Geographic Information Systems Badge

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The USM Geographic Information Systems Badge documents mastery of fundamental Spatial Data Analysis and Visualization skills and participation as a scholarly contributor in a faculty directed research project.

What Are the Requirements?

It requires the successful completion of GHY 217: Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and at least one of the following courses (depending on your interest and guidance from your advisor):

• GHY 417: Quantitative Methods for Geographic Analysis
• GHY 418: Spatial Analysis and Modeling
• GHY 467: Design and Deployment of Geodatabases
• GHY 468: Spatial Programming and Automation

These courses are taught every year. They also count as six hours toward the USM Undergraduate Certificate in Geographic Information Technology, as well as the Geography Degree Program.  GHY 217 is a requirement for many other degree programs on campus including Geology, Conservation Biology and more.

What Will I Learn?

• Enhanced ability to understand spatial data structures and apply powerful spatial computational tools to analysis, interpretation and display.  The world is filled with data and information tagged with locations.  This includes satellite, aircraft and unmanned sensors as well as cloud connected monitoring instruments and the outputs of location-based services and social media.  Businesses and researchers seek individuals who can collect, organize and analyze this information.
• Expertise in working with and innovating alongside collaborative, interdisciplinary teams; mastery of new investigative methods and tools to advance and expand existing area(s) of specialization; ability to direct non-experts to key methodologies and spatial analysis tools such as data mining, machine learning and quantitative data analysis; aiding them in understanding spatial information through innovative methods of visualization and display.