Abstract
Visualizing the College Geospatial Education Landscape, An ArcGIS Server Approach
Track: Teaching About GIS for Future Professionals
Authors: Ming-Hsiang (Ming) Tsou, Cynthia Paloma
The National GeoTech Center is developing a web-based, interactive map for displaying and querying community college geospatial education programs in U.S. from the Relenta database. We converted over 1200 records into an Excel spreadsheet, and then created shapefiles for the input format of ArcGIS Server. The web-based mapping services will provide both attribute and spatial query functions, such as 'find geospatial programs offering online courses', 'identify community colleges GIS certificate programs located in Colorado', and "locate geospatial programs aligned with the Department of Labor Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GCTM)". A preliminary prototype has been created and tested by using generic Javascript API interfaces with ArcGIS servers. This enables GIS educators and students to use desktops, mobile phones, or tablets to access this interactive web map without requiring proprietary plug-ins. Users may select different geospatial program types from the table of contents and perform basic query and display functions.