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GIS in the Humanities:

Towards an educational strategy in Britain and America.

A Questionnaire and Workshop.

Recent years have seen a dramatic growth in interest in the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in humanities disciplines such that Humanities GIS is now an emerging field. This involves applying GIS software skills and the techniques and approaches of Geographical Information Science to disciplines such as history, archaeology, religious studies, English literature, classics, linguistics, and philosophy.

While the development of the use of GIS in the humanities is encouraging, there is a need to increase the general awareness of what GIS has to offer and to improve training in the the use of GIS software. This affects all academic levels including: undergraduate, postgraduate, junior academic, senior academic and heritage managers. To tackle this SPLINT (Spatial Literacy in Teaching) has awarded a fellowship to investigate this problem and develop solutions.

The fellowship has the following components:

1. The Questionnaire:

We request your participation in a brief survey to help us gauge the use of spatial technologies by historians and other humanists, as well as to understand whether and how spatial concepts are making their way into teaching and research in the humanities.
We estimate the survey will take no more than 15 minutes to complete. Your participation will be treated in the strictest confidence.
Access the questionnaire. The deadline for this is now the 10th December.
The tallied results will feed into the workshop and white paper (see below).
If you have any questions, please contact Ian Gregory.

2. A workshop on GIS in the Humanities:

This will be held at the University of Leicester on Wednesday the 16th December.
For further details and to register see the History at the HEA website.
A flyer is also available.

3. A white paper:

This will build on the results of the questionnaire and the discussion at the workshop.
It will focus on how to develop spatial literacy and GIS training across the humanities.
It will be available from this site early in 2010.

Splint fellows:
David Bodenhamer (IUPUI, USA),
Ian Gregory (Lancaster University, UK),
James Wilson (James Madison University, USA)