Nmotion GIS Consulting

Summary
    n September of 2015, the Texas State University Archives contracted with Nmotion GIS (Nmotion) to conduct a map visualization project of Texas State University San Marcos campus. The overall goal of this project was to produce a video showing how the campus has changed from c. 1900 to 2015.

Purpose
    Texas State University was founded in 1899 in San Marcos. Originally named Southwest Texas Normal School, its primary mission was to educate people to become teachers. Over the next 116 years, the university steadily grew from a small teachers college of 303 students to a major research university with an enrollment of more than 30,000. During that time the university’s campus has changed dramatically, the physical boundaries of campus have expanded and numerous buildings have been constructed and demolished. To date, there has not been any organized effort to examine the history of the university and clearly document how it has grown in terms of its spatial characteristics, and to that end link the history of the university to changes to its campus layout and size. Therefore, the major goal of Nmotion’s project is to tell the story of university through spatial data.

Conclusion
    Nmotion partnered with the Texas State University Archives to create a map visualization of the changes to Texas State’s San Marcos campus from c. 1900 to 2015. There were two main objectives for this project: 1)Produce a video using ArcGIS’ Time Slider function showing the changes to campus over time 2)Develop an interactive web map that featured pop-menus also documenting the changes to campus The web map and video can be accessed via any Internet browser or mobile device[1]. In addition, to these two tasks, NMotion also conducted a statistical analysis of average student population and campus size during the history of the university. It was determined that there is statistical relationship between student population and land acquisition by the university, suggesting that the growth of campus can be attributed to changes in student enrollment. Ultimately, the goal of this project was to create a final product that can be utilized by students and researches alike to explore the history of Texas State University through spatial data.