GIS education for a changed world
Preparedness
This covers those activities necessary because natural hazards or terrorist attack cannot normally be confidently anticipated and obviated.
It involves creating a set of operational plans to deal with a set of defined scenarios, including who is to be in charge (e.g. in different zones) for the different scenarios. Inventories of governmental and other resources, which may be mobilized need to be created and shared on a 'need to know' basis.
Early warning systems need to be installed. Training exercises will be carried out. Emergency supplies of food and medical supplies need to be stockpiled and their delivery planned.
Mitigation
This involves identifying activities that will reduce or obviate the probability and/or impact of an event e.g. Maintaining an inventory of the contents and locations of hazardous materials and mapping the geography and sensitivity of environmental dissemination of contaminants (e.g. reservoirs and water distribution facilities).
Response
These are the activities immediately following a terrorist attack, or other emergency, and are designed to provide emergency assistance for victims, stabilize the situation, reduce the probability of secondary damage, and speed up recovery activities. They include providing search and rescue, emergency shelter, medical care, and mass feeding; controlling transport links so as to prevent further injury, looting or other problems; shutting off contaminated utilities; and/or carrying out a damage assessment
Organizing evacuations may be essential - as in areas affected by hurricanes - but is also planned and periodically tested in most major cities as a prudent safeguard. In London, for instance, plans for evacuation of areas containing several hundred thousand people exist and tests of readiness against various attacks have been made; the transport system GIS plays a significant role.
Recovery
These are the actions necessary to return all systems to the pre-recovery state or better. They include both short- and long-term activities such as creating an agreed and shared 'status map'. 'Cleaning up', provision of temporary housing, return of power and water supplies and allocation of government assistance are essential parts of aiding recovery. All of these involve use of geographic information and Geographic Information System.
Equally, some parts of all of these stages involve human judgement, understanding of the characteristics of other organisations as well as of data and a clear understanding of what needs to be done for the greater good - and a strong code of ethics.
Table 1: A simple summary of GIS/GI-related training and education courses
| Main delivery mode |
| | Face-to-face courses | 'Distance learning' |
| Software training courses | Commonplace - all vendors provide this themselves or via licensed partners. Can be very remunerative. | Becoming ever more important e.g. ESRI Virtual Campus |
| Software development and customization | Varies greatly. Fundamental training is provided by university Computer Science courses. Vendors may provide specific courses e.g. on their macro language | As above |
| School-level education | GIS was once part of the UK government's Core Curriculum for schools. Elsewhere the school curriculum is typically defined locally and GIS can play a valuable role (see US and Indian examples in Boxes 19.3 and 21.4 in GISS2) | |
| Under-graduate level education | GIS is taught in many hundreds of undergraduate programs around the world but in many instances as modules in degree courses in Geography and non-geography courses (e.g. forestry or environmental sciences). Only a few universities run undergraduate courses entirely in GIS | The UNIGIS consortium (see Box 19.4 in GISS2) has set up a distance-learning course with a common 'pick and mix' curriculum now used by universities around the world. This benefits from some face-to-face teaching |
| Post-graduate level university education | Numerous Masters degree programmes exist | Some of these programmes can be taken in a distance mode but relatively few have been designed from the outset for that |
| Short courses for professionals (i.e. continuing professional development or CPD) - the systematic maintenance, improvement and broadening of knowledge and skill, and the development of personal qualities necessary for the execution of professional and technical duties throughout one's working life. | This is a matter of rapidly growing importance. Taking CPD is often mandatory to remain a member of a professional body. | An increasing number of these courses are given by distance-based means |