The Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS) Announces New NSF-funded Program for Instructor Development in Spatial Social Science

SPACE (Spatial Perspectives for Analysis in Curriculum Enhancement) is a newly funded program of professional development, oriented to undergraduate-level instruction in the social sciences. SPACE is eligible for three years of support totaling $1.4 million under the NSF CCLI National Dissemination program of the Division of Undergraduate Education. The objectives of SPACE are to introduce spatial methodologies (GIS, spatial statistics, and analytic cartography) as foundation skills for undergraduates in such disciplines as anthropology, archaeology, history, economics, political science, and sociology, and to interdisciplinary programs in criminology, demography, and urban studies. The program will feature one- and two-week-long workshops to permit instructors of undergraduate courses to gain a fundamental understanding of spatial methods and related software, to engage in the development of curriculum, lecture, and laboratory exercises, and resources for the assessment of student learning. Workshop participants will be instructors in social science disciplines from universities and colleges from across the United States. Unlike the CSISS program (see www.csiss.org), which aims to advance research infrastructure for spatial social science, SPACE is targeted at dissemination of tools and concepts for spatial thinking within undergraduate programs.

Don Janelle is the program director and PI for SPACE, working with co-PIs Michael Goodchild and Richard Appelbaum. Fiona Goodchild, recipient of a 2002 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, is the Professional Development Coordinator. The SPACE program is sponsored through CSISS in cooperation with the Institute for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research, the Department of Geography, and the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

CSISS partners in the SPACE program include the Department of Geography at Ohio State University (Mei-Po Kwan, PI) and the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (Arthur Getis, PI). SPACE workshops will be offered during the summer months, beginning in 2004, at UCSB and OSU, and at selected UCGIS institutions. In addition, SPACE will offer short orientation workshops at annual meetings of social science academic societies and through UCGIS programs.

A full description of the program and details on how to apply to participate are available at www.csiss.org/SPACE. This website will include resources to help instructors who are interested in introducing courses or course modules on spatial analysis. It will include course syllabi, exercises and related data, examples of spatial thinking, instruments for student learning assessment, and interactive forums to enable instructors to establish support networks and to discuss issues regarding pedagogy.