UITS receives award for geographical program

IU’s University Information Technology Services received the 2011 Excellence in Geographic Information Systems Award.

The Indiana Geographic Information Council recognized UITS’ Indiana Spatial Data Portal, which has made 20 terabytes of digital data readily available and
accessible.

“The Indiana Spatial Data Portal is a gateway to imagery for the state of Indiana,” said Anna Radue, who became the president of IGIC after the award was given.

Radue has also worked at UITS since 2000.

Radue said the UITS improvements in the ISDP have made information accessible to everyone, not only those with GIS software.

“You can actually use a smartphone and access all 20 terabytes,” she said. “They are OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) compliant, which makes them available to more people.”

The accessibility of the portal has proved to be beneficial, as there are approximately 2,500 IDSP users. Radue said about 20 percent of users are outside of IU and include state agencies, engineering firms and insurance companies, as well as private citizens.

One ISDP service in particular, IndianaMap, supports 200 times its own worth in operations. IndianaMap is a geological map with framework data layers for the state. It is made up of reference data sets for information such as county boundaries, demographics, geology and infrastructure for all of Indiana.

Radue said the information could be used for purposes such as emergency management in the event of a flood.

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security, the Indiana Office of Technology and the U.S. Army are all users and have acknowledged the improvements in the UITS portal, according to a press release.