Our pre-Symposium Workshops will be held on Monday May 23, 2016.  Workshops are FREE for individuals from UCGIS member institutions who are also registered to attend the Symposium. For anyone not attending the Symposium, or not from a member institution, the fees are $50 for a half-day workshop and $75 for a full-one.  
Register here for one of these workshops. Spaces are limited so we encourage you to register early.
 
 
1) Cloud-based Spatiotemporal Analysis using Google Earth Engine
 
Description: Google Earth Engine (GEE) is a cloud-based platform for planetary-scale environmental data analysis which combines Google-scale storage and processing power. This workshop will introduce the Google Earth Engine (GEE), the most advanced cloud-based geospatial processing platform in the world, and showcase its capability through a hands-on section where we will work through some scripts that are used in global environment and climate trend analysis. 
Location: Dunes B Room, Hotel Valley Ho
Time & Date: 1:00 – 5:00 pm on Monday May 23, 2016 
Requirements: Participants must bring their own laptops
Instructor: Dr. Xingong Li is a ​professor at the Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science, University of Kansas. His research focuses on spatiotemporal data analysis and GIS applications in hydrology and water resources. Dr. Li received a Google faculty research award from and has been using Google Earth Engine since 2014.
 
 
2) Innovative Cyberinfrastructure for Integrated Food, Energy, and Water Research
 
Description:Food, energy, and water (FEW) demands are often interdependent and transcend regional and national boundaries, and have posed tremendous global challenges where actions in one part of the world impact behaviors and outcomes in another. As location-aware sensors and devices (e.g., environmental sensors, LiDAR, remote sensing, and social media) become increasingly common, advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) must support collaborative and scalable coupling of geospatial big data with various domain-specific models and computational capabilities for conducting integrated FEW research, and associated compute- and data-intensive scientific problem solving. CyberGIS (aka geographic information science and systems based on advanced CI) brings critical geospatial thinking and big compute and data approaches to bear and promises to play a significant role in advancing integrated FEW understanding. This workshop addresses innovative CI for facilitating interoperability between cyberGIS and domain-specific CI capabilities (e.g. HydroShare) driven by integrated FEW research. The workshop will solicit position papers in this context and serve as a forum for generating novel ideas for further CI-enabled interdisciplinary geospatial research on interactions of other integrated systems beyond FEW. The workshop will produce a report for broad dissemination, and is expected to achieve significant impacts through leveraging not only two NSF software research projects focused on cyberGIS and HydroShare respectively, but also extensive partnerships and a number of advanced CI initiatives and resources (e.g., the National CyberGIS Facility based on ROGER supercomputer and the National Data Service). 

Sponsor: National Science Foundation

Eligibility: This 2-day Workshop is an invitation-only event. For all current information, please consult this UIUC CyberGIS Center page (link is external)

Location: Tropicana Room, Hotel Valley Ho

Time & Date: 8:30 am – 5:30 pm on Sunday May 22 AND 8:00 am - 1:00 pm Monday May 23, 2016

Requirements: Workshop co-chairs will provide specific instructions for participants prior to the event.

Co-Chairs: David Tarboton is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah Water Research Laboratory, Utah State University. His research focuses on advancing the capability for hydrologic prediction by developing models that take advantage of new information and process understanding enabled by new technology.  He is lead on the National Science Foundation HydroShare project for the development of a collaborative environment for sharing hydrologic data and models.
Shaowen Wang is a professor of Geography and Geographic Information Science (Primary), Computer Science, Library and Information Science, and Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he is named a Centennial Scholar. He is also an Associate Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Founding Director of UIUC’s CyberGIS Center for Advanced Digital and Spatial Studies. He is President-Elect of UCGIS, and a current member of the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources of the U.S. National Academies. 
 
 
 3) Spatial Data Science with PySAL & PyData
 
Description: Tools for data science in Python are mature and well-known. The ecosystem built around spatial data science in Python is no different. This workshop will provide an introduction to spatial data analysis in Python using PySAL, the Python Spatial Analysis Library, as well as other data collection, visualization, processing tools in the broader Python ecosystem.
This workshop will cover effective methods for spatial data processing, analysis, visualization, and documentation of results. In addition, the workshop will cover how to use well-known Python packages for data analysis, like Pandas & IPython/Jupyter, with PySAL. Some up-and-coming packages that make spatial data analysis workflows easier will also be introduced. Participants will learn how to conduct a full exploratory spatial analysis workflow in this workshop
Location: Dunes B Room, Hotel Valley Ho
Time & Date: 8:30 am – 12 pm on Monday May 23, 2016
Requirements: Participants must have their own laptops, and instructors will provide specific instructions for participants prior to the event
Instructors: Sergio J. Rey is Professor of Geographical Sciences and core faculty member of the GeoDa Center of Geospatial Analysis and Computation at Arizona State University. He is a Fellow of the Spatial Econometrics Association. Dr. Rey is project director for PySAL and the creator of the open source package STARS: Space-Time Analysis of Regional Systems. Levi John Wolf is a PhD student in the GeoDa Center of Geospatial Analysis and Computation at Arizona State University. His focus is in spatial statistics for polimetrics and quantitative social science. He has also consulted on statistics and geospatial software engineering for startups, like CartoDB and Nextdoor.
 
 
 
4) GIS&T Body of Knowledge Editorial Board Meeting
 
Description: a meeting of the UCGIS GIS&T Body of Knowledge Editorial Board.  Lunch and breaks provided. 
Location: Sahara Boardroom, Hotel Valley Ho
Timing: 8:30 am – 5:00 pm on Monday May 23, 2016 
Organizers: John Wilson, USC; Diana Sinton, UCGIS