[OSGeo-Edu] Tracking a GIS Core Curriculum

[Landon Blake]

Tyler and Charlie,

I agree with Charlie, our focus shouldn't be on creating yet another GIS
curriculum. Our efforts should focus on how we integrate open source
software into an existing curriculum. How can open source software be
used for existing GIS curriculum classes? What new classes focused on
open source GIS might be added to an existing curriculum?

This does present the problem of choosing an existing curriculum to work
with. Which one is the most actively developed and supported?

I really don't think our main focus should be on curriculum, but on
developing free course materials. A curriculum may benefit a narrow set
of the population interested in setting up some sort of GIS education
program, but I think we can reach a wider audience and have more impact
by developing actual course material.

I would love to see a web site that schools could use to download
courses for their own use. The best part about having OSGEO spearhead
this effort is the person downloading the course could download the
software to use with the course too!

In order to accomplish this I think it would be helpful to come up with
a suggested format for course material. That would help someone like me,
who is interested in actually authoring this type of information.

I think the courses should be set-up in as modular a fashion as
possible, and as short chunks. The reality is that we don't have a
dedicated team of full-time people to work on this. We are going to have
some gaps in our coverage. The more modular and smaller we make the
courses the more effective the system will be.

I'm particularly interested in developing material for the community
college system and working professionals that want to do a program of
self-study. If there is some interest in offering this type of course
material via OSGEO, I would like to be involved in developing material
for this particular audience. I can get a hold of my surveying professor
in Montana, as he might serve as a test bed for some of our initial
work.

Here is one challenge I see to this idea:

I work in Java and with OpenJUMP. Another of our members will work in
C++ and with GRASS. Do we attempt to develop our material in a
software/language-neutral way, or do we organize the course material
according to programming language/GIS program?

Please keep me posted. This is where I eventually want to go with the
"Mapping Math" material I am working on right now. I would love to see
that material adapted as a course that could be used in a community
college.

Landon
Office Phone Number: (209) 946-0268
Cell Phone Number: (209) 992-0658
 
-----Original Message-----
From: edu_discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:edu_discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Charlie
Schweik
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 6:57 AM
To: Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)
Cc: edu_discuss at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] Tracking a GIS Core Curriculum

Tyler,

THANKS for posting these questions.  I have been thinking (in part 
because of your discussions in Denver)
that this should be the next big collaborative effort by our group.
> My question is, what curriculum framework are people more familiar
with
> or believe are more valuable to track?
>   
There is the NCGIS GIScience core curriculum here: 
http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/giscc/ (dated 2000).
I haven't read the AAG book but it looks interesting.

But I think our group should NOT try and duplicate these kinds of 
efforts. What I think we should focus on is *developing a core
curriculum
for, perhaps, a "GIS Certificate in Open Source GIS*," to begin.

I think this is a natural next step for our group, and as you suggest, 
we could potentially organize or link course material in our database to

a curriculum
structure we as a group come up with. -- I think this is a* great 
collaborative goal for this next year*.

Do others agree? Who is willing to help? Anyone willing to take a lead 
on this?

Charlie

P.S. My standard follow-up -- anyone have new course material to post to

our database? Anyone have any information on activities for me to post 
to our group's blog?




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