publication in Hansel Burley's Cases on Institutional Research Systems in 2011. There have been additional uses for Geospatial Information Systems, or GIS, at The University of Texas at Dallas since this article originally was published. Many institutional research offices primarily focus on traditional statistical and analytical tools to provide data for assessing, developing or modifying institutional policies. However, Geospatial Information Systems, or GIS, can add a geospatial component to existing data sources to provide in-depth analysis on a wide array of research topics (Ormsby, Napoleon, Burke, Grossl, & Bowden, 2008). A suite of software tools introduced by ESRI in 1997 called ArcGIS has been useful for analytical purposes because it not only compiles and displays large amounts of data but can also plot this data onto maps, which can be particularly useful when analyzing demographic data (ESRI, 2010). This chapter will discuss the implementation and use of GIS at The University of Texas at Dallas in the Office of Strategic Planning and Analysis (OSPA).

Author(s):  
Nicolas A. Valcik

This article discusses the implementation and use of Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) at The University of Texas at Dallas in the Office of Strategic Planning and Analysis (OSPA). Many institutional research offices primarily focus on traditional statistical and analytical tools to provide data for assessing, developing, or modifying institutional policies. However, by adding an additional facet such as location, more in depth analysis can be provided on a wide array of research topics. The article focuses on how the Office of Strategic Planning and Analysis utilizes Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) for a wide array of tasks. GIS is used currently by the department for facility information, tracking logistics through the university, benchmarking and for operational information for the university. In addition GIS can be used for admissions and recruiting, alumni giving, emergency management as well as homeland security purposes. In this article the requirements for using GIS in an institutional research or strategic planning office is addressed as well as some pitfalls and advantages to using such applications to perform institutional research in addition to providing data that can be used for institutional operations.


Author(s):  
Nicolas A. Valcik

This chapter will address the use of Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) for institutional research and strategic planning departments. Throughout the chapter GIS will be examined for its applied purposes as well as answering basic research questions. This chapter will provide examples on how GIS can be used to answer certain questions and provide analysis to research. By using GIS, institutional research and strategic planning offices can use location as a variable to obtain answers on certain types of questions that can be useful to university administrators and government officials attempting to construct policies and procedures for their institutions. GIS can also be used by institutional research and strategic planning departments for requests from upper administrators in colleges and universities as well as external requests.


2013 ◽  
pp. 1502-1514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas A. Valcik

This chapter will address the use of Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) for institutional research and strategic planning departments. Throughout the chapter GIS will be examined for its applied purposes as well as answering basic research questions. This chapter will provide examples on how GIS can be used to answer certain questions and provide analysis to research. By using GIS, institutional research and strategic planning offices can use location as a variable to obtain answers on certain types of questions that can be useful to university administrators and government officials attempting to construct policies and procedures for their institutions. GIS can also be used by institutional research and strategic planning departments for requests from upper administrators in colleges and universities as well as external requests.


Author(s):  
Faridedin Cheraghi

Everyone involved in geospatial information systems has heard of Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri)company. Most people have tried ArcGIS software at least for one time. Esri has been the pioneer in this industry for a long time; it also defines the future of geospatial trends. In this chapter, the author adopts a neutral position to discuss the relation of Esri and open-source community. They cover almost every aspect where Esri and open source co-occur. Even the latest achievement of Esri, which is R-bridge, is discussed here. Going into the details of everything is not the goal of the chapter; however, a minimum description is provided for each section. Proper references are given to the reader for further study.


Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (10) ◽  
pp. 2997 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abolghasem Sadeghi-Niaraki ◽  
Soo-Mi Choi

Most existing augmented reality (AR) applications are suitable for cases in which only a small number of real world entities are involved, such as superimposing a character on a single surface. In this case, we only need to calculate pose of the camera relative to that surface. However, when an AR health or environmental application involves a one-to-one relationship between an entity in the real-world and the corresponding object in the computer model (geo-referenced object), we need to estimate the pose of the camera in reference to a common coordinate system for better geo-referenced object registration in the real-world. New innovations in developing cheap sensors, computer vision techniques, machine learning, and computing power have helped to develop applications with more precise matching between a real world and a virtual content. AR Tracking techniques can be divided into two subcategories: marker-based and marker-less approaches. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of marker-less registration and tracking techniques and reviews their most important categories in the context of ubiquitous Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) and AR focusing to health and environmental applications. Basic ideas, advantages, and disadvantages, as well as challenges, are discussed for each subcategory of tracking and registration techniques. We need precise enough virtual models of the environment for both calibrations of tracking and visualization. Ubiquitous GISs can play an important role in developing AR in terms of providing seamless and precise spatial data for outdoor (e.g., environmental applications) and indoor (e.g., health applications) environments.


Author(s):  
Steve Adam

Pipeline projects see enormous benefit from using geospatial information systems since a pipeline will commonly cover large geographic distances. In doing so, terabytes of engineering, geotechnical, and environmental data can be generated for engineering and regulatory needs. A central database allows the project to organize this information and provide a single source of truth. In fact, the central database is as much a philosophy as it is computer infrastructure. This level of organization allows a project to properly manage change, thus ensuring data integrity and security. When data is reliable and secure, its full value can be realized during the pipeline planning stage and even further leveraged through construction and operation.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Yao-Chung Fan ◽  
Hsueh-Wen Tseng

With the popularity of mobile devices, numerous mobile applications have been and will continue to be developed for various interesting usage scenarios. Riding this trend, recent research community envisions a novel information retrieving and information-sharing platform, which views the users with mobile devices, being willing to accept crowdsourcing tasks ascrowd sensors. With the neat idea, a set of crowd sensors applications have emerged. Among the applications, the geospatial information systems based on crowd sensors show significant potentials beyond traditional ones by providing real-time geospatial information. In the applications, user positioning is of great importance. However, existing positioning techniques have their own disadvantages. In this paper, we study using pervasive Wi-Fi access point as user position indicators. The major challenge for using Wi-Fi access point is that there is no mechanism for mapping observed Wi-Fi signals to human-defined places. To this end, our idea is to employ crowdsourcing model to perform place name annotations by mobile participants to bridge the gap between signals and human-defined places. In this paper, we propose schemes for effectively enabling crowdsourcing-based place name annotation, and conduct real trials with recruited participants to study the effectiveness of the proposed schemes. The experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed schemes over existing solutions.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document