As a long-established information science discipline, the Geographic Information Science & Technology (GIS&T) community has key contributions to make to evolving data science curricula. This statement articulates the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science’s (UCGIS) position for the academic GIS&T community and provides recommendations and action items for the benefit of both internal and external audiences. On May 22-24, 2018, UCGIS held its annual Symposium under the theme of Frontiers of Geospatial Data Science, coordinated this year with the AutoCarto conference of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society (CaGIS). Drawing from discussions at that event, together with many months of internal exchanges, UCGIS offers these statements for the benefit of its member organizations as well as the broader geospatial community. The goals of this white paper and its recommendations are to 1) describe and clarify the value of incorporating geospatial knowledge, skills, and data for students, employees, and employers within the emerging field of data science; 2) highlight potential pathways and opportunities for academic geospatial scientists to establish connections with data science programs and personnel on their university campuses; and 3) initiate a national dialogue about the synergistic benefits of mutually enriching data science and geospatial science curricula.

Please find our white paper, A UCGIS Call to Action: Bringing the Geospatial Perspective to Data Science Degrees and Curricula, available here (pdf). 

Papers in Cartography & Geographic Information Science, available for free (open-access) but only through Thursday, May 31, 2018. Thank you, Taylor and Francis publishers.

• Marc P. Armstrong (2017) How large is Aroostook County? Exploring the historical mutability of US county area measurements, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2017.1370392

• Sarah E. Battersby, Daniel “daan” Strebe & Michael P. Finn (2017) Shapes on a plane: evaluating the impact of projection distortion on spatial binning, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 44:5, 410-421, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2016.1180263

• Barry J. Kronenfeld (2018) Manual construction of continuous cartograms through mesh transformation, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 45:1, 76-94, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2016.1270775

• Lawrence V. Stanislawski, Kornelijus Survila, Jeffrey Wendel, Yan Liu & Barbara P. Buttenfield (2018) An open source high-performance solution to extract surface water drainage networks from diverse terrain conditions, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 45:4, 319-328, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2017.1337524

• Waldo Tobler (2018) A new companion for Mercator, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 45:3, 284-285, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2017.1308837

• Thomas A. Wikle (2017) A rationale for accrediting GIScience programs, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 45:4, 354-361, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15230406.2017.1375431

•  Xinyue Ye, Qunying Huang & Wenwen Li (2016) Integrating big social data, computing and modeling for spatial social science, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 43:5, 377-378, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2016.1212302

In May 2018, the TRELIS project, Training and Retaining Leaders in STEM-Geospatial Sciences, will hold its first workshop in Madison, Wisconsin. TRELIS is professional development for women in higher education in the geospatial sciences, which includes geographic information science, cartography, remote sensing, and related mapping sciences. TRELIS builds leadership capacity and skills around the topics of career retention strategies, mentoring training, career transitions, technical professional development, and work-life balance. With the name we instill the concept of a human capital trellis or scaffold of support, and embrace the reality of nonlinear career trajectories that move sideways, take leaps, and do not follow a single upward ladder.

We are pleased to announce the following members of our inaugural cohort. These TRELIS Fellows will participate in a 3-day workshop that has been designed to target topics and concerns of mid-career individuals, and focus on leadership pathways. Immediately following the workshop, the TRELIS Fellows will continue their professional development exchanges during the UCGIS Symposium, co-located this year with the CaGIS AutoCarto in Madison. In the coming years TRELIS will focus on additional themes as we aim to meet the very strong interest for these professional development activities.

UCGIS invites its membership community to nominate individuals for our Research Award, our Education Award, and our Carolyn Merry Mentoring Award. In each case, the respective review committees will be singling out from among the nominees those individuals who have demonstrated excellence in these different areas. While nominations themselves can only be made by someone affiliated with a UCGIS member institution, the awardees themselves can be from anywhere within the worldwide geospatial community.

The deadline to submit nominations for all three competitions is Thursday February 1, 2018, and awardees will be recognized at our May 2018 Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin. We will be meeting jointly with CaGIS’s 2018 AutoCarto at that time.

UCGIS invites nominations for its 2017 Awards for excellence in Education, Research, and Mentoring. The Education Award is given to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to GIScience education, recognizing a career of professional contributions of both national and international significance to GIScience education. The Research Award is given to an individual who has made a particularly outstanding research contribution to geographic information science. This may include an outstanding peer-reviewed research work, or series of works, though other modes of expression will be considered, including patents, software packages, and non-refereed publications. The Carolyn Merry Mentoring Award, named in honor of the exceptional mentoring capabilities of former UCGIS President Carolyn Merry, is given to an individual who has demonstrated such notable and effective mentoring abilities and practices. 

Nominations for all three Awards are due by Wednesday February 1, 2017.  Please see our Awards page for more details on how to nominate your peers.