The Department of Geosciences at the University of West Georgia offers a 15 hour course of study leading to a Geographic Information Systems Certificate. The GIS Certificate is designed to meet the needs of students and community. The GIS Certificate program aims at providing post-graduate students and field professionals with updated GIS knowledge and skills for further enhancement of their GIS career. It also aims at providing traditional students with a set of practical GIS skills to access the GIS market.

The UWG GIS Certificate Program will provide you vital skills on:

• creating, managing, analyzing and visualizing GIS data
• using GIS software packages for research and services
• implementing and developing enterprise GIS applications
• processing and analyzing remotely-sensed digital imagery, and
• designing valuable maps

The GIS Certificate is open to all professionals and current students who have a bachelor’s degree with a GPA of 2.5 or above. Any bachelor’s degree meets the requirement of admission. Prospective students must apply for the admission to the non-degree seeking program as described in the Graduate Catalog. The current students who are enrolled in the UWG Graduate programs do not need to apply for the admission.

• Prerequisites

Students lacking appropriate background may be required to take GEOG 2553 (Fundamentals of Mapping Science. 3 Cr.). Please consult waiving GEOG2553 with Dr. Seong.

• Required Courses
Students must take the following three courses:
• GEOG 5553 Geographic Information Systems (4 cr. Every semester. Prereq. - GEOG 2553)
• GEOG 6753 Advanced GIS and Spatial Analysis (4 cr. Spring semester. Prereq. – GEOG 5553)
• GEOG 6686 Image Processing (4 cr. Spring semester. No prereq.)

  Students must take one from the following courses:

• GEOG 5562 Airphoto Interpretation & Photogrammetry (4 cr. Every other year. No prereq.)
• GEOG 5554 Computer Cartography (4 cr. Fall semester. Preea. – GEOG 5553)
• GEOG 5086 Internship (3 cr. Maximum. Any semester. Consult with Dr. Seong)
• GEOG 7685 Remote Sensing for Teachers (4 cr. Consult with Dr. Dodge)

  The Cetificate will be issued to the students who complete all required courses with B or better grades.

All courses will be provided to students via Web and regular formal meetings. The Web format is for post-graduate students who are the working professionals that have time conflict with their work schedule. Undergraduate students must join the formal meeting sessions. Post-graduate students may also join the formal meeting sessions.

Accurate fee schedules may be obtained by consulting the Graduate Study Office. Currently (April 2007), the university charges about $130 per credit hour to Georgia residents. Considering 15 credit hours to complete the Certificate, it will cost roughly $2000 plus some small fees. The small fees may include the application fee (about $30, one time), the Tech fee (about $50 per semester), and etc.

UWG Geosciences Department has maintained leading-edge GIS resources including ESRI site license, ERDAS Imagine HEAK license, Pixoneer PG-Steamer license, large-format plotters, large-format scanners, GIS faculty and staff (Dr. Dodge, Dr. Seong, Mr. Congleton), and GIS labs. We are also very excited at moving to the new building (Callaway Addition) that will be finished in 2008.

• Dr. Jeong Chang "JC" Seong (jseong@westga.edu)
• Dr. Rebecca Dodge (rdodge@westga.edu)
• Mr. John congleton (jconglet@westga.edu)

  Phone: 678-839-4051
  Fax: 678-839-4071
  Address: Dept. of Geosciences, UWG, 1601 Maple St., Carrollton, GA 30118