Geographic Information Science (GIScience or GISci) includes the existing technologies and research areas of geographic information systems (GIS), cartography, remote sensing, photogrammetry, surveying (also termed geomatics in the U.S.), and quantitative spatial analysis. GIScience therefore addresses fundamental issues in the use of digital technology to handle geographic information; namely, information about places, activities, and phenomena on and near the surface of the Earth that are stored in maps or images.
GIScience includes questions of data structures, analysis, accuracy, meaning, cognition, visualization, and many more, and thus overlaps with the domains of many traditional disciplines (e.g., Earth science, mathematics, computer science, physics, cognitive science, and ethics). However, GIScience is not central to any of these, representing instead a new kind of scientific collaborative that is defined by researchers from many distinct backgrounds working together on particular sets of interrelated problems.
GIScience is available to take through Oregon State University's Corvallis campus and Ecampus.