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Sat, Nov 4, 3:00 - 3:25, Normandy B Paper (refereed)

Recommended Citation: Boasson, E. Teaching Object Oriented Geographic Information Systems (GIS) using Visual Basic: Spreadsheet Approach. In The Proceedings of the Information Systems Education Conference 2006, v 23 (Dallas): §3544. ISSN: 1542-7382.

Teaching Object Oriented Geographic Information Systems (GIS) using Visual Basic: Spreadsheet Approach

Refereed

8 pages

Emil Boasson    [a1] [a2]
Business Information Systems Department, Master of Science in Administration Program
Central Michigan University    [u1] [u2]
Mount Pleasant, Michigan, USA    [c1] [c2]

This paper introduces an alternative approach to teaching Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in a business school context where most students have little background knowledge on GIS, geo-statistics, and cartography. This approach involves the use of ordinary spreadsheets along with Visual Basic programming to create a home-grown GIS program that has the features of a dynamic mapping with time-varying animations - a problem still unresolved in mainstream commercial GIS. While avoiding the frustrations of struggling through all the technicalities of mainstream GIS, this alternative approach to teaching GIS allows students to use regular spreadsheets as a tool to explore ideas for novel interfaces, to ask “what if” questions, and to visualize problems as well as their outcomes, thus gaining a clearer understanding of GIScience theories and GIS operations. This approach has been successful in teaching “GIS for Business” for MBA as well as undergraduate business students.

Keywords: geographic information systems, GIS for Business, Visual Basic, spreadsheet mapping

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