The same technology used last year to analyze the ValuJet crash site in the Florida Everglades is helping Mississippi State University students learn new ways to view social sciences data.
With a donation of computer software and related materials valued at $135,000, sociologist Frank Howell is introducing graduate students to the ways that geographic information systems, or GIS, can present information in a visual format. The donation was made by the California-based Environmental Systems Research Institute.
GIS technology allows the visual presentation of a variety of data. "Most social data have a spatial element," Howell explained. "For instance, crimes are committed at a location, unemployment is tracked by city or county and the location of hazardous waste sites occurs in spatial proximity to human populations."
GIS, which helped locate the ValuJet crash site, is used by utility companies, government agencies, and industry, among others, to manage and analyze information. "It puts information in a map form and provides a logical way to look at the data," Howell said.
Howell, who has a long-standing research interest in the technology, will teach with ArcView 3.0 software provided by ESRI last month. He has completed company-certified training in using the software.
Formally known as spatial analysis of social data, the spring-semester class is the first to be taught at Mississippi State and is one of only a few such social science classes in the nation.
"Students will benefit from state-of-the-art materials and from a state-of-the-art instructional approach," said sociology department head Martin L. Levin. "It is a credit to Dr. Howell that ESRI made this contribution."
"This is a new trend in social science," said Howell. "Sociologists haven't been quick to adopt high technology, and Mississippi State is a leader in this area."
The class will be taught in the department's new interactive teaching theater, developed with funding from the National Science Foundation and the university. Some 20 work stations will allow students to learn to use the GIS software and access more than 75 Internet resources.