GIS Education at UNR: An Overview for End Users
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Nevada Geographic Information Society Annual meeting presentation. Las Vegas, Nevada. May 5, 2014. GIS Education at the University of Nevada, Reno
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GIS Education at UNR: An Overview for End Users
- 1. GIS Education @ UNR Erich Purpur GIS Librarian DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library University of Nevada, Reno epurpur@unr.edu
- 2. What I do -Serve the users of the DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library and the UNR Campus community -GIS is only part of my job -Care for the Makerspace -Supervise students -Liaison to various engineering departments -Day to day library stuff
- 3. My Own Experience -Disclaimer: I am not an expert! -My experience is mostly as an end user -Land use/land cover management projects
- 4. My personal struggle Where to start? What to teach?
- 5. 80/20 Rule -80% of people need 20% of what ArcGIS can do -People want to visualize their data/research in order to recognize spatial patterns in the data Example: -Social Work Faculty -Reno Homeless Project
- 6. What teaching strategy is best? It’s a toss up
- 7. What Next? -GIS/Geospatial Data Center -many academic libraries offer some level of GIS support -Simple? -Walk in sessions -Or Advanced? -Data Storage -App Development -High Level Computing
- 8. Erich Purpur GIS Librarian DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library University of Nevada, Reno epurpur@unr.edu Thank you. Any Questions?
Editor's Notes
- I think my presentation fits in well with the theme of “Bridging the Gap to Our Future” because I am working primarily in GIS education and introducing new users to what GIS is all about.
- My name is Erich Purpur and I work in the DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library at UNR. My title is GIS Librarian which is a little misleading because GIS is only part of what I do. At the highest level, my job is to serve the users of the DLM library and support their needs in whatever way I can. This includes standard librarian stuff like answering reference questions, solving printing issues, checking things in and out. The DLM library is progressive and is not your typical quiet library. I don’t know if any of you are familiar with the term “Makerspace” but the DLM library is UNR’s Makerspace and serves as the campus hub for innovation. Basically a Makerspace provides the tools and space necessary for people to gather and create things, both physically and intellectually. We provide collaborative learning spaces like group study areas, whiteboard walls. We do large format scanning and poster printing as well as 3D printing, which is our showpiece item and is available to the public. People print all kinds of things, from fun stuff like Iphone cases to elaborate prototypes of some kind of mechanical piece. I also supervise our student employees, which we could not do without, and serve as a liaison to various engineering departments on campus. This means I am their go-between person if they need stuff from the library. Since Gary Johnson retired I am the UNR campus ESRI representative. If people have licensing or software issues with ESRI products I am one of the contact people on campus. I work as part of the group which hosts the Keck site, UNR’s GIS data portal, and this has its own set of issues. I also do GIS research consultations with the general UNR population, which I will talk more about shortly.
- As far as my own GIS experience goes, I think compared to the rest of the people at this conference I am relatively a novice. (If seeing people I know in the audience. I am sure “name” can tell you because he has seen me in action, I am not a GIS expert.) My experience so far is basically as an end user. Most of my own GIS project has been related to participating in land use/land cover studies of protected areas near my hometown in North Carolina. We did things like took into account endangered species, flood zones and river basins and then advised future land management practices in these areas.
- Where to Start? My own personal struggle I am facing in my new found roll as a GIS educator is: “What is the best method to teach GIS to non-users?” One encouraging thing I have run into is that there is definitely interest from the UNR community to learn more and it is recognized as an effective supplement to research in any field. People want data visualization in their lives. One thing I tried early on this year to gauge interest from the UNR community was to offer “One Shot” Intro to GIS sessions. These sessions were meant to introduce non-users to what GIS is, get a bit of hands on experience, but most importantly to let people see my face and let them know they are welcome to seek more help in the future. The sessions were well attended. The people I have come in contact with for GIS help are “non traditional users.” In my 1 semester at UNR I have worked with students and faculty in Economics, Social Work, Geography, Geology, History, Business, and the Library. What to teach? Since then I have not offered any more sessions like this in the future because though I was happy with the turnout I have tried to evaluate my teaching methods and subject matter. When reading the feedback from my sessions, the most common response I encountered was: “Good class, but I need to know x,y,z to apply to my own project/research.” So therein lies my dilemma. Of course when teaching a class of 15, I cannot cater to one person. I feel in this situation my time is best spent on general concepts and exercises which teach ArcGIS skills. (Chicago Example). Without advertising myself, I have allowed people to schedule one on one GIS sessions with me. Since my first one I have had on the order of 1 appointment a week, which typically take several hours. So the interest is there and I have spoken with a number of people who voiced interest in learning more in the future so I anticipate more time devoted to this in the future. If the person provides me background information I do some research on their project beforehand in order to be prepared for the meeting.
- Some of you might have heard of the 80/20 rule and this applies generally to any piece of technology. Basically, 80% of users need 20% of the functionality of the product. This definitely applies to GIS software. As I have previously stated, I generally work with “non-traditional” GIS users such as people from the humanities. As I previously stated, I generally work with “non-traditional” GIS users such as people from the humanities, social sciences, etc. I think this is because I work in a more “public” forum as a librarian. Traditionally, the librarian’s role is to get people up to speed in order to do their own work, not do the project for them. What people want is data visualization. This is not specific to geography and can be of benefit to a wide range of subject areas. (Social Work example). Visualizing this data allows the ability to recognize spatial patterns in the data which may or may not be apparent otherwise. This can give rise to more questions, or verify existing hypothesis.
- In my opinion, each teaching method has its own intended purpose. “One Shot” group classes are effective for stirring up interest but are not really a great way to teach people real GIS skills. I think the desired outcome of one of these sessions is getting the person to pursue help via a one on one session or maybe enroll in a more formalized and structured class. This is basically a step to get people in the front door. I enjoy one on one sessions much more. The user definitely learns a lot about ArcGIS, specifically relating to their project, and I learn as well. I have learned about quite a few tools that I had not used before and reinforced some I had not used in a while. I think inherently there is a lot more value in this type of session. The downside is that it can be time consuming. Time spent here means only one person is being served.
- In the future I would like to see a GIS/Geospatial data center established somewhere on campus at UNR, maybe in the one of the libraries. What shape this takes, I am not sure of at this point. What I do know is that GIS services are becoming increasingly commonplace in academic libraries. There are definitely enough GIS users on campus to justify pouring resources into this area. Initially, my goals for this space were low. Currently in UNR libraries we offer walk-in tutoring for writing, chemistry, physics, math, etc so why not incorporate walk-in GIS services? We already have a computer lab with ArcGIS in both libraries on campus. Graduate students currently work as tutors for the other subjects and there are plenty of Geography grad students who are available. It is a feasible short term goal that is within our immediate capabilities. After sitting in a Geography department faculty meeting, some other opinions were voiced with far more ambitious ideas. The idea was proposed by a current adjunct instructor/project specialist in the Geography department. The idea of is was a Data and Geospatial services space with technology and staff capable of performing high level development work, developing tools, working with databases, etc. This space seems like it would benefit the greater campus community, not just Geography faculty. This goes way above me and is more of a campus-wide discussion. I know of quite a few departments on campus that employ GIS developers/analysts including Geography, Agriculture, Business, etc. There is also an initiative by Chad Leonard in the Environmental Health & Safety department to consolidate GIS services on campus. Whatever the shape the GIS/Geospatial data center takes in the future, I would like to be a part of it and the need for increased GIS support is apparent to me. (speak about meeting with Tod?)