ORGANIZATION OF GIS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Scot E. Smith
Department of Civil Enigneering
University of Florida

The University of Florida (UF) utilizes GIS extensively for both teaching and in research. There are over 15 courses at the undergraduate and graduate level that focus on GIS and many more that use the technology. Each year, several hundred students are trained in Arc/Info, Intergraph, IDRISI and other GIS software packages. There are also many courses in database design, geodesy, remote sensing, forest mensuration, planning, geography and zoology that utilize GIS as a tool.

UF is one of the largest research universities in the United States and currently runs a number of sponsored research projects that either study GIS or apply the technology. GIS is clearly a growth area in terms of sponsored research and teaching on the UF campus.

Organizing this large amount of activity has not been a easy task. GIS crosses several colleges (Engineering, Architecture, Liberal Arts, and Agriculture) and departments (Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Urban and Regional Planning, Landscape Architecture, Geology, Geography, Forestry, Botany, Wildlife, Soil Science, Food and Resource Economics, Entomology and others). Coordination was required with respect to software licensing agreements, data sharing, conferences, new course coordination, cross-listing of courses, etc. This effort has gone on since 1989 and is very active today.

This presentation will outline the methods developed at the UF to deal with effective treatment of GIS.

Scot E. Smith
Assoc. Professor of Civil Engineering
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611.
Telephone: (352) 392 4990, Fax: (352) 392 4957
e-mail:ses@ce.ufl.edu