A Tale of Two Cities: The case for blended learning for GIS at Masters level for Victoria and Canterbury Mairead de Roiste, Victoria University of Wellington Femke Reitsma, University of Canterbury 1 Ako Victoria 18 th April 2011

Outline The Why? The What? The How? And the unexpected… 2

GIS at VUW 3 GIS Lecturer GIS Technician GEOG 215: Introduction to Geographic Information Science and Systems (GIS) GEOG 315: Advanced Geographic Information Science and Systems (GIS) PHYG 415: Introduction to Geographic Information Science and Systems (GIS) for Postgraduates Contributions to: Research Methods courses in Earth Sciences and Geography First year course in Physical Geography

Personal Motivation for Collaboration Students with more advanced GIS knowledge at Masters and Honours level Tailored courses for postgraduate students Attracting quality students with similar research interests Reaching out! – Sharing resources and research collaboration 4

Industry Interest 5

Development of the MGIS Idea for a joint Masters in GIS first raised UC gets funding to advance a Masters in GIS from the NZ Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) 2009/2010. Consortium of universities work on the pilot- 2x workshops (course development and pedagogy) Decisions made for new course application for Canterbury and Victoria ready to start, Otago and Auckland needed more time Interdisciplinary Masters in GIS (and PGDipGIS) developed that will run at UC in collaboration with Victoria in

Initial Barriers Institutional approval – VUW Pilot 2011 – Canterbury full steam ahead 2011 Multiple locations – Remote technologies A cohesive cohort? – The student experience Staff interactions – Remote technologies 7

Outline The Why? The What? The How? And the unexpected… 8

Programme Year 1 Semester 1Semester 2 Core GISC 401: Foundations of GI Science GISC 404: Geospatial Analysis GISC 402: GI Science Research GISC 403: Cartography & Visualisation Electives (choose 2) GISC 405: GIS Programming and Databases GISC 406: Remote Sensing for Earth Observation GISC 411: GIS in Health 1 local approved elective GISC 410: GIS 2.0 GISC 412: Spatial Algorithms & Programming GISC 413: Special Topic: Geomatic Data Acquisition 1 local approved elective Year 2 GISC 690: Research Thesis 9

MGIS team 10 Femke Reitsma Greg Breetzke Simon Kingham Peter DayWolfgang Rack Mairead de Roiste Kelvin Barnsdale The technical team! Marcus Andreotti Amber Pearson Carl Cerecke

Outline The Why? The What? The How? And the unexpected… 11

Pedagogy Blended Learning Intensive residential + ongoing virtual Short burst in person + ongoing virtual Weekly synchronous in-person/virtual 12

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Field course: Round 2 15 MGIS students and staff from Canterbury, Victoria and Otago at the second chance field course in Living Springs (20 minutes outside of Christchurch)

Field course: Group Work 16

Field course: Field Techniques 17

Course Example 18

Teaching Technology 19 KAREN Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network Scopia DesktopAccess Grid

Outline The Why? The What? The How? And the unexpected… 20

Dealing with the Unexpected 21

Benefits Students – Greater variety – Alignment with research interests and future career paths Teaching staff – Specialised teaching – Alignment of student projects with research interests – Research collaboration potential Wider Schools – Taking non-VUW courses – Reducing over reliance on staff Institutions – Attracting quality students, esp. internationally – Industry scholarships – Response to industry demand 22

MGIS 2012-onwards Thank You! Any Questions? Further information: 23