by Chanda Pearl B. Simeon
With the supervision of Department of History faculty member Marjorie Joy S. Almario-Magdadaro and GIS Resource Center personnel Engr. Elizabeth Edan M. Albiento, three AB History students namely, Christine Jaya P. Obial, Bulkhia U. Panalondong, and Charity P. Rollorata, and one alumnus, Glary Jun S. Vedra, presented their paper, The Political Evolution of Iligan in GIS Maps: 1625-1950, at the 5th International Conference on State of the Art in Historical GIS in Asia (ANGIS Manila Conference 2016) at the University of the Philippines-Diliman on December 1-3, 2016.
They tackled the political evolution of Iligan City within the course of three decades and presented a visualization of the changes in the city by generating maps through the use of a geographic information system.
The results of the study were presented to other Urban History enthusiasts at the conference organized by the Asian Network of GIS-based Historical Studies (ANGIS) in collaboration with the Project on GIS-based Global History from Asian Perspectives, the University of the Philippines-Department of Geography, and the Philippine Geographical Society, Inc. (PGS).
Anchored on the theme State of the Art in Historical G.I.S. in Asia, the said event sought to promote multidisciplinary approaches and innovative methods such as digital visualization, analysis of data using time information systems, and the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in exploring historical processes.
The use of GIS as a digital visualization tool for the analysis and interpretation of data is a recent breakthrough in the conduct of historical research.
The Institute—through the GIS Resource Center and the Department of History—has been taking steps to break the barriers which characterize traditional historical researches.