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Track: GIS Management & Implementation
Renee Nagy
Illinois State Geological Survey
615 East Peobody Drive
Champion, IL 61820
Telephone: 217-244-7412
Fax: 217-333-2830
E-mail: nagy@geoserv.isgs.uiuc.edu
James Hester, Chris McGarry
Implementing an Internal Training Program for an Expanding GIS User Base
The Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS) maintains a large GIS database of sState-wide and regional data. Coverages of aquifers, mineral resources, structural geology, well data, hydrology, infrastructure, and other data maintained on-line require approximately 50 to 60 gigabytes of disk storage. The coverages are used to create basemaps for more detailed geologic studies and figures in publications, as general reference tools, and for spatial analysis. In the past, the GIS user base at the ISGS consisted of a relatively small group of ArcInfo users. Recently, many other staff members have become interested in viewing and manipulating the digital databases for their work, but without having to become GIS experts. Using ArcView on PCs running Windows NT, these staff members have a menu-driven environment to access the GIS databases stored on a number of UNIX workstations. The Samba freeware program is used to redirect PC disk drives to UNIX filespaces. Making the GIS data sets more accessible to our
colleges involved introducing them to the ArcView software and instructing them in how to access the GIS databases. Based on the results of interviews with many staff members, a series of ArcView projects was developed for the coverages requested most frequently. Two training sessions were presented. The first introduced ArcView to new users and the second instructed them how to access and work with the project files. This paper summarizes the process, problems, and successes that we experienced while making the extensive GIS database more accessible to staff who are interested in incorporating GIS techniques into their projects.
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