Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
seeking help regarding the teaching of GIScience. Curiously, I could not find a link to
the CSISS website in the UCGIS Body of Knowledge [11] that we will consider next.
Obviously the field has moved on with several generations of new software revi-
sions to the leading GIS packages, new hardware developments, new algorithms and
new ways of interacting with computer technology including web-based GIS, mobile
GIS, web services, data mining technologies and the all-important rise of social media
platforms such as Facebook and Twitter among others [38].
4
The UCGIS and the GIS Body of Knowledge
The Geographic Information Science and Technology Body of Knowledge publica-
tion [11] was an initiative of the US-based University Consortium for Geographic
Information Science (UCGIS). In some sense the UCGIS was an outgrowth of the
NCGIA for “in 1990 the NCGIA Board of Directors recommended that a more broad-
ly-based organization be established to promote and support the field” [34]. Although
the current UCGIS website provides almost no details of the history of the develop-
ment of the organization, it was founded soon after a national conference on the issue
was held in Boulder, Colorado. At the time of writing it had 75 US universities among
its member organizations. Although the UCGIS exists primarily to support research
and education at US universities a number of academic organizations (including the
Association of American Geographers: AAG) and GIS software manufacturers (e.g.
Esri, manufacturer of the industry leading ArcGIS software) have affiliate status.
Non-American universities can belong to the organization as international affiliate
members and presently two Austrian institutions (University of Salzburg and the
Technical University of Vienna) and one Mexican umbrella academic organization
(CentroGeo) have affiliate member status. The UCGIS website lists two academic and
educational goals as part of its mission statement: first to “Advance research in the
field of Geographic Information Science” and second to “Build scholarly communi-
ties and networks to foster multi-disciplinary GIS research and education”.
To fulfill these goals and to broaden the mandate that the NCGIA Directors had
advocated, the UCGIS supported a Model Curricula Task Force under the Chairman-
ship of Duane Marble from Ohio State University (this may explain why the
NCGIA's second Core Curriculum in Geographic Information Science was essentially
abandoned in 2000). The Task Force included twelve other leading GIS academics
from US universities and two industry representatives from Esri. The Task Force
continued in place from 1998 until 2003 when, having laid the groundwork for the
Body of Knowledge, it was superseded by an Editorial Board, under the Managing
Editorship of David DiBiase (at that time on the faculty of Penn State University and
the Chair of the UCGIS Education Committee). This Editorial Board existed from
2004 to 2006 when it published the first and only edition of the Body of Knowledge
(BoK). The BoK Advisory Board that also functioned from 2004 to 2006 included 54
of the leading US GIS academics (plus one industry expert).
