[OSGeo-Edu] Some thoughts

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

Dear All,

Sorry I could not take part in the last Edu meeting.
I agree with Frank views,

I think "Introduction to GIS" could focus mainly
on GRASS-GIS and QGIS Desktop GIS

"GRASS GIS 6.0 Tutorial. Version 1.2" by
Markus and others could be a good candidate for
further enhancement. This tutorial is already been
made available under GNU Free Document License.
Further enhancements that could be considered for
this tutorial would be to include more examples
related to natural,social and human sciences

I think it would also be worth considering an
"Introduction to Web GIS" also. There is already
quite a bit of material that could be used as
a starting point to build on. We have also put
some documentation under Free Document License
at http://www.maptools.org/maplab/index.phtml?page=user-contrib.html
This document needs much improvement and we are also
trying to update it with new version of software
and additional demos. I could provide the Open Office
Document of this training material if some of
the wants to improve enhance it. I think our present
tutorial could be enhanced for example by making
OGC Web Services concepts more clear.

About the software packaging, I already mentioned
on OSGEO discuss list that the new FOSS4G Toolkit
CD (tested on Mandriva 2006) is available for
download at http://wgrass.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/foss4g/downloads
Tyler also said that he was trying to test in on Suse.
I think the CD can be tested and improved for other
linux distributions the CD could be a suitable candidate for
both "Introduction to GIS" and "Introduction to Web-GIS"
courses.

I also mentioned about hosting an online course using
the Moodle Course Management System. We are using Moodle
to put some of the GRASS course material that we had
earlier developed in Japanese language. I find Moodle
quite good to Online Course Management. I could help in
hosting a Moodle server if necessary. Or. perhaps
OSGeo could host its own Moodle server. We are also
trying do develop some Flash screen casting material using
vnc2swf(http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/vnc2swf/)

About short-term course modules, I think there is quite
good material prepared for the workshops at previous
Mapserver meetings. If the authors could agree release
these materials under Free Document or other suitable license,
it could work as a repository for short training courses.

I wonder if OSGeo could coax some publisher (O'Reilly, Apress, OSGeo Press?
maybe) or find some budget a publishing OSGeo text books under
Free Document License. A text book would be quite useful
for use in countries where internet bandwith at universities
is rather narrow.

Regards

Venka


Frank Warmerdam wrote:
> Folks,
> 
> I had a few thoughts during and after the EduCom meeting today.  I
> hesitate to butt in too much since I'm not really prepared to get too
> involved.  But butting in my way, so here goes with a few suggestions.
> 
> I am very hopeful that this group will produce one or more fairly
> complete "course kits" suitable for undergraduate courses taught using
> open source geospatial software.  I think the place to start is something
> along the lines of "Introduction to GIS", and add others as manpower and
> need dictates.
> 
> I think these "kits" should include pretty much everything a course 
> instructor
> would need.  That means:
>  o A course outline.
>  o Detailed topics for each lecture (perhaps in the form of something 
> like a
>    powerpoint stack).
>  o A set of lab assignments with detailed instructions to the students.
>  o Pre-prepared datasets.
>  o Pre-prepared software binaries for either Windows or Linux (or both),
>    hopefully derived from some existing packaging effort (like MS4W,
>    GRASS binaries, FGS, etc).  You might need to provide some prodding an
>    support to one of these efforts.
>  o Ideally one or more "open source" textbooks would be available, though
>    I'm not sure how practical this would be.  Is there a freely 
> downloadable
>    version of the GRASS textbook?
> 
> I would *strongly* encourage identifying existing course efforts being made
> by others, and building on them if at all possible.  It may be that this
> group can take an existing effort, and help with preparing data and 
> software
> and packaging it up.  Then acting to promote and support it's use.
> 
> I think it is very important to work with one or more instructors who will
> actually test-fly the course material in September.
> 
> For an introduction to GIS course, I hope you will think in terms of
> instructors who aren't terribly computer savvy.  That is, part of the 
> effort
> is making things easy to use.
> 
> Expect to provide a "support" role.  That is, be prepared to answer 
> questions
> and help instructors who might take up the course material.
> 
> Expect to have to do a sales job to "sell" the course material.  Promote it
> to associates, at educational meetings, via NGO's etc.
> 
> For an introductory course, expect to look beyond "hard core" geography
> and GIS schools.  This might mean to schools that have a relatively modest
> geographic/gis program, or undergrad schools in developing countries that
> have somewhat limited resources.
> 
> As I see it, this source of "open source courseware" has too major goals.
> One is to help promote open source software during the eductational 
> process.
> The other is to provide support in teaching "quality" GIS courses in
> environments that might not normally have had the skills to build stuff 
> from
> scratch.
> 
> I think that support use of, and work on open source geospatial software in
> academic research is also a very worthy goal of this group, but I'll let 
> Ari
> do some of the pushing on what would be needed for that.
> 
> I think preparing material for shorter term courses such as 1/2 day 
> tutorials
> for events such as FOSS4G or web courses is also desirable, but I don't 
> know
> if it makes sense to pursue them before an undergraduate course is 
> completed
> or not.
> 
> Best regards,