Purdue Libraries and School of Information Studies News

2014 GIS Day at Purdue University

October 27th, 2014

Purdue University will host its 7^th GIS Day Celebration on November 6^th and 7^th. GIS Day is a global celebration of geospatial research and GIS. Purdue Libraries is working with the GIS Day planning committee, which includes members from different departments, to organize this campus-wide event. GIS Day is a great opportunity to bring together the GIS community on campus, exchange research ideas, update recent development, and invite external speakers to address topics the community are commonly interested at Purdue.

This year’s GIS Day is featured as “GIS across Disciplines”. The College Day program will be held on Friday, Nov. 7 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in STEW 214.  This program will include invited talks, presentations, student lightning talks, and a poster competition. These events are free and open to the public. The three modules we are planning include: GIS in Humanities and Social Science, GIS resources for everyone, and GIS Careers. In the GIS in Humanities and Social Science module, keynote speaker, Dr. David Bodenhamer, Executive Director of The Polis Center, Professor of History and Adjunct Professor of Informatics, IUPUI, will present on the emergence of spatial humanities. In the GIS resources module, Indiana Geographic Information Officer, Jim Sparks, and Executive Director of Indiana Geographic Information Council, Phil Worrall, will give the presentations about statewide GIS resources available for higher education. In the GIS career module, the career lunch panel presentation brings opportunities for students to discuss about career development with potential employers and GIS professionals (RSVP is required).

The complete schedule for GIS Day college program is available at https://stemedhub.org/groups/purduegisday/gisday_2014_college_program.

In addition to the college program, we will host a high school GIS Day program at Purdue on November 6^th. This year, two high schools with about 60 students at Indiana will join us for the event. Purdue Libraries is working with Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science Department, Discovery Learning Center, the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, Geographic Education Network at Indiana, and ITAP in designing age-appropriate activities, to introduce GIS for high school students and teachers. If you are interested to be a volunteer for this program, please fill out the online volunteer form.

GIS Day is sponsored by the Office of the Provost, College of Liberal Arts, College of Agriculture, College of Science, College of Education, College of Technology, the Graduate School and Purdue University Libraries.