What's Up at URISA-OC
2011 Go Green Event - Winners!
This year was especially close with three teams finishing at -8. The programs committee recommends a rematch at URISA-OC GeoSpatial Go Green 2012!
Congratulations to all our prize winners!
Winning Team by Retrogression:Ben-Hur Abucay |
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Honourable Mentions:2nd Place by Retrogression: |
Closest to the Pin: Women: Lena Gomes
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3rd Place by Retrogression: |
Longest Drive: Women: Tracey Boitson |
Link to More Golf Day Event Photos and Presentations!
Congratulations Sarah Thompson - Student Bursary Award Winner!
Sarah Thompson was this year's winner of URISA-OC's $500 Student Bursary Award. Chosen for her well written report on how her class at the University of Waterloo applied their recent GIS skills to a real world problem on traffic congestion through the Town of Shakespeare, ON.
URISA-OC's Student Bursary is a great opportunity for students to get name recognition and begin participating within the URISA-OC organization, offering them solid networking opportunities for the post educational job search and many different levels of involvement as part of a diverse community of geospatial professionals.
Sarah was awarded $500 and a one year membership to URISA-OC at this years Annual General Meeting and Be Spatial event. In addition we have included her report in this article for all our members to read:
“Describing the Geomatics program to people is challenging and they often leave with the impression that Geomatics consists of making maps. What they do not realize is that Geomatics is much more than only creating maps. GIS is a foreign term to most people and, even once explained, they do not fully understand the full scope and uses of Geographic Information Systems. I will admit that before entering the Geomatics program I did not fully understand what the field of GIS entailed. A project that I was required to complete for my Geodatabases course last semester outlined that various GIS applications in a very effective way. We not only created maps but also used the GIS program to problem solve and organize our data. During this project I continuously learned about new GIS functions.
This project was a month long final project for my Geodatabases class. All of the material learned in class and some material drawn from previous courses was necessary to complete the project. There was a real life issue given to the class and each group had to find a possible solution. In summer of 2006 the Ministry of Transportation began evaluating many alternatives to solve the issue of traffic congestion on Highway 7 and 8 through Perth County. Through the town of Shakespeare the four lane highway is reduced to only two lanes. There has been an increase of car and truck traffic through this two lane corridor since the highway was built. The main purpose of the project was to solve the traffic congestion issue. We were given two broad solutions that we could work with to determine the best possible solution. The first solution was road widening. The road through Shakespeare could be widened to a four lane road. The second solution was a highway bypass around the Hamlet of Shakespeare. Through investigation of the area and a detailed evaluation of the impact of each possible solution, we were required to determine which solution was better and how we could adapt this solution to improve it further.
The first stage of the project was to collect spatial data that would help us understand Shakespeare and the surrounding farms. For this project we had to find our own data, which meant we had to determine what type of spatial data we required. Our final decision included collecting parcel ownership data, road networks, an ortho-image of the area, township boundary data, land cover data and a railway network. After looking at the data my group determined the impacts of each broad solution. If the road was widened some of the buildings along the road might have to be demolished because the buildings are located very close to the highway. In turn, the impact of the bypass would be the loss of tourism in the town. Shakespeare is a small town and relies on people stopping on their way through town for much of its income. Also many farms would have to be expropriated because of the land required to build the bypass. There would be no way to avoid affecting the town but our goal was to find the least intrusive solution.
The next phase of the process was to determine how we were going to solve the traffic congestion issue with minimal impact on the community. We applied buffers onto the highway to determine how many buildings would truly be affected by the new road. The results were not positive and, as we had suspected, most of the houses along the side of the current two lane highway would have to be demolished. Therefore we discarded the idea of widening the road and looked at ways of creating a bypass while still keeping tourism in the town. Our final solution to the issue was to create a truck bypass. The idea of the truck bypass was to allow trucks to avoid the town by taking the bypass but keeping cars traveling through the city to allow for tourism to continue to thrive. Once we chose this solution there was additional planning to be done. We had to determine how much land would be affected by the bypass and what parcels would have to be bought out or expropriated. There is a railway line that runs just south of the town and we decided that we would run the highway along the southern side of the tracks. There were no houses along that stretch of land because of the railway line and as a result, the road would only require small areas of some parcels to be bought out. After applying a buffer to the road to determine how much land around the road may suffer environmental damage, we determined the amount of land that would have to be bought from each parcel owner. All of these processes required us to create our own spatial data files which included the truck bypass, the land that would be affected by the bypass, entire parcels that would have to be bought out and the creation of a sound barrier. To organize these files we constructed a geodatabase that followed basic design techniques we learned in class. Creating a geodatabase that was well organized with well labelled feature datasets and feature classes was very important to the output of the entire project.
The final stage in this project was to create a map of the community along with the feature classes that we created. Though the final outcome of the project was a map showing our solution; this map was a relatively simple and was only a small part of the overall project. The main emphasis of this project was GIS problem solving techniques. We used the GIS program to determine the land affected by the road and in turn developed our final idea. This project demonstrated the many applications of a GIS and clearly showed that there is more to the field of GIS than creating maps.”
– Sarah Thompson
MISA Ontario's Open Government Workshop
'Today's Open Government ~ A New Approach to Public Service'
The City of Ottawa is pleased to host MISA Ontario's Open Government Workshop on Sept. 26, 2011. The last two years have seen dramatic changes in the evolution of open government, open data and open technologies. This workshop will provide a current-state assessment together with case studies in open data and Gov 2.0 / Web 2.0 technologies and their roles in public service delivery. The workshop will combine presentations, a panel discussion and delegate roundtable discussions to review the challenges and opportunities of open government, open data and web 2.0 - social media.
The agenda can be found here:
http://misa.on.ca/en/resourcesGeneral/OpenGov_Ottawa-Program_Sept26.pdf
New Candidates Seeking Positions
Looking for a new way to post your resume and find your new career? All members of URISA-OC can use our website to advertise their resume to prospective employers. There are now two members posting their resume for a GIS Assistant and/or GIS Technician position.
Read their Resume's here: http://www.urisaoc.ca/CandidatesSeekingPositions.asp
URISA OC New Members
- Steffen Bergen - Independent
- Cyrus Borja - Centennial College
- Andrew Caky - Trent University
- Yunwei (Daniel) Dong - University of Waterloo
- Jovan Krasulja - Niagara college
- Tim Marchand - Ministry of Natural Resources, OP
- Carol McClellan - RWDI
- Luke Strongitharm - XCG Consultants Ltd.
- Sarah Thompson - University of Waterloo
- Carine Yi - University of Tsukuba
