Teaching Introductory GIS with ArcGIS Online: A Faculty Panel - Q&A

[BrianBaldwin]

We recently held a webinar: Teaching Introductory GIS with ArcGIS Online: A Faculty Panel, where we had a number of fantastic quetions come in the from the audience. The problem was... we had too many to answer during the webinarl.

If you would like to view the webinar recording, please visit this link.

As a follow-up - we promised that we would work on getting answers to your questions posted via a blog.

The questions were answered by both Tara Vansell (webinar panelist) and myself.

You can find Tara's responses in blue and my responses (Brian - Esri Solution Engineer) in green.

I've been using Dashboards & WebApps in my intro course but was informed that ESRI plans on deprecating these in the near future to focus on Experience Builder. Has anyone run into this topic yet?	There are no plans to deprecate either ArcGIS Dashboards or InstantApps. The one application that users/teachers should move away from is Web App Builder (as it has plans for deprecation).
ESRI GIS requires a license, is it easy to acquire one?	Esri offers free licensing for all K-12 schools globally (for academic use) and deeply discounted licenses for higher education. If you need help getting connected to the right people (if you are outside the US), please just contact us at highered@esri.com
Does the panel think GIS should continue to be taught in Geography/Geology departments or is it now better suited as data science?	Yes, but ultimately this depends on the resources of your institution.  Not all have a Geography/Geology department.  It then often becomes “who is the coalition of the willing” - the professor/instructor driven to provide the resource based on need for student success or the professor/instructor driven to have the resource for their research.
What is most important to include in short-term workshops or continuing education courses (say for interested publics or practitioners, as well as non-degree students) versus students who are in a GIS/geography degree path.	Story Maps There are a wide-range of configurable applications that learners with any focus should be familiar with. I always stress that analysis and data manipulation is important… but if learners don’t know how to share their results they will struggle when they are looking for professional positions. If I was to pick one application, I would say that the ArcGIS Dashboards are a ‘can’t miss’ technology for continuing education students to be fluent with.
I was asked to prepare a wishlist for a GIS lab for my University to be sponsored by the government. Can I have a link to a list with Hardware and Software specs, online resources, books, etc.	It all depends on what you want to accomplish with the lab. As many of the panelists discussed in the webinar, equipping students with lab computers that have modern browsers and internet connections can accomplish a lot. If you want students to be exposed to the latest analysis and imagery capabilities, then they should be familiar with, and have access to more robust lab computers.  A good place to start with any of these inquiries is a search for ‘ArcGIS Specs’ - you can then find the minimum specification for ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Enterprise, CityEngine, Drone2Map, and many other software titles. ArcGIS Pro Specs: https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/get-started/arcgis-pro-system-requirements.htm
We cannot put away ArcGIS Pro in GIS education.	Agreed, ArcGIS Pro is essential for Remote Sensing, Spatial Analysis, and Advanced GIS courses.   Agree as well! The focus of the webinar was on ArcGIS Online because it is still under-represented/used in many GIS courses, even though it’s capabilities are well suited to introductory GIS.
Has anyone worked with their academic library or librarian for GIS resources for teaching online? If so, can you please describe?	Great question, there are great examples at a wide-array of universities where ‘GIS Librarians’ help to play a central role that provides access to training, data, workshops, licensing, etc.  Take a look at this great story about Clemson: https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcnews/universitys-interdisciplinary-geospatial-science-center-... Or this one related to Tufts: https://www.esri.com/en-us/lg/industry/conservation/stories/how-tufts-university-professor-blended-g...
A common question I receive from non-GEOG faculty are one-shot instruction sessions for AGOL and StoryMaps. Oftentimes the objectives of these sessions are introducing GIS as a tool (general exposure), and/or using GIS for a specific project. What are your thoughts on adapting GIS instruction for contexts such as this?	Esri as well provides lessons, labs, and learning material in a variety of formats, those that are more focused on learning specific software, and those that are more focused on ‘how’ the software or tools are being applied to solve a specific problem.
I'm in a support role and we struggle a lot with preserving student projects (such as a senior thesis project) after the semester is over. Any thoughts?	One potential avenue for preserving student projects is to shift final projects (map, layers, app) over to a ‘university user’ - to ensure that it can be preserved if the student graduates.
Thinking about non-GIS courses and non-GIS research projects that incorporate GIS, where neither the students nor instructors are GIS professionals (or plan to be), what web GIS components and concepts do you view as reaching a level of maturity at which they can easily and successfully be used to support such scenarios, without the need for the direct involvement of a GIS professional? What should geographers be ready to "let go" of?	Story Maps Not so much about letting go as recognizing that some lessons that took a long time to teach in the past should now just be part of a larger workflow lesson.  For instance, performing an attribute join should not be the whole lab exercise, it should be one step introduced during the data set-up for the project.
Which topics would be better suited for advanced GIS?	Personally, I think a lot of the ‘fundamentals’ and the ‘how’ could be shifted to more Advanced coursework. Not that students don’t need to understand what a projection is… but do they need to understand how to build a projection? Do they need to understand how and geoid and a GCS are related? Also - while an introductory program might be a good place to get familiar with analysis tools, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of these tools are better left to advanced courses.
As a social work faculty member I would like your thoughts on how best can GIS skills be integrated into social work practice?	There are so many fantastic datasets and layers that relate directly to the important research that social workers conduct. Just starting with data discovery and exploring correlations between mental health services along with demographic characteristics or environmental factors would be a great starting place, and all of these datasets are available through Esri’s Living Atlas.
What textbook does Tara use for her introductory GIS course(s)? Is it integrated to Esri Ed. Program?	I use all Open Educational Resources Intro GIS - Geographic Information Systems and Cartography - https://slcc.pressbooks.pub/maps/ Remote Sensing - The ArcGIS Imagery Book - Esri Advanced GIS - The ArcGIS Book - Esri There are no introductory textbooks that Esri has ‘integrated’ into the Esri Education Program, but we work closely with Esri Press to identify topics or content that the education community sees as a need.
Where and when can we get updates on the OpenSource project that Trisalyn Nelson is working on?	Stay tuned! There will be some sessions at this year’s Education Summit and User Conference, from which there will news/updates published.
Do any of you have any suggestions to teach high school students GIS? I currently teach a dual enrollment physical geography class and would like to include GIS in a couple of the labs for the high school students.	Earth Science Geoinquiries - https://storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/700a99bf63a34b62abc0887f35c64c05 There are also a number of other great resources put together by Esri’s K-12 team: GeoInquiries: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/k-12-education/geoinquiries  Teach GIS: https://teach-with-gis-uk-esriukeducation.hub.arcgis.com/  National Geographic MapMaker: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/k-12-education/mapmaker
I need to know if the following objectives are taught in the introduction to GIS pre-built course: Utilize maps and map layers such as searching for, opening, and saving maps, basemaps, and layers; managing content, and/or creating and using metadata Construct maps using advanced mapping techniques and share map content such as feature services, spreadsheets, multimedia, and other content, and making maps from that content.  Sharing layers, maps, models, and web mapping applications Manipulate maps such as navigating maps, changing scale and map projection, finding locations and places, measuring, bookmarking, and selecting map features Utilize Symbology, Classification, and/or Filtering by changing symbology (style), classifying, clustering, filtering, and rendering imagery Manage attributes by working with tabular data such as selecting, creating fields and tables, sorting, summarizing, creating charts, and creating and using popups Analyze and interpret geographic patterns and relationships	In short, yes. Each of the ‘modules’ in Esri’s Modern GIS tutorial series do not have defined learning objectives, as a full-fledged course curriculum would, but they do include lessons, labs, videos, and readings that cover each of these objectives.
We have criminology and firefighter/EMS programs that would like to use GIS. Are there pre-built lessons to incorporate these disciplines?	Esri offers a range of lessons and materials on a lot of different subjects and domains. A great location where you can search for ‘applied’ lessons by discipline is the ArcGIS Learn Gallery: https://learn.arcgis.com/en/gallery/  With just a quick search on this page for ‘fire’ I found lessons on monitoring wildfires, calculating landslide risk, analyzing & sharing fire incident data, and more!