Please see the AAG 2016 call below, sent on behalf of Nick Tate. Given the imminent deadline for this (29th October – but usually the AAG extend deadlines) can you please let Nick ([log in to unmask]) know buy return email if you are interested. The AAG is in San Francisco next year (March 29- April 2).

Diana Sinton, UCGIS & Cornell University

Nicholas Tate, and Claire Jarvis, University of Leicester

Richard Harris, University of Bristol

 

Quantitative methods within GIS education

As a digital tool, GIS is inherently quantitative. The technology emerged following the quantitative revolution of the 1950s – 1960s when advances in computer science coincided with the development of approaches to spatial analysis. Now, interest in and demand for GIS instruction continues to expand, in geography departments and elsewhere, while the concurrent teaching of quantitative methods is much less common, or has become optional driven in part by the development of more qualitative approaches in geography. This has implications both for the instruction of GIS itself as well as how likely geography graduates will be likely to use, much less go on to develop, a next generation of geographically-informed quantitative research methods. This arguably affects our ability to have geographers at the forefront of innovative developments in spatial analysis, and contributing to novel and informed ways to develop new GIS tools.

We invite those involved with GIS education and teaching of quantitative methods to reflect on some of the pedagogic and technical issues relating to the relationship between quantitative methods and GIS, for example:

• What is the role of quantitative methods in GIS education?
• What quantitative skills are necessary and what are sufficient for a GIS education?
• What kinds of quantitative methods for what kinds of students? How do disciplinary backgrounds and settings affect instructional design?

We intend the session to be structured as an interactive short paper session, consisting of a number of short 5-minute presentations followed by an interactive roundtable discussion.