[OSGeo-Edu] [OSGeo-Discuss] Maps and the Geospatial Revolution from Jul 17th 2013 at Coursera

Thu Sep 5 11:11:33 PDT 2013

Hi Sergio,

Thank you for the kind feedback on the Maps MOOC. I appreciate you sharing 
your experiences with the class. Among other observations, it seems clear 
that there is an enormous audience out there clamoring to learn more about 
maps and geography (95,000+ forum posts in five weeks). This is great for 
all of us and should inspire further work.

I think there will be a lot of interest in a Geo MOOC that uses primarily 
(or all) open source geospatial tools and platforms. I'd like to suggest 
that you should try to focus more on teaching people competencies than to 
focus on specific technologies. A class will not be great simply because 
people use open source tools. You need to make a great class that *also* 
uses open source tools.

You indicated that "a lot" of students disagreed with my choice of platforms 
for the lab assignments. Out of more than 34,000 active students, there were 
a few who commented on that choice, and as near as I can tell, they were 
from people who are open source advocates in the geo realm already (I 
recognized many of the names), so that's not that surprising. For what it's 
worth, very few people have commented positively about the course and said 
something like, "Thank God For Esri" - instead they have said things like, 
"I can't believe the possibilities associated with mapping our world." I 
think the focus on the platform is one that the OsGeo community might be 
more interested in, but it is not what most students care about.

I think the trick here is to avoid having to sell people on the principle of 
liking open source platforms simply because they're open source - that's not 
a great value proposition. Don't tell me I should like my meal because it's 
all from local ingredients. Make me a delicious meal and show me afterward 
how it all came from local sources. Help people solve real problems with 
spatial analysis and make great maps as your primary goal, and have them do 
it using open systems. Be honest about what works well and what does not. 
Your MOOC students will alert you to every single flaw and hiccup either 
way... :)

That's my 2 cents, for what it's worth. Focus on making a great class that 
will have staying power - there's a ton of desire out there for more 
coursework in this area. One of the most popular threads in the course is 
asking for a follow-on class.

Cheers,

-Anthony

Anthony C. Robinson, PhD
Lead Faculty for Online Geospatial Education, John A. Dutton e-Education 
Institute
Assistant Director, GeoVISTA Center
Department of Geography
The Pennsylvania State University
www.personal.psu.edu/acr181/

-----Original Message-----
From: Sergio Acosta y Lara [mailto:sacosta at dntopografia.gub.uy]
Sent: Wednesday, September 4, 2013 12:33 PM
To: Suchith Anand
Cc: Anthony C Robinson; Mr. Puneet Kishor; edu discuss; OSGeo Discussions; 
Luis E. Bermudez (lbermudez at opengeospatial.org)
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] [OSGeo-Discuss] Maps and the Geospatial Revolution 
from Jul 17th 2013 at Coursera

Hi. I need to say that the Maps and the Geospatial Revolution MOOC was 
really a huge success: more than 47,000 signed up, and over 34,000 
participated (impressive numbers indeed). I want to congratulate Anthony 
Robinson and his team for a really wonderful course. In the forums one of 
the most active threads had to do with the use of Open Source GIS for future 
MOOCs and one can conclude that there is really great potential for the use 
of FOSS in MOOCs about GIS. So in my (humble) opinion there is a need to 
work in developing educational tools in this sense (ESRI products were used 
in the Coursera case, but a lot of students disagreed with this).
Regards,

Sergio Acosta y Lara
Sección Sistemas de Información Geográfica Dirección Nacional de Topografía 
Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas URUGUAY

----- Mensaje original -----
De: "Suchith Anand" <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk>
Para: "Mr. Puneet Kishor" <punk.kish at gmail.com>, "edu discuss" 
<edu_discuss at lists.osgeo.org>, "OSGeo Discussions" 
<discuss at lists.osgeo.org>, "Luis E. Bermudez (lbermudez at opengeospatial.org)" 
<lbermudez at opengeospatial.org>
CC: "Anthony C Robinson" <acr181 at psu.edu>
Enviados: Miércoles, 4 de Septiembre 2013 8:23:27
Asunto: Re: [OSGeo-Edu] [OSGeo-Discuss] Maps and the Geospatial Revolution 
from Jul 17th 2013 at Coursera

Thanks Puneet. Excellent inputs. I am adding Luis (OGC) as it will be good 
to include Open Standards into the holistic open education program. He is 
already working on OGC Schools at Github which is really good.

It will be excellent to have your expertise in Creative Commons for this so 
we can make sure all learning materails developed is available for all.

Suchith

-----Original Message-----
From: Mr. Puneet Kishor [mailto:punk.kish at gmail.com]
Sent: 04 September 2013 12:09
To: edu_discuss at lists.osgeo.org; OSGeo Discussions
Cc: Cameron Shorter; Suchith Anand; Anthony C Robinson
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Maps and the Geospatial Revolution from Jul 
17th 2013 at Coursera

Snipped a bunch of the email below for brevity --

On Sep 4, 2013, at 6:18 AM, Suchith Anand <Suchith.Anand at nottingham.ac.uk> 
wrote:

> ..
> It will be very helpful, if you can share your ideas and experiences to 
> OSGeo Edu community so we can think of ideas for MOOC program entirely 
> using OSGeo Software for the future.
>
> ..
>
> On 30/06/13 03:20, ANTHONY C ROBINSON wrote:
> Hi Cameron,
>
> ..
>
> I'm aware of some OS community angst about my selection of AGOL for doing 
> most of the labs in the course.
>
> ..

Seems like I missed the start of this discussion, but am really glad to 
pitch in now. A geospatial MOOC completely based on both open software as 
well as open data would make for a perfect trifecta of completely open 
educational materials. Kudos.

At Creative Commons we have particular interest in MOOCs, not only for the 
potential they hold for open and inclusive education, but also for 
potentially revolutionizing education itself. That potential is currently 
limited by the restrictive licensing many of the MOOCs adopt. A completely 
open MOOC licensed under a CC BY or a CC BY-SA license would not only 
fulfill its educational mission, it would also allow others to take the 
educational material and remix and repurpose it further.

Please keep the above points in mind when having a conversation about MOOCs. 
I would be happy to assist where appropriate.

Many thanks,

--
Puneet Kishor
Policy Coordinator for Science and Data
Creative Commons

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