urrent
Education
Priorities

In 1997, UCGIS identified a set of critical priority areas for action by GIScience educators and others. Input was obtained from member institutions and from K-12 and post-secondary educators during a year long process. White papers were prepared on the most crucial topics and discussed at the 1997 Summer Assembly.  Revised papers have been posted at http://www.ucgis.org. A brief summary of each topic follows.

•	Emerging Technologies for Delivering GIScience Education
Emerging technologies hold great potential for improving the quality and expanding the scope of GIScience education. UCGIS, by virtue of its focus on research in both theoretical and applied GIS and related technologies, is already at the forefront of many of the advances in these new communication and graphic media, and is well placed to play a major role in testing and advancing new educational technologies.

•	Supporting Infrastructure
The establishment of appropriate infrastructure is a necessary consideration in GIS instruction. Planning for GIS education involves the determination of hardware, software, data and personnel needs.  Ongoing issues of maintenance, upgrade and administration support for faculty efforts must be also addressed.

•	Access and Equity
As GIS becomes a more ubiquitous tool in society, it is incumbent upon the education community to ensure access and equity with respect to this technology. Thus, in our classrooms we must strive to address the needs of disadvantaged groups and impaired individuals and to explore whether and how the costs and benefits of using GIS are distributed throughout society.

•	Alternative Designs for Curriculum Content and Evaluation
Improving GIScience education requires the development of curricula for a wide range of student constituencies. For each constituency, we need to identify relevant key concepts; determine the most effective educational delivery modes; and develop appropriate monitoring and assessment techniques.

•	Professional GIS Education
Given the rapid transformations in information technology, working professionals now need on-going education in order to keep up with changes in both the techniques of their professional fields and digital technology. Given the cross-disciplinary nature of GIScience, this group is perhaps the largest and fastest growing student constituency for GIS and thus needs particular attention.

•	Research-Based GIScience Graduate Education
To advance the state of GIScience, universities must educate researchers and research-capable educators. For this very specialized constituency, it is important to identify the areas of advanced study required and to develop education opportunities in these areas. The previously identified UCGIS research priorities provide some context for the work.

•	Learning with GIS
Instruction in problem solving using geographic information is becoming more prominent at all education levels as spatial literacy and computer skills continue to be emphasized as national goals. Learning with GIS proposes a curriculum supported by various digital toolkits which utilizes geographic information and spatial analysis to study a wide range of topics. The focus is upon using GIS for learning, rather than learning about GIS.

•	Accreditation and Certification
There is a clear need for a general framework for GIS education which can guide educators, employers and students. In order to ensure there is an adequate pool of well-qualified GIS practitioners who can meet current and future needs, UCGIS acknowledges that we must be active partners in discussions addressing these areas of educational policy.

(11/97)