Minutes: UCGIS Council meeting
Friday, February 6, 2004
Capital Hill Suites, Washington D.C.
Called to Order by Carolyn Merry, the President of UCGIS, at 10:45am
Carolyn Merry thanked John Wilson, Chair of Research Committee, for his outstanding program of Summer Assembly 2003. The idea of research briefs is formalized and will provide a new channel for members to propose new and timely research themes in GIScience. Our next summer meeting will be held in conjunction with GIScience 2004. John Wilson is working with GIScience program committee to coordinate UCGIS sessions and meetings.
Carolyn Merry reported that two UCGIS workshops were held between the summer assembly and this winter meeting. One is on homeland security (sponsored by ESRI, organized by Lynn Usery) at the University of Georgia, and the other is on geospatial visualization and knowledge discovery (sponsored by ARDA, organized by Babs Buttenfield) at the national conference center in Leesburg.
Carolyn Merry recognized out-going members of committee chairs and board members, including Will Craig (Chair, Policy and Legislation), Shashi Shekhar, Scott MacKay, and Dawn Wright (board members), and Suzy Jampoler (executive director). A plate was presented to Suzy as an appreciation for her outstanding service to UCGIS.
Intergraph and ESRI presented their young scholar awards. ESRI Young Scholar recipient: Paul Rogan, Clark University. Intergraph Young Scholar recipient: Tarek Rashed, University of Oklahoma.
Matt Tate, Vice President of Intergraph, announced another Intergraph research grant, including $5000 cash and $50,000 software to be available for competition.
Suzy Jampoler distributed an account summary and a balance sheet. In conclusion, the financial state of UCGIS is healthy. The negative figure in the account summary is due to billing lags (such as funds for workshops were obtained as income in 2002 but were billed in 2003).
Policy and Legislation: Will Craig gave a PowerPoint presentation. Two key points include (1) the congressional breakfast went well, and short presentations were well received. Suggestions were made to include a closing statement to summarize what congressional efforts are needed to promote GIScience research; and (2) John Shuler agreed to serve as the next chair of Policy and Legislation committee. Dawn Wright asked how effective this year’s congressional breakfast was. She noticed some staffers on her table left early. Will stated that most congressional staffers stayed and responded positively. One regret is that none staffers from the senates attended the breakfast.
Research: John Wilson reported that the new structure adopted in Summer Assembly 2003 worked well. He had a conference call with GIScience program committee. Discussions in the research committee meeting on Feb 6 suggested that UCGIS should organize, in the order of priority, one of the six plenary sessions, student papers sessions, 2-3 paper sessions, and 2 workshops. It is to his impression in communicating with the GIScience program committee that workshops, among the others, would be the elements that can be easily integrated with the existing GIScience program. John Wilson will check with Doug Richardson to see if additional meeting rooms will be available for UCGIS sessions and meetings.
John Wilson stated that the research committee considered instituting a UCGIS fellow program starting with past research and education award winners as fellows. UCCGIS fellows will be recognized by their life-time achievements and contributions to GIScience. Researcher of the Year award will continue to recognize significant contributions in a given year. Announcement for 2004 Researcher of the Year award will be posted soon.
John Wilson announced that one research brief has received so far since Summer Assembly 2003. All research briefs will be reviewed, posted at UCGIS website for two years, and archived afterward. Selected research briefs will be used to organize workshops or paper sessions in Summer Assemblies.
Education: Lyna Wiggins reported that the model curriculum was revised in Summer Assembly. Education initiatives were discussed. Activities included distance learning, communication, and sharing teaching materials.
Lyna Wiggins announced that the education committee will accept nominations for 2004 GIScience Educator of the Year award. The announcement will be available in about a week. Education committee is planning for the next virtual seminar for Fall 2005. Students will enroll in seminars in their home institution. Three to four topics are planned for the seminar in Fall 2005. Some topics may be selected from research briefs.
Membership: Mary Lou Larson reported that currently we have 77 members, among which 69 are university members, 5 are organizations, 2 from industry, and 1 government agency. She had communicated with several delegates at delinquent member institutions. About 14 member institutions have missing links to their URL or malfunctioned websites. A webpage template was made available on the web to ease member applications. Five members are up for renewal in February and additional two are up for renewal in summer. Plans are underway to prepare a delegate packet to facilitate campus coordination for lead delegates.
Two institutions are in preparation for membership applications: University of Memphis and Virginia Tech University.
Mary Lou Larson will continue on membership maintenance and explore new possibilities of different member types, such as individual memberships. In particular, an on-line membership survey is to be distributed to all individuals in member institutions to inquire perception of UCGIS and facilitate understanding of UCGIS.
Communication: Lin Bian reported that UCGIS newsletters are now published twice per year, immediately before summer and winter meetings. Standard features include presidential letters, activities, upcoming events, and job announcements. On UCGIS webpage, member institutions can post job announcements free, but non-members require a payment of $100 per posting. If preferred, a job announcement message can be sent to Suzy Jampoler to be distributed to all members via email.
Lin Bian reported expanding outreach activities, especially with three publishers: GeoWorld, GeoSpatial Solutions, Directions (an on-line magazine). They are interested in press releases and feature articles (short, application oriented, and with lots of pictures and photos). The projects presented in the congressional breakfast will be excellent examples. Interested individuals should contact Lin Bian for further information.
Current member of the communication committee include Lin Bian, Dawn Wright, and Will Craig. They encourage interested individuals to join the committee.
Research Projects: Nina Lam reported two competitions: one on homeland security workshop and the other on Intergraph Geomedia grant. The homeland security workshop grant competition received three applications and the grant was awarded to University of Georgia. Only one application was submitted to the Intergraph Geomedia grant, and all reviewers judged that the application was worthy of support. The grant was awarded to University of Kansas.
Sponsored projects: Benjamin Zhan thanked Ge Lin and Catherine Dibble on selecting winners of the ESRI and Intergraph Young Scholar Awards.
Art Getis introduced the new SPACE grant from NSF to UCSB, Ohio State, and UCGIS. This summer, Art Getis and John Weeks, on behalf of UCGIS, will offer two workshops on spatial analysis. The sponsored project committee will accept workshop proposals for the summers of 2005 and 2006. These workshops should aim at engaging social science faculty to create teaching materials that promote spatial thinking.
David Mark announced an NSF IGERT grant to SUNY-Buffalo. The grant will offer an opportunity for students from all universities to compete for scholarships to the second week of Vespucci workshop in Italy. Topics include Research Methods in GIScience and Progress in Spatial Data Infrastructure. Copies of the scholarship announcement were distributed. However, only U.S. citizens are eligible for the competition. Deadline for applications is April 2, 2004. In addition to Buffalo, Oregon State University also received an IGERT grant this year on Ecosystem Informatics. More information about all IGERT programs is available at http://igert.org
Results: VP: Nina Lam; Board members: Mei-Po Kwan, David Tulloch, and May Yuan
Art Getis and Carolyn Merry were recognized their contributions to UCGIS. Also recognized were Will Craig, Scott MacKay, Shashi Shekhar, and Dawn Wright.
Sean Ahearn proposed a young scholar committee to get young scholars involved in UCGIS activities. John Rogan and Tarek Rashed both indicated the needs for a channel or mechanism to engage young scholars.
Sean Ahearn moved to add the young scholar committee issue for the board’s consideration. Lin Bian seconded. Motion passed.
Lamxi Ramasubramanian requested UCGIS sponsorship to the public participation conference. Lamxi Ramasubramanian moved to add the item on the board’s agenda. Mary Lou Larson seconded. Motion passed.
Carolyn Merry move to adjourn. Suzy Jampoler seconded. Adjourned 1:32pm.