From Geography Department to Business School: Strategies for Transplanting GIS Courses between Disciplines

A number of strategies have been adopted for developing and delivering GIS curricula in various disciplines. This paper describes and evaluates the main strategies, and illustrates them with reference to recent practice. The author then uses a transplantation analogy to describe the process whereby he adapted his own GIS modules following a move from a modestly sized geography department to a large business school. Several critical questions are posed, including: what is the best strategy for developing GIS courses for business students?; how does one ensure disciplinary and curricular fit in the transplantation process?; and what are the likely reactions and learning experiences of business students who take transplanted modules? Conclusions are drawn on the potential for geographers to assist in the future development of GIS courses within other disciplines.

[1]  Raimar Richers.  Basic marketing, a managerial approach , 1961 .

[2]  Geoffrey Randall.  Principles of Marketing , 1993 .

[3]  Paul A. Longley,et al.  The academic success of GIS in geography: Problems and prospects , 2000, J. Geogr. Syst..

[4]  P. Sleight.  Targeting customers : how to use geodemographic and lifestyle data in your business , 2004 .

[5]  Amos H. Hawley,et al.  Human Ecology: A Theory of Community Structure , 1950 .

[6]  Ruth Drake,et al.  Teaching for Transfer. , 2001 .

[7]  C. Dunn.  Participatory GIS — a people's GIS? , 2007 .

[8]  Robert E. Park,et al.  Human communities: the city and human ecology , 1954 .

[9]  Philip Kotler,et al.  Marketing for nonprofit organizations , 1974 .

[10]  Karen K. Kemp,et al.  Evaluating a major innovation in higher education: the NCGIA core curriculum in GIS , 1992 .

[11]  M. Boyle,et al.  Strategic Marketing for Educational Institutions , 1987 .

[12]  Michael R. Curry,et al.  Image, practice and the hidden impacts of geographic information systems , 1994 .

[13]  Gaetano Vilasi,et al.  The Integration Methods , 2001 .

[14]  Lawrence A. West,et al.  Geographic information systems as a marketing information system technology , 2004, Decis. Support Syst..

[15]  K. Hilliger,et al.  Teaching and learning strategies for embedding key skills: reshaping a marketing programme , 2001 .

[16]  Martin C. Brown.  Hacking Google Maps and Google Earth , 2006 .

[17]  Fred Miller,et al.  Integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Applications Into Business Courses Using Online Business Geographics Modules , 2006 .

[18]  Claire Beesley,et al.  Ground truth: The social implications of geographic information systems , 1996 .

[19]  Ron Johnston,et al.  GIS and Geography , 1995 .

[20]  Richard Webber,et al.  Geodemographics, GIS and Neighbourhood Targeting , 2005 .

[21]  Alan Wilson,et al.  Intelligent GIS: Location Decisions and Strategic Planning , 1996 .

[22]  Nicholas Chrisman,et al.  A FRAMEWORK FOR MODEL CURRICULA DEVELOPMENT IN CARTOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS , 1989 .

[23]  Arch G. Woodside.  Marketing for health care organizations : Philip Kotler and Roberta N. Clarke, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1987 , 1988 .

[24]  Eric Sheppard,et al.  Automated Geography: What Kind of Geography for What Kind of Society? , 1993 .

[25]  David J. Maguire,et al.  A syllabus for teaching geographical information systems , 1990, Int. J. Geogr. Inf. Sci..

[26]  Fred Miller,et al.  Integrating Geographic Information Systems (GIS) into the Marketing Curriculum , 2007 .

[27]  T. Mueller.  Learning to Think Spatially , 2006 .

[28]  M. Goodchild,et al.  Geographic Information Systems and Science (second edition) , 2001 .

[29]  Nicholas Chrisman,et al.  Charting the Unknown: How Computer Mapping at Harvard Became GIS , 2006 .

[30]  Thomas R. Baker,et al.  Digital Geography: GeoSpatial Technologies in the Social Studies Classroom , 2008 .

[31]  Diana Stuart Sinton,et al.  Understanding Place: GIS and Mapping Across the Curriculum , 2007 .

[32]  Susan A. Illingworth.  Approaches to Ethics in Higher Education: Teaching Ethics Across the Curriculum , 2004 .

[33]  D. Unwin.  Fiddling on a different planet , 2005 .

[34]  P. Kotler,et al.  Marketing places : attracting investment, industry, and tourism to cities, states and nations , 1993 .

[35]  Fred Miller.  GIS Tutorial for marketing , 2007 .

[36]  David Jones,et al.  Corporate strategy , 1989, Nature.

[37]  C. Grönroos.  Keynote paper From marketing mix to relationship marketing ‐ towards a paradigm shift in marketing , 1994 .

[38]  Michael R. Curry.  Digital People, Digital Places: Rethinking Privacy in a World of Geographic Information , 1997 .