GIS Education Weekly: MapMOOC Maps, Jobs for Graduates, Marketing GIS Programs

The Guardian: Geography is "must have"

The UK's Guardian newspaper offers an editorial pointing out the increased interest in geography via the A-level exam.

According to the Royal Geographical Society, 13% more took the subject at A-level this year than last, up to 37,100 – the biggest jump of any of the major subjects.

Why? 

Part of the explanation is [former Secretary of State for Education] Michael Gove’s determination to make schools focus on more traditional academic subjects at GCSE and A-level, rather than general studies or critical thinking.

The editorial also notes that geography graduates have higher employment levels six months out of school that others majors. I dug into the topic in a post earlier this week.

Cartographer Explains the Making of the Maps of the Maps MOOC 

The blog post Making Maps of a MOOC from Penn State PhD candidate Carolyn Fish explains the process of mapping data from the school's Mapping and the Geospatial Revolution Coursera-hosted course.

CartoDB White Paper on GIS Education

@CartoDB tweeted:

Our latest whitepaper is here! Check out how CartoDB provides GIS solutions for the educational community: http://hubs.ly/H0141lG0

It's titled The Future of GIS Education. A cloud-based, open source GIS and mapping solution for education.

A Geographer Looks at EdTech in 2013 - Part 9 - Credit Where its Due

--- This post is the ninth in a ten part series examining top 2013 trends in education technology in the context of GIS and geography education. ---

Watters details the ups and downs of giving actual college credit in new ways such as via competency-based learning and MOOCs. If you are not aware, there are select universities offering credits and degrees via these paths. She also explores alternative credentials like certificates and badges. Where are geography and GIS among these trends?

Competency Based Learning

The two schools that I'm aware of that use a model that focuses on what skills students have or have gained, rather than seat time, are Western Governors University (WGU) and Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU). I know about the former because I tried to apply for a job there, but alas course mentors (content experts) must have PhDs. I know of SNHU because it does a lot of advertising here in Massachusetts. Neither yet offer geography or GIS degrees.

Of note, perhaps, in the coming years is what's going on at Northern Arizona University. Its competency-based online degree program called “Personalized Learning,” was accredited this year. That school offers among other things, a GIS certificate. Could that morph into a competency-based degree or certificate here or elsewhere? Stay tuned.

Badges

The big news in badges is that Mozilla rolled out its 1.0 badge software program. The news within GIS of which I'm aware relates to just two institutions exploring badges: Skidmore and American Sentinel. It will be at least the end of 2014 before we see how these efforts play out in the geospatial education marketplace and, equally importantly, the geospatial workforce.

Credit via MOOC 

There have been ups and downs with giving college credit for MOOCs. So far the news on balance is not good. Two disappointing situations from 2013:

• The deal between San Jose State University and Udacity ran aground and now Udacity is pivoting toward corporate training. Here's the latest on the relationship via Inside Higher Ed.
• An offer from Colorado State University-Global Campus that offered credit for a MOOC via a proctored exam ($89) got no takers. The comparable three credit course was $1,050. 

What's happening in our world of geography and GIS? Credit for a MOOC could be coming soon at Elmhurst College:

Additionally, we will be offering a MOOC in Spring 2014 (probably March or April) that will allow prospective students to gain badges for skills and have a course in the [graduate] program  waived upon full completion of the MOOC. Stay tuned for further details!

Is credit for MOOCs doomed for core courses? For GIS? I don't think so, but clearly the model is still in development.

Credit via AP Exam

The news on AP exams in general is mixed per Watters:

Enrollment in AP classes has been skyrocketing in recent years, although as Politico’s Stephanie Simon reported, “the number of kids who bomb the AP exams is growing even more rapidly.”

And, to my surprise, venerable Dartmouth College, no longer accept AP exams for credit. That I suppose is an interesting statement from the school about competency-based learning or at least the College Board's version of it.

The news on the only AP exam related to geography, the AP Human Geography exam, is more positive. 

In recent years between 25% and 30% of test takers have achieved a 4 or 5, grades typically worthy of college credit (Wikipedia).

Per Rich Schultz at Elmurst College noted other positive signs in an interview on this blog:

Some of our Advisory Board and faculty members in the program are heavily involved with the College Board and noticed that the trend was very clear that APHG was increasing in demand and more and more schools nationally are offering it, at least over the last eleven years (2001-2012).

Elmhurst is launching an online certificate for educators who teach AP Human Geography.

Accreditation

Most colleges and universities have administrations that insure proper accreditation. That said, a few institutions lost accreditation or were threatened with it during the year.

In our world of geography and GIS it's the specialty schools that are having trouble with accreditation. Accreditation sometimes makes a difference to students, but can be key to a university making money: it can be a key stepping stone toward government loans and grants for students. The news from Unmanned Vehicle University (UVU) is still not good:

UVU is not currently accredited. We will start the process in March 2014. We have hired an expert that has experience with our accreditation agency.

Certificates

While I have yet to see a certificate in geography, the number of them offered, both pre and post baccalaureate, in GIS is growing. New ones are announced nearly every week. The latest data I can find, via the GeoTech Center is from May 2013; but alas I can't even count the number of results from my query.

That said, the range of certificates is quite large. A school or organization can provide a "certificate of completion" for a MOOC. That's quite different from a certificate offered by a reputable university after a four course post graduate course of study that includes a capstone project. So, let the buyer and the potential employer, beware!

Unmanned Vehicle University Obtains License; Offers Free Book Publishing

I've been following Unmanned Vehicle University (UVU) on this blog for abut a year (previous articles: 1, 2). I keep an eye on it for two reasons. First, it's in the geospatial/GIS/remote sensing arena and second, it's a for-profit institution. I regularly receive e-mails from the school about upcoming courses and new offerings such as videos and books, but I do not receive news about the school itself. That information I have to dig up myself.

So, what's new at UVU since late 2012? Quite a lot!

In November university president Dr (Col Ret) Jerry LeMieux contributed to Big Beacon, a website about new ways to teach engineering. In his post titled Innovator’s Notebook: A New Approach to Unmanned Systems Engineering Education he scoped out the unique vision for UVU. It included decisions to:

• Start from a student’s perspective. [Connect course content to job (job market).]
• Recruit world-class expert faculty. [Require a PhD in engineering and tons of experience. Use social media to find faculty all over the world.]
• Keep content real worldly, relevant, and applicable. [Mix delivery systems for content (lectures, videos, reading) and for student work (problem sets, papers, take home evaluations).]
• Set a realistic business model and competitive pricing. [Make course fees low to serve areas with limited income (South America, India) and use off-site adjunct faculty to keep overhead manageable.]

Also in November I learned from LiDAR News' Gene Roe about the university's journal. "The International Journal of Unmanned Systems Engineering – (IJUSEng) is the official journal of Unmanned Vehicle University and the first journal exclusively dedicated to unmanned systems engineering." The January 2013 is the first issue and includes three free-to-read articles. There are also details on how to contribute and subscribe. The quarterly online publication is $495 for individuals and $150 for students. The publication is based in the UK. The editor, Dr Pascual Marques, has a company called Marques Aviation, which sells aircraft related products and services (website copyright 2010). He is UK Director for UVU.

On December 12 the University announced by press release a license to grant degrees in Arizona.

Unmanned Vehicle University just received a university license from the Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education. The license grants UVU the authority to grant Doctorate and Masters Degrees in Unmanned (Air/Ground/Sea/Space) Systems Engineering. A Certificate in Unmanned Systems Project Management is also available for Undergraduates.

The Arizona State Board for Private Postsecondary Education license shows no accreditations. I'm guessing that means that the board does not recognize the accreditation from International Association for Distance Learning UVU holds. Or perhaps that accreditation ran out? (I noted the IADL membership in a previous article.)

Interestingly,"fully accredited degrees," a phrase on the UVU homepage for some time, is no longer mentioned anywhere on the website. While exploring the Arizona license, I learned that the school does not operate in Washington State.  UVU "is not a legal degree-granting school in the state of Washington," per the Washington Student Achievement Council.

In late December the University posted a job for a recruiter noting a salary of 10K per month (120K per year, wow)! I saw it on several job boards including SimplyHired.com. 

At the end of December UVU announced, again via press release, a program to pay for the publication of the first 50 approved texts about UAVs submitted. The gory details are on the UVU Press page; it suggests publication could cost between $3K and $5K without this aid. The press already has one book approved: Dr Oren Gal, who is working on his PhD at the Technion in Israel, had his book titled "Marine Robotic Concepts and Science" approved.

To start off 2013 the University received the trademark (press release) for Unmanned Vehicle University, describing it as "Unmanned vehicle training and education."

UVU is clearly working hard to keep both its educational integrity high while boosting its bottom line.

A Look at Unmanned Vehicle University

Unmanned Vehicle University opened its online doors in February of 2012, after about a year of planning. The school currently offers online courses using Webex. Some are non-credit "executive certificate" courses (you receive a certificate of completion) while others are part of certificate programs (a one year post-baccalaureate program) or Masters and PhD degrees related to UAVs/UASs. Short courses, typically three days, are offered in person. The faculty includes some 30 experts in the field located all over the world. In August the school had about 50 students.

Jerry LeMieux, a retired Air Force colonel, commercial airline pilot, and college lecturer founded the university and is leading the marketing charge. You can hear him on this podcast interview with Small UAS News.

UVU received its accreditation in July 2012 from the International Association for Distance Learning. Wikipedia includes that association on its list of unrecognized higher education accreditation organizations.

Executive non-credit courses cost $999 (eight weeks) while certificate/degree courses (12 weeks) run $1600. A masters degree requires eight courses (no masters thesis is required) and runs $12,800. A PhD requires ten courses, plus 36 credits of dissertation preparation and a defense. I calculate the cost at $25,600. The Unmanned Vehicle University Graduate Course Catalog and Student Handbook, 2012 – 2013 with details is available in a PDF titled "graduate catalog" on this page.

The university shared recently that it is looking to gain Federal Aviation Administration certification, is writing a first textbook on UAVs, and hopes to open a physical campus at Lake Havasu City, AZ. An e-mail to prospective students in early September included plans for financial aid and Veterans Administration benefits for students:

FINANCIAL AID AND VA BENEFITS
We are working very hard to get financial aid and VA benefits approved. Please be patient with this certification process. We anticipate this occurring in the later part of 2013. Once we have this approval, the course prices will increase by 100%. Anyone who enrolls now, willl [sic] be grandfathered into the lower price structure.

I wanted to be sure members of the GIS education community were aware of this university and its programs.

More Information:

- Unmanned Vehicle University
- Washington Times
- Las Vegas Review Journal

---
update 10/11/12: You can now buy the UAV Fundamemtals Course
on DVD for $650 via Amazon.

Learn the basics of unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs). This DVD includes 16 hours of lectures from the popular Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV) Fundamentals Executive Course offered by Unmanned Vehicle University.

- e-mail from UVU