Close Read: What You Need To Know About Location Intelligence In 2020

Another GIS Article on Forbes

A free generic map image from Pixabay.
The article uses one from Getty.

A post on LinkedIn liked by a college at Esri feted a contribution on Forbes titled What You Need To Know About Location Intelligence In 2020 by Louis Columbus. Another LinkedIn post called it "One of the best articles I have seen on the adoption of Location Intelligence."

I know many people are impressed when they see that something is hosted on Forbes.com since at one time, it was considered a top level business publication. Today it's a mishmash of earned content, contributions by paid bloggers (contributors) and paid content as I noted last year. For that reason, I suggest you look at content on Forbes.com with care.

GIS Education Weekly: Is the world ready for a Location Intelligence Degree?

Programs

North Park University in Chicago has launched a bachelor's and a certificate in Location Intelligence within its School of Professional Studies. I was unable to easily determine from the website if the credentials were offered online or face to face. I see from Inside Higher Ed the degree is available fully online: "Students now can complete a bachelor’s degree in location intelligence entirely online, and North Park has four fully online graduate programs."

The Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has developed a new professional master’s program in Environmental Observation and Informatics (EOI). There's an article on it here.

Location Advantage Dropout

The second week of Esri's Location Advantage MOOC begins today. This was to be the first "geoMOOC" I attempted. I steered clear of all the others since I felt too much like an "insider" since I'm in the industry and I'm an educator. I decided to try the Location Advantage specifically because it focused on the use of GIS in business, something I've not studied nor covered much in my career.

I got through the introductory lecture materials. Some lectures included PowerPoint slides, some were interviews and and one was just audio. Yesterday I watched the “assignment” video about our first project exploring bank branches in Toronto and gave up. I’ve happily completed three other MOOCs, all from universities. Two were Coursera partners and the other an EdX partner.

I know Esri is not a university and has different goals for its MOOCs. I looked forward to my lectures and assignments in my other courses, but somehow this MOOC did not draw me in. I spent some time thinking about why I gave up on the Location Advantage and came up with a few ideas.