GIS Education Weekly: Summer of Maps, Safe Software Grants, Hexagon Winner

Safe Software Grant Program for Students, Instructors, Grads and Non-Profits

Rules are different for each group, but are quite generous. Students get four month non-commercial licenses for FME Desktop which can be renewed as long as they are students. Those who have graduated, and were in the student grant program, get a 180 day license that can be used commercially for a new employer. 

Roll Your Own Summer of Maps

Azavea announced the start of work for this year's Summer of Maps fellows:

Azavea, an award winning geospatial analysis (GIS) software development company announces the start of its fifth Summer of Maps (http://summerofmaps.com/). Inspired by the Google Summer of Code, Azavea Summer of Maps is a program that offers $5,000 stipends to student GIS analysts to perform pro bono geospatial data analysis projects for non-profit organizations over a three-month period in the summer of 2015.

Did you want to try to support this sort of program at your organization or suggest it via your school? You can! Azavea CEO Robert Cheetham is telling his story as part of the Esri Education GIS Conference plenary Saturday (Saturday, 18 Jul 2015, 10:15am - 12:00pm Location: Marina - Salon D/E.) You'll want to hear it. Cheetham shares details on how he runs his company and how he thinks about education is in this article from last year.

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GIS Edu News Analysis: Esri Grants; Digital Quest Teams with NPCLPSCS (Who?)

On Feb 28 Esri announced some grant awards to educators at colleges and universities via a press release.

Esri has awarded five grants to select university and college faculty members to create exemplary higher education course materials and implementations of ArcGIS Online. Grantees receive $10,000 (US) each, as well as assistance from curriculum development specialists on Esri's education solutions team.

I didn't recall any public call for proposals. Esri confirmed this was invited competition.

Esri’s education team invited proposals from select educators that we know are doing innovative work that could be enhanced by the ArcGIS Online platform. The team then reviewed the submitted proposals and awarded grants to the top 5 proposals.

The selected proposals include courses/exercises for pre-service teachers, business majors, general education and an exploration of ArcGIS Online use in a large land grant university. That last one is of particular interest to me (having studied at a land grant school). I wonder how the "land grant" aspect makes these schools different, in terms of GIS use, from other large public institutions? Perhaps that's the question to be explored.

The grantees are expected to share their preliminary work at the Esri Ed UC and to actually use the resources in teaching during the 2012-2013 academic year. It's unclear if other Esri and even non-Esri users will have access to these materials. The materials could become part of Esri's SpatiaLABS, which I discussed two weeks ago, I suppose.

One takeaway from this announcement is that if you want to be included in these sorts of education grants, it behooves you to let Esri know about your work! Do not be shy about marketing yourself, your work and your school to Esri!

The same day, Digital Quest announced a partnership with the National Partnership for Careers in Law, Public Safety, Corrections and Security (NPCLPSCS) via a press release. I've never heard of this Partnership before, but it dates back to 1999 when it was established with funding from the Dept. of Justice. The Partnership mission:

To build and support career development programs and systems that ensure seamless transitions by linking and integrating secondary and post secondary education, professional certifications, and organizational recruitment, employment, training and retention systems. 

The secondary/post secondary career-focused space is exactly where Digital Quest's previous geospatial education materials and certification have been directed. It's my understanding that Digital Quest will try to offer its packages of materials to schools already offering courses in the areas of interest to the Partnership. While Digital Quest's footprint is small and mostly regional, it's clearly blazing its own trail in the industry-specific geospatial career focused education and training market.

Esri Announces Significant Upgrade to Educational Site License

On Jan 23, Esri sent an e-mail to its Educational Site License administrators which included details of "the most significant upgrade to the Esri Educational Site License Program in 20 years, at no additional cost." Why did Esri add in the new tools? "...because Esri president Jack Dangermond is committed to the success of educators at all levels who seek to cultivate the next generation of GIS users as well as a spatially literate citizenry."

What's new?

1. Addition of Esri® Community Analyst and the Business Analyst OnlineSM API to the Business Analyst Site License Add‐on, which is available at no cost upon request. (Available Jan 1)

2. Addition of ArcGIS Extensions (Available Jan 1)

ArcGIS Desktop Extensions
o ArcGIS Data Interoperability (teaching and research only)
o ArcGIS Data Reviewer

ArcGIS Mapping and Charting Solutions
o Esri Defense Mapping
o Esri Aeronautical Solution
o Esri Nautical Solution

ArcGIS Server Extensions
o ArcGIS Data Interoperability (teaching and research only)

3. Addition of Esri Data products, delivered on DVD (Anticipated availability March 1, 2012)

Esri demographic and lifestyle data (entire United States, all geographies)
o Esri Updated Demographics
o Esri Consumer Spending
o Esri TapestryTM Segmentation
o American Community Survey (ACS)
o Census 2010

4. Addition of New Products/Services ("Early 2012" - no date given)

o ArcGIS Online subscriptions
o Esri CityEngine®—Advanced

ArcGIS Online is positioned this way:

ArcGIS Online enables your faculty members to incorporate meaningful GIS use in large‐enrollment classes with minimal impact on their workload or your institution’s IT staff or infrastructure. In addition, your subscription to ArcGIS Online will allow faculty and students to publish intelligent web maps and make them widely available without requiring in‐house server infrastructure and technical expertise.

5. Revamp of web‐based Virtual Campus courseware breaking courses into 2-4 hour modules accessible via a new learning management system (LMS). (Release concurrent with ArcGIS 10.1 release)

I think that's a great idea - both for students and staff use. It may encourage instructors to seriously consider a flipped classroom model, where a module is assigned as "homework" and the "lab" is done in class. I hope Esri is thinking about how educators will be uploading their own "modules" to the LMS, to share with other educators, in the future.

via GeoTech Center Blog