Trends in Geospatial Technology: Revisited

Teaching the Future of Geospatial Technology

I taught a course called Trends in Geospatial Technology as part of the Penn State MGIS program in 2010 and 2011. My students and I evaluated a variety of software and hardware trends that we thought might be significant as they pursed their careers. I selected most of the topics; the students selected, and lead discussions about, the remaining ones. In 2016, some five years on, I wanted to review the topics we covered and offer a status update on them.

Website vs. App

One big question was which type of mobile implementation of location-based solution would win, browser-based ones or dedicated apps?

My sense is that today the pendulum is swaying toward the app. Why? Apps can provide the organization behind the solution with far more data about the user, which is very important when the user is the product. Apps win, even though developing for more than one platform costs more and often mean a multi-part part launch, with the iOS app first, then Android, then maybe Windows and others.  

Six Keys to Identifying Authoritative Geospatial Web Content

Disclosure: I’m not an expert in identifying authoritative Web content, nor do I have any specific training on the topic. I've compiled what I’ve learned over the years editing online magazines and teaching online courses. 

Authoritative Content

There's lots of content on the Web about geography, GIS and geospatial technology. Some of it is valuable and accurate and some is not. Every time you read a new article or blog post, watch a video or listen to a podcast, you have to determine if the content is authoritative.

Below are some factors to consider in your evaluation. If your content, or its hosting site, raises more than one or two of these red flags, it might be best to look for another source.

What GIS People Need to Know about MOOCs

Last month (Sept 2013) at the GIS-Pro Conference in Providence, RI I gave a lightning talk (five minutes, 20 slides that advance every 15 seconds). The goal was to provide those in the geospatial industry an overview what they needed to know about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). I thought it went great and URISA videotaped it and published it on YouTube. It's below.

You can find all the talks (well, except one) on this channel.