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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%">Hi,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%">Can I just clarify? I’m not sure why everybody missed the first bit, but I did say that we want to go Open Source, or at least include some sections in which we use open source software :)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%">We as a tertiary education institution focus our courses on
</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;color:black">the basic theoretical principles of GIS and a generic understanding of what GIS is. We do not aim to teach students just how to use different types of software. These are not vendor generated
courses focusing on teaching software skills. We do however demonstrate what is available in terms of different types of software, and I agree with the general opinion that we should incorporate that more on a practical level, which is why we want to add practical
exercises done with open source software.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;color:black">There is also the practical problem that these are short courses, and we have limited time in which to teach the basic theoretical principles of GIS. If we introduce to many types
of software students end up spending most of the practical time on familiarising themselves with the software instead of moving on to the demonstration of concepts such as projection, the different data models, spatial query etc.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;color:black">Maybe we should think about introducing a short course focussing on an introduction to the different types of software available….<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;color:black">Regards,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%;color:black">Gretha</span><span style="font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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