[Live-demo] [Ica-osgeo-labs] Looking for Web-GIS syllabi

Wed Jun 3 06:24:34 PDT 2015

Hi, Alex,

Thanks for your observations. When you say “Persistent flash drives run much slower than Virtual Machines” are you booting your virtual machines from a DVD or USB or are they installed on the computer hard drive?

In my experience virtual machines are quite slow until you give them a full 4 GB of RAM. I’m sure this varies with the other load on the computer, but on an 8 GB machine you have to be careful what else you run besides the VM and the OS. Since lab computers often have a “typical” hardware configuration, meaning 4 GB, this is likely an issue for us.

My last experience with VirtualBox quickly ended in a munged unbootable system, so I think it’s very important to keep content stored outside of the VM. 

For best results student work needs to be stored in a readily accessible workspace. If they can’t save their materials on the mounted drive, they need a mountable workspace. Uploading/downloading to Google Drive is not an acceptable option, it’s too cumbersome and too easy to forget all of the pieces that you’ve been working on. I know Google Drive now has a mountable option, but Google’s recent attempt at this kept hanging up my Mac (maybe it works better on Windows). DropBox seems to be a better option here. However, we also have concerns about student privacy, so while we can use Google Drive (because the University has a FERPA-compliant contract with them), I don’t think they have such an agreement with Dropbox, so we can’t require students to use it.

Git is another option because it can do simple smart uploads/downloads, but again it’s an extra step that students have to remember before they shut down their VM.

— Andy

On Jun 3, 2015, at 1:30 AM, Alex Mandel <aimandel at ucdavis.edu> wrote:

> This question is more for the OSGeo Live list, and I'll be happy to
> answer more questions there if you want to continue the conversation.
> 
> Persistent flash drives run much slower than Virtual Machines. There is
> a work around to use non-persistent flash drives and then use sudo
> permissions to write files back to the flash drives but it's a hassle. I
> have also found that computer lab managers often prefer to use Virtual
> Machines which pose less of a threat to the main system and network and
> the ports are not exposed directly to the network and main hard drive is
> not mounted with full read/write. Note, BIOS are often locked to prevent
> tampering and UEFI secure boot only machines may not work with current
> bootable flash drives (only 64 bit signed kernels work on those).
> 
> The only nice thing about a DVD is you can't accidentally delete files
> important to the boot process. Note if you use a DVD or USB (in
> non-persistent mode) and the computer has sufficient ram, once running
> there may be no noticeable difference in speed so long as the media
> isn't needed.
> 
> Generally I have students save all of their work out to a remote server
> (Dropbox, Google drive, etc) and make a copy to a flash drive or two. If
> they are somewhat more technically savy - version control. Both
> Bitbucket(Academic) and Gitlab offer free private repos.
> 
> Thanks,
> -- 
> Alex Mandel, PhD
> 
> Geography Graduate Group
> University of California, Davis
> http://geography.ucdavis.edu
> 
> On 06/02/2015 09:23 AM, Andy Anderson wrote:
>> Thanks, Jeremy!
>> 
>> It does appear that flash drives are replacing disks for many uses, in particular they allow local writing of maps and transformed data. With a DVD there needs to be writable storage available, ideally on the network so it can be accessed from any computer. We will be lacking that for our course so this may be the best approach.
>> 
>> Have you tried setting up the flash drives to be bootable, to avoid the need for a VM?
>> 
>> http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootusbflash.htm
>> 
>> Also, are you encouraging the students to back up their flash drives in some way?
>> 
>> — Andy
>> 
>> On Jun 2, 2015, at 8:22 AM, Jeremy Morley <Jeremy.Morley at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:Jeremy.Morley at nottingham.ac.uk>> wrote:
>> 
>> I have training material that is based on OSGeo Live running as a Virtual Box VM. The material is designed to run from a 16GB or preferably a 32GB memory stick using VirtualBox installed on the local machine. The practicals use a pack of UK Open Data so can be redistributed. This scheme is the result of a lot of iteration. It now runs pretty smoothly, is fairly easy to set up, and using memory sticks means the students can take away a "GIS system on a stick" at the end of classes. Typically on 1-2 students of 15-20 a year have claimed the deposit back rather than keep the stick. The data pack could go on the web to be downloaded. The practical class material ATM is 4 PDFs (originated from Word docs)
>> 
>> I'm seeing Charlie on Friday and can discuss handing this on then. There's also a series of lectures to go with the practicals which use PPT slides.
>> 
>> Jeremy
>> 
>> --
>> Jeremy Morley
>> Chief Geospatial Scientist
>> Ordnance Survey, Explorer House, Adanac Drive
>> Southampton. SO16 0AS. United Kingdom
>> Jeremy.Morley at os.uk<mailto:Jeremy.Morley at os.uk>
>> 
>> Honorary Assistant Professor, School of Geography
>> University of Nottingham
>> jeremy.morley at nottingham.ac.uk<mailto:jeremy.morley at nottingham.ac.uk>
>> 
>> 
>> On 28 May 2015, at 09:41, Charles Schweik <cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu<mailto:cschweik at pubpol.umass.edu>> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Cameron, all:
>> 
>> We'll ponder this as well. I'm copying my collaborators.
>> 
>> Charlie
>> 
>> On Wed, May 27, 2015 at 11:31 PM, Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shorter at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> Hi Jorge, others,
>> One thing which would be very valuable would be to align development of GIS training material with the OSGeo-Live build process. Probably incorporate training material in the documentation at:
>> http://live.osgeo.org<http://live.osgeo.org/>
>> 
>> This could be collaboratively developed and continually updated by both project teams, training institutes, and our existing teams of translators.
>> 
>> Jorge, it looks like you have a good start on this. I'd be interested to see how we could link with OSGeo-Live.
>> 
>> Warm Regards, Cameron
>> 
>> On 27/05/2015 7:01 am, Jorge Gustavo Rocha wrote:
>> Hi Charlie, hi Andy,
>> 
>> Last year I've started (but not finished) a web gis course, based on OSGeo Live.
>> 
>> My goal was to create a course that could be translated to different languages, and always using local data.
>> 
>> I've created http://mapmaking.info/ to setup the course. I've just created contents for chinese students, using chinese data (but I didn't had time to write it in mandarim, so it is still in english). Now I'm translating the course to portuguese, using data from Portugal.
>> 
>> My suggestion is to use administrative data for some global source like:
>> * http://www.gadm.org/
>> * http://gdem.ersdac.jspacesystems.or.jp/
>> * OSM planet extracts
>> 
>> Every student would use the same technologies, the same algoritms, but using data that has some meaning for them. Those interested in teaching the course to a new community would have to translate the contents and to provide the equivalent datasets related with the community.
>> 
>> We already have tons of open source software available in different languagues and amazing data from all around the globe. It is time to create powerful contens "Think globally" adapted to local learning communities "act locally".
>> 
>> As a minor note, whenever possible, we should align our syllabus with the BoK, despite web gis being the weakest BoK topic.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Jorge Gustavo
>> 
>> On 26-05-2015 17<tel:26-05-2015%2017>:37, Charles Schweik wrote:
>> Hello GeoForAll colleagues,
>> 
>> Some colleague and I just received some funding to develop a new Web-GIS
>> course for Spring 2016, and this week we are working on a rough draft
>> syllabus as a requirement from the funder. We're in negotiation with the
>> funder on intellectual property rights, but we are confident that we
>> will be able to license the course open access under some Creative
>> Commons license. I also want to try and use this effort as a step
>> forward in our quest to build the content system and a 'new derivative
>> work' system.
>> 
>> My request:
>> *
>> *
>> *If you have taught a Web-GIS class in the last few years and are
>> willing to share your syllabus with us*, or if you have relevant
>> materials you are willing to share, please let me know (and copy my
>> developer colleague, Andy Anderson, cc'd above). If we use anything,
>> we'd of course give you attribution!
>> 
>> Thanks in advance!
>> 
>> Charlie Schweik
>> 
>> Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
>> Dept of Environmental Conservation and Center for Public Policy and
>> Administration
>> 
>> 
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> J. Gustavo
>> 
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter,
>> Software and Data Solutions Manager
>> LISAsoft
>> Suite 112, Jones Bay Wharf,
>> 26 - 32 Pirrama Rd, Pyrmont NSW 2009
>> 
>> P +61 2 9009 5000<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205000>,  W www.lisasoft.com<http://www.lisasoft.com/>,  F +61 2 9009 5099<tel:%2B61%202%209009%205099>
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Charlie Schweik
>> 
>> Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
>> Dept of Environmental Conservation and Center for Public Policy and Administration
>> 
>> Personal website: http://people.umass.edu/cschweik
>> Publications: http://works.bepress.com/charles_schweik/
>> 
>> Author, Internet Success: A Study of Open Source Software (MIT Press, 2012) - see http://tinyurl.com/d3e4545
>> 
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