Geographic Information Systems and Education: Bridging the gap between theory and application

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have seen a tremendous rise in university curricula around the world. It is no surprise as the usefulness of spatial data manipulation is becoming more evident when studies escape confined boundaries that can be easily represented by a Cartesian plane and require further consideration of the geoid characteristics. The realization that the Pythagorean Theorem cannot produce accurate results in a non-flat world (see this mirror of a US Census discussion on the issue) by disciplines that did not, traditionally, have to deal with such issues, has raised awareness of software systems (and hence knowledge) that specifically accommodates such intricacies (software was mentioned specifically, as usually a “black-box” solution to problems is sought, rather than the more time- and money-consuming method of investigating, mastering and implementing solutions by ones self). This, among many other reasons where spatial knowledge and analysis skills are needed, has lead to a demand of a number of specially educated people that can identify, explain and solve problems of geographic nature. A need that Universities across the world are trying to serve through GIS curricula introduced within multiple disciplines (the University of Washington has courses in the Department of Geography, Forest Resources, Ecosystem Science, Urban Design and Planning and Earth and Space Sciences). Each of these courses deals with issues of representation of data (in the form of points, lines, polygons, etc), data storage, manipulation/analysis and presentation to a varying degree, as well as including a hands-on experience in the form of lab assignments and projects.

The question raised is whether teaching GIS in such a setting and format is ideal or not, and how can it be improved.

What is GIS?

Geographic Information Systems rely on a multitude of disciplines to build a system of “software, hardware and procedures to facilitate the management, manipulation, analysis, modelling, representation and display of georeferenced data to solve complex problems” (please see Nicholas Chrisman’s excellent lecture covering what GIS is). While this definition of a GISystem is not universally accepted, everyone agrees that it is a multi-component system. A complete and all-around curriculum on GIS needs, in essence, to tackled those multiple components on two levels: theory and application.

Teaching the Theory

In educating people about GIS, curricula throughout universities cover the theories behind GIS. From mathematical representations of data (as vectors for discrete and raster for continuous data), mathematical (geometrical) operations, to computational methods to store, retrieve and analyze data, to statistical and systems modeling techniques and even the art of representing data either as pictographs, charts or even text using visual hierarchies and the like, curricula are in need to cover expose students to a plethora of disciplines to allow them to understand what happens behind any “black-box” GIS implementation (i.e. the software application).

Teaching the Software Application

All these theories and knowledge are what the software package uses to manipulate, analyze, model, represent, display and manage spatial information. How would that then translate into teaching students how to use software. The traditional approach is to show students how operations are performed through instructional sheets and requiring students to follow directions closely, leaving little room for exploration. But most importantly, leaving little room for students to bridge the theory taught in lecture with the press of a button required by the applied portion of the curriculum.

Problems in the Current GIS* Teaching Methods

Through my own personal experience, as well as discussion with other students and educators within the realm of GIS* (GIS* symbolizing the GIScience and GISystems together), I have come to the conclusion that there is a rather large gap between the theory (or what some like to call, GIScience) and the application to perform what the theory teaches (GIS in the traditional sense). The gap seems to arise from the fact that the software system does not require any prior knowledge of its inner workings (and hence, theories) to run, while the curriculum requires students to learn both, simultaneously.

The problem is, therefore, a disconnect between theory and application, lecture and lab, what the educator feels is needed to be taught (the theory) and what the students feel they need to learn (the software).

Solving the Problems

How one can proceed to solve the problem stated above depends on whether there is an agreement that this is indeed and the case, and whether one believes that this is a problem. Universities are institutions that mainly want to push a more academic agenda (as theory is born and raised within universities) than what is sometimes needed in the workforce. An emphasis in theory is therefore understandable, even desired (if no one develops and challenges new theories, there would be no progress). But the need of students is (usually) to learn the software in greater detail, as it is unlikely that outside a university setting they will need to recite the fundamental levels of measurement (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio according to Stevens, or adding graded memberships, cyclic ratio, derived ratio, counts and absolute according to Chrisman). How can then one proceed, especially when one considers the student body which includes students from multiple fields and with different needs?

I have pondered the question multiple times so far and I have not yet come into any conclusion. But I do believe there is a need to change the way things are taught, either by separating classes into theory and application, or changing the current curriculum to look more closely into the issue of what the students want and need to learn, as well as what the workforce the University prepares them for needs.

Notes:
A Very Spatial Podcast Episode 77 covers the issue as well.