The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) is a
consortium comprised of the University of California at Santa Barbara, the
State University of New York at Buffalo, and the University of Maine,
with $1.2
million per year funding (not including collaborative supplements) from the
National Science Foundation. Researchers affiliated with the NCGIA conduct
basic research in geographic analysis using GIS. The principal vehicle for
focused research by Center members has been the Research Initiative. Research
initiatives provide a mechanism for selecting high-priority topics from the
research agenda, scheduling and staffing them, building cooperation with
researchers outside the Center and involving them directly in the Center's
work, and bringing research to closure in a timely and effective fashion.
Completed and current research initiatives include: accuracy of spatial
databases; languages of spatial relations; multiple representations; use and
value of geographic information; large spatial databases; spatial decision
support systems; visualization of spatial data quality; formalizing
cartographic knowledge; institutions sharing geographic information;
spatio-temporal reasoning in GIS; integration of remote sensing and GIS; user
interfaces for GIS; GIS and spatial analysis; multiple roles for GIS in US
global change research; law, information policy and spatial databases;
collaborative spatial decision-making.
The Center also has completed several major GIS education projects. The
NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS, a 3 volume set of lecture notes, was the
result of a two-year collaborative project between GIS educators in North
America, the United Kingdom and Australia. It has now been translated
into 8 languages and is in use worldwide. Recently, the Center has been
supporting a Secondary Education Project which seeks to help teachers teach about and
with GIS.
While based at only three US universities, the NCGIA is a shared resource
fostering collaborative and multi-disciplinary research with scientists
across the United States and the world. Taken together, our research facilities,
collaborative work, education and outreach efforts, and technology make the
NCGIA a very diverse and productive national center. Additional information is
available from the NCGIA office (ncgia@ncgia.ucsb.edu;
805-893-8224) or on the WWW at http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/.