Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Call for Presentations: Geospatial Technologies in the Liberal Arts


We are very pleased to announce a Call for Presentations for the upcoming conference "Geospatial Technologies in the Liberal Arts" to be held September 25-27, 2009, at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.

This event is a community effort organized by GIS professionals in the liberal arts, with logistical support from NITLE (see below for planning members and contact information). Our goal is to create and participate in a geospatial conference focusing on issues common to smaller educational institutions, such as GIS management and support, and to consider how we can adapt to rapid advances in the mapping industry and research. We also seek to sustain the progress that NITLE institutions have made in GIS development and promote educational innovation for digital mapping in the liberal arts.

We are now looking to those of you who have been innovators in areas of geospatial visualization, support, teaching, and data management to offer presentations, panels, or workshops at this event.

In this spirit, we invite your ideas for sessions in the following areas:

* Interactive map visualizations and web-mapping applications in teaching and learning
* Virtual earths in the classroom: examples, methods, and implications for GIS in higher education
* Best practices for geospatial data collection, documentation, delivery, and protection
* The use of GPS-enabled technologies and similar mobile technologies to support spatial studies and research
* Mapping/Cartography to support critical thinking, numeracy, and spatial competency
* Effective assessment of maps: rubrics for projects/presentations by students and professionals alike
* Open-source map-serving solutions - MapServer / GeoServer / Postgres+PostGIS. How have these geospatial tools been implemented on campus? What are their benefits and drawbacks? How do they compare to the commercial options, such as ArcGIS Server?

If you are interested in contributing to this effort, please review the Call for Presentations -
http://tinyurl.com/geoconferenceCFP (.pdf, 30.7 KB) and then submit your proposal(s) at - http://tinyurl.com/Geospatial. Additional conference information, including instructions for registration is available at -http://tinyurl.com/geoconference

Proposals must be submitted by July 31, 2009. Notification(s) of acceptance will be returned by August 14th, 2009. The conference registration deadline is August 28th, 2009. As with other NITLE events, speakers and participants will be responsible for registration and travel related costs.

Questions or suggestions can be addressed to myself,
Alex Chaucer, or any of the other conference organizers:

Andy Anderson, Amherst College

Jon Caris, Smith College 

Jenni Lund, Wheaton College
Sharron Macklin, Williams College 
Meg Stewart, Vassar College 

David Tatem, Trinity College 


If you have questions related to NITLE, please contact Sean Connin
.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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