{"id":26704,"date":"2018-12-19T05:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/?p=26704"},"modified":"2018-12-19T01:42:31","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T07:42:31","slug":"gis-student-creates-digital-map-of-austin-peay-state-university-through-time-not-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/2018\/12\/19\/gis-student-creates-digital-map-of-austin-peay-state-university-through-time-not-space\/","title":{"rendered":"GIS student creates digital map of Austin Peay State University through time, not space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Austin Peay State University (APSU)<\/h2>\n

\"AustinClarksville, TN<\/strong> – Rachael Perkins, a first-semester geoscience student, probably knows more about Austin Peay State University (APSU) history than most people on campus.<\/p>\n

She can tell you about William Stewart, the professor who studied meteorology before he died in 1877.<\/p>\n

\"APSU<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interested in historic dates, she might tell you how Austin Peay State University officially became a university on September 1st, 1967.<\/p>\n

Or, if you prefer trivia, she can mention that Richard Rhoda served as Austin Peay\u2019s interim president for four brief months in 1994.<\/p>\n

Not bad for someone who only arrived on campus in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s my first semester, I\u2019m a transfer student, so I didn\u2019t know anything when I first got here,\u201d she said. \u201cNow, I feel a lot more at home and in touch with the campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perkins arrived at APSU this fall as a nontraditional student with a background in global information systems (GIS), which is how she ended up as a student analyst for Austin Peay\u2019s GIS Center. One day, she was given several old aerial photos of campus.<\/p>\n

Instead of simply putting them online, she spent months tracking down other images and stories to create a map through time that presents a visual history of Austin Peay State University. Now, anyone can quickly learn the APSU story by visiting https:\/\/apsu-gis.maps.arcgis.com\/apps\/Cascade\/index.html?appid=0a30a629bbe74462aedb7ba43cc60fe3<\/a><\/p>\n

What is a story map?<\/h3>\n

To tell the University\u2019s history through images, Perkins created a story map. Esri, a leading GIS software provider, offers a free story map template that allows developers, such as Perkins, to combine images and text in more dynamic ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cascading story map, and it\u2019s an excellence tool for getting a narrative out there,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not hard to flip through, and its broken up into nice, manageable bits. Hopefully, everyone will now know more about the history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visitors to the Austin Peay story map will discover a visual timeline, with text they can scroll through on the side, along with images showing the evolution of the APSU campus. The photos show iconic parts of the University\u2019s history, from the old Castle Building to the aftermath of the January 1999 tornado. <\/p>\n

A project evolves<\/h3>\n

For the last few years, Scott Shumate, library IT analyst, wanted to do something with the library\u2019s collection of aerial campus photographs. He had several, dating back to the 1960s, and when the GIS Center gave a presentation on its drones, he wondered if they could help.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI said, \u2018We have this idea that we could do something with all these photos, like reproduce some of them,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut the idea grew as we learned more about the campus.\u201d<\/p>\n

[320left]Shumate met with Mason Cordell, GIS analyst, who quickly realized they could do more with this type of project.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I talked with him about it, I realized they had this whole wealth of history that was fascinating,\u201d Cordell said. \u201cI also knew Rachel had a talent for writing and words. And she took it to the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shumate agreed. \u201cIt grew into this expansive thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was neat to see visualized a lot of the history that we had become familiar with.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Perkins took on the project, she decided to use every resource available to her. She looked through the library\u2019s digital collections, spending hours hunting down photos and reading old articles from The All State, Austin Peay\u2019s student newspaper. In the end, she used GIS tools to create a map through time rather than space.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn important skill is being able to convey the information that is relevant in a way that is also easily accessible,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

For information on APSU\u2019s GIS Center, visit www.apsugis.org<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Peay State University (APSU) Clarksville, TN – Rachael Perkins, a first-semester geoscience student, probably knows more about Austin Peay State University (APSU) history than most people on campus. She can tell you about William Stewart, the professor who studied meteorology before he died in 1877.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[23,2638,262,825,32989,5037,28836,32988,11808,576],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-6WI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26704"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26705,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26704\/revisions\/26705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}