The 5th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience '08) is being held September 24-26th at the Yarrow Resort in Park City. The focus of this conference is the latest research developments across all sectors of geographic information science, and over 100 presenters and 200 participants from around the world in academic, industry and government will be attending to explore and discuss the latest findings and advancements.

The conference and all associated workshops are open to everyone, and this is the last week to register at the early rate ($320 standard, $115 student, $80 per workshop -- deadline 8/22/08). This is great opportunity to get exposed to basic geographic information research from major centers across a host of disciplines including local a few local stars like Brandon Plewe from  BYU, as well Scott Bridwell and Tetsuo Kobayashi from the U of U who will be presenting. Information regarding the current schedule of events and the list of presentations and posters is available at the conference website (http://www.giscience.org ).

If you have any questions about the conference contact:

Tom Cova, Program Chair
Department of Geography
University of Utah

The 2008 ESRI Southwest Users Group (SWUG) conference will be held October 20-14 in Laramie, Wyoming. This and other GIS events of interest can be found on the GIS Portal Calendar .

Registered users of the portal should be able to add Utah-related GIS events to the calendar as they see fit, after logging in.

As promised, the Utah GIS Portal now offers a online discussion forum for registered users. The intention of this forum is to discuss Utah-specific GIS topics and to further the ability of the Utah GIS user community to act as a resource to one another.

The forum and its functionality are accessible from the GIS Forum button on the portal's main menu or by going to http://gis.utah.gov/gis-forum.

• The GIS Portal Search functionality now returns results from the Forum posts too. (06/04/08).

Currently there are several forums pertaining to programming (ArcObjects, ArcGIS Server, & Python) and data models/standards. Any registered user may post new topic threads to existing forums and reply to existing threads after logging in to the portal.  These forum areas are just starters to get the forum going. If you would like to see a new forum area started, please email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with a title and short description.

The more folks use this, the better a resource it will become. Please take a moment to explore the forum functionality and consider how you can utilize it for the GIS work that you do.

Thanks to all who participated in the February 2008 Banner Image Contest. The entries have been added to the Utah GIS Portal's rotating banner image collection and are helping to make the site more interesting and appealing. More information on the banner images, including all contest entries, is now available by clicking on the banner image from any Utah GIS Portal page or from http://gis.utah.gov/banners .

Congratulations to the winners of the February Banner Contest! The winners will receive cartographic-themed books generously donated by ESRI Denver .

• First Prize -  Steve Richardson, Questar Exploration & Production, "The View From Lehi" (Prize: ESRI Press book: Cartographica Extraordinaire)
  

• Second Prize -  Lucas Shaw, Utah Geological Survey, "Things That Go Downhill" (Prize:ESRI Press book: Designed Maps)
  

• Third Prize (tie) - Roger Dunn, City of Orem "Orem Utility Networks"  AND Matt McCullough, Farmington City, "Downtown Farmington" (Prizes: ESRI Press book: Designing Better Maps)