Celebrate Geographic Information Systems Day with ArcGIS Software

In celebration of GIS Day, the University Libraries and the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST) have partnered to help increase awareness of and access to the ArcGIS Online platform.

ArcGIS is a geographic information system (GIS) for working with maps and geographic information. It is used to create and utilize maps, compile geographic data, analyze imagery and other geospatial data, share and discover geographic information, use maps and geographic information in a range of applications and manage geographic information in a database. The system provides an infrastructure for making maps and geographic information available throughout an organization or community, and openly on the web. 

University of Arkansas faculty, students and staff may request an ArcGIS Online account by visiting the ArcGIS Online page within the Libraries' Geographic Information Systems (GIS) guide and filling out the request form. CAST currently administers and manages all U of A ArcGIS user accounts and licenses.  

"We're incredibly happy to be able to work with CAST to help promote the availability and usage of the ArcGIS Online platform," said Stephanie Pierce, head of the physics library and geosciences librarian. "Faculty, students, and staff have access to so many different software and technologies that knowing what's available is difficult sometimes. Through this collaboration we hope more university community members can engage and collaborate on unique GIS projects." 

Jason Tullis, professor of geosciences, played a pivotal role in facilitating this collaboration and helping to promote awareness of the software. According to Tullis, geospatial and GIS studies have interdisciplinary applicability. 

"The 'science of where' is a tremendously exciting frontier with no end in sight," said Tullis. "Geospatial/location/GIS technologies are all around us, but how are we interacting with them? We should be actively building our capacity to understand and search for place, to improve economic opportunity for all, and to support the functional health of the spaces around us." 

GIS Day is an international celebration of GIS technology. Its goal is to provide education in geography and show real-world applications of GIS being used across the world to study and address societal concerns in order to improve and understand the world around us. For more information about ArcGIS Online and accounts, please contact Brian Culpepper at rculpepp@uark.edu.