Evaluating a major innovation in higher education: the NCGIA core curriculum in GIS

Abstract

As part of its original mandate, the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis conducted a major project in curriculum development for a sequence of introductory courses in Geographic Information Systems. The Core Curriculum project, introduced in an earlier paper, included a year‐long evaluation by an international group of educators. This paper describes the objectives, components and outcome of this evaluation programme. The programme culminated in the preparation of the revised final version which is now being acquired by agencies and institutions around the world.