Proof of Concept Project Proposal

Aileen Buckley

Assistant Professor, Geography

University of Oregon

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Other Participants

Teaching Effectiveness Program Staff, Social Science Instructional Lab staff, GTF assistant, student with web publishing expertise, university faculty interested in incorporating course materials; all at the University of Oregon

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Project Title

Changing Students' View Of The World: Using New Geographic Information Science Technologies For Visualizing Real World Phenomenon

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Project Description

INTRODUCTION

While the human visual system is most integrative and comprehensive information processing mechanism known, if we rely only on human senses to learn about our environment, our perspective is severely limited. Direct human visual perception is limited to the visible spectrum and our immediate line of sight. We can only see the horizon up to about 10 kilometers in the distance, and our total field of view is limited to about 100 kilometers (Goodchild, 2001). Everything else we know about the world we know through other forms of information input.

New technologies are revolutionizing the way we view the world around us and are changing our expectations of environmental information and understanding. One of these enabling technologies is remote sensing ñ the technique of obtaining information about the world through the analysis of data collected by special instruments that are not in direct physical contact with the objects of investigation (Avery and Berlin, 1992). Remote sensing provides us with visible and non-visible environmental data from satellites and high-, medium- and low-altitude aircraft enabling us to better analyze and monitor the biosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. Remote sensing can help us track changing land use; locate, protect, and manage natural resources; track human-environmental interactions; study hydrologic and bathymetric phenomena; study atmospheric and biotic indicators of global environmental change; plan transportation and communication networks; improve agricultural efficiency; and determine and manage political boundaries. The combination of remote sensing and other Geographic Information (GI) technologies, such as global positioning systems (GPS) and geographic information systems (GIS) allows us to know the geographic spatial location of these and other spatial phenomena and how they interact. Global positioning systems are an electronic method of recording precise absolute position (to within a few meters or even centimeters) using time and position information from ground data receivers and a constellation of 27 earth-orbiting satellites. Advanced GPS units also allow descriptive information about spatial features to be recorded during the collection of position data. Advancements in remote sensing and GPS technology have led to a phenomenal increase in the amount of spatial information available. GIS harnesses the power of the computer to locate, manage, analyze, and display spatial data. Using GIS, spatial information from maps, remote sensing, and GPS can be integrated and analyzed to build better understanding of our world and our place in it. As a result of advancements in these geographic information technologies, more spatial information is available now than ever before, more methods for analyzing these data are being developed and disseminated, and our ability to make sense of the spatial data is ever increasing.

The University of Oregon already supports a strong curriculum in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), which lies at the intersection of these geospatial technologies and the concepts and theories relating to their applications. It is our goal to enhance our current curriculum by updating the techniques we teach students for collecting and analyzing spatial data through the integration of state of the art GPS equipment and industry-standard remotely sensing software without our existing GIS and cartography resources. The application of remote sensing and GPS spans the disciplines on our campus, including geography, archaeology, history, biology, geology, public planning, and landscape architecture. We plan to develop course materials that will lead to the full implementation of these new GI technologies in courses across the curriculum, and we plan to offer instructional support to teach faculty new to these technologies about how these geographic techniques can be used within their own discipline.

Our focus on stimulating new curricular uses of leading edge information technologies through demonstration projects leads us to believe this is an ideal project for the NWACC's Proof of Concept Program Funding.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

There are four major goals of the project. The first goal is to develop new teaching materials that introduce students in diverse disciplines to emerging Geographic Information Science technologies. These teaching materials will aim to give students exposure to, and critical perspectives on, new computer-based technologies for acquiring, managing and visualizing environmental information. The teaching materials are to be designed in a modular fashion. A major component of the module will be reinforcing the related concepts of geographic data problem identification and analysis. The lab modules will implement applications from the various disciplines and utilize remote sensing and GPS data collection techniques. The lab modules and the discipline from which they derive their subject matter include:

• urban planning (Planning Public Policy and Management, or PPPM),
• hydrologic and riparian analysis (Physical Geography),
• archaeological data collection ñ challenges and solutions (Anthropology), and
• sustainable resource management (Human Geography and Landscape Architecture)

The advantage of developing the teaching materials in this modular fashion is that the modules can easily be incorporated spun off into courses in the related disciplines that can also benefit from the application of remote sensing and GPS. Dissemination of the modules into several multi-level courses will assure cross-fertilization of the information in a variety of contexts. Courses targeted for module development may include PPPM 4/510: Geographic Information Systems, GEOG 427: Fluvial Geomorphology, ANTH 4/517: Field Methods in Cultural Anthropology, and LA 4/515: Computers in Landscape Architecture. The modules will be integrated into these courses through a pilot- then full-implementation process. The pilot project will take place in academic year 2001-2002 in courses offered by Dr. Buckley; full implementation will take place the following academic year after the course materials have been evaluated and revised and the faculty whose courses have been targeted are trained in the use of the technologies and course materials.

We anticipate that other courses also may develop units in GI technology using the course materials, equipment and concepts developed in the proposed spin-off modules. Such courses may include a number of Geography classes: GEOG 101: The Natural Environment, GEOG 311: Introduction to Cartography, GEOG 322: Geomorphology, GEOG 424: Advanced Geomorphology, GEOG 425: Hydrology and Water Resources, GEOG 472: Advanced GIS, GEOG 423: Advanced Biogeography, and GEOG 424: Soil Genesis and Geography. We also hope to help other disciplines integrate GI technology in their courses, such as GEOL 450: Field Geology, GEOL 352: Structural Geology Laboratory and Field Class, and LA 4/517: Computer-Aided Landscape Design.

The second goal is to further develop lab resources to support courses that use these technologies across the curriculum in the social and natural sciences. Enhancements to lab resources include acquiring and installing remote sensing software and obtaining reasonably priced hand-held GPS devices for distributed student use in appropriate classes. The NWACC award will allow us to acquire teaching equipment and software that is not currently available to students on our campus. Acquisition of the equipment and software is the largest barrier to the further development of our GIScience curriculum at this point. We plan to maintain and upgrade the equipment and software in the future through modest course fees and (albeit limited) internal support.

The third goal is to create and distribute Web resources that disseminate the lab modules and teaching materials across campus. Through dissemination on the Web, the modules can be shared with departments interested in incorporating GI technology, including remote sensing, GPS, and GIS as well as associated spatial data, into their curriculum. The Web resources for any module will contain: the objectives for the lab, instructions for conducting lab exercises, data, links to relevant information, and tools for self-assessment. The format of these materials will be similar to those developed for the Maps and Geographic Analysis course taught spring term 2000; these Web materials can be seen at: http://ssil.uoregon.edu/~geogit/.

The fourth goal is to assess the effectiveness of the course materials developed. Course materials and content will be subjected to evaluations by students, faculty peers, and the UO Teaching Effectiveness Program. Students will be asked to complete course evaluations in the middle and at the end of the term. Peer faculty (those whose classes are targeted for module development) will be asked to attend lectures and participate in labs that pertain to their targeted courses. The UO Teaching Effectiveness Program will be consulted regularly throughout the term and asked to provide appropriate evaluations. The teaching materials will also be evaluated through a series of questionnaires targeted at both the students and faculty. The faculty questionnaire will solicit the instructor's opinion of the effectiveness of the lab modules and their impact on student learning. The instructor will be asked to evaluate how the addition of the new technology changed his/her course. In addition, we will solicit the instructor's suggestions for changes via a written report. The student questionnaire will be both subjective and objective. The subjective portion will petition the students' opinion of the usefulness of the new technology and how the technology helped them to understanding course material. The objective portion will assess students'mastery of the technology and attempt to determine the connection between GI technology techniques and students' ability to problem solve.

JUSTIFICATION

The justification for the project is threefold. First, rapid technological advances are taking place in the field of Geographic Information Science. Techniques for analyzing remotely sensed data and collecting spatial data via GPS are developing rapidly in both the academy and in industry. We must develop the ability in students to appropriately and critically evaluate environmental data in the process of making personal or professional decisions. The curriculum needs to be revised to reflect these advancements in order to give our students the tools they to compete in the job and academic arenas.

Second, these developments need to be integrated in the application discipline's curriculum (e.g., Anthropology, Planning, Landscape Architecture and Geology) and not simply integrated into the disciplines where the basic GIScience is being advanced (i.e., Geography and Computer Science). The application disciplines could benefit greatly from these new techniques, as they can be readily utilized to solve problems in these disciplines.

Third, the project will allow us to build on existing resources and to extend our ability to offer a cutting edge Geographic Information Science curriculum. In recent years, the University of Oregon has made some important investments in infrastructure that have vastly improved our GIScience curricular offerings. First, the construction of the new Social Science Instructional Lab in Grayson Hall provides students with the technology capable of handling the computational demands of Geographic Information Science. The lab is equipped with high-end computers that are capable of handling large databases, complex computations, and intricate graphics work. Second, the university secured a campus-wide site license for Environmental Research Systems Institute (ESRI) GIS software. ESRI's Arcview and ArcInfo are the industry standard in GIS software. With these investments, our curricular offerings in Geographic Information Science are moving closer to the state of the art. Despite these investments, there still is a missing component in our GIScience curricular offerings. We lack the infrastructure to offer courses on spatial data collection and analysis using remote sensing and Global Positioning Systems (GPS). The proposed acquisition of hand-held GPS units and remote sensing software through NWACC funding will allow us to fill that gap.

DEMONSTRATED SUCCESS

Professor Aileen Buckley has developed several other innovative courses that have enhanced the Geographic Information Science curriculum. Geography 410: Environmental Measurement and Mapping, was developed with William's Fund monies in March of 1998.

Funding was granted to develop teaching materials that combine the real and the virtual environments the with aim of giving students exposure to, and critical perspectives on, new computer-based technologies for acquiring, managing and visualizing environmental information. This course was successfully integrated into the curriculum and has been taught during winter term in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Professor Buckley also developed a new course to introduce students to Geographic Information Science and technology. This course, Geog 4/510: Maps and Geographic Analyses, was funded by an internal University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences curriculum grant in spring 1999. These courses were developed with support from the SSIL Lab, which provided consulting, instructional, and technical support in the development and the implementation of class and Web materials. Dr. Buckley is also integrally involved in a national effort, sponsored by the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, to develop a model curriculum for GIScience.

CONCLUSION

The explosion of the new technologies for environmental monitoring and analysis has led to increased awareness, collection and use and misuse of environmental data. We must develop in students the ability to appropriately and critically evaluate environmental data in the process of making personal or professional decisions about environmental issues. Many University of Oregon students either plan careers in environmental sciences and environmental management or are active in community or national environmental groups. The materials developed with the NWACC's Proof of Concept Program funding would be incorporated into existing courses across the discipline to provide repeated exposure to concepts and techniques and thereby gain their deeper ownership

 

 

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Project Schedule

The proposed course development will be implemented in three phases: 1) Professor Buckley and the GTF will collaborate to compile and organize the course materials, and a student employee will incorporate the labs into a web-based format; 2) the labs will be incorporated into existing courses in Fall, Winter, and Spring of the 2001/2002 academic year; 3) results of the project will be shared with interested University of Oregon faculty community at an informational and instructional workshop.

 

PHASE 1: July/August/mid-September 2001

• Hire GTF assistant and student web support worker
• Purchase remote sensing software and GPS units
• Professor Buckley and GTF design course modules based on consultations with faculty who have expressed interest in incorporating the materials into their courses
• Develop project web site (publish course materials, lecture notes, lab exercises, practice exams)
• Link project website to NWACC website
• Install and troubleshoot remote sensing software

PHASE 2: Fall 2001/Winter 2002/Spring2002

• Incorporate lab materials in the following courses in a pilot project: Environmental Measurement and Mapping and Advanced GIS
• Collaborate with UO Teaching Effectiveness Program to develop methods to evaluate course materials
• Collect evaluations from students and peer faculty
• Meet with interested faculty to discuss results of pilot implementation of course modules
• Modify course materials based on evaluations

PHASE 3: Spring 2002

• Incorporate revised lab materials in the following courses in the second phase of the pilot project: Advanced GIS and Introductory Cartography
• Disseminate results of project to university faculty interested in incorporating course materials via a workshop organized through the SSIL Lab
• Submit report to NWACC about success of project and goals for future implementation across the disciplines

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Project Budget

Programming or technical support: $2,800

Materials and supplies:

Hardware and software: $2,500

Use of special instruments or media conversion:

Student Assistance: $700

Faculty Stipend: $3,000

Project Related Travel:

Access to networked resources:

Description of other planned expenditures:

10 GPS Units @$100/ea: $1,000

TOTAL (may not exceed $10,000): $10,000

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Other Sources of Project Support (including amounts):

A brief explanation of the items in the budget follows:

Faculty stipend: This reflects the cost for curriculum development by Professor Aileen Buckley.

Technical Assistance: SSIL lab staff will provide technical assistance; the SSIL lab will fund this, none of this assistance is charged to the NWACC budget.

Graduate Assistant Stipend: A Ph.D graduate student with expertise in GI Science will be hired to provide assistance with the curriculum development. The candidate will be hired at a 0.4 FTE at the current salary rate which works out be about $2,800 for a term.

Web Publishing Intern: A student will be hired to help with constructing the web version of the modules for dissemination across the curriculum, @$10/hr, 70 hrs.

Software: The price for 25 seats of the ERDAS Imagine software is $5,000. The University of Oregon's College of Arts and Sciences has already agreed to match half of that cost, $2,500.

GPS Units: These are mobile hand held units that cost approximately $100/ea and are appropriate for navigation and wayfinding as well as positioning to within about 100 feet, or better. We will purchase 10 of these.