DP&S

Bucknell Library & IT

GIS (Geographic Information System) refers to “an integrated collection of computer software and data used to view and manage information about geographic places, analyze spatial relationships, and model spatial processes” (http://wiki.gis.com/wiki/index.php/GIS_Glossary/G#GIS). In addition to supporting faculty and students in integrating GIS into their coursework and research, DP&S’s GIS Specialists work with faculty and other campus leaders to infuse spatial thinking into the curriculum and promote the importance of spatial literacy in academia and beyond.

L&IT employs two GIS Specialists with the goal of providing full-time support for geospatial technologies at Bucknell. The GIS Specialists’ role is to develop, expand, and support the GIS user community at Bucknell by conducting outreach and promoting the use of GIS across a broad spectrum of teaching, learning and research interests. In 2017, Bucknell’s GIS program won an ESRI Special Achiements in GIS award, a national award for excellence in the field of geospatial technologies.

Bucknell has a site license for ESRI’s suite of GIS tools, including ArcGIS desktop & extensions, ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online. The site license includes unlimited use of any of ESRI’s software products by Bucknell students and faculty for academic purposes. The site license also provides one-year time-out DVD copies of fully-functional ArcGIS desktop software (with all of the extensions) for Bucknell faculty and students to use on their own personal computers.  You are allowed to get a new copy of the DVD every year that you are at Bucknell.

To learn more about how our team integrates GIS and spatial thinking into teaching, research and scholarship, please visit our GIS & Spatial Thinking showcase site.