Geographic Information Systems Badge
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.