Latest Contributions by JosephKerski

How can the spatial framework and geotechnologies be used to foster data literacy, and to teach and learn about water?  How can GIS be used to effectively engage students in such content and skills?  These were key questions that were a part of the Dyouville University's Data Citizens Western New York project , which brought together university instructors and researchers, community leaders, secondary social studies teachers, and project consultants to design, implement, and evaluate an innovative professional development model for Civics and Geography educators.  Its chief aim was to improve teacher competence and confidence in GIS, providing teachers with technological skills needed to prepare tomorrow’s spatial citizens.   It created a teacher professional development model designed to support geography, civics, and government teachers and students as they explore global historical questions using geospatial data to analyze and address civic issues.  One of the focal points was to use water as a theme to bind field data collection activities, the natural and social sciences, and to incorporate key community issues.  The project leaders chose storm drains as the study unit--objects so much a part of everyday life that we seldom think about them, yet they are fundamentally tied to the physical and human-built environment. To support the project, I created a series of videos that walks an educator or student through the process of thinking about water from a spatial lens, to gathering resources, creating and deploying a field survey, creating 2D and 3D maps, performing spatial analysis, and creating a dashboard and a story map to communicate the results of the project.  I assembled the videos in the following playlist, in the hopes that they will spark some creative ideas for you and others who watch them:  Teaching and Learning about Water with GIS - YouTube The contents of the videos are as follows: Why teach with these approaches, tools, and data? How to teach with these approaches, tools, and data? Resources – data, tools, and methods. Resources:  Lessons. Creating a survey and a map from that survey. Adding relevant data to the map. Using Spatial Analysis to understand connections. Creating a 3D scene.   Creating a dashboard.  Creating a story map.  Playlist of 10 videos that guide a person through the concept through the completed investigation. This project took full advantage of "modern web GIS" components--Survey123, 2D maps and 3D scenes,  spatial analysis, dashboards, story maps, the Living Atlas of the World, and more.  In fact, one of my favorite parts of the project is that it began with "What is spatial thinking and GIS?", guiding the educators through short but insightful lessons so they could gain confidence in using the tools, data, and technology, and then a scaffolded approach to field data gathering > mapping > adding layers > doing spatial analysis (create watershed and trace downstream) > creating a 3D scene > creating a dashboard > creating a story map. An example dashboard from this project is here: One of the story maps is here: The front part of one of the story maps communicating the project and its results. This project also demonstrated how versatile GIS instruction is:  The spring 2021 cohort of educators were all online, and so was I and the entire instructional team of colleagues.  The summer 2021 cohort were together in a socially distanced large auditorium classroom on the Dyouville University campus, with some of the instructional team with face to face, but with 2 instructors, myself included, there virtually.  With GIS running in the cloud in ArcGIS Online, data as services from ArcGIS Online and local ArcGIS Hubs, lessons and supportive materials online, and the ability to share not just maps and apps, but best practices for instruction, all online, it was really the perfect convergence.  And for those of you reading this, this is the perfect time for you to start using GIS if you have not already.  The project used the ArcGIS system from Esri, the David Rumsey map collection, the National Geographic Map Maker, SketchUp, and a few others.  For the institute, a combination of existing Esri GeoInquiries lessons and lessons the instructional team wrote were used.   If you would like to watch the recordings and examine the resources that were created for this project, see this page.    It has been an honor working with the innovative team at Dyouville University, with my colleague Anita Palmer of GISetc, and with the two cohorts of social studies secondary educators who have gone through the program thus far.   Many of us have been together from the project's inception, from the original letter of support for the project from Esri and others, to planning the content for the institutes, and delivering the content.  This was a dedicated team who planned things down to the finest details, and I must say that I love working with organized people!  I also salute the educators who, despite these disruptive times, were determined to effectively teach and learn with GIS and are now implementing those skills and content.  As is always the case in educator professional development, I learned a great deal from the educators.  The project will continue this summer with something wonderful--a teacher-and-student field trip to local water treatment facilities in Buffalo, and other places with a water theme, and the project will continue on into next year.  Therefore, expect to hear additional stories and results from this project demonstrating that it is creating positive change!   ... 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In high school, my friend and I had ongoing debates about the "Top 10 coolest bands of all time."  We never could win each other to "our side" of the argument, but it was fun to discuss anyway.  Nowadays, perhaps because of the flood of information, because of time constraints and the need for concise pieces of information, and because it offers a place for anyone to have a voice, the web is full of Top 10 lists.  These include those on the "Top 10 places to visit in <fill in your state or country> before you die", the "Top 10 most influential people in history", and on and on.  These lists are often subjective, sometimes fun to read, sometimes can be informative, but can often serve as effective "conversation starters" in class in debate or in other instructional scenarios.  This essay is provided in video form, here. In today's complex and rapidly changing education and technology environment, where educators need to focus on "what really matters", such a Top 10 GIS based skills list could be valuable.  Therefore, I ask, you, the reader, to think about:  "What are the 10 most important skills to nurture and develop for success in using GIS in instruction?"  Let me reassure you here at the outset that I do not believe that these are the only types of skills that teaching with GIS fosters.  Indeed, my colleagues and I have written extensively about the inquiry, communication, and other skills fostered by working with spatial data and geotechnologies in this blog, in videos, and in journal articles, and elsewhere.  Furthermore, since GIS instruction always is about real issues in real contexts, whether it is natural hazards, species richness, soils or landforms, climate and weather, population change and demographics, social justice, or other key 21st Century issues, students are gaining content knowledge in a wide array of disciplines when they are using GIS in instruction.  In addition, I believe that GIS offers spatial thinking, systems thinking, holistic thinking, and other perspectives far beyond skills and content knowledge.  See my 3-legged stool of geoliteracy for more on this topic.  And we could certainly talk about the broader skills that GIS fosters in managing projects, working with data types, formats, and delivery mechanisms (portals, Hubs; streaming vs. downloading), and learning attitudes such as embracing change, asking questions, and others.   But for this essay, let's focus on core GIS skills.    While any "Top 10" list is rightly open to debate, and I welcome that debate in the comments to this essay, I would argue that if you and your students master these 10 skills, you can do virtually anything in this exciting and powerful platform!  Do I really mean anything?  Yes, because I believe teaching your students these skills is like teaching them "how to fish"--they develop the perspectives and problem-solving abilities that they can transfer to different issues and regions.  This education community blog is filled with examples of students doing amazing things, from primary to secondary to university (read more here and here) and beyond.  The Top 10 GIS Skills (1)  Working with Maps and Layers:  Searching for, opening, and saving maps, basemaps, layers, and 3D scenes; managing content, and creating and using metadata. (2)  Creating and Sharing Map Content:   Creating feature services, spreadsheets, multimedia, and other content, and making maps from that content.   Sharing layers, maps, models, and web mapping applications.    (3)  Map Navigation:  Changing scale and map projection, finding locations and places, measuring, bookmarking, and selecting.   (4)  Symbology, Classification, Filtering:  Changing symbology (style), classifying, clustering, filtering, rendering imagery.  (5)  Attributes:  Working with tabular data:  Selecting, creating fields and tables, sorting, summarizing, creating charts, and creating and using popups.   (6)  Field data:  Collecting and mapping field data from field data collection apps (such as Survey123 and iNaturalist), GPS and fitness apps, geotagged photographs, and from analog methods (even from notes on a clipboard!).   (7) Drawing and Sketching:  Configuring popups and other map objects (map notes in Classic Map Viewer, Sketch layers in New Map Viewer).  (8)  Creating and using expressions (in Arcade) and using them in filtering, labeling, and symbolizing.  (9) Creating web mapping applications including story maps, infographics, and dashboards. (10) Performing analysis: Proximity, summarizing, map overlay, map algebra, routing, joining, spatial statistical tools, and more. This list can be used to create assessment tools if you are teaching a course or a workshop.  The entire list or portions thereof could also be used as a pre-test for a workshop you are planning--what are attendees' skills before they begin?  It could be compared to a post-workshop evaluation using a variety of assessment instruments.  I like having students create ArcGIS Story Maps, for example, as content that I can evaluate technically and also to make sure students understand the concept (such as tsunamis or population change).  I can assess the maps online and also assess a 5-minute live or recorded oral presentation that the students give as they walk their peers and me through their story map. While my essay title is focused on "ArcGIS Online", I contend that many of these skills are important in using other GIS software such as ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Urban, ArcGIS Insights, Business Analyst Web, and even non-Esri GIS software.   But those other software sets involve developing some unique skills as well, such as understanding how to bring data from a GIS to a statistical package and back, for example, using the R Bridge in ArcGIS Pro.  Certainly there are "honorable mentions" that I would like to include in this list, such as (1) developing coding skills in JavaScript and Python which powers the web maps, and (2) editing point, line, and polygon mapped features.  But I cut myself off at 10 ! Other GIS skill lists are worth examining:   My colleagues and I in the T3G (Teachers Teaching Teachers GIS) program organized the core elements of GIS into:  Create geographic data, analyze data, and visualize data.   USC, for example, groups the skills into data collection and evaluation, visualization, analysis, and modeling.   I also like this list from Oregon State University for its nudge about understanding workflows and from GIS Lounge for its focus on data.  And I have long been a proponent of the Geospatial Technology Competency Model from the GeoTech Center that begins with personal competencies:  "Are you organized?  Are you ethical?  Can you work with data?"   What skills, in your judgement, are most important in the above list?   What skills would you include in such a list?  Which of these 10 skills apply to using other tools, such as ArcGIS Pro?  What skills do you think might decrease or increase in importance as we move forward in this current decade?   I look forward to your comments below!   ... 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Coordinated by Esri's international distributors and Esri's international and education teams, the Esri Young Scholars Award program was launched in 2012. Winners are honored each year at the Esri User Conference. The program recognizes the exemplary work of current undergraduate and graduate students majoring in geospatial science disciplines at international universities. Winning entries are selected by a university panel formed by Esri's distributor in the recipient's respective country. Award winners typically travel to San Diego to present their work and join 20,000 GIS professionals in a week-long program of presentations, workshops, and social events,  This year, the students will be recognized virtually before over 50,000 conference attendees. This year, 29 Young Scholars were awarded from 6 continents.  These scholars tackled problems ranging from development, walkability, wildfires, greenspace planning, education, floods, health, and many more.  To accomplish their work, they performed some deeply insightful spatial analysis using Esri GIS software, incorporating existing data sets along with their own generated data, created web mapping applications, and conducted a wide range of field and office work. The scholars honed their communication skills by creating graphs, charts, maps, story maps, and posters, many of which are visible in the slideshow below and in the story map (https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ecce5ae18edc42c99760c10b23d429fc).  See for yourself! Use this story map that features the work that these fine Young Scholars have done that my colleagues here at Esri and I created. Study the Young Scholar's posters and storymaps and explore the methods, data, and tools that they used. Show your students, colleagues, and others how GIS helps make wise decisions and build a better world. Use the story map to get a sense for the diversity of scales, themes, and problems that can be addressed with GIS. Use the story map as an idea of one of the story map templates (a slideshow) that you could use to highlight students, or issues, or your own work.  Think of the Young Scholar program and be inspired that the future of GIS is in good hands! Selection of 2021 Esri Young Scholars and their work.  For more detail, see this story map. ... View more

This selection of syllabi and workshops that use location analytics in higher education schools of business has been created to provide ideas, inspiration, and confidence for business instructors and students.   This resource will be updated as additional syllabi and workshop outlines are developed and shared. Sample University Syllabi Set of resources from Dr Murray Rice, University of North Texas. Business Intelligence and Analytics from BYU Idaho. Workshop Syllabus The following 10-item syllabus for a short (1 to 3 hour) workshop on location analytics is one that has been tested and used in many university and college settings, for an audience of students, faculty, university administrators, or all of the above.  However, the syllabus can be adapted and modified as needed as audience, time available, and needs change.    At the beginning of the workshop, state who you are (as the speaker) and why the audience should listen to you.  Provide a background along with an explanation of why you are passionate about location analytics. 1.  What challenges are communities and societies confronting from a local to a global scale? Health, energy, water quality and quantity, rapid urbanization, economic inequalities, ecosystem degradation and species loss, climate, natural hazards (floods, hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, mudslides, tornadoes, others), sustainable agriculture, vibrant but sensitive tourism, public safety, locating the optimal site for goods or services, and others are global problems that increasingly affect our everyday lives.  All of these issues and problems have a location component.  Hence, location analytics will increasingly be depended on for smart decision making for a healthier and more sustainable future in government, private industry, nonprofit organizations, and academia? 2.  What challenges do businesses regularly confront?   Site optimization, understanding consumer behavior, supply chain management, assessing risk, understanding demographic and behavioral trends, corporate security, enhancing company reputation, and many others.  All of these issues have a location component.  Hence, location analytics are used by all businesses to achieve their corporate and societal goals.  One such set of challenges exists during the COVID-19 crisis, as detailed on this operational awareness page about business continuity and recovery. 3.  What are the key components comprising Location Analytics?   Components include technology, data, and communication instruments.  (3a.) Technological components to Location Analytics:  Geographic Information Systems (GIS), web mapping, remote sensing, and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)/Global Positioning Systems (GPS).  This technological framework for Location Analytics exists increasingly in a cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environment.  This framework allows for web mapping applications, such as dashboards and multimedia maps and apps, to be built upon it, shared, and used. (3b.)  Data:  Consumer preference, lifestyle, demographics, environmental, location of competitors, suppliers, stores within the same franchise or chain, distributors, and more.  All of this data contains a location component, such as street address, latitude-longitude, city-country combination, place name, census enumeration area, or political area from town to country.  All of this data exists as either points, lines, polygons, tables, images, or grids.  Much of this data is scalable from local to global scale.  Much of this data exists as cloud-based Data-as-Services, accessible via ArcGIS Hub sites, open data sites, Business Analyst Web, and libraries such as the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.    (3c.)  Communication instruments:  The output of the work done in Location Analytics is increasingly varied, and ranges from 2D and 3D maps, web mapping applications, tables, charts, dashboards, infographics, and other multi-media visualizations.  The boundary between maps and visualizations is increasingly blurred, as the number of tools multiply.   4.  List the 10 key messages provided above, or a subset, depending on the needs of the audience and the goals of the speaker. 5.  The SaaS environment for tools and spatial data offers several key advantages for today's business students, faculty, and business professionals:    (5a.)   The tools can be accessed on any device, anywhere, at any time.  This vastly increases the number and diversity of people who have access to use the tools to analyze the data, and people who can view the results.   (5b.)  The data available for use in business education mirrors the "big data" movement, increasing in velocity, volume, veracity, and variety.  The data arise from a variety of sources, from near-real-time and real-time data feeds, to data from academic institutions, government agencies, private companies, and nonprofit organizations.  Much is available aggregated at the neighborhood level.  Much data on current information and projected information are updated on a regular basis.  Much data is documented in terms of its scale, lineage, source, accuracy, format, permitted uses, and other characteristics as metadata.  (5c.)  The tools update on a regular basis.   With each update, the tools become easier to use, better documented, and more powerful.  6.  Provide several powerful, engaging case studies clearly showing the use cases for who uses location analytics.  These include Fruit of the Loom, Starbucks, Esri, Chick Fil A, John Deere, and others.  See a selection of videos in the middle of the Business Analyst overview page.  For more case studies, see those on the business education landing page and on the Esri industries page.   7.  Explain why should the audience should use location analytics:   For students, Learning and using Location Analytics adds value to business content knowledge, in marketing, management, risk assessment, and supply chain.  Location Analytics adds value in skills such as proximity, routing, choropleth mapping, geocoding, creating infographics, reports, and storymaps.  Location Analytics adds additional skills in presenting, communication, and cartography.   For instructors, it helps them to teach core content in more relevant and exciting ways.  It helps anyone understand how to work more effectively with data, how to consider change over space and time, how to consider scale in business, how to think critically, and how to solve problems.  See this article on addressing the business analyst skills gap in WhereNext. 8.  Lead a short activity in hands-on mode, in a teaching lab or via a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) mode in any classroom, or online, using Location Analytics.  Use any of the attached activities (at end of this essay) or other resources mentioned on this page.  You could begin by comparing two different types of businesses (bail bonds and car washes map in Oklahoma City) or the Starbucks around-the-world "Manhattan Coffee" map in ArcGIS Online, or the San Bernardino County parcels with property values, and then move to an activity that incorporates analytics, such as analyzing convenience store regional chain patterns (attached) or siting a new business.   Images from Starbucks analysis map and property values map in ArcGIS Online.  9.  Encourage your audience to dig deeper, given the skills they have just learned and practice, into ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Insights, or Business Analyst Web (overview of slides attached at the end of this essay) with the data they have been using in the previous step.  Start by noting patterns and relationships.  Zoom in and zoom out and note how patterns sometimes change as the scale changes.  Then change the symbology and classification.  Filter the data on different criteria by building expressions.  Add additional variables, such as demographics or consumer behavior at different scales and analyze the patterns and relationships.  Map competitive businesses and business that aid another business.  Then, create reports, infographics, and storymaps, and share your results.    10.  End the workshop with a discussion of how the audience can learn more about Location Analytics.  Selected key resources are as follows:    (10a.)  The resources on the business education landing page.    (10b.)  Obtaining an account on www.arcgis.com (via, for example, the university's existing Esri license or via the ArcGIS Developers site).   (10c.)  Taking a free, fun, and rigorous Esri MOOC, especially the Location Advantage MOOC that focuses on business.   (10d.)  Taking courses and watching webinars on the Esri training site, on analysis tools, field apps and tools, and reporting tools.    (10e.)   Learning about Python and Javascript via the tutorials on ArcGIS Developers site.   These tutorials show in side-by-side fashion, how the code runs the map.  The tutorials ask you to make adjustments in specific lines of code, and there is instant gratification as the map changes when you make these adjustments!  --End-- ... 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The best way to learn location analytics is to actually do it -- that is, engage with it in a hands-on way.  The maps, infographics, dashboards, and story maps are captivating, and the problems that can be solved are relevant and timely.  Faculty:  Feel free to use this assortment of hands-on activities in your courses and programs and give you confidence that you can use these tools in instruction.  Students:  Use these activities to further your own learning, empowered with skills that you can take into your future  workplace.  A Learn Path guiding you through a sequence of 12 videos, readings, case studies, and lessons, is here. A set of videos on the ArcGIS Business Analyst Web App. A set of additional lessons on railroads, supply chain management, and more, here: https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/location-analytics-for-business-education-list-of/ba-p/1220944   Attached to this essay are hands-on activities about: (1) regional business patterns, (2) choosing the optimal location for a convenience store, (3)  choosing the optimal location for a dog kennel business, (4) analyzing art behavior in a city for placement of an Art-o-Mat machine, (5) crime patterns in a city, which might impact the business community, and other themes.  These activities have been used in a variety of schools of business, and focus on developing spatial thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving with GIS.  Along with each lesson is an answer key.  For additional hands-on activities, including Learn Paths containing a sequenced set of lessons, including the above tools as well as ArcGIS Pro, see the Learn ArcGIS library of business-related lessons. Drive times using Business Analyst Web - part of one of the attached lessons.      ... View more

Case studies:  Articles, Videos, and Podcasts Explore case studies, articles, and more for business instructors, business professionals, and students, and connect with industry experts:  Case studies, articles, and more. For further investigation, see these past issues of the Esri Business Community e-newsletter. Videos What is location intelligence?   Find out in this brief engaging video.   Starbucks Coffee executives explain the value that GIS brings to retail, supply chain, and other decisions at Starbucks.   General Motors:  Bruce Wong, Manager of Advanced Network Analytics explains how General Motors uses location analytics throughout the organization.   Phillips 66:  John Wadella, Senior Advisor and Consultant at Phillips 66, explains how they leverage GIS technology for territory design, account segmentation, and retail assessment.   Wendy's:  John Crouse, Director of Real Estate Services for Wendy's Co. explains how they use spatial analysis for making better business decisions.   Articles Five shining examples of the use of GIS in University Schools of Business, by Joseph Kerski, Esri: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/blog/articles/gis-schools-of-business/   Carroll University:  Using GIS to Innovate Business Education: https://www.esri.com/en-us/lg/industry/education/carroll-university-using-gis-to-innovate-business-education   Inspiring the next generation of Supply Chain Innovators, by Cindy Elliott, Esri: https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/blog/articles/inspiring-the-next-generation-of-supply-chain-innovators/   Location Matters in Business, by Jim Baumann, Esri: https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcwatch/location-matters-in-business/   The New Analyst:  The Rise of Location in Advanced Analytics, by Helen Thompson, Esri. https://www.forbes.com/sites/esri/2021/01/22/the-new-analyst-the-rise-of-location-in-advanced-analytics/?sh=29359aec4e80   Location intelligence and geospatial thinking are key to strengthening supply chains, by Cindy Elliott, Esri. https://www.sdcexec.com/software-technology/emerging-technologies/article/21378467/esri-location-int...   Family Video:  Lessons learned about this formerly large chain, by Gary Sankary, Esri. https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/publications/wherenext/family-dollar-video-stores-and-lessons-fo...   How GIS and the “digital twin” idea aided in assessment and snowmaking at Vail Resort in Colorado, by Rich Higgins and Cindy Elliott, Esri.  https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/publications/wherenext/vail-ski-resort-snowmaking-expansion/ WhereNext profiles of people using location analytics in a wide variety of workplaces: https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/?s=&category_name=wherenext-profiles  Podcasts The GeoInspirations Column in Directions Magazine, featuring interviews with a wide variety of practitioners of GIS, some of whom are in the business sector. A subset of the above highlights Geoinspirational Women.   ... View more

10 Reasons Why Location Analytics Should be Taught in Business Schools Businesses exist to add value. Location is vital to all aspects of business. Location analytics adds value to business. Location analytics are increasingly used in decision making in business. Location analytics enables businesses to achieve their mission, serve their customers, and benefit society. The world of business is in a state of continual change. Location analytics enables businesses not only to manage current operations, but to plan for and enable change.  Cultivating location analytics skills increases an individual employee's value to a current or future employer. Adding location analytics courses and programs helps any School of Business become more vibrant and relevant for their campus and the greater society.    Location analytical tools, data, and output increasingly exist in a cloud-based environment, which offers a rich platform for collaborating, analyzing, and communicating.     Slides There is an in-depth set of slides that further expand on these 10 key reasons (the a20 PDF).  Feel free to use all or a subset of the slides that expand these messages, located here: https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/curricular-resources-and-messaging-for-teaching-location/ba-p/884279?attachment-id=24388 Feel free to also use this set of slides that explains why location analytics is important in business teaching, learning, and research:  https://community.esri.com/t5/education-blog/messaging-case-studies-curricular-resources-and/ba-p/884279?attachment-id=68170  For More Information To learn more, see the Location Analytics in Business Education landing page.   ... View more

How should we teach and learn about careers? A unique challenge exists  in educating geography and students in related planning, geoscience, and environmental fields about career opportunities.  It is rather uncommon for an employer to advertise an opening for a 'geographer' or even a 'geoscientist' per se, even in cases where a job entails applications of geographic knowledge, skills, and technologies.  At the same time, many employers are simply unfamiliar with what a person with a geography or related geo- degree knows and is able to do.  While this may at first glance seem to put geography and geoscience students at a disadvantage, professional possibilities awaiting geo-  graduates are bountiful and extensive.  Given the challenges facing communities around the world, including natural hazards, economic inequalities, water quality and quantity, affordable housing, and especially since early 2020, human health, I expect that the opportunities will continue to expand in number and in diversity of fields. Our responsibility as educators and advisors in this context is to engage students in a process of thinking about the significance and potential of their academic preparation in geography and what it means to become a professional geographer or geoscientist.   And then, once a person has achieved this goal, how can one nurture one's skills as a lifelong learner in the field? I, along with my colleagues Dr Michael Solem, Dr Niem Tu Huynh, and Dr Thomas Larsen, have designed three model activities that are designed to help students identify and understand the range of career options available to them.  The pedagogical approach we advocate goes beyond the 'nuts and bolts' of helping students write cover letters, format resumes, design portfolios, and improve their interviewing skills.  Rather, we focus on ways to prepare students to think analytically about the broader industry trends shaping the future economy, and how their disciplinary expertise connects to the evolving needs of business, government, and nonprofit employer organizations.  We conclude that from this approach, students stand to gain valuable research skills and a newfound appreciation of the broader value of geography and geoscience in a wide array of professional settings. This engaging set of activities is designed to enable students to understand the many career pathways available to them in geography, geoscience, and GIS, to identify gaps they may have in their skills and knowledge to achieve their career goals, and to begin to take steps to fill those gaps.   After testing these activities in face-to-face workshops at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) annual meetings and in an online format at the 2021 AAG meeting, we have concluded that they work equally well in both formats.  My activity, entitled Examining Career Skills Necessary to Apply Geography to Solve Problems Using GIS, focuses on key questions that can be asked and analyzed through the use of the annual Esri Map Books.  Dr Larsen's and Dr Tu Huynh's activity is entitled Transcending Boundaries: Applying Geography Knowledge, Skills, and Practices across Disciplines, and makes use of a variety of sources including a fascinating interdisciplinary circle-and-spoke diagram.  Dr Solem and Dr Adams' activity is entitled Evaluating Your Professional Qualifications Using a Gap Analysis, and makes use of the AAG careers website and the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook.   How can you access and use these materials?   The activities described in this essay are provided in Chapter 32 of this book The Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Geography, by Helen Walkington, Jennifer Hill and Sarah Dyer, published by Edward Elgar Publishing.  In addition, my colleague Dr Thomas Larsen placed our activities in this resource link so that you can readily access them.  Click on each of the authors' names at the top to access the materials.  Another resource comes from a story map that I will present when I conduct a webinar on 11 May for the Geological Society of America.   The webinar is entitled Career Pathways for Geoscientists using GIS.  I highly recommend that you join us for this event, as it will be lively, packed with information and fun hands-on activities, and provide ample time for reflection and conversation:   Join geographer and GIS educator Joseph Kerski as we examine why geotechnologies such as GIS, web mapping, remote sensing, GNSS-GPS, and related tools are important to society, to science, and to your own career path. What are the forces and trends that are acting on GIS in the 2020s, and what skills will be important going forward? We will also explore how you can engage with tools, data, educational resources, and the community of geotechnology practitioners. We will allow for plenty of time to answer your questions about geotechnologies and your career path.  Register here. Webinar on Careers for the Geological Society of America.  Please join us!  If you cannot make it, it will be recorded, and I will also share my story map with the webinar's contents in this essay. Further reflections, along with other practical advice, are provided in a chapter I co-authored in the Practicing Geography book published by Pearson.  As the book's title indicates, this book is filled with practical advice on developing and nurturing geographic content, skills, and perspectives, suitable for undergraduates, graduate students, new professors, tenured professors, and geographers in government, nonprofits, and private industry.  Our chapter is entitled Geography Education and Career Readiness, by Joy K. Adams, Niem Tu Huynh, Joseph J. Kerski, and G. Brent Hall, wonderful colleagues, all.   The activities described in this essay are provided in Chapter 32 of this book The Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Geography, by Helen Walkington, Jennifer Hill and Sarah Dyer, published by Edward Elgar Publishing. The activities described in the this essay are also available at this link, and pictured above, thanks to my colleague Dr Thomas Larsen. ... View more

In our continuing discussions with the GIS community about best practices, an important theme is understanding your data.  In these days of modern cloud-based GIS, instructors, students, and others are no longer simply map consumers:  They are all map creators.  ArcGIS Online is a completely open platform, providing a means by which you and your students can publish maps, apps, and data layers.   Now that anyone with publisher access to this platform can create content, how can you determine whether a particular map or layer will meet your needs?  This is part of a much larger and important discussion, of which this short essay will not do sufficient justice.  However, one thing instructors can do, and encourage students to do, is, if you are sharing content with the general public; that is, outside your own school or university ArcGIS Online organization, then indicate that it was created for educational purposes or as part of a class project.  How can this be done? This information can be added to the item details or metadata for any type of content, but for apps and StoryMaps, it’s valuable to also add it within the app or story. Apps typically have a description panel, and StoryMaps have a credits section, where more complete information can be included about who created the content and for what purpose. For StoryMaps, adding a short note right at the beginning of the story makes its purpose and origin immediately clear to anyone who finds it. Some examples for how this could be indicated in a StoryMap are below: This story was created by an instructor at [college] as a resource for students and is intended for educational use. This story was created by [a] student(s) at [school/college] for a class project in [class name/course number] and should only be used for educational purposes. Why does this matter? Consider the following example.  A few years back, when ArcGIS Online was new, and no ocean currents layer yet existed in ArcGIS Online, I created my own for instructional use about cold and warm currents and their direction of flow.  One day, I received a call from a news reporter who had found it and wanted to use it in conjunction for a story on a person who had recently made headlines after he had floated thousands of miles from east to west across nearly the whole length of the Pacific Ocean before being rescued.  With the reporter, I discussed some of the basics of data resolution and map scale, stating that my layer was based on authoritative data, but as it was a global data set, using it at a detailed scale was not appropriate. In addition, I stated that I had generalized it a bit for instructional use.  It still might be useful for the reporter's story, I explained, but to be careful about zooming in to a section of it and analyzing where or how the person could have floated to location X in the Pacific Ocean.  This scenario could very easily happen even more today given the millions of layers in open platforms such as ArcGIS Online:  Your layer, or a layer created by your student, could be discovered and perhaps used far beyond the classroom in appropriate, or perhaps inappropriate, ways. In today’s data rich world, there is no way to prevent all unintended use of information, including mapped information.  But populating your metadata with statements about your sources, date created, scale, and intended use, will help.  Encourage your students to do the same and model these best practices to them as you teach.  Similarly, in any derivative map application such as a StoryMap, do the same thing:  Explain your methods, data sources, scale, how often the layer is updated, and so on.  Such explanation does not have to be lengthy, but it does need to be clear. What if the content is appropriate for others to use? That said, though, many educational research projects do result in maps and layers that are as rigorous as those produced by nonprofit, industry, and government agencies.  If your data is truly what you would consider “authoritative”, in the metadata section, under settings, you can indicate this (see below). I hope this essay is informative and look forward to reading your comments below. --Joseph Kerski, with many thanks to my colleague Owen Evans at Esri for the idea and contributions to these guidelines. ... View more

My colleague recently shared this list of resources for working groups that convened at the Esri Imagery and Remote Sensing Educators Summit in April 2021.  In the spirit of such sharing, I would like to point people to the story map that I created for the Day 1 closing networking and social session in the hopes that it will be useful to the community. The story map contains quizzes, including an imagery quiz and a GIS crossword quiz, that you can use in your own classrooms as fun and interesting ways of helping students get excited about geotechnologies and understanding the world.  It even includes some song lyrics and chords that I have modified to suit the geographic themes discussed at the conference, as well as geography, Earth, science, and GIS related books, web mapping applications, and favorite maps.   How did you do on the quiz?  The answers are included but ... no peeking! The story map also includes links to resources to teach about where to find spatial data, how to assess its quality, and how to teach about surrounding societal issues such as ethics, crowdsourcing, location privacy, and copyright.  How did you do on the GIS crossword puzzle? Photo I took of a Mac computer now being used as a doorstop in a high school.  Read the story map to determine why I included this photo! ... View more