Why I would like to participate

At the moment there is a discussion in our institute to implement a "new" educational system, especially aimed at the trend of "education permanente". Lecturing is changing in a format of tutoring. The role of the lecturer is a guide similar like a help on the roadmap of lifelong education (e.g. where can the student find the relevant information in a easy and accessible way). I would like to see and discuss this system in relationship with the interoperability of GIScience education. Collaboration needs good understanding of each other and a fruitful, clear communication. If direct contact with our clients is decreasing , we have to organize the educational materials in such a way that the relevancy is clear towards our students. In such a way a meta-information system could be discussed during the workshop.

Position Statement

Development of good educational material requires a lot of time, lots of money, clear aims and especially skilled educators. Particularly educational material like for G.I. education in the rapidly changing world of information technology is difficult to develop and even more difficult to maintain. For a small group of educators (or even a person alone) it is almost impossible to keep ahead of the developments.

To extend the idea of interoperability ("to remove current constraints on using specific hardware and software", see Burrough and McDonell, 1998), towards education looks very promising. But the constraints between hardware, software and data are completely different in comparison with diverse educational systems like e.g. the dutch or the french.

The author uses the experiences of ten years work as an educator for many different students and course participants with a wide variety of background. In such a way these experiences will lead to a thorough discussion of educational interoperability .

The main question arise: "What are the benefits of interoperability and what are the costs or problems"? What do we need, and how can we organize these requirements?

Some of these aspects are discussed below.

Benefits

• Easy access to new or updated educational materials
• links in development à higher amount of change
• peer review
• students/course participants can find what they need (no dependency on lecturer)

• cultural differences, so difficulties to use educational materials in different settings
• management would like to recover initial development costs
• most "normal" educational materials can be change over a period of five years
• datasets are best used, if they are located nearby (recognize your own surroundings)
• access to Internet (technology gap can increase the distance between the "haves" and "have nots")
• language differences

• a good method to indicate the level of the educational materials (meta-information)
• structure between materials (if you have done this, you can go there)
• exchange of credits for development (authors) and by students
• check on credentials of educators (experiences show, that people not involved in development have difficulties to use the materials)
• open educational materials (If you can not adapt the material to your own situation, you will not use it)

More emphasis should be placed on knowledge transfer from lecturer to lecturer. The lecturer is changing from a formal teacher to a electronic assistant. GIScience education will expand, but most of the time people with a non-spatial background will use the "systems".

If the use of GIS is not any more recognizable as GIS, more emphasis should be placed on possibilities but also pitfalls in the use. Similar like the misuse of models, the general public should be made aware of these two aspects.

Literature

Burrough, P.A. and R.A. McDonell, 1998, Oxford University Press

Curriculum Vitae

After working for some time in a international setting (ITC, Enschede, The Netherlands) I started in 1989 with development of a GIS introductory module for agricultural and environmental sciences students at B.Sc. level. Almost the same year in Groningen we (at GEON) developed a two year course Geo-information studies (emphasis not only on technology but also the needed organizational skills).
In 1990 with several other colleagues I organized the first european lectures in Brussels (Second EGIS congress), the beginning of the european special interest group on GIS and Education.
The last few years we developed some distance learning materials (in dutch) and extended the Geo-information Studies to ERASMUS and SOCRATES students.
Nowadays our research as a group focuses on the effects of GIScience education in a changing world. E.g. new developments in municipal tasks on soil quality ask for soil information systems. What do the users require in such a situation?

Literature

Bakker, M. de, 1996, GIS Practicals: Case-work as a symbiosis between GIS technology, GIS theory and subject knowledge, GIS in Higher Education, Maryland, USA, September

Bakker, M. de & C. Peerdeman, 1996, Linking GIS with groundwatermodels, experiences in Higher Education, poster HYDROGIS'96, Vienna

Bakker, M. de, F.J. Blok & J. Resink, 1994, Integration of GIS in regular education, an example in the environmental sciences, EGIS, Paris

Bakker, M. de, 1991, GIS in Higher Education, Proceedings Second EGIS Brussels, pp. 1348 - 1349

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