Geographical Information Systems By: Philip Galloway Database Concepts

What is GIS? A Geographical Information System is a computer system capable of integrating, storing, editing, analyzing, and displaying geographically-referenced information via various geo-database driven layers.

Why GIS? GIS tools range from simple contact mapping tools to consumer analysis to complex enterprise systems that are part of an organization's overall enterprise resource planning infrastructure. Used wisely, it can be a transformational tool for any organization.

Popular GIS software developers ESRI’s ArcGIS  Most market share  Extremely robust  Most expensive MapInfo’s MapInfo Professional  Less expensive  Less Market share  Very similar functionality with more web services Microsoft’s MapPoint  Much smaller scale  Only a fraction of functionality of previous software  Much less expensive  Affordable home user versions

KSU Admissions GIS For:  Prospective student data analytics Software used:  Microsoft MapPoint via ASP web frontend End beneficiaries:  KSU Admissions Representatives  Dean Pat Bosco

Web User Frontend -Adobe Photoshop -JSP Rollovers

Dynamically generated maps -Using Microsoft MapPoint -Linked to Access DB -Maps in simple HTML

Data pulls by high school -ASP driven -Underlying Access Database pulled via SQL

GE Insurance Solutions GIS For:  Natural Catastrophe loss estimation Software used:  ESRI’s ArcGIS End beneficiaries  Underwriting analysis  Coverage cost benefit analysis

Large scale example uses with ESRI’s ArcGIS software