Land surveyors, agricultural workers attend GPS workshops

On Feb. 2 and 3, two workshops were held on the use and structure of the Oregon Real-Time GPS Network in Owen Hall as part of a geomatics program organized by College of Civil and Construction Engineering professor Bob Schultz.

The workshop on Thursday was for professionals who are less experienced with the use of GPS for surveying. Participants learned basic principles of GPS use to introduce first-time users to the technology, but the workshop also served to reinforce the skills of those who already use it. Knowledge the participants gained in the workshop setting was put to use through the completion of a hands-on project.

Friday's workshop was for those who are more advanced and wished to increase their accuracy with corrections provided by the ORGN. Ken Bays, an instructor of the workshop, is the lead Geodetic surveyor of the Oregon Department of Transportation and a technical administrator of ORGN. "This class," he said, "gives us a chance to teach people about our network."

The ORGN provides corrections for GPS collected in real time throughout the state of Oregon, addressing the accuracy problem of GPS. "If you go out with an uncorrected GPS, its accuracy is limited," Bays said.

An uncorrected GPS may only be accurate within a few yards. Depending on professional and/or academic needs, a few yards can be a significant inaccuracy. The goal of the ORGN is to increase accuracy to within two centimeters.

"We have stations all around the state and they collect data 24/7. That data is constantly streamed back to our headquarters in Salem," Bays said.

This data, gathered on-site, is more accurate than that of an ordinary GPS. The corrections are gathered on a computer and made available to GPS users over the Internet. Gaining and using access to these corrections, as well as the general structure of the network, was the focus of Bays' workshop.

The workshops made clear through their high price of more than $150 that they were intended to educate professionals as opposed to students. While many events on and around campus offer a student discount, the workshops in Owen were an exception.

Nancy Brickman of the College of Civil and Construction Engineering said the GPS series "is available to students, but there is no price discount." Students cannot rely on their student account, either. If they cannot pay by the time of the workshop, they can only hope for their attendance to be sponsored by their department.

Potential participants got the message. The audience for the workshops was not one of students but of mostly land surveyors, precision agriculture users and others from beyond the university who stand to benefit from the use of GPS.

According to Schultz, those who go to OSU do so to obtain a degree, and their parents may not often think about the school's other functions in the community, state and wider professional world. Schultz said educating undergraduate and graduate students are only two out of three of OSU's roles.

"I believe it is a responsibility as a university," he said, "to reach out to the professionals." Schultz called the professionally oriented workshops "continuing education," emphasizing the importance of keeping tpotential alumni up to date with recent advances in technology.

Annecy Beauchemin, staff reporter

737-2231 news@dailybarometer.com