Tasks

Prototype Knowledge Base for GIScience Education Materials

Adoption of the Instructional Management System (IMS) to produce a Metadatabase for GIScience will address the specific problems of cataloguing what educational GI resources exist, identifying where they are located and providing contextual information about their suitability of use at a given educational level. However, what adoption of an IMS will not do is provide a framework and toolbox that will allow GISience educators to construct a ‘unique’ set of course materials or learning experience from a distributed set of educational resources. To do this, a more structured GIScience knowledge base will be required. As ESRI have already started work on the development of their own knowledge base software to facilitate the production of training and instructional resources for the ESRI product range it is proposed that this group work with ESRI to explore the transferability of this concept to generic GIScience education. The aim will be to use the existing ESRI knowledge base as a rapid prototyping environment from which to review, evaluate and establish if a knowledge base approach will meet the specific needs of the wider GIScience education community.

Project stages

1. Review available knowledge base initiatives: Identify and review relevant knowledge base products for education and GIS external to the ESRI initiative, in order to confirm that the ESRI knowledge base is an appropriate tool for prototyping and proof of concept. In addition, such a survey will identify if there are any emerging standards (particularly GIS specific ones) which should be tested at the prototyping stage.

• Personnel needed: one graduate researcher.
• Time frame: begin as soon as possible, 2 months duration.
• Expected result: short paper summarizing results, including URLs for all relevant sites. Must be posted on IGE website, might be published as an NCGIA technical report.
• Funding required: 2 months 100% for a graduate researcher, plus benefits

2. Evaluate, define or refine knowledge base structure: Assuming task 1 indicates that continued support for ESRI’s knowledge base is appropriate, form a knowledge base development group to critique the existing ESRI product and identify additional elements required for the knowledge base to allow it to support generic GIScience education.

• Personnel needed: small international task force working with ESRI agreement.
• Time frame: begin after stage 1 is complete, 4 months duration depending on availability of task force members. Most of the work will be completed during an intensive 5-day focus meeting – where the existing knowledge base shell is evaluated.
• Expected result: A revised blueprint for a GIScience knowledge base which will allow educators to:
1. Provide materials with minimum reformatting.
2. Author new materials for different educational purposes at different levels.
3. Construct a prototype system for testing by the wider GIScience educational community.
The task force will seek comment on its blue print via conference sessions, newsletters, journal articles and the Web. Possible NCGIA technical report/OGC white paper.
• Funding required: Travel expenses for one 5 day workshop (to be held either in the US, or Europe) plus stipends for participation and contribution throughout the task period. Infrastructure support and access to knowledge base software will be by the provider of the knowledge base shell (ESRI?). 1 month funding for a graduate researcher 100%, plus benefits to write up the findings of the task force.

3. Build prototype GIScience knowledge base for a single specific theme: Choosing a specific theme (data capture was proposed at the meeting) use existing materials in various forms and under our control, to populate the prototype GIScience knowledge base. Use appropriate metadata from the IMS/GIS project to tag information in the knowledge base. Put the knowledge base on-line and request further contributions. At the same identify individuals and organizations that would be prepared to provide additional material for the knowledge base.

• Personnel needed: Task force members from the previous stage will be requested to deposit examples of instructional material in the knowledge base. Please note that the term deposit is used metaphorically and the knowledge base will most likely be implemented in a distributed form. These same task force members will be required to append metadata to their materials. Other developers, external to the task force will be encouraged to contribute. A least one-graduate researcher full time for 6 months will be required to make changes to the existing knowledge base software to meet the requirements of the taskforce and assist with any technical issues associated with the population of the knowledge base. It is suggested that one individual researcher is employed and moved to appropriate task force sites as and when required.
• Time frame: approximately 6 months from the completion of Stage 2 above.
• Expected result: A body of structured GIScience knowledge, on a specific theme, on-line, and available to the wider GI community for evaluation and testing.
• Funding required: One full time programmer for 6 months. Continued local support for taskforce members to allow them time to put material in a format appropriate for the knowledge base. Development of a mechanism to finance the involvement of other interested academics.

4. Test and demonstrate the usability of the knowledge base: Identify appropriate test bed sites. These sites must be able to evaluate the knowledge base from two perspectives (1) contributing educational resources (2) using the knowledge base to author new resources. Test bed sites should also be chosen across a range of disciplines and educational levels from schools through to professional development.

• Personnel needed: one graduate researcher for 4 months, plus test bed sites.
• Time frame: 5 months beginning as soon as the knowledge base is populated and on-line.
• Expected result: Demonstration of the value of the knowledge base concept for GIS education. Progress reported via IGE, IMS and OGC channels. Full results reported in next Stage.
• Funding required: graduate researcher for 5 months plus benefits, small bursary to test bed sites to encourage participation and evaluation.

5. Disseminate results: If all previous stages have been completed to our satisfaction, it will be necessary to seek a model for making the knowledge base concept ‘live’. This will require the development of an appropriate funding model. The success of the project will depend on its usability and perceived value. Therefore, either as a part of this research or as a separate initiative an appropriate business model has to be developed which will allow the knowledge base to be developed in a sustainable manner.

• Personnel needed: knowledge base task force members and anyone else who has participated.
• Time frame: can begin to report as soon as Stage 2 is well underway and should continue 6 months after completion of Stage 4.
• Expected result: widespread enthusiasm for an online resource base of GIS material, which is regularly updated and can be customized for local use in a range of different instructional scenarios. This will be particularly true if an appropriate framework can be developed which rewards individuals for contributing materials, provides an easy mechanism for making material available without lost of IPR and provides a mechanism by which materials can be easily customized for local use.
• Funding required: none essential though support for conference attendance and workshops at meetings worldwide throughout one year would ensure widespread promotion of the concept.