Integrating Free and Open Source Solutions into Geospatial Science Education

Abstract

Abstract:While free and open source software becomes increasingly important in geospatial research and industry, open science perspectives are generally less reflected in universities' educational programs. We present an example of how free and open source software can be incorporated into geospatial education to promote open and reproducible science. Since 2008 graduate students at North Carolina State University have the opportunity to take a course on geospatial modeling and analysis that is taught with both proprietary and free and open source software. In this course, students perform geospatial tasks simultaneously in the proprietary package ArcGIS and the free and open source package GRASS GIS. By ensuring that students learn to distinguish between geospatial concepts and software specifics, students become more flexible and stronger spatial thinkers when choosing solutions for their independent work in the future. We also discuss ways to continually update and improve our publicly available teaching materials for reuse by teachers, self-learners and other members of the GIS community. Only when free and ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2015, 4 943 open source software is fully integrated into geospatial education, we will be able to encourage a culture of openness and, thus, enable greater reproducibility in research and development applications.

Learning Open Science by doing Open Science. A reflection of a qualitative research project-based seminar

“…Open Source Software (OSS) is a major topic in computer sciences (Braught et al, 2018;Faber, 2002;Nandigam, Gudivada, & Hamou-Lhadj, 2008;O'Hara & Kay, 2003) and in geospatial science education (Mitasova, Shukunobe, Landa, & Kratochvilova, 2012;Osaci-Costache, Cocos, & Cocos, 2017;Petras, Petrasova, Harmon, Meentemeyer, & Mitasova, 2015). Petras et al (2015, p. 943) point out, integration of free and open source software in geospatial science education is necessary "to encourage a culture of openness and, thus, enable greater reproducibility in research and development applications."…”

A Framework for an Open Source Geospatial Certification Model

“…According to the survey a large community is using Open Source software, but researchers, companies, and professionals often need hybrid combinations of Open and Proprietary Software (see also the approach of Petras et al 2015). Nevertheless we tried to assign mainly Open Source packages to the different certification packages as depicted in Table 3.…”

“…In the Geographical Information System (GIS) profession, academia and industry certifications are most common (DiBiase, 2003). In the general IT however current certifications are mostly offered for proprietary software, whereas Open Source software, especially in the geospatial field, has opened new horizons for educators and researchers because of its flexibility and security (Petras et al 2015). Currently there is a need of certification for Open Source which enables user to unfold many new tools within Open Source, open standards, and open data (Christl 2014).…”

A Framework for an Open Source Geospatial Certification Model

“…According to the survey a large community is using Open Source software, but researchers, companies, and professionals often need hybrid combinations of Open and Proprietary Software (see also the approach of Petras et al 2015). Nevertheless we tried to assign mainly Open Source packages to the different certification packages as depicted in …”

“…In the general IT however current certifications are mostly offered for proprietary software, whereas Open Source software, especially in the geospatial field, has opened new horizons for educators and researchers because of its flexibility and security (Petras et al 2015). Currently there is a need of certification for Open Source which enables user to unfold many new tools within Open Source, open standards, and open data (Christl 2014).…”