BACKGROUND
The Ohio Geographic Information Systems Network (Ohio GIS-Net) is an innovative consortium of Ohio’s urban and rural universities. The consortium is building a center of excellence where state-of-the-art geographic information systems (GIS) technology is applied to a research agenda that is critical to Ohio's economic development and central to research issues in policy sciences, civil engineering, public administration, economics and the environmental, urban and regional sciences. This cutting edge technology is an essential component of the basic research infrastructure of universities. It is also a critical resource in state and local economic development efforts, building and maintaining public infrastructure, and in addressing environmental issues.  Ohio GIS–Net seeks to focus research and technical assistance resources in the university consortium on the cross–cutting issues of economic and regional development, infrastructure investment, and  environmental management.

In 1993, five members of the consortium received a $100,000 Investment Fund development grant from the Ohio Board of Regents (OBOR). This grant was used to initiate Stage 1 of the development of the network. The five universities included Cleveland State University, Ohio University, University of Akron, Wright State University, and Youngstown State University. Additional universities were funded by the 1996 Investment Fund grant from OBOR, initiating Stage 2 of the project.

In the first stage the five universities made the Ohio GIS-Net a reality by leveraging the grant into an investment of over $357,000. These investments have been highly successful in achieving targeted levels of capital investment in GIS equipment through the OBOR planning grant and, with leveraged funds, in investments in software, establishing standards, professional training, database development, and providing the foundation for a substantive research agenda and attracting non-state research grants. These accomplishments laid the ground work for further success in implementing the Ohio GIS Network, including the award of a 1996 Investment Fund grant of $860,000.

The network is an initiative of the Urban University Program (UUP) and the Rural University Program (RUP).

Each university brings to the consortium a variety of complementary technical and substantive areas of expertise; some have stronger GIS instructional curricula and theoreticians, others offer strong professional academic programs and public service outreach programs, some focus on urban development issues and others on rural development, and all have institutionalized applied research and public service outreach  functions.

MISSION
Ohio GIS-Net serves as a laboratory for university research and the use of integrated sets of spatially-referenced databases. It seeks to:

    1. enhance research capabilities of member universities, and
    2. promote resource sharing, technology transfer, and sharing of methods for multi–disciplinary research networks concerned with several fields of research, including economic geography, regional economics, regional science, urban studies, environmental science, public management and administration, civil engineering, policy sciences and others.

GOALS
The existence of the network should attract university-based researchers and facilitate national competitiveness in research funding. GIS-Net, working in each of the State's regions, should provide the mechanism for regional dialogue, cooperation, and decision making, as well as serve as local information access points to comprehensive statewide and local training, technical service, and applied research.

OBJECTIVES
Objective 1:  Research Advancement: A priority objective is significant expansion of research, research funding, and researchers utilizing the capacities of Ohio GIS-Net. The consortium will pursue concerted strategies to use GIS capacities to stimulate research and research funding. The existence of the network increasingly will attract more university-based researchers and facilitate national competitiveness in research funding. A central focus will be research of regional and state economic development.

Greater synergy is achieved by GIS-Net’s role as a networked data management and analysis laboratory for two other university-based statewide networks, the Ohio Economic Development Information Network (OEDIN) and the Ohio Housing Research Network (OHRN). These two groups of 21 researchers representing eight universities work primarily off specialized geographic databases. These common databases permit comparative regional analysis that address national, as well as statewide, issues of concern and GIS can improve both analysis and decision-making.

By serving as the technology and data platform for these collaborations, the GIS network magnifies the potential for national excellence and leveraging of non-state research funds. GIS technology enables the integration of disparate sources of data. The potential for significantly expanding applied research on state and local policy, infrastructure development, the environment, and economic and regional competitiveness is great. We are witnessing an explosion of geographic database development at the national, state, and local levels.  GIS is providing the technological infrastructure for this explosion. Ohio, through the state GIS network, is well positioned to be at the forefront of this wave of technological innovation.  A critical mass of GIS expertise exists among the networked universities. The success of the collaboration among these universities in building and expanding the state GIS network creates the potential to move to a position of national excellence.

Objective 2:  Network Expansion:  The network will be expanded by the addition of four additional universities; Kent State University, Ohio State University, University of Cincinnati, and University of Toledo.  Bowling Green State University and Miami University, although not full participants, will be affiliated with the network through their affiliation with Ohio University in the Rural University Program.  Stage 2 inclusion of these universities will amplify the geographical representation of the network, significantly increase the depth and breadth of expertise within the consortium, and create new capacities and expertise within the State.

Objective 3:  Technology Broadening:  The equipment technology and operational capacities of new network members will be brought to the minimum threshold achieved by Stage 1 participants in the GIS Network. This baseline threshold includes equipment, shared databases, applications, and methods.

Objective 4:  Technology Deepening:  The GIS technology of Stage 1 members of the network will be raised to a new threshold.

Objective 5: Expanded Operations Capabilities:  The network will continuously upgrade operations expertise of member universities

Objective 6:  Data Resource Development:  Shared and networked database resources will be expanded.

Objective 7:  Enhanced Networking Capabilities:  The consortium and each university will enhance the capacity to share data, methods, and system resources among participating universities.

Objective 8:  Building Partnerships:  The network will increase the relevance and immediate utility of university GIS-linked research by building collaborative partnerships with organizations external to universities.

Objective 9:  Resource Leveraging: The potential for leveraging external resources is very great. The consortium and each member university will initiate concerted strategies to use the capacities of the network GIS and the collaborative partnerships with external organizations to leverage non-state funding from federal and local governments, foundations, and private sources. The organizational structure of Ohio GIS–Net  provides for a team of researchers to coordinate and facilitate these efforts.