1. Assess the current state of affairs in GI science education (Accreditation and certification, Alternative Designs, Professional Education and Research education)
   1. Complete a literature review of all surveys of programs currently addressing GI knowledge domains that have been performed to date.
   2. Determine incompletely surveyed educational levels such as 2-year and community colleges and GIS educational programs available from vendors (including their technical support). Conduct additional surveys in areas where insufficient information exists.
   3. Survey GI practitioners for information about their background, education and employment.
      • Elicit 1) what they do with GIS, 2) the content of their past formal instruction in GIScience, 3) what they wish they had been taught, and 4) the set of skills and knowledge desired in prospective employees.
      • Hold discussions with key representatives of allied professional and academic organizations about the ways in which their members use and would like to use GIS and spatial information analysis
   4. Compile information on current graduate level GIScience courses (Research education)
      • Collect syllabi. Identify scientific and other educational objectives of each course type. Identify desired improvements to the current curriculum that would benefit research-capable graduate students
      • Compile lists of teaching units that address background material and other issues related to specific research problems that fall within the identified UCGIS research priorities.
   5. Contribute to other GI science education studies, in particular cooperate with the National Research Council in their proposed study of the field of GIScience.
    
2. Document the national demand for professional GI Science education to assist institutions of higher learning in evaluating the market for these types of programs. (Professional Education)
    
3. Collect case study models of laboratory facilities. (Infrastructure)
   • Solicit case study information from the UCGIS members, and possibly other exemplar institutions, about laboratory facilities. Provide summary on WWW.
   • Solicit information from members on infrastructure costs and creative funding arrangements. Provide summary on WWW.
   • Include questions about what has worked and not worked for improving access to physically handicapped students.  (Access and Equity)
    
4. Conduct a survey of member institutions on the quality and extent of emerging technologies usage within and between departments. (Emerging Technologies)
   • Identify all of the different kinds of technologies available at or to UCGIS institutions (e.g., video communication over the Internet what enables one-one-to-one teaching or technical support, educational satellites, television studios, classrooms equipped with Ethernet and LCD projectors, etc.)

Research and development about and for GIS education

1. Determine what needs to be taught about GIScience to whom (Alternative Designs, Professional Education, Learning with GIS and Access and Equity)
   1. Identify all the constituencies needing or desiring GIS education (Alternative Designs)
   2. Identify the professional goals of and related key GIScience concepts needed by various educational constituencies (Alternative Designs)
      • Determine, in particular, the different needs between traditional GI Science education and those of the employed professional student. (Professional Education)
   3. Determine what is the minimal 'spatial literacy' needed to do GIS. (Learning with GIS, Access and Equity)
      • this must include consideration how spatial literacy needs may vary due to different cultures, communities, traditions, languages, and so forth.
    
2. Identify the appropriate educational delivery systems for the various educational constituencies (Alternative Designs)
    
3. Develop techniques for assessing and monitoring the effectiveness of GIS education relative to the changing goals and activities of each educational constituency (Alternative Designs)
    
4. Develop, test and distribute GIS software that allows content-focused active and authentic spatial learning for cartographically and geographically naive learners at various educational levels. (Learning with GIS)
    
5. Create resources to assess GIS-based learning environments (Learning with GIS)
   • Create and validate instruments to measure baseline information on students' visualizaton skills, spatial skills and cognitive abilities.
   • Identify procedures for measuring skills and outcomes for learning with GIS and learning about GIS.
   • Cross-validate these procedures with the baseline instruments.
   • Prioritize a research agenda to formalize principles for teaching how spatial reasoning and problem-solving expertise develop.
   • Establish longitudinal assessment programs to understand the potentials and limitations of GIS theory and technology upon improvement of spatial reasoning and spatial problem-solving skills.
    
6. Determine how the visualization methods and spatial logic imbedded in GIS impact on the learning processes for the learning impaired students and/or socio-economically disadvantaged groups. (Access and Equity)

Course content and teaching materials

1. Outline curricula and course content for various constituencies and topics.
   1. Establish a model core curriculum of the necessary coursework for the professional student. (Professional Education)
      • Establish a subcommittee to recommend model curricula and guidelines based on surveys conducted.
      • Provide guidelines detailing the expected differences among the varying levels of GIS education.
      • Identify strategies for meeting these needs of professionals from specific disciplines, including those desiring education for application-oriented GIS use.
   2. Identify important topics which should be covered by graduate level courses (Research Education)
      • Compare the list of themes currently taught in graduate level courses against the UCGIS research priorities. Make lists of key results that are known and missing results that still need to be determined in all of the UCGIS research initiative areas.
      • Identify areas, such as "Spatial Statistics", that require different focuses for different research-capable audiences; and analyze the needs of the various audiences and potential researchers in different fields.
      • Pay special attention to analytical courses that aim directly at confirmatory spatial analysis, such as spatial statistics.  Adapt courses to the needs of the various audiences and research challenge.
      • Consider the components of a service course for outstanding researchers and Ph.D. students in outside fields of study, such as anthropology.
      • Examine current GISystems capabilities, limitations, and potential for growth in areas of spatial analysis, spatial statistics, and modeling. Compile a checklist of GISystem capabilities for leading commercial products, highlighting advanced areas that are inadequately developed. Compile a wish list of GISystem capabilities in advanced areas such as analysis, spatial statistics, and mathematical modeling.
      • Develop a curriculum for courses in Spatial Statistical Analysis as a prototype.
   3. Build templates and materials, including case studies, for a GIS ethics course (Access and Equity)
   4. Develop a framework for categorizing and assessing GIS impacts that can be incorporated into GIS curricula (Access and Equity)
      • must include explicit consideration of who benefits at what cost, and who gets excluded.
    
2. Develop short on-line courses and course prototypes.
   1. Develop, publicize, and test one short on-line course on a popular professional or technical topic. (Professional Education, Emerging Technologies)
   2. Develop, publicize, and test one special-topic on-line course in Advanced GIScience (e.g., "Topology for GIScientists"). (Research Education, Emerging Technologies)
   3. Based on experience from these on-line courses, develop prototypes for on-line short courses at both the Master's and Ph.D. level.  (Research Education, Professional Education)
      • Develop a conceptual framework (in collaboration with researchers in the education field) for how courses of this sort should be developed.
      • Include guidelines as to what should be delivered on-line and what should not.
    
3. Compile and create teaching modules for distance learning courses to help instructors deal with effectively with television cameras, audio equipment, and enhanced classrooms, video conferencing capabilities. (Emerging Technologies)

Clearinghouse/networking

1. Create a Techwatch electronic newsletter (Emerging Technologies)
   • Details about this newsletter are laid out in the Emerging Technologies white paper.
    
2. Create a UCGIS web-based clearinghouse for educational materials (Emerging Technologies, Infrastructure, Professional Education, Learning with GIS)
   1. Determine how to extend the Virtual Geography Department model to cover GIScience
   2. Create a clearinghouse web page sponsored by a UCGIS institution.
   3. Inventory and link materials available on-line, including:
      • education materials at UCGIS institutions and relevant materials from other fields.
      • specialized software, data and instructional materials.
      • distributed collaborative curriculum materials.
       
3. Post a summary of the UCGIS survey on infrastructure issues. (Infrastructure)
   • include infrastructure costs and creative funding arrangements for creating GIS education infrastructure, funding sources, opportunities, and alternative support avenues for supporting infrastructure.
    
4. Create and maintain a FAQ on infrastructure issues. (Infrastructure)
    
5. Create a Professional Education page that summarizes basic details on admissions policies, curricula, faculty, tuition and pricing in place at UCGIS institutions. (Professional Education)
    
6. Establish a clearinghouse for the exchange of modules for Learning with GIS and of experiences about using these modules. (Learning with GIS)
    
7. Develop a plan for collecting and sharing information on successful strategies for delivering effective education for employed professionals.
    
8. Create "how-to" workbooks and associated web pages on how to best employ emerging technologies for GIS education.
    
9. Produce a "how to" guide which sets out the basic steps, as well as scenarios for the development or management of facilities under different resource conditions. (Infrastructure)
    
10. Create a UCGIS Collaboratory that provides for the automatic collection and interpretation of data sets, equally accessible by participating institutions in real-time. (Emerging Technologies)

Policy

1. Prepare statements on UCGIS’s position on certification, accreditation, and licensing issues (Accreditation and Certification, Professional Education)
   • Form a task force to prepare draft position statements for discussion and adoption.
    
2. Assist member schools and consortiums of schools in obtaining funding for developing and testing innovative delivery mechanisms. (Emerging Technologies)
    
3. Establish the proper support for and integration of various curricula into the educational systems of UCGIS institutions (Alternative designs).
    
4. Build partnerships with vendors, government agencies at all levels, and private interests who are both providers of materials and benefactors of instructional improvements. (Infrastructure)
   • Actively pursue opportunities for dialog with vendors, government agencies and private companies with a view to developing areas of mutual support.
   • Designate UCGIS contact person(s) to serve as conduit(s) for information to be disseminated to the membership.
    
5. Support Infrastructure related policy (Infrastructure)
   • initiate discussion of standards and compatibility issues as regards education infrastructure among the membership through the Clearinghouse Page or the FAQ.
   • open discussion with key figures in government agencies and other organizations working on standards and related issues.
    
6. Set into place mechanisms for fostering adoption of Learning with GIS modules (Learning with GIS)
   • Fund opportunities for prospective faculty exchanges, including doctoral students and teaching post-doctorate positions.
   • Fund opportunities for existing instructor re-training for pre-collegiate teachers, faculty exchanges and in-service programs other (non-traditional) instructors.
   • Develop sourcebooks guiding new instructors on how and where to get help in using such materials.

UCGIS Workshops and Seminars

1. Develop a Summer Assembly workshop or panel discussion focusing on emerging technologies within the broader contexts of education, research, and society. (Emerging Technologies)
   • Publicize the plan for the workshop/panel and enlist participants.
   • Convene the workshop/panel at a Summer Assembly.
    
2. Reconvene the virtual seminar with a different focus and sponsored by a different UCGIS institution. (Emerging Technologies)