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Track: Universities and Higher Education
Nan Jenks-Jay
University of Redlands
1200 E Colton Ave
Redlands
Redlands, CA 92373
Telephone: 909-793-2121
Fax: 909-793-2029
E-mail: jenksjay@uor.edu
James Pick, Teri Tomkins
Applied Education Instead of Training: A GIS Certificate Program for the USDA Forest Service
The University of Redlands and U.S. Forest Service cooperated on developing a certificate program for six units of graduate credit. The program includes courses in geographic information systems, organizational learning and systems thinking, and environmental decision making. The certificate is designed to educate Forest Service middle management and technical specialists in new concepts and skills to better approach their daily jobs and decisions. The program consists of three months of prestudy assignments and a two-week intensive learning period held on the main campus of the University. The instructor backgrounds have been in information systems/GIS, organizational behavior/management, and environmental science. The Organizational Learning and Systems Thinking Course is regarded as highly relevant and was requested by the Forest Service as its first priority. The course examines how organizations learn and what the adjustment and feedback mechanisms are that reduce roadblocks and confrontations in
organizations. Students do case study and group exercises on conflict or controversial organizational issues to test their practical understanding of organizational learning. The relationship to GIS is evident (i.e., that implementing GIS in organizations can lead to organizational conflict, resistance, and territoriality.) The certificate was designed as an integrative program with cross-fertilization of ideas and shared capstones and cases between the three subjects. The students were provided with ArcView and utilized ArcView software along with prepared lab materials and data sets. In summary, the U.S. Forest Service certificate has been largely successful due in part to the relevance of the course material, but also to the nationwide interest stemming from Forest Service adoption and implementation of GIS.
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