During the final session of the conference, approximately 40 conference
participants, working in small groups, drafteed action statements addressing a number of the items identified in Saturday's breakout group discussions. Following is a summary of those statements, listed in no specific order and with many obvious areas of overlap. Action items listed following suggest themes for further discussion at future conferences or as activities to be addressed by associated organizations.
Mechanisms are needed for the sharing of information regarding GIS education, particularly academic programs, course curricula, distance learning, hardware and software, data and instructional materials. The current GIS periodicals do not adequately address the issues confronting GIS education, or convey information needed by GIS educators
- develop a newsletter for GIS educators (paper or WWW format?)
- form a GIS discussion list on the Internet
- schedule a GIS education conference for 1997. Expand the conference to include GIS education at all levels and disciplines, not just higher education.
- compile a downloadable catalog of free or low cost data and instructional
materials
Jay Morgan, Dick Scott, Weihong Fan, Craig Caupp
In order to target student skills and knowledge to more effectively meet
societal needs, it is imperative that partnerships with private and government agencies be established. These relationships have a great potential to build practical application into student projects. In addition, these partnerships can rejuvenate the curricula of academic institutions.
- establish interdisciplinary advisory boards to guide program development
- establish internship/apprenticeship opportunities
- plan curriculum to include knowledge, skills and professional relationships
- identify grant opportunities to infuse change
- involve agency professionals in the instructional mission
Roberto
Garza, Andrew Nazzaro, Freda Brown, Zong-Guo Xia
For successful application of GIS within an organizational context, there is a need for capacity building. Capacity building is defined as the development of the human resource. This does not preclude the need for other resources, e.g. money, equipment, data and infrastructure, but the focus for educators is upon the people. Capacity building can take place at several levels in a hierarchy -- local, regional or national.
Many organizations are already embarked upon this activity, however their plans are often carried out as isolated activities without regard for lessons already learned. There are benefits to be gained from a better understanding of the process and recognition of critical factors.
- Articulate a generic, multi-level model for capacity building to guide
organizations and individuals.
- Collect and analyze case studies at various levels and in different parts of the world.
- Organize conference sessions to present models and case studies and to move towards better understanding of the issues.
Robert Maher, Richard Wright, Karen Kemp
There is a major problem defining the scope of GIS employment opportunities within this rapidly expanding field. Information about current and predicted GIS employment needs is required. The following types of information should be compiled:
- The scope of employment in current and potential new fields and industries that use GIS, including:
- list of job titles
- list of potential users of GIS and new markets
- names of major firms in key related industries
- Skill levels required by employers:
- what education level is desired
- specific software experience
- how much GIS is needed?
- Wage ranges
- Advancement possibilities
- Need for additional education for existing employees
- Appropriate survey methods for collecting this information
- Define GIS markets and related job markets (existing and potential)
- Conduct a survey of completed surveys on GIS employment, collect data from
Department of Labor and Commerce and state equivalents, compile that
information and make it generally available.
- Prepare a survey to identify employment needs
- Survey identified markets
- Contact GIS World, GIS Europe, EOM, vendors, etc., to acquire lists of users and/or to help distribute the survey
John Schaeffer, Ann Stefani, John Albasini, Fred Toppen
When establishing new GIS laboratory facilities, several issues should be
addressed, including
- make a clear decision of the objectives and functions of the lab. Will
the facility be used for teaching, research, exercises and/or project work?
- ensure an initial allocation of a dedicated space with room for expansion
- make an appropriate match of technology to the required tasks
- evaluate the lab capacity in terms of student to machine ratio
- provide for adequate access
- ensure sufficient staffing and security
To address these issues, a number of action items can be enumerated:
- develop a series of laboratory facility models, broken down by type, scale
and budget
- make available information sources of funding and other resources for
facilities
- encourage recognition of the need for ongoing funding for maintenance,
replacements and upgrades and provide suggestions for means by which it may be
obtained
- develop and disseminate automated or easily accessed instructional or
tutorial materials for immediate technical assistance to users of the laboratory
- produce and make available laboratory instructional materials
Susan
Macey and others
GIS training for educators will occur in two principal contexts:
- inservice professional development for teachings (K-college) and
- preservice experiences for those preparing to become
teachers
Inservice education emphasizes discipline-based applications. It
is designed to assist faculty in making curriculum connections between GIS and
spatial concepts taught in a variety of subject areas.
In preservice education, GIS should be a broad-based enabling technology that
students apply whenever spatial topics are being explored. In this manner, GIS
will eventually become another tool in their teaching repertoires.
- support development of teacher preparation models
- continue research on the integration of GIS/SIT (spatial information
theory) into:
- educational methods
- spatial cognitive processes
teacher preparation programs
- continue to inform the uninitiated by sharing existing outreach materials
- outreach to those who show interest in teaching with GIS
- formation of teams of educators who are able to:
- devise instructional materials
- link GIS potentials to curriculum standards
- facilitate training workshops
Richard Audet, Bob Sharpe
Current formal education and training provision for employment in the
Geographic Information industry does not cater to the needs of a range of
entrants into the profession or existing IT professionals newly acquiring GIS
capability. There is an associated need for continuing Professional
Development (CPD) and skills updating driven by technology change. As well,
there is a need to provide for individual accreditation to work in the field,
for external validation of education and training opportunities, and for tools
to allow individual career assessment.
Presently, provision for the necessary continuing Professional Development is
ad hoc and arbitrary, being provided by a mix of system vendor courses, some
community colleges and the universities. Often such programs are characterized
by model partnerships among these providers and the user community, but they
lack the involvement of professional associations and there is no self-evident
infrastructure which might provide this.
To rectify this situation, it is recommended that the GI community:
- seek out examples of good practice in GIS continuing professional
development as models for wider dissemination
- establish an infrastructure involving all interested parties to provide
continuing Professional Development in this area, and
- work to develop standards to support the development of programs,
definition of their content and evaluation of such activities
Charles Monsma, David Unwin
Distance education (perhaps better termed "Mediated" or "Distributed"
education?) is likely to emerge as an important component of GIS education at
all levels, but particularly for professional and continuing education. The
World Wide Web is an obvious technology to support such distributed education.
Realization of the potential of distance education will entail:
- sharing didactic, practical information about what works and what doesn't
- exploring appropriate ways to support students, promote student-faculty
interaction and reward faculty for their efforts in distance education
- create or expand consortia for distance GIS education to reduce risk,
spread costs and share expertise
- support research on computing delivery technologies
To use the Web effectively for distance education, access, distribution, sharing and
collaboration will involve:
- creation of a clearinghouse -- needs to be well planned, organized and
indexed
- consideration and improvement in the quality of access to the net
Ken
Foote, Petra Cremers, Joseph Strobl, Joseph Betit, Karlis Kalviskis, John Wilson
(This topic includes a recognition of the issue of geographic information
science versus the use of GIS in teaching spatial concepts.) We teach spatial
concepts to learn spatial thinking. We need to use multiple representations --
numbers, text, graphics -- in learning spatial concepts. GIS is one
tool to stimulate cognitive spatial thinking.
- extract/distill spatial concepts from the new GIScience Core Curriculum
- develop a number of "modules", including:
- modules based on the GIScience Core Curriculum
- "GIS free" modules -- with minimal technology
- modules using GIS systems
- determine how do we evaluate that spatial thinking is taking place?
(possibly by solving spatial problems?)
Joe Loon, Carlson, Jamie Cromartie, Micha Pazner
There is a need for research concerning the effectiveness of different learning
models (combined with computer-student interaction methods and issues). This
research must take into account the cognitive level of students (their
"geographical eye", their spatial concepts).
- exploit the knowledge and experience gained from other research fields
regarding computer-based learning (mathematics, physics, ...)
- develop evaluation and assessment methods to evaluate student's progress
(through computer practicals)
- design and develop new GIS-based tools with the educational requirements
in mind.
At the conference, K-12 educators expressed a desire for fostering ways to work
with universities in obtaining guidance, some training, information about data,
etc. Community college educators expressed an interest in guidance about
curricula for 2 year colleges and to ensure articulation with the content of
university courses. Therefore, there is a need to identify a core curriculum
of what fits best at different levels, articulation for course credit transfer,
to help high school programs know what to aim for, and to know what spatial
concepts are important.
The function of articulating programs is to provide pathways for students to
travel through the education system in an efficient method in order that they
can attain their individual goals. By using established and standardized
curricular objectives, competencies and commonalties can be identified.
Leveling of courses can be based on these competencies and commonalties. Thus
we may be able to answer the question "what should be learned in a course
called "Introduction to GIS" "?
- identify needs of the marketplace and education communities
- define undergraduate competencies in GIS
- identify the commonalties in order to articulate necessary
competencies
Derek Thompson, Carol Bowen, Jack Paris, Michael Stumpe, Paul van Helden