GIS for the Masses: NCSU's Approach to Providing Campuswide Access to GIS

Hugh A. Devine, Carolyn Argentati, William Branch and Hal Meeks
North Carolina State University

North Carolina State University has embarked on a program to bring GIS functionality to every desktop in the University. Three university administrative units have joined forces to provide hardware, software, and data access to each of the over 4,000 campus computer workstations. The NCSU Computing Center provides the workstations and the computing infrastructure. The NCSU College of Forest Resources supplies the campus software support and teaches introduction to desktop mapping and GIS courses. The NCSU Libraries maintain an extensive collection of online spatial data and provide walk-in and short course support. This paper describes each of the functions identified above and details the first year of program experience. Of particular note is the development of World Wide Web-based help and training for the ArcView software package that provides the base for the campus delivery system.

Audio Visual: Computer Projection Device

Dr. Hugh A. Devine
Professor and Assoc. Director for GIS
Computer Graphics Center
North Carolina State University
Campus Box 7106
Raleigh, NC 27695-7106
Fax: 919-515-3682
email: Hugh_Devine@NCSU.EDU

Ms. Carolyn Argentati, Head
Natural Resource Library
North Carolina State University