[OSGeo-Discuss] Use cases for FOSS-GIS in universities

[Patrick Maué]

Hi Tim, 

I am not sure if using open source alternatives for education does
necessarily mean that your students learn more than just pressing
buttons in the right order. Actually, I guess this is one of the major
arguments against open source software:  it's the lack of user-friendly
interfaces which forces you to learn the underlying concepts to let the
software make what you want. I have myself attended two classes about
teaching GIS concepts. The first was mostly instructions how to use
Arc*, and I've forgotten most of it. The second was mostly reading and
discussing Tomlin [1] and also using Arc* in the labs (without
button-by-button instructions, but more general task descriptions). The
second class was really efficient. Tt depends on the teaching, not the
tools. 

Another class I've attended was going through another textbook, the
FreeGIS Tutorial [2]. There I have learned a lot about the (at that
time) current FOSS and what options exist there. But here it was my
choice to challenge of using GRASS instead of ArcDesktop. I would like
to see that (the mandatory) GIS classes should not force any student to
learn the functionality of a software package, wether it's free software
or not. 


just my 2 cents, 
 Patrick




[1] Dana Tomlin: Geographic Information Systems and Cartographic
Modeling
[2] http://freegis.org/tutorial/?_ZopeId=64953152A22UkzertN0


On Fri, 2007-05-11 at 23:57 +0200, Tim Michelsen wrote:
> Hello,
> I don't know if this is the right place to discuss this but I just start.
> 
> At my university open source is little used in eductaion and research. 
> There are only a few single warriors who care about it.
> 
> We have serveral departments that use GIS programs. Each of them buys 
> normally the licences for Arc*
> 
> Most students make their way into one program after attening a number of 
> classes on how to push the buttons of that program. But when they come 
> back to it after a while all this is lost since they haven't learned the 
> logic behind. To my thinking, getting into the many FOSS programs forces 
> students to lokk behind and learn concepts rather than functions.
> 
> Another thing is the question of resources. Instead of buying licences 
> >from big companies that money could be saveed to by data loggers, 
> equipment or pay a FOSS-developer.
> 
> Most projects buy expensive tools when they only want to produce some 
> maps to display the survey fields etc.
> 
> So, my question is:
> * Is there a possibilty set up a university wide infrastructure on FOSS 
> that enables whoever neeeds it to handle geodata and analyse it even 
> when they are not educated GIS specialists (rather geo/agric scientists)?
> 	* Naive idea/vision:
> 		1) computing center of the university employs a GIS specialist(s) who 
> act as service force for other disciplines (set up of geodatabases, 
> introductory courses)
> 		2) computing center sets up a server with GRASS, postgis, etc.
> 		3) those who need geo processing will install a tailored cywin or eny 
> other environment to access the latest version of the FOSS GIS software 
> on the server via -X forwarding or simply access their data in the 
> postgressdb from various clients.
> 		4) data in the postgressdb could be shared according to given access 
> rights
> => there infrastruture is just there, those who need take to whatever 
> level they'd need it.
> 
> * Question: would it be possible to implement such a scenario?
> 
> * Are there already such cases out there?
> 
> * Why not take the nice example of the various projects that deliver 
> FOSS for schools (Edubuntu, Skolelinux, etc.) and adapt this to the 
> world of FOSS4G?
> 	
> * Who or what are the thoughts of OSGEO on this?
> 
> Keen to hear your opinion, thoughts, experineces, critics, etc.
> 
> Tim
> 
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-- 
Patrick Maué
http://ifgi.uni-muenster.de/~pajoma