The NCGIA Core Curricula
in GIS and Remote Sensing

by Karen K. Kemp
NOTE: A final version of this paper appeared in Transactions in GIS 2(2):181-190

Abstract

Since the development of the original NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS (Goodchild and Kemp 1990), the NCGIA has been providing support and direction to the GIS education community. Following on the success of the original Core Curriculum, three new Curricula are now under development. All of these are being constructed and distributed on the World Wide Web and involve international authorship and editorial input. This paper discusses the origins of these projects and some of the issues related to the development of web-based instructional materials.

Introduction

In 1987, a solicitation for proposals from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) led to the establishment of a National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA). While the solicitation focused largely on the need for basic research in geographic information and analysis, one of the four stated goals of the NCGIA would be "to augment the nation's supply of experts in GIS and geographic analysis in participating disciplines" (National Science Foundation (NSF) 1987). As the NCGIA enters its second phase as an independent research consortium, the successful attainment of this educational goal can be clearly demonstrated. Not only has the original NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS (Goodchild and Kemp 1990) been adopted worldwide, translated into several foreign languages and accepted as a standard against which courses are measured, but the concept has spawned several substantial subsequent efforts, including three new on-line NCGIA Core Curricula. This paper brings these four projects into perspective by reviewing the origins and impacts of the original Core Curriculum and outlining progress on the development of the NASA funded Remote Sensing Core Curriculum, the new NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIScience and the NSF funded GIS Core Curriculum for Technical Programs.

The Original NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS

The original NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIS (commonly known as the CC) is a comprehensive set of lecture notes intended to identify and describe a core set of knowledge about GIS that should be taught to beginning GIS professionals. Several papers in the early 1990's reported on the development, evaluation and success of the original Core Curriculum (Kemp and Goodchild 1991; Goodchild and Kemp 1992; Kemp and Goodchild 1992). Although a significant portion of the original material is now somewhat dated, the success of the persistent focus on core concepts rather than on technology is reflected by the fact that copies of the $200 paper version are still in demand more than 6 years after its publication.

The Curriculum consists of a 1000+ page set of lecture notes and supporting materials for 75 lectures organized into three quarter length courses which might be taught over one school year at the upper division university level. The courses are entitled:

The Core Curriculum was developed through an international effort involving more than 35 university professors and GIS educators who contributed the lecture materials and over 100 higher education institutions who tested the draft version during the 1989-90 school year. Submitted materials were reviewed and edited at the NCGIA by the project's co-editors, Michael Goodchild and Karen Kemp. Development costs for the 2 year project were covered by the NCGIA's base funding and the Office of Instructional Development at the University of California Santa Barbara.

While the name "curriculum" may imply a more rigorous structure, the materials were designed to be easily modified and rearranged according to individual instructors' preferences and students' interests and backgrounds. By structuring the materials as point-form lecture notes, rather than as dense student-oriented prose, the essential themes are readily apparent and easily modifiable. In fact, the success of the Curriculum is certainly due in part to its non-prescriptive nature. Instructors were free to use whatever parts were appropriate and to ignore or augment those parts with which they were dissatisfied.

Since August 1990 when the Core Curriculum was released, the NCGIA has distributed over 1500 copies to institutions of higher education, secondary schools, government agencies and private consulting companies in more than 70 countries. As well, in order to accommodate the needs of colleagues in developing and newly democratic countries and to encourage the development of foreign language versions, national distribution sites were established in 14 countries. These have led to hundreds of additional copies distributed in English as well as in French, Russian, Japanese, Chinese and Hungarian versions.

An analysis of the distribution patterns in recent years shows little change from that found in the early years (Goodchild and Kemp 1992). Figures 1 and 2 show distribution totals categorized by continent and by organization in annual segments. No clear trends are apparent in either figure.

Figure 1 - Distribution of the Core Curriculum categorized by organization type

 

Figure 2 - Distribution of the Core Curriculum categorized by continent

Impact of the Core Curriculum

While produced simply as an expedient means to meet an immediate need, the original Core Curriculum has had significant impacts on GIS education. Although there has been much discussion over the years of whether the CC had too much US orientation (Kemp 1991), the continued interest in producing foreign language translations speaks to its universal applicability. A number of products and articles have used the Core Curriculum as bases for development or review. Raper and Green, who in the late 1980's created the tutorial software GISTutor (Raper and Green 1992), used the CC as a reference for the development of their second version, GISTutor II. Morgan and others used the Core Curriculum topic list as a benchmark against which to compare course content in their semi-regular international GIS education surveys (Morgan and Bennett 1990; Morgan 1992; Morgan and Fleury 1993).

Apart from such publishing ventures, the Curriculum has clearly been fundamental in helping a great many GIS educators get started. Much of this information is anecdotal, though occasional references to its usefulness have appeared in print (Smith 1990; Coulson and Waters 1991; Unwin 1991; Civco et al 1992; Markus 1993). Since they were designed as a set of materials for instructors, many introductory GIS courses in the US and elsewhere have begun as a variation of these lectures as new instructors quickly developed skills and knowledge about their new courses. However, as expected, individual reliance on the lecture notes faded quickly as instructors discovered their own student's interests and abilities, added locally relevant and updated topics, and incorporated hands-on technical training for a variety of specific GI Systems. From the beginning of the original Core Curriculum project, it was the editors' stated intention that there would be only one Core Curriculum, that the original version would also be the final version. If the Curriculum fulfilled its purpose, we felt, no further editions would be needed; GIS education would have become widely dispersed and self perpetuating. This argument, however, was eventually shown to be unfounded.

The New Curricula

As GIS education broadens across the educational spectrum-from elementary school to professional school and from anthropology to zoology, as remote sensing and GPS continue to mature as related and cooperating technologies, and as the idea of a science of geographic information emerges, the need for materials like the CC has not abated. Sales of the original CC continued strongly through 1996. As well, the emergence of the World Wide Web and browser technologies provides a whole new context within which this type of product can be provided. Most exciting, the web provides new and creative opportunities to address some of the original shortcomings such as the US orientation and the need for regular updates to portions of the material. Three new Curricula have arisen, each with a different developmental context and each with its own individual characteristics. Table 1 lists these new Curricula, their senior editors or project managers and the WWW site addresses.

Table 1 - Management and locations of the new Core Curricula

Curriculum
Project Manager/Senior Editor
Location on the WWW (URL)
Remote Sensing Core Curriculum Timothy Foresman, University of Maryland, Baltimore County  http://www.umbc.edu/rscc
Core Curriculum in GIScience Karen Kemp, University of California, Santa Barbara  http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/giscc
Core Curriculum for Technical Programs Stephen Palladino, University of California, Santa Barbara  http://www.ncgia.ucsb.edu/cctp

The World Wide Web as medium for development and distribution

Before reviewing each of the new Curricula in detail, the innovations which the WWW provides for projects of this sort must be considered. The original CC was strictly confined by the paper format in which it was distributed. The linear structure of the three bound paper volumes required that a logical sequence of lectures be determined a priori and that no new topics be introduced at later points in its development. This led to one of the most often heard criticisms of the CC-that the lectures were not arranged in the correct order and that certain parts were not given sufficient concentration. The obvious problem of producing printed materials about a rapidly changing field was addressed by attempting to focus on the more timeless material. However, while continued sales of this CC indicate some success in this effort, a careful examination of the document now shows considerable aging has taken place.

The WWW as a distribution medium eliminates these problems and provides many new opportunities for development of the new Curricula. Although there is still much to be learned about organizing and designing hyperlinked materials, linking sections of a curriculum to several related ones without enforcing a linear sequence is a simple task when using browser technology and HTML formats. With regards to keeping materials updated, a number of opportunities now exist. The vast store of information now available on the net provides the opportunity for individual sections of a curriculum to link outside to external sources of information such as that provided by government agencies (e.g. current information about DLGs from the USGS). In this manner, updates can be assumed to occur automatically from the provider side, though, of course, a need for monitoring and managing included URLs exists. As well, if new topics are identified or more detailed material is needed on certain existing topics, the composition and linking of new sections is a straightforward task.

The web also provides an efficient editorial medium. For all three new Curricula, units are being written by authors widely distributed around the globe. Draft units are or will be posted locally by these authors or transmitted to the editorial teams for posting on access restricted web sites. The editorial process thus involves no mailing of hard copy and can, in theory at least, be completed much more quickly. Editors and reviewers with appropriate access privileges simply link to these draft pages and view them locally. Editorial changes thus inspired can be acted upon immediately and require only digital editing rather than reprinting of documents.

The web also provides new opportunities for the inclusion of high quality color graphics and, given the rapid evolution of the technology, possibly even animated segments. It can be assumed that many instructors will be able to incorporate these images captured from the web into their local classroom presentations and that others will use the web-based materials as the basis for student oriented instructional materials, bypassing the now somewhat ill-regarded lecture hall. In the following sections, we describe how each of the Curricula projects is designed to take particular and distinct advantage of web technology.

The Remote Sensing Core Curriculum

The Remote Sensing Core Curriculum (RSCC) is the first of the new Curricula to emerge. Its origins are, in fact, almost coincident with those of the original GIS Core Curriculum though delays in obtaining funding to support its development have slowed it, fortunately, until the WWW era. The RSCC is an outgrowth of NCGIA's Research Initiative #12, "Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems" (Davis et al 1991). During the initiative's specialist meeting held in early 1992, an urgent need for education materials stressing the integration of remote sensing and GIS was identified (Estes et al 1993). Discussions with EOSAT personnel and other university educators indicated that materials modeled after the original Core Curriculum in GIS would meet a similar need in the remote sensing community. At the same time, an opportunity for funding from NASA's Mission to Planet Earth provided the impetus to move forward in the design of a Core Curriculum for Remote Sensing.

During the initial meetings, the RSCC Steering Committee worked to lay out a complete curriculum in remote sensing and by late 1992, they had identified a full set of 11 courses which they felt would make up the ideal curriculum. These are described in (Estes et al 1993). However, from the pragmatic point of view, in order to ensure that materials could indeed be completed and quickly made available for use, the committee decided to focus initial development on a core set of four courses. Each of these courses is planned as a separate "volume" with editorial responsibilities split between teams at several US universities. Volume titles and responsibilities are:

  1. Airphoto Interpretation and Photogrammetry (University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) )
  2. Overview of Remote Sensing of the Environment (UCSB and University of Maryland at Baltimore County (UMBC) )
  3. Introductory Digital Image Processing (University of South Carolina)
  4. Remote Sensing Applications (UMBC and Clark University)
Separate authors from the editorial sites and elsewhere are assigned to individual modules or units within each of these volumes. Overall project management is provided by Tim Foresman at UMBC.

In addition to its development for distribution on the WWW rather than on paper, the RSCC's most distinctive departure from the original CC model involves the incorporation of laboratory exercises and data sets as part of the basic materials to be distributed. While some laboratory materials were developed to support the original CC (Dodson 1991; Veregin 1991), the design philosophy required a strict separation of technical aspects from the core theoretical concepts. In the RSCC, access to and demonstration with digital images is recognized as fundamental for the understanding of the core concepts being presented. Most of the modules of the RSCC include detailed laboratory exercises and provide for the downloading of the necessary digital image data.

Another modification of the original model is the use of a more student oriented format in some of the modules and in the exercises. This format uses prose rather than point-form outlines and is designed for reading or direct incorporation into instructional units, rather than as a guide for instructors as they organize the content of their instructional units. However, similar to the original model, volumes 1-3 of the RSCC are organized in a linear sequence of topics with materials generally building on introductory material as one progresses downward in the list. Volume 4 is a set of applications and exercises which are intended to link to many different points in the other conceptual or theoretical sections.

Status of the RSCC

As of the end of 1996, drafts for about half of the modules are completed and authors have been assigned to most of the remaining ones. Plans for an evaluation of the materials to be conducted through web-based review forms are in place and will begin in the spring of 1997. The development funding from NASA concludes in mid-1997 and negotiations are currently underway with the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) to have the society accept this curriculum project as an education initiative to be administered from the association's Bethesda, Maryland offices. It is intended that this arrangement will allow additional volumes to be developed and for updates and maintenance of the existing modules to be completed. As such, additional monetary support and intellectual contributions will continue to be solicited.

The New On-line Core Curriculum in Geographic Information Science

As noted above, demand for the original CC continues. While it was initially felt that widespread diffusion of the original set of lecture materials would eventually make the curriculum redundant, the continued rapid development of the technology and the awakening of the concept of geographic information science continues to make such materials of use. Thus in early 1995, the NCGIA decided to undertake a complete revision of the original Core Curriculum. While both taking advantage of the WWW and, at the same time, keeping with the spirit and success of the original Core Curriculum, the new Core Curriculum in Geographic Information Science (GISCC) once again concentrates solely on providing fundamental course content for educators. As a "core" curriculum, it is not intended to impose any specific structure or educational objectives. Using the familiar lecture note format, but distributing it on the web, allows adaptation to whatever instructional mode each course instructor wishes to use.

While the basic unit structure remains the same, the content of the new GISCC has undergone a significant refocusing. Rather than a CC in GI Systems as with the original, the new Curriculum addresses GI Science. This reflects a growing awareness that the concepts which underlie many of the new geographic information technologies are fundamental and should be considered as a scientific field rather than simply as a computer technology or system. The new GISCC is based on the principle that the characteristic distinguishing GIS and geographic information technologies in general from all other fields is a focus on geographic concepts. These are defined as the primitive elements, features, and relationships used to analyze, model, reason and make decisions in a geographic context. They range from concepts about the form of the Earth and the measurement of position on its surface, to concepts of direction, adjacency, and connectivity, to the more advanced concepts that underlie our understanding of the processes that operate on the Earthís surface.

The curriculum is organized as a tree with more advanced concepts growing from the fundamentals. The four main branch nodes are:

Within each of these branches are more branching subtrees, each terminating in individual instructional units. The initial tree contains over 175 branch nodes or terminating nodes for which individual units will be written. Each unit is structured as a lecture outline and contains approximately the amount of information which could be transmitted in a 50 minute lecture.

By using a tree structure, the curriculum avoids linearity, and allows complexity to be added. The number of levels of the tree is not defined; new units can be added above existing ones, to add greater detail, but must be appropriately linked to lower nodes. If an instructor opted to traverse the entire curriculum, it could be done in any combination of height and breadth - height-first traversal would produce a linear and highly specialized course structure, while breadth-first traversal would place all of the introductory material first.

At best, the community as a whole will likely agree only on the lower levels of the tree. The proposed editorial procedure is designed to allow as much freedom as possible in the upper more detailed levels, so that units can be contributed on specialized topics with minimal need for restructuring. The only requirement is that they use the template for the design of an individual instructional unit and that they fit somewhere above an existing node. If a lower node does not exist, the editorial committee will need to consider whether it should be generated so as to provide an appropriate foundation for the proposed material.

The editorial procedure of the new Core Curriculum is based on the journal metaphor. The project is overseen by a Senior Editor, Karen Kemp at UCSB, and an Editorial Board who will ensure the overall validity of the Curriculum content. Section Editors are assigned to individual sections (subtrees) of the initial outline, usually consisting of 5-8 units. They are responsible for identifying authors for individual units and for overseeing the peer review process of these units. Both unit materials themselves and any included external URL links are peer reviewed to ensure the quality of the materials. It is the intent of the editors that all materials included or referenced within the GISCC have been given a dependable quality assurance review. Once units have been successfully reviewed and edited, they are posted to the open web site for further public evaluation. Editing and updating will be an ongoing process continuing as needed into the foreseeable future.

Status of the GISCC

The priority for 1996 was to create the fundamental set of materials and to get it on-line and accessible for discussion and comment as soon as possible. By early 1997, the majority of the tree will contain draft units ready for evaluation. In contrast to the original CC, evaluation will be handled in an open manner with each unit's web page displaying a "Send your comments" button. During 1997, the anticipated high volume of use should lead to rapid revision and improvement of these materials.

Once the initial materials have been posted and begin to be used, the NCGIA editorial team will turn their attention to the development of a number of subsidiary products aimed at making the materials easier to access and even more effective. Navigation tools to assist users find units on specific themes or to find related sets of units will include an index based on index words linked to individual units, a search tool and a map which displays graphically how various units are linked to one another.

In addition to these navigation tools, a large number of additional projects will be initiated through a worldwide network of partners. These projects allow anyone with web access to the GISCC to modify and augment the materials for various purposes. Approved projects will be refereed or otherwise vested to ensure the quality of their results matches that of the main body of work. Partner projects currently under consideration are:

In effect, the GISCC is intended to be a living product of the GIS community worldwide. By providing this central organization of the fundamental core concepts of GIScience, any number of diverse but related projects already on the web can be linked to it and placed into context with other materials. Fortunately, the flexibility of the web allows development to proceed relatively unconstrained as technology and education concepts evolve. The editors of the GISCC expect that within a year or two, what is on the WWW will be very different from the initial 1996 configuration.

The GIS Core Curriculum for Technical Programs

The third and newest of the Core Curricula is the GIS Core Curriculum for Technical Programs (CCTP). The CCTP project, begun in the summer of 1996, is separately funded by the NSF under the Advanced Technological Education program. This project addresses the need for a supporting resource for GIS curriculum design and course building activities at two year colleges where the focus of GIS education is on technical training in the use of GI Systems rather than on the theory of GI Science. While using the GISCC as a conceptual foundation, this curriculum is task-oriented, focusing on how to use the technology with skill and knowledge. Therefore, rather than addressing topics such as error from an abstract perspective, the CCTP, for example, provides materials for the instruction of digitizing which includes tangible demonstration of the relevance of those aspects of database error which arise during the digitizing process.

In order to directly address the needs of technical programs, a major element of the project development design includes participation by technical college GIS instructors. Unlike university academics who have more freedom to choose what to focus on in their professional hours, college instructors have time to attend to little other than their day to day teaching tasks. Therefore, this project incorporates a number of formal structures for obtaining the necessary input. This project is overseen by a Project Manager, Steve Palladino, at UCSB and an Advisory Board consisting largely of college instructors. To get the project started on a firm foundation, a working group of experienced GIS instructors from colleges in the US and Canada met in the summer of 1996 for a week long work session. During this session, they laid out the conceptual structure for the CCTP, drafted a task list for the instructional units to be developed and identified the critical structural features. Also building on a tree metaphor, this working group identified the elements for this Curriculum as follows:

Building on this foundation, the project team will refine the task list and organize it into modules or units to be written by the individual course writers during winter and spring 1997. Following initial review by the Advisory Board and editing, the materials will be posted to the web. In addition to informal evaluation available through "Send your comments" buttons on the web pages, a team of 5 formal evaluators will be contracted to use the materials in their classrooms during the 1997-98 school year. These evaluations will lead to substantial revision before the materials are formally released in the summer of 1998.

What each unit of the CCTP will precisely include is not yet completely specified. While there has been some demand for sets of step-by-step instructions on how to do specific tasks with various combinations of hardware and software, it is clear that the principles driving the original CC should continue to be applied here. What the NCGIA CCTP can do most usefully is to provide a context within which specific technical skills can be taught. That is, the project will identify and put into context the fundamental steps and critical issues for each of the essential tasks carried out by GIS technicians. By providing a conceptual framework within which individual instructors can place their own installation specific operational commands, the opportunity to influence the instruction of technical skills is as great as it was originally to influence the design and content of university level courses.

Status of the CCTP

At the end of 1996, this project is only just breaking ground. Since the structure of each unit will be more rigorously defined than in the other NCGIA Curricula, it will take some time to finalize the look and feel of this project. The critical next task is to crystalize the set of units which are to be assigned to the individual authors. Attention is also currently focused on the design of an appropriate graphical interface for organizing and accessing the materials.

The Future for the Curricula

All of the new Curricula are in the midst of their development processes. By the end of 1997, all three will have taken shape and will be available in draft versions for public comment. Each Curriculum will continue to undergo development in specialized directions which will in turn influence future developments in the others. The RSCC will continue to clarify how best to present and deliver digital materials for laboratory instruction as well as to lay the groundwork for longterm institutional support of such community based projects. The GISCC will evolve in new directions as the community molds the materials for various educational purposes and discovers new ways to teach with them. The formal evaluation of the CCTP will uncover new issues related to the design and delivery of web-based instructional materials.

As living projects, the NCGIA Core Curricula will continue to need critical review and contributions from the GIS and RS education communities. Colleagues from around the world are encouraged to visit the websites listed above and to consider how they might also contribute. Eventually, portions of these projects may be crystallized on CD-ROMs, both for the benefit of our colleagues who do not yet have easy access to the WWW, and also as permanent records of stages in these projects. Like the original Core Curriculum, these projects are certain to provide benchmarks in Curriculum development for years to come.

Acknowledgments

Work on the various Core Curricula could not have been undertaken without financial support from the NSF under awards SBE 88-10817 and DUE 96-02348 and from NASA under award UMBC-CG9521. Additional financial support has been provided the Office of Instructional Development at University of California Santa Barbara. Intellectual support on all of these projects is provided by Michael Goodchild, Director of the NCGIA. A great many other individuals play similar important roles in the specific Curriculum projects. The author also wishes to thank Steve Palladino for his editorial input during the preparation of this paper.

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