Funding and Support Models of GIS

[GeriMiller]

We have heard many questions from the education community surrounding funding and support models for GIS across campuses. What is a successful model to support people doing GIS across the institution? How is GIS support funded? How is staff funded? How are costs of licenses funded? How many people do GIS support for the campus, and what does success look like? What activities are done to provide support? 

Below is recording and follow up from a panel which took place on May 5th, 2021. Special thanks to all panelists for sharing their experiences!!

Recording:

https://esri.zoom.us/rec/share/ypMW1RSbW2tySZEC4vWFFnqo7iGkInKKGCvCOg6OOJRb70_AE1zKSBTwYEtRw_q5.33Wr...

Passcode: .Y+p+5bT

Presenters:     

•        Allison Meezan, Foothill College (slides here)  
•        Len Kne, University of Minnesota  (slides here)  
•        Nicole Ernst, Harrisburg Area Community College (slides here)  
•        Peter Knoop, University of Michigan (slides here)  
•        Seth Peery, Virginia Tech (slides here)  

Lessons Learned (shared by panelists):

• Administration
  • Keep the support center out of an individual college (silos).
    • Libraries are a good option.
    • Office of VP for Research, or other offices which provide support across the campus community.
  • Get Administration buy-in.

• Managing GIS
  • Make ArcGIS Online administration as easy as possible.
  • It takes significantly more effort to restrict access than to empower all users.
    • Give everyone access to everything automatically.
  • It is simpler and less obstructive to limit how much users can do, rather than what they can do.
    • Enforce reasonable use through credit allocations.
  • Log user counts, item counts, and similar daily so the figures can be used in the future to support the need for GIS and resources.
  • Leverage Economies of Scale for Enterprise GIS Administration.
  • If you don't know what all of your users are doing with GIS, you are doing it right!

• Supporting/Helping people use GIS
  • Offer no cost support to demonstrate applications and enhance funding proposals to garner interest far and wide, as well as to build reputation. Don’t rely on internal cost-recovery [lesson learned].
  • Decentralized support model can result in unequal help.
  • If you cannot help everyone, enable people to at least help themselves (give everyone access to everything). 
  • Situate responsibility in recognized Honest Brokers.

• Funding GIS license
  • It is less expensive and simpler to centrally fund, than to try to do cost-recovery.
  • Don’t rely on internal cost-recovery, institute central payment of license.
  • Lower barriers to the use of GIS, empower all users.  

• Collaboration is the foundation for GIS Success!