About CADIS - Project 1999

Whether it's a question of locating a new industry, improving regional transportation, determining the need for a new middle school or preserving water quality - making the best decision requires the best information. The Community Asset and Development Information System (CADIS) is a project that brings together the private and public sector to create a high quality geographic information system for Northwest Arkansas. The Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST)of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville is partnering with the National Association of Counties, Intergraph Corporation, the Bank of Fayetteville, and the Northwest Arkansas Council to provide an extensive suite of information about the region to the counties, communities and businesses of the area. Geographic (computerized map) data on transportation, demographics, infrastructure, soils, and many other types of data along with software to analyze the data will be part of the project. The data will be provided over the World Wide Web (WWW) at no cost and the software developer, Intergraph, will donate the software. When the system is in place anyone who can use the WWW can access CADIS and ask questions such as:

Find all locations in the region that are adjacent to a major highway and near a rail siding,
Where are the areas in the region that have seen the greatest change in population from 1980 to 1990 to the projected population of 2000?
How can the region be characterized in terms of education, income and other demographic indicators that will affect new school locations, business development and/or requirements for community services?
Where are the areas that have the most home loans filled in the last six months?
Where are the locations in the rural areas that have soils that are suitable for septic systems?
Tell me if a specific address is within a mile of an elementary school.
Given population change where will new elementary schools be anticipated?

If we are able to obtain other data from local providers (see below) additional questions could also be asked such as:

Where is the nearest high capacity fiber optic line?
Where are there high growth areas that are not served by particular businesses (e.g. convenience store)?

A user of CADIS could sit down at a personal computer, access the WWW at no cost and ask these questions, and a detailed map of the region showing the answer will be produced. The data and software necessary to process the requests will be running on computers located at CAST and connected to the World Wide Web. The data will also be available to any of the partners to use on their own. Each county government will also have PC versions of the software provided to them at no cost by Intergraph that will allow them to perform more complex analyses.

With existing support provided by NACo, Intergraph, the Northwest Arkansas Council, and internal University of Arkansas funds with support of a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, this effort is moving forward in the summer of 1999. The goal is to have a prototype operational by early fall that can be tested by interested parties in the region to determine what future specific needs might be.

We want to invite any community group or business to join this effort. We would like your involvement to:

Help define the kinds of data and questions that can be addressed
Serve as "testers" of the prototype to determine if it meets the region's needs and how it can/should be improved
Provide information that could be included in the system.

Finally, we would like to mention the link with high school students from the region’s EAST programs to the project. For the last year students at Lincoln, Rogers and Fayetteville High Schools have been learning the fundamentals of these computerized systems. With financial support from the Northwest Arkansas Council, we have included four students from these programs into the CADIS project this summer as interns. Their participation will make the project much more productive but, more importantly, it will provide them with an incredible opportunity to build on their work, and they will be able to take this knowledge back to their schools next fall. CAST has worked with the EAST program since its inception and has hosted training classes for all the schools, as well as providing an important on-the-road support role this last spring. The CADIS project will provide a unique partnership between the community, the EAST program, and the University.

	main who is cadis about cadis applications the data the interns About CADIS - Project 1999
	Whether it's a question of locating a new industry, improving regional transportation, determining the need for a new middle school or preserving water quality - making the best decision requires the best information. The Community Asset and Development Information System (CADIS) is a project that brings together the private and public sector to create a high quality geographic information system for Northwest Arkansas. The Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies (CAST)of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville is partnering with the National Association of Counties, Intergraph Corporation, the Bank of Fayetteville, and the Northwest Arkansas Council to provide an extensive suite of information about the region to the counties, communities and businesses of the area. Geographic (computerized map) data on transportation, demographics, infrastructure, soils, and many other types of data along with software to analyze the data will be part of the project. The data will be provided over the World Wide Web (WWW) at no cost and the software developer, Intergraph, will donate the software. When the system is in place anyone who can use the WWW can access CADIS and ask questions such as: Find all locations in the region that are adjacent to a major highway and near a rail siding, Where are the areas in the region that have seen the greatest change in population from 1980 to 1990 to the projected population of 2000? How can the region be characterized in terms of education, income and other demographic indicators that will affect new school locations, business development and/or requirements for community services? Where are the areas that have the most home loans filled in the last six months? Where are the locations in the rural areas that have soils that are suitable for septic systems? Tell me if a specific address is within a mile of an elementary school. Given population change where will new elementary schools be anticipated? If we are able to obtain other data from local providers (see below) additional questions could also be asked such as: Where is the nearest high capacity fiber optic line? Where are there high growth areas that are not served by particular businesses (e.g. convenience store)? A user of CADIS could sit down at a personal computer, access the WWW at no cost and ask these questions, and a detailed map of the region showing the answer will be produced. The data and software necessary to process the requests will be running on computers located at CAST and connected to the World Wide Web. The data will also be available to any of the partners to use on their own. Each county government will also have PC versions of the software provided to them at no cost by Intergraph that will allow them to perform more complex analyses. With existing support provided by NACo, Intergraph, the Northwest Arkansas Council, and internal University of Arkansas funds with support of a grant from the US Department of Agriculture, this effort is moving forward in the summer of 1999. The goal is to have a prototype operational by early fall that can be tested by interested parties in the region to determine what future specific needs might be. We want to invite any community group or business to join this effort. We would like your involvement to: Help define the kinds of data and questions that can be addressed Serve as "testers" of the prototype to determine if it meets the region's needs and how it can/should be improved Provide information that could be included in the system. Finally, we would like to mention the link with high school students from the region’s EAST programs to the project. For the last year students at Lincoln, Rogers and Fayetteville High Schools have been learning the fundamentals of these computerized systems. With financial support from the Northwest Arkansas Council, we have included four students from these programs into the CADIS project this summer as interns. Their participation will make the project much more productive but, more importantly, it will provide them with an incredible opportunity to build on their work, and they will be able to take this knowledge back to their schools next fall. CAST has worked with the EAST program since its inception and has hosted training classes for all the schools, as well as providing an important on-the-road support role this last spring. The CADIS project will provide a unique partnership between the community, the EAST program, and the University.