CAST Fiscal Year 2004-2005 Annual Report - Center for Advanced ...

Board, and the UA Information Technology
Research Institute.
STATE SERVICE.
The Center provides a range of public service
throughout the state. In the last fiscal years, an
important arena of assistance was to support the
legislature in a variety of initiatives. Special
demonstration efforts were offered to legislators
such as Shane Broadway, Jim Argue, Sue
Madison, and Jan Judy, to the Legislative
Research Bureau as well as help provided to the
Arkansas Geographic Information Office in a
number of areas.
CAST staff are actively supporting Arkansas’
(and other state’s) schools and communities
through the EAST Project and AmericaView
programs, described in detail in the Research
section. Among the Arkansas schools visited by
EAST were: Little Rock, Fayetteville,
Farmington, Gravette, Lincoln, Perryville,
Clinton, Southside, Dumas, Cave, Henderson,
Morrilton, Camden, Lake Village, McGehee,
Smackover, Augusta, Brinkley, Vilonia, and
Greenbrier. Outside the state, schools were
visited or school workshops were offered in
Chicago IL, Eureka CA, Berkeley CA, and
Sacramento CA.
Bruce Gorham provided a wide range of
assistance to groups around the state in the
selection of image product and data, al well as in
acquiring and using GPS data.
Brian Culpepper compiled a statewide
population change report for each eco-region of
Arkansas for the AGFC’s Forest legacy project.
James Sullins and Brian Culpepper published all
of Arkansas’ color IR aerial photography base
data into the USGS National Map program and
continue to maintain this web service for the
State of Arkansas without external support.
Carroll County participants in the LeadAR
program were provided an overview of
geospatial technologies for rural decision
support by CAST staff. Eighteen local
government employees were given professional
short-course training scholarships (worth $450
each) for the Introduction to ArcGIS I shortcourses
taught by John Wilson and Brian
Culpepper.
LOCAL SERVICE.
Cristina Scarlat, Jack Cothren, and Brian
Culpepper provided an extensive amount of
technical assistance to many groups in
Northwest Arkansas, particularly to the
Northwest Arkansas Planning Commission and
to the Northwest Arkansas Image Acquisition
Task Force in their very successful region-wide
image and LIDAR data acquisition effort. As
part of that effort, Culpepper also completed a
horizontal accuracy assessment of the 2004
Washington County ortho-imagery. Scarlat also
aided the Planning Commission in their regional
transportation planning efforts. Cothren served
as a Northwest Arkansas Science Fair Judge.
The online mapping application for Northwest
Arkansas (www.rgis.cast.uark.edu) was
launched in March of 2005, and over 50 new
users register for this application each month to
receive free access to current photography and
base maps of Benton and Washington Counties.
CAST staff provided imagery data and data
formatting assistance to the City of Fayetteville
and Washington County 911 and created a
single-band, black-and-white mosaic of the new
Northwest Arkansas imagery.
CAMPUS SERVICE.
The Center has active service efforts with a wide
range of campus units. John Wilson provides
dozens of units on the campus with ESRI
software technical support. The Center works
closely with the UA Center for Economic
Development, Facilities Management, UA
Extension, and Many other departments.
The Center’s teaching labs are used for 14
different courses by faculty from Crop, Soil and
Environmental Science, Anthropology, Biology,
Ag and Biological Engineering, Classics, Drama,
Geosciences, and Landscape Architecture.
Extensive technical support has been provided
to Dr. Otto Loewer of the UAEDI program.
Assistance was also provided this year to UAMS
Little Rock’s Arkansas Center for Health
Information and UCA’s Department of
Geography.
CENTER FOR ADVANCED SPATIAL TECHNOLOGIES 47