Journal of Technical Science and Technologies, 1(2):53-58,2012 ISSN:2298-0032

Application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in Education

Okan ERAY*

Abstract

Information technologies (IT) are developing very rapidly in today’s world. Geographic Information System (GIS) is one the technolo-
gies that evolves to allow people to solve many geographic problem quickly, effectively and easily with the abilities to make analysis,
especially location analysis in combination with traditional database systems. Education is one of the fundamental elements of a nation
and it can contain several elements including issues that are geographic.
The purpose of this paper is to show the applicability of GIS in education facilities, where each educational unit has easy access to the
common database. The system is constructed for schools in Old Tbilisi District, in Tbilisi, Georgia and different analyses related to
education were performed.

Keywords: GIS, School Location Analysis

Introduction 2002).
There are 2430 general education schools (National
In particular, among developing countries, the correlation Statistic Office of Georgia, 2011). This research data fo-
between adults with higher level of educational attainment, cus on schools in Old Tbilisi District in Tbilisi. All the
and individual earnings, employment opportunity in the ur- schools in Tbilisi are available on map in the Governor’s
ban labor markets and agricultural productivity is signifi- office website, however this school maps unfortunately is
cantly positive. Education affects developments through not synchronized with the data of Ministry of Education
various dimensions of cognitive competence: literacy and Science of Georgia. There are some statistical data
(reading and writing), numeric, modernity and problem for schools in the Ministry of Education and Science of
solving behaviors (Lockheed & Verspoor, 1991). Hence, Georgia. These are how many schools there are in Geor-
education is so important and it should be supported by gia, capacity of each school, number of student in Georgia,
proper planning and improved facilities that will enable distribution of schools in Georgia, physical condition of
information technologies integration that will lead to easy schools Minister of Education in Georgia analyses these
information analysis. data but not geographically. Another accomplishment of
Information technology is wide in scope and proper this paper is integrates schools’ data to GIS and analyses
use and integration will make the solution to some prob- the data visually on the map.
lems easier. Many problems exist in educational adminis-
tration today and there are many application of information GIS as a Tool in Education
technology to assist in solving the problems.
The focus of this Geographic Information System Geographic Information System is a discipline for cap-
(GIS) paper is to emphasize the use or applicability of turing, storing, analyzing, managing and presenting data
GIS in Education by determining education district, cre- and associated attributes which are spatially referenced to
ate school mapping, where school can be established and Earth. Geographic Information System is to analyze ob-
help decision makers to solve problems which are related ject and event on the earth and visualize them with real
to locational / geographical in education easily and quickly coordinates on the map. In another definition of GIS it is
. Generally the areas of relevance will include capacity of abbreviation of three words:
schools, schools’ regional distribution, number of student, Geography + Information + System. Geography re-
number of teacher, number of schools, Gender issues, sim- lates to all the features and process that occur on the sur-
ple statistical calculation within and between schools/dis- face of the earth. Information is the hearth of GIS, where
trict. GIS is mainly used for analyses, which, in developing vast amount of data are stored and analyzed (Audet & Lud-
countries, only few GIS projects are successfully applied wing, 2000, p. 6). Therefore GIS makes geographic analy-
and utilized for decision-making. (Makino & Watanabe, sis and location analysis easier, so users of GIS application
The application of GIS to the school mapping in Bangkok, increases and the scope expands.

* A PHD. C. and the Lecturer at the International Black Sea University at the Computer Technologies and Engineering Faculty, Tbilisi, Georgia,
E-mail: [email protected]

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 Okan ERAY
Journal of Technical Science and Technologies, 1(2):53-58,2012 ISSN:2298-0032

The trend towards using GIS and school mapping to School Location Analysis Using GIS
support decision making for Ministries of Education and
educational facilities are becoming very important for There are 2 main types of schools in Old Tbilisi District.
planning purposes. GIS is in the implementation stages in These are public school and private schools. First of all it is
many developed countries of the world, and also in the de- necessary to collect data on schools then create a database
veloping countries. (Yoko, Watanabe 2002) have decided based on the collected data. GIS Data needs spatial data to
that GIS is a very useful tool to analyze the school-plan- integrate to GIS system. Location of Schools takes location
ning situation. Besides the simplification of educational geographically so school coordinate helps us to integrate
administration, and expansion of compulsory education, data to GIS system. Name of this feature is called a Ge-
enforcing the clear school planning policies, and creating ocode. Geocoding is the process of transforming a descrip-
the digital database that can be used in GIS, will have more tion of a location - such as a pair of coordinates, an address,
positive influence on improving school services and quali- or a name of a place - to a location on the earth's surface.
ties for the current and future children. You can geocode by entering one location description at
Among the possibilities for GIS to improve education a time or by providing many of them at once in a table.
micro planning, the following are identified by (DeGrau- The resulting locations are output as geographic features
we, 2002): with attributes, which can be used for mapping or spatial
1. GIS helps make the presentation of data more attrac- analysis. In figure 1 it shows map of school in Old Tbilisi
tive than traditional static maps. District in Tbilisi.
2. Projecting tabular data onto maps helps in recogniz-
ing ”unexpected” situations which, now noticed, call for
closer examination.
3. Through considering geographical (spatial) factors,
the analysis becomes “finer” and more precise, increasing
the likelihood that ensuing strategies will be more perti-
nent.
4. More flexible assistance can be provided in pro-
spective planning at multiple levels or units of analysis:
national, regional, provincial/district, and local.
According to (Hite J., 2004) school mapping as a
technical exercise has become a relatively normalized
and institutionalized practice in education’s micro plan-
ning. More than simply being a tabular, graphical or car-
tographical representation of a particular space or place,
school mapping involves the consideration and inclusion
of various forms of technical data that impact and populate
the physical and social context of analysis. As a process
that produces specific functional products, school mapping
is fundamentally an educational micro planning effort fo- Figure 1: Map of Schools in Old Tbilisi District
cused on increasing school resource efficiency and equity
(Caillods, 1983). A thematic map is a type of map or chart especially de-
Another use of GIS in Education involves combining signed to show a particular theme connected with a specific
statistical inferences to geographic information. Statistics geographic area. These maps can portray physical, social,
in education might be used with GIS to present a clear pic- political, cultural, economic, sociological, agricultural, or
ture of educational facilities and activities. Ratio of stu- any other aspects of a city, state, region, nation, or conti-
dents to teacher, number of students in a class and student nent (Library of University of Washington, 2008). Themat-
density in school, schools distribution in a district to find ic maps are great techniques that may be used for education
lack of schools and in time processing education facilities and school analysis. Also thematic maps can be used with
and so on. GIS might be used for supporting educational statistical method which represents data with pie chart dia-
decisions by senior administration and how to use statis- gram. Any kind of ratio comparison used can be visualized
tic for this system. Some approaches in GIS that might be with map. Below figure is a good example for using the
used for education facilities and policy with statistical in- thematic map with pie chart. This example illustrates ratio
ferences in the districts of Izmir (Temiz, 2007) where dis- of boys to girls in school. This is a fragmentation of some
cussed. schools in Old Tbilisi District. Size of pie chart is propor-
tional to the number of students in a school.

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 Application of Geographic Information System (GIS) in Education
Journal of Technical Science and Technologies, 1(2):53-58,2012 ISSN:2298-0032

Figure 2: Illustration of Ratio of Boys to Girls in Schools of Old Tbilisi

District

Another useful technique is using a buffer zone which

informs us about the coverage area of a particular school.
This technique is used to decide correct school location
based on residence zone, school related problems. For an Figure 3: Coverage Area of School Zone in Old Tbilisi District
example, is there any problem or not between school build-
ing and other buildings? What is the distance of petrol sta-
tion from school buildings as it should be minimum 100m?
Buffer analysis techniques were used in order to solve such
related problems. In first analysis buffer size is selected as
500m to see distribution of schools in map. In figure 3 it
is shown that density of organized schools cover approxi-
mately whole residence zone. It is also important to know
demographic situation in the school coverage area for deci-
sion support by reading this map correctly.
Another significant point is to change scale of the map
for specific school analysis. This technique is applied dis-
tance between petrol station and school. Based on Euro-
pean Union standards the distance from school to petrol
Figure 4: Map of Surroundings of Public School No 72
station must be minimum 100m due to the fact that petrol
stations are risky and dangerous for schools and residence
Using SQL Queries
zones. A model has been made for it. Petrol Station is rep-
resented by P and building of school is represented by S
Most of the actions necessary to retrieve information from
and it is formulized as follows:
a database are done with Structured Query Language
|P - S| > 100.
(SQL) statements. SQL can be divided into two parts: The
Public School No 72 is a good example of this prob-
Data Manipulation Language (DML) and Data Definition
lem. There are 3 petrol stations near this school and they
Language (DDL). The query and update commands from
can be risky for the school. In below figure petrol stations
the DML part of SQL is;
are shown by red colored pins and school is illustrated by
SELECT - Extracts data form a database
a column building. A buffer of 100m is drawn focusing on
WHERE - Extracts only those records that fulfill a
school location. It is observed that two petrol stations are
specified criterion
in the coverage area of the buffer. It may result in a risky
AND - Displays a record if both the first condition and
situation.
the second condition is true
As shown in Figure 4 this petrol station is risky to the
OR - Displays a record if either the first condition or
school and Public School No 20 also has the same problem
second condition or second condition is true.
like this. Appealingly, buffer is a technique that is useful
ORDER BY- is used to sort the result set by a specified
for school zone analysis and probable future problems can
column
be foreseen easily.
Select Statement: This statement used to select data
from a database. The result is stored in a result table, called
the result set.

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 Okan ERAY
Journal of Technical Science and Technologies, 1(2):53-58,2012 ISSN:2298-0032

SELECT column name or column names

FROM table name or table names
Where Clause: This clause is used to extract only those
records that fulfill a specified criterion.
SELECT column name or column names
FROM table name or table names
WHERE column name and operator value
AND Operator: This operator displays a record both
the first condition and the second condition is true.
SELECT column name or column names
FROM table name or table names Figure 5: Analyses of Private Schools in Old Tbilisi District
WHERE criteria 1 AND criteria 2
OR Operator: This operator displays a record if either Conclusion and Recommendation
the first condition or the second condition is true.
SELECT column name or column names A database is created based on administration management
FROM table name or table names system in Georgia and this database is dynamic and it can
WHERE criteria 1 OR criteria 2 be developed. Many administration units can easily utilize
Order By - This keyword is used to sort the result-set it. Management of Georgia is divided into districts. Each
by a specified column educational district is managed by Research Center, and
SELECT column name or column names each research center can see data from the other districts
FROM table name or table names and can see educational situations in its own district.
ORDER BY column name or column names This gives many advantages to administrators of edu-
ASC|DESC cation. They can see clear picture of education overview,
It is a good example of using SQL with thematic map they will have same database structure and by this way da-
is applied to Private Schools in Old Tbilisi. Data of private tabase structure is standardized across district. Whenever
schools are used in different table but with the same data data are to be viewed, they can be easily visualized. An-
structure of public schools. Analysis of private schools is other advantage is easy comparison of data with others.
based on conditions such as having conference halls, sports GIS can visualize data with different size of scales so
saloons, sports fields and canteens. Following query is ap- it can show exact problem with analysis. Some relations
plied to learn the situation: can be shown on the map and they can be categorized. If
there is need to see the situation of education in general in
SELECT School_Name Georgia, databases can be combined with query to give
FROM privateschool combined analyses of the pictures of education.
WHERE Sport_Salon__Yes_1_No_0_=1 and Sport_ This model is applied to Old Tbilisi District in Tbilisi
Field_Yes_1_No_0= 1 and Conference_Salon_Yes_1_ and Center of Old Tbilisi and it might be applied all dis-
No_0 = 1 and Canteen_Yes_1_No_0 = 1 tricts in Georgia. Managers can determine and solve the
problems fast, effectively and correctly for educational fa-
GIS system gives results as maps and/or tables. As cilities. This system can be used for other ministries and
shown in figure 5 query and thematic map are combined. local authorities.
According to query results, number of students and num-
ber of teachers whose schools are eligible for the query are References
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