Colleagues,

It was just by coincidence while i was working on getting data for a research 
paper  on "How to quantify the economic impact of Open Source Geospatial 
software "  that i came across  Randal Hale's email's on the difficulties faced 
by one high school in the USA for Proprietary software updates [1]. It was a 
clear wake up call on the consequences of Proprietary GIS agenda for schools 
and education. It was then i decided to send an Open request to  AAG  [2]and 
humbly request AAG to specifically include Open Education principles firmly in 
the new Advanced Placement course in Geographic Information Science and 
Technology (GIS&T).

But on 22nd June 2015 when i read Dave Murray's (GIS Coordinator, City of 
Westminster, USA ) reply email on this ,i realised that this is a much wider 
problem  and we need to make all colleagues globally aware of the dangers of 
falling into some Proprietary vendor's very clever marketing trap.  Dave has 
kindly given me permission to share his email with the wider geo community  so 
the wider community is aware of these kind of  marketing gimmicks and vendor 
lock-in tactics. It will help others realise the costs of being silent  as it 
is affecting not just government departments such as City of Westminister in 
USA and hundreds of other organisations worldwide  but our future generations 
education opportunities. I am determined to do my best to make sure education 
is not at the dictates of any vendor.

Dave and  City of Westminster, USA are  just one of thousands who fall in the 
marketing gimmicks of various proprietary vendor's trap. Unfortunately many are 
very scared even to discuss this in public.

In fact, the questions i asked AAG is also valid for all other educational 
initiatives worldwide to avoid them falling into these kind of marketing 
strategies of some Proprietary GIS vendors. I request all governments, 
universities in their education policy  worldwide  to look into the following 
important criteria :

*  What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep providing 
free services/software for the long term?
*  If the Proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other 
conditions in say 5 or 10 years time what will happen to these hundreds of 
thousands of students? Can  anyone give us any guarantee.?
*  If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 or 10 
years time?  Will it be the schools who have to pay or the government will give 
them funding for any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS vendor?
*  If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program  ?
 *  What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms later?

I really hope these thousands of schools and teachers (affecting hundreds of 
thousands of students) will not fall into this proprietary vendor's marketing 
trap and be at the mercy of vendor dictates later (in just 3-5 year's time) .  
Randal Hale's email has been eye opener for all and i decided to do my best so 
these schools do not have to suffer when they change their conditions later and 
the schools are unable or forced to pay these ridiculous costs later (as Dave's 
organisation City of Westminister have realised later).

It is a wider education problem that as educators we need to be aware of.  It 
will really be a missed opportunity for a generation and we  should not allow 
that (esp as we now know the background marketing gimmicks and vendor lock-in 
tactics and experiences from those affected previously). The schools should be 
investing precious resources on other important things (getting more teachers, 
investing in more teaching and learning facilities etc)  NOT being forced to 
pay   to some Proprietary GIS  vendors for access to their software in the 
future.

Please don't be fooled by any  1 Billion or 10 or 100 Billion dollar  blah 
...blah... "software donation"  clever marketing from any properitery GIS 
vendor!  Also organisations like AAG has a difficult dilemma on  will they 
support Open Principles in Education or will they knowingly lead hundreds of 
thousands of schools to  Proprietary vendor's trap because of strong 
sponsorship pressure.  .If a particular proprietary GIS vendor wants their 
software to be the ONLY one to used for any education program that is not real 
education but  just a software training program designed to building their user 
base and agenda in the name of widening geoeducation. I am hopeful AAG and 
others in similar situation worldwide will choose the right path which is in 
the interests of educators and students in the long term.

Education means empowerment of educators and students and that is very 
important to keep in mind. That is why it is important to have open discussions 
and debates on this (some of my emails on this issue are not even allowed 
discussion in some mail lists for fear of upsetting sponsor)   .

I am clear that as Educators we have to keep focus on Open Principles in 
education. For us, who are supporting Open Principles in Education , we do not 
have the money or power as the vendors, so it is educators like you all who 
have to make sure the right choices are made as it affects hundreds of 
thousands of students not only today but our future generations also.

The aim of "Geo for All"  is to develop on a global basis collaboration 
opportunities for academia, industry and government organisations  for enabling 
open education opportunities for all by empowering academics and universities 
worldwide by using Open Principles in Geo Education . What is the point of 
teaching GIS to students  and taking away the tools from them after the course 
and telling them that now you need to buy these expensive Proprietary  software 
licenses if you want to continue using them after their course (which is what 
some proprietary GIS vendors would like!)

The key message from all this is there are now many Open alternatives  
available for educators to make use of as per their needs. The focus of Geo 
education should be on the Science and understanding of the geospatial concepts 
and principles NOT on any particular software only. Open Principles are key for 
enabling this . Open Principles in Geoeducation will  ensure that our future 
generations are not at the mercy and dictates of any proprietary  GIS vendor.

Let me make this very clear, we are not  interested in any proprietary GIS vs 
open  debates BUT it is very important that we keep our eyes open on any 
developments that undermine Open Principles in education and make sure that is 
corrected . Other wise it will have long term implications. That is exactly why 
we had to take action when we realised that there was efforts to undermine Open 
Standards in LiDAR [3].  Any direct or indirect efforts for creation of 
monopolies is not good for the wider economy or consumers and it is essential 
that there is always healthy competition.

I have been advised  by some colleagues to ignore this development as there 
will be consequences  as the proprietary GIS vendor is very powerful and 
influential and opposing thier wrong actions and policies are not "adviceable". 
  But i had to take action  on this key geoeducation initiative as it is the 
future of thousands of schools and our future generations and we just cannot 
afford to close our eyes and be silent.

I strongly believe access of good quality education is everyone's birthright 
and now we are for first time in history getting opportunity to make this 
possible. We will not accept putting artificial barriers like high cost 
Proprietary software which will continue denying quality education 
opportunities for millions of students globally (both in developed and 
developing countries).

So why should i care ? Because i learned one of the most important lessons in 
my life in my childhood from my grandmother (who though did not get the 
opportunity of "proper education" herself taught me the importance of the 
values of  sharing and about  "Vasudeva Kudumbam" which means "We all belong to 
one large Universal family" and " Geo for All" is for my Universal family and i 
will do everything in my abilities to make sure education opportunities are 
open to all. I do not have the money or power to even dream of matching any 
proprietary vendor but i have God on my side and that is my greatest strength.

Thank you for your support on this important matter. Together we can help 
enable good quality education opportunities of all our future generations.

Best wishes,

Suchith Anand
http://www.geoforall.org

[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-June/014310.html
[2] 
http://opensourcegeospatial.icaci.org/2015/06/open-gis-academics-and-educators-please-apply-to-aag-call-before-june-15th-2015/
[3]  http://www.osgeo.org/node/1518


________________________________________
From: Murray, Dave [dmur...@cityofwestminster.us]
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 3:43 PM
To: 'Suchith Anand'
Subject: FW: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please   apply 
to AAG call before June 15th, 2015

Suchith,
We got caught in the proprietary vendor's trap a couple of years ago.  Our 
public works department adopted the vendor's online service.  We had a number 
of business operations running that were critical to our success.  Then the 
vendor told us the service would cost $15,000 + per year to continue. Quite a 
shock and after we even promoted their service at conferences.  After that, I 
have real questions about what I can believe from them.

Thank you,


Dave Murray, GISP
GIS Coordinator
City of Westminster
4800 W 92nd Ave
Westminster, CO 80031
(303) 658-2140
dmur...@cityofwestminster.us
Hours: M-Th 7:00am -6:00pm






-----Original Message-----
From: ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
[mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Suchith Anand
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2015 5:07 AM
To: Michael Solem
Cc: ahlqvis...@osu.edu; ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to 
AAG call before June 15th, 2015

Hi Michael,

I would appreciate if you can provide answers to my main queries below that i 
also asked Diana (maybe you are in a better position to answer them in your 
role in AAG)

*  What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep providing 
free service for the long term?
*  If the proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other 
conditions in say 5 or 10 years time what will happen to these hundreds of 
thousands of students? Can AAG or anyone give us any guarantee.?
*  If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 or 10 
years time?  Will it be the schools who have to pay or will AAG give them 
funding for any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS vendor?
*  If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program  ?
 *  What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms later?


Thanks to Anthony for the info. on the source of learning objectives in GIS&T 
is the Geospatial Technology Competency Model 
http://www.careeronestop.org/competencymodel/competency-models/geospatial-technology.aspx
If i understand correctly, the set of training materials in Creative Commons 
licence that GeoAcademy colleagues  have already developed (and running a very 
successful MOOC program) that includes these five GIS courses are based on the 
Geospatial Technology Competency Model. Phillip and others can provide you more 
details if needed.


    GST 101 Introduction to Geospatial Technology Using QGIS 2.8
    GST 102 Spatial Analysis Using QGIS 2.8
    GST 103 Data Acquisition & Management Using QGIS 2.8
    GST 104 Cartography Using QGIS 2.8
    GST 105 Remote Sensing Using QGIS 2.8 & GRASS 7.0

All the course materials are available at https://github.com/FOSS4GAcademy

As i informed you before, these  will be a great platform for AAG to make use 
of for new AP course  in GIS&T  and use as the "Train the Trainer" program for 
this course.  Teachers can not only make use of the Open Educational materials  
but more importantly they can get the Free and Open Source Geospatial Software 
for their needs.

Sterling Quinn course on Open Web Mapping is also really good pointer  
https://www.e-education.psu.edu/geog585/  (Thank you Anthony).

The aim of "Geo for All"  is to empower academics and universities worldwide by 
using Free and Open Source GIS for education. What is the point of teaching GIS 
to students  and taking away the tools from them after the course and telling 
them that now you need to buy these expensive proprietary software licenses if 
you want to continue using them after their course (which is what the 
proprietary GIS vendors would like!)

The key message from all this is there are many Open alternatives now available 
for educators to make use of as per their needs. The focus of Geo education 
should be on the Science and understanding of the geospatial concepts and 
principles NOT on any particular software only. Open Principles are key for 
enabling this.

Thank you for your kind understanding.

Best wishes,

Suchith
________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
[ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Suchith Anand 
[suchith.an...@nottingham.ac.uk]
Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2015 8:41 PM
To: Diana Sinton; ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org; tuc...@mapstory.org
Cc: Michael Solem; Ola Ahlqvist
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please   apply 
to AAG call before June 15th, 2015

Hi Diana,

Thank you for sharing your inputs. We want to make sure this AP course is 
successful in its intent and hence from the beginning making sure that steps 
are taken so that the students have meaningful learning experience each and 
every year (in the long term). Hence it is important to think  about the long 
term implications as there is "a heavy technology component" for this AP and 
the cost/sustainability implications of relying on any particular proprietary 
vendor ONLY.

Your reference to AP in Computer Science  (which has a similar  substantial 
technology component)  and why and how Java became the choice ( inspite of many 
other options ) is very important factor for AAG to look into carefully and 
make sure they do learn lessons from this . The vision and farsightedness of AP 
in Computer Science colleagues in choosing Java (over other options) in making 
sure  there is  GNU General Public License and cross-platform criteria  in the 
choice of AP Computer Science course is important to note for the planned AP in 
GIS &T  also as this is very key for the cost/sustainability  and long term 
implications as well empowering educators so that they are not at the mercy of 
any vendor alone due to any changed conditions later.

I understand from Dr. Christopher K Tucker (Chairman of the Board of Trustees, 
The MapStory Foundation) that when MapStory [3] is relaunched later in June, it 
will be an openly licensed data commons, an Open Educational Resource, that is 
OGC compliant, built on open source geo  .  It is intended explicitly for 
students to be able to organize and share what they know about the world 
spatially and temporally.  And, in the redesign, they will open up distributed 
versioned editing of change over time, so that students can collaborate on data 
collection projects, and then tell their own stories with this data. This is 
exactly the kind of spatial learning platform we need for expanding 
geoeducation for schools and empowering educators and also help design, 
implement, and analyze solutions to problems that have a geographic or spatial 
component.

We will be in discussions with Map Story Foundation and other learned societies 
like The American Geographical Society (AGS) and we will do our best to support 
this excellent initiative  for  Open Principles in Education. I hope AAG  will 
keep other learned societies like AGS in the loop and involve them and 
initiatives like MapStory in this AP in GIS&T initiative.

Also for info, I have not yet got a clear answer or guarantee from anyone  to 
my basic question  i asked

*  What is the guarantee that the proprietary GIS vendor will keep providing 
free service for the long term?
*  If the proprietary GIS vendor decides to change the costs and other 
conditions in say 5 years time what will happen to these hundreds of thousands 
of students? Can AAG or anyone give us any guarantee.?
*  If so, Who will be paying for this changed conditions later in say 5 years 
time?  Will it be the schools who have to pay or will AAG give them funding for 
any changed conditions by the proprietary GIS vendor?
*  If so, How much will be the yearly costs for the whole program  ?
 *  What will then be total costs be to transition this to Open Platforms later?

It is important that AAG really ought to discuss full details  about this 
before any software choice is made.

Vendors can change their mind any time and the poor schools ,teachers and 
students will be left on thier own. Either they have to pay and buy  (maybe 
they will get some discount) but the fact of the matter is academics , teachers 
and students are at the mercy of the vendor. If the properitory vendor decides 
to change the costs or terms, the schools and students will suffer.

I clearly highlighted this problem when i recieved info. from one list member  
(Randal Hale, USA ) informing of proprietary GIS software update problems faced 
by a high school in USA  [1] and that example was a real eye opener of the long 
term costs/sustainability issues of properitory GIS software in geoeducation 
and hence i decided to take action and contact AAG on this. In fact, i would 
think there are many more schools in the same situvation which we dont even 
know of.

Education means empowerment of educators and students and that is very 
important to keep in mind. That is why it is important to have open discussions 
and debates on this. I hope AAG will not attempt to do any decisions under 
closed doors with any proprietary GIS vendor (because of sponsor pressure etc) 
as it  not good for educators and students interest in the long term .If a 
particular proprietary GIS vendor wants their software to be the ONLY one to 
used for this program that is not real education but  just a software training 
program designed to building their user base and agenda in the name of widening 
geoeducation.

I am clear that as Educators we have to keep focus on Open Principles in 
education. For us, who are supporting Open Principles in Education , we do not 
have the money or power as the vendors, so it is educators like you all who 
have to make sure the right choices are made as it affects hundreds of 
thousands of students.

Let me make this very clear, we are not  interested in any proprietary GIS vs 
open  debates BUT it is very important that we keep our eyes open on any 
developments that undermine Open Principles in education and make sure that is 
corrected . Other wise it will have long term implications. That is exactly why 
we had to take action when we realized that there was efforts to undermine Open 
Standards in LiDAR [2].

I have been advised  by some colleagues to ignore this development as there 
will be consequences  as the proprietary GIS vendor is very powerful and 
influential and opposing thier wrong actions and policies are not "adviceable". 
  But i had to take action  on this key geoeducation initiative as it is the 
future of thousands of schools and we just cannot afford to close our eyes and 
be silent.

I believe this new AP course  in GIS&T is a huge opportunity not only for 
expanding geoeducation opportunities for students across USA but also providing 
professional development for teachers and empowering them. We will strongly 
support this excellent initiative.

Best wishes,

Suchith

[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/discuss/2015-June/014310.html
[2] http://www.osgeo.org/node/1518
[3] http://MapStory.org

________________________________________
From: ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
[ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Diana Sinton 
[dianasin...@ucgis.org]
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 6:03 PM
To: 'Anthony Robinson'; ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org
Cc: Ola Ahlqvist; Michael Solem
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please   apply   
to AAG call before June 15th, 2015

These suggestions, agendas, and realities will somehow eventually blend if this 
AP course is ever actually launched AND successful in its intent. The desired 
outcomes are likely shared among GENIP, AAG, and all of these other voices 
discussing this (that hundreds of thousands of high school students have a 
positive experience learning how and why mapping, geographical thinking, and 
spatial analysis, through the use of modern and exciting technologies, can 
inform and support their knowledge, skills, and abilities to address local, 
global, societal issues and situations, etc.). But a clear vision for the 
curriculum and logistics for supporting it are going to be a super challenge, 
and opportunity.


1)      The College Board's system of Advanced Placement courses must 
necessarily be highly structured and externally validated so that universities 
will be willing to accept the academic credit that a student may try to 
transfer, IF the student earns a high enough grade on the exam or other type of 
course evaluation. Currently, there is much more agreement across higher 
education in the US about what a student ought to know in "Biology 101" or 
"Spanish 101" than "GIS&T 101." This is the list of current AP courses that the 
College Board 
supports<http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/courses/descriptions/index.html>.



2)      The only Geography-related AP class is Human 
Geography<https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-human-geography/course-details>.
 First introduced in 2001, it's become very popular and in 2012, over 190,000 
students took the 
test<http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/courses/teachers_corner/220797.html>.
  The class is often perceived to be an "easy" one, and it's not uncommon for 
schools to allow or even encourage 9th graders<http://www.ncge.org/aphg> to 
take it. I couldn't find the stats quickly online, but I believe that many more 
9th and 10th graders take it than 12th graders.  What will it mean for 9th or 
10th graders to be taking GIS 101?  How would that affect credit-transfer 
rates? If many students take the class, and get only a 1 or 2 on the exam, will 
that still contribute to the overall desired outcome?



3)      The only other current AP class that has a substantial technology 
component is Computer Science 
(pdf<https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/ap/ap-course-overviews/ap-computer-science-a-course-overview.pdf>
 of its overview).  At some point along their curriculum design process, it was 
decided that Java would be the programming language of choice, so that's what 
students use, and schools must be able to provide "at least 3 hrs/week of 
access to a computer lab for students" to be able to apply what they learn. Who 
knows why and how Java became the language of choice, but I imagine there were 
people who promoted others then too. There may be lessons learned available 
from the experience of those who currently support the Comp Sci AP.



But more importantly, the first stated goal for the Comp Sci AP class is that 
students "design, implement, and analyze solutions to problems," and use of 
Java specifically falls much lower on the list.  I imagine that's the approach 
that we hope this new GIS&T course takes, that students "design, implement, and 
analyze solutions to problems that have a geographic or spatial component."  
Right?



4)      Somehow, there will have to be some kind of hands-on activities that 
are part of a GIS 101 class. Maintaining a computer lab with machines that 
support Java scripting is obviously a more trivial matter than ones that can 
run desktop GIS programs. If you have any experience with computer labs in US 
high schools, you will know that the individual machine capacity is only one of 
many issues. Access, permissions, bandwidth, data and project storage, etc., 
will all become part of the complicated details about how something like this 
will be handled across thousands of different school districts. Why is one 
reason why browser-based solutions will be critical if this course has any 
chance of success.



5)      In order for any particular school to offer this course, they will have 
to identify existing (or new) teachers within their district willing and able 
to lead it. Ultimately that might mean the need for many, many hundreds of 
teachers with the confidence and competence to do this. Geography and GIS are 
very under-taught and under-learned subjects by educators in the US, and the 
current cohorts of such teachers is not nearly adequate, to put it mildly. How 
teaching and learning GIS is specifically connected with traditional measures 
of "spatial ability" is a complicated topic, but meanwhile, one undeniable 
characteristic of our current population of educators is that they are not, as 
a group, known for their spatial 
abilities<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-the-next-einstein/201208/three-reasons-why-schools-neglect-spatial-intelligence>.
  What are the implications of this for helping build their confidence and 
competence at teaching about coordinate systems, projec
 tions, methods of data overlay and intersections, least cost path routing, 
deriving slope and aspect from digital elevation models, etc.?  These are some 
of the more "spatial" things involved with many GIS 101 courses.



6)      Expecting teachers to have confidence and competence knowing and 
teaching across multiple GIS applications will be exponentially challenging for 
them and, frankly, will likely discourage some from taking on this teaching 
assignment.  This will be a *huge* opportunity and need for professional 
development for teachers.



7)      Students take AP classes so that they can get transferrable credit. 
That's variable by the test score results and the colleges & universities 
considering the transferring in of that credit, and whether the credit is a 
general one or for a specific requirement at that university.  They are of 
little use at 2-yr 
schools<http://www.collegefinder.org/what-colleges-accept-ap-credits/>, and 
these days, a few selective schools don't take these AP credits at 
all<http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/education/more-colleges-stop-giving-credit-ap-exams>.
  So important conversations will have to take place with universities who 
currently offer "GIS 101" to get a sense of what type of credit they would 
grant, if any. There will be much scrutiny of the course content and the exam 
itself by lots of departments.  Articulation issues about GIS credits between 
2-yr colleges and 4-yr colleges is already challenging, and this will be so too.

Just a few thoughts to keep in mind as the discussions continue. The authoring 
team will have its work cut out for them with this exciting and worthy 
opportunity.

Best,
Diana

p.s.  I share these perspectives based on my own knowledge: my own 3 teenage & 
young adult children have collectively taken almost 20 AP classes since 2008; 
I've been teaching intro GIS to non-geographers for almost 20 years; I have run 
GIS workshops for middle- and high-school teachers in their own computer labs 
before; I designed and taught in the University of Redland's Spatial Literacy 
for 
Educators<http://www.redlands.edu/academics/school-of-education/10237.aspx#.VX8Bx_lViko>
 program (currently on hiatus); and I also taught in Elmhurst College's program 
to provide PD to people teaching AP Human 
Geog<http://www.elmhurst.edu/admission/school_for_professional_studies/certificate_programs/ap_human_geography>.
  I am a regular user of both proprietary and FOSS programs, and I trust the 
authoring team will be taking these kind of issues into account as it makes 
recommendations for the course design.  This email message contains my own 
thoughts and does not necessarily reflect those of 
 my employer.


______________________
Diana S. Sinton, Ph.D.
Executive Director, UCGIS
PO Box 612
Ithaca, New York  14851
607.252.6851 (v)
dianasin...@ucgis.org<mailto:dianasin...@ucgis.org>
dianasin...@gmail.com<mailto:dianasin...@gmail.com>


From: ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org 
[mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Robinson
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 11:28 AM
To: ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to 
AAG call before June 15th, 2015



I'm sure you've seen this stuff before, but for others watching this thread, a 
lot of ground is already covered by the existing GIS&T body of knowledge, which 
is currently under revision to provide new foci around web mapping, dealing 
with big data, etc... The pre-revision BoK is still highly useful for course 
development, in my opinion: 
http://www.aag.org/galleries/publications-files/GIST_Body_of_Knowledge.pdf

Here's an interesting network viz of the BoK, too: 
http://carto.byu.edu/bokviswiki/

Another source of learning objectives in GIS&T is the Geospatial Technology 
Competency Model, which has also been recently revised (Tiers 4 and 5 are most 
relevant for this discussion, I think): 
http://www.careeronestop.org/competencymodel/competency-models/geospatial-technology.aspx

I know Sterling Quinn struggled with this notion when developing his new course 
for us on Open Web Mapping. We worked hard to try and sort out objectives 
around learning design patterns while making use of open source tools, 
anticipating that while the individual tools may change over time, the 
fundamental need will probably still be there to understand how to use 
libraries to create web map tiles/vectors, do spatial computing on the 
server-side, and make the leap from desktop GIS into layers that will work for 
web mapping.

Cheers,

-Anthony


From: 
ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org>
 [mailto:ica-osgeo-labs-boun...@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Charles Schweik
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2015 2:09 AM
To: Cameron Shorter
Cc: ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org<mailto:ica-osgeo-l...@lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Ica-osgeo-labs] Open GIS Academics and educators please apply to 
AAG call before June 15th, 2015

+1...

I am starting to develop a web-GIS class with some colleagues and it is my hope 
that we can separate out conceptual/theoretical from technology-explicit 
content. It is interesting to try and thing of what the pure learning 
objectives are in this area. If anyone has ideas on this let me know 
off-thread...

Perhaps obvious, but the separation of conceptual and tech training examples s 
is important for OSGeo too, for, for example, there are multiple desktop 
packages.

Cheers,
Charlie



On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 10:38 PM, Cameron Shorter 
<cameron.shor...@gmail.com<mailto:cameron.shor...@gmail.com>> wrote:
On 13/06/2015 1:14 am, Anthony Robinson wrote:
So what I mean is that the
learning objectives should be pure learning objectives. For example:

YES to "Students should be able to explain projections and choose an 
appropriate one for making a thematic map."

NO to "Students should be able to explain projections and choose an appropriate 
one for making a thematic map using QGIS (or ArcGIS Online, or whatever)."

+1 to this explanation Anthony.

Once learning objectives have been created, it will make it much easier to 
develop relevant training courses for specific products, which can reference 
back to the training objectives.

And if the development of base course material is set up along similar 
collaborative principles to Open Source development, then the relatively high 
effort of maintaining training material could be absorbed by the product's 
community (probably through a combination of developers, users and trainers).

--
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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