The Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS) is a five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation under its program of support for infrastructure in the social and behavioral sciences. CSISS promotes an integrated approach to social science research that recognizes the importance of location, space, spatiality and place.

One of the CSISS programs is devoted to "Spatial Analytic Tools" for the social sciences, that is, the development and dissemination of a powerful and easy to use suite of software for spatial data analysis, the advancement of methods of statistical analysis to account for spatial effects, and the integration of these developments with GIS capabilities. For a more detailed description of the programs and objectives of CSISS, visit our homepage at http://www.csiss.org/.

In order to take stock of the state of the art, assess current impediments and identify promising strategies, a two-day "Specialist Meeting on Spatial Data Analysis Software Tools" will be convened in Santa Barbara, CA, May 10th and 11th, 2002. The meeting is organized by a steering committee, co-chaired by Luc Anselin (University of Illinois, CSISS) and Sergio Rey (San Diego State University) and consisting of Richard Berk (UCLA), Ayse Can (Fannie Mae Foundation), Di Cook (Iowa State University), Mark Gahegan (Pennsylvania State University), and Geoffrey Jacquez (BioMedware).

The meeting will bring together software developers from both the public/academic sector as well as the private sector who deal with tools to visualize spatial data (geovisualization), carry out exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and facilitate spatial modeling (spatial regression modeling, spatial econometrics, geostatistics), with a special focus on the potential for social science applications. These tools include a range of different approaches, such as macros and scripts for commercial statistical packages or GISes, modules developed in open source statistical and mathematical toolkits, and free standing software programs. The focus of the meeting is on software "tools" rather than on the methods per se.

The objectives of the meeting are threefold:

• It is an opportunity to demonstrate, showcase, and benchmark state-of-the-art tools and to interact with other specialized developers.
  
  
• It will facilitate and promote a dialogue among the wide range of developers about priorities and guidelines for software design, data and model standards, inter-operability, and open environments. It is hoped that this will initiate a discussion of specific open source standards for spatial data analysis.
  
  
• The meeting will also serve as a way to introduce CSISS' open source software development initiative, the "OpenSpace" project, and serve as a forum to obtain feedback and comments.

Contributions are invited that:

• describe technical aspects, architecture, design, principles and implementation of specific software tools for spatial data analysis
  
  
• compare and review software tools for spatial data analysis in social science applications
  
  
• demonstrate the application of new spatial analysis software tools to social science research questions.

All participants are expected to submit an abstract as well as a final paper. The papers will be published on a CD-Rom as a Proceedings Volume, available at the time of the meeting. The meeting will not consist of these paper presentations, but instead the Proceedings are to provide a common background for discussions related to the broader themes.

People interested in attending the meeting should submit a digital abstract for their contribution by e-mail to anselin@uiuc.edu by February 15, 2002. The steering committee will make a decision on the final list of participants by March 1, 2002. The abstract should be two to four pages (including figures, tables and references), in Adobe Acrobat pdf format (10pt Times Roman smallest font). The final paper (for the Proceedings Volume) should be 10 to 15 pages Adobe pdf and will be due by April 15, 2002.

Some funding assistance may be available, subject to NSF rules and prior agreement from CSISS. Please indicate if you require funding to participate.

For any questions or further information, contact Luc Anselin anselin@uiuc.edu or Sergio Rey rey@typhoon.sdsu.edu.