Developing collaborative capacity with GIS
Final Project Report
September 2000, Siobhan Fennessy, Kenyon College
This project allowed Kenyon College to purchase ArcView 3.1, a geographic information system (GIS) designed for desktop use. In order to maximize the analytical capabilities of the system we purchased several program extensions including Spatial Analyst, Image Analyst, ArcPress and Internet Map Server. The goal of this project was to make the ArcView GIS available at Kenyon and begin to develop collaborative GIS projects involving both the Kenyon and Denison faculty and students.
ArcView has become the industry standard for the analysis of large, complex, spatially referenced data sets. Its availability at Kenyon has led to several areas of collaboration with Denison: 1) many faculty have participated in the GIS workshop program led by Dr. Karl Korfmacher of Denison University. These workshops have allowed the faculties of the two schools to interact and there was substantial give and take in the discussions of the different projects under development (both for teaching and research). Kenyon personnel participated in these workshops knowing that their pedagogical tools or research projects could continue when they returned to their classrooms, offices or labs. 2) A research project using GIS for environmental and landscape analysis has been established. The project, led by Siobhan Fennessy and Whitney Meno (Kenyon ’01) is designed to investigate the relationship between wetland amphibian population density and the characteristics of the landscape that surround the wetland. Karl Korfmacher and Tom Schultz of Denison collaborated in the development of this project, and one of the five study sites is located on the Denison Bioreserve. The availability of this technology will allow collaboration between the two schools to continue as the use of GIS becomes more commonplace.