NEW GIS CERTIFICATE AND AAS PROGRAMS AT ACC
Comments (0) Austin Community College, in you guessed it Austin, TX, has finally had their new GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Certificates and AAS programs approved by the Texas Higher Education Coordination Board. This is big news for me, as I first studied GIS under the professor that has worked so hard for so many years to get these plans approved. I attribute the success I have enjoyed in my career to her excellent and entertaining teaching style. I would like to wish, Mary E. Booth, O.D. Assistant Professor, Geography my deepest congratulations and best wishes in the future success of the programs. I look forward to taking some of these classes myself upon my return to Austin to further my knowledge of this exciting and ever changing career we call GIS.
Below, are the details of the plans described in full and were copied directly from her email announcing the programs approval.
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Late yesterday afternoon, we got the official word that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (hereafter referred to as “The Board”) finally approved ACC’s new GIS Level I certificate, GIS Level 2 certificate, and the Associate of Applied Science (AAS) in GIS. We will begin offering these new programs this fall semester. We also have an Associate of Arts (AA) degree in GIS that we have been offering for more than 3 years.
I apologize in advance for the extreme length of this email, but I have been working for TEN years to get these programs implemented, and I wanted to explain the new offerings as well as I can. It’s worth reading the whole email so that you understand the options and how the curricula were developed.
Here is a link to view the curricula for all 4 programs: http://www3.austincc.edu/it/cms/www/awardplans/awarddept.php?year=2010&type=CC&group=TFSSG&nid=3864.
The AA degree is an academic degree and is designed to be the first 2 years of a 4-year degree Bachelor’s in Geography with a concentration in GIS. The AA contains the 42 hours of core curriculum courses (such as Math, English, History, etc) that is required for all Bachelor degrees in Texas. The AA requires only 2 GIS courses: Intro to GIS (GEOG 2470) and GIS II (GEOG 2471 – it was formerly called Advanced GIS).
The 2 new certificates and the AAS degree are workforce degrees. This means that most of the courses do NOT transfer to a 4-year degree. These new programs are designed to get you the GIS knowledge/skills you need to get entry level GIS jobs. They are practical course with an emphasis on teaching you the skills employers want and need. Generally, courses with a GEOG rubric will transfer to a 4-year degree (though that is up to the 4-year university), while courses with the GISC rubric will usually not transfer to a 4-year degree. All of the new course we will be introducing over the next 2 years will have the GISC rubric.
The programs were designed to be started in the Fall semester. The only courses that will be offered every semester are Intro to GIS (GEOG 2470) and GIS II (GEOG 2471). The other courses will either be offered in the Fall or the Spring semester. If a course is listed in the first (or third) semester in the curricula, it will be offered in the Fall and if it is listed in the second semester, it will be offered in the Spring. We will be adding all the new courses over the course of the next two years. So this fall, we are offering GISC 1491 (Special Topics in Cartography – Introduction to Cartography) and the CIS department is offering ITSW 1307 (Introduction to Database: MS Access). In Spring 2010, we will offer GISC 1401 (Cartography & Geography in GPS & GIS – a big long name for a GPS course), GISC 2401 (Data Acquisition and Analysis in GIS), and GISC 1421 (Introduction to Raster-based GIS which is a remote sensing course). In Fall 2010, we will add GISC 2411 (GIS Applications), GISC 2459 (Web-served GIS), GISC 2250 (Scripting for GIS), and GISC 2231 (Advanced Problems in GIS).
To see the course descriptions, go to http://www3.austincc.edu/it/cms/www/catalog/coursedetails_fox.php?year=2010&deptcode=geog#GISC2280
The Board requires all workforce programs to have a “Capstone Experience” during the last semester of a program. You must be in your last semester of a certificate or AAS to take this “Capstone Experience” course. Our new programs offer three options: 1) GISC 2280 Cooperative Education, 2) GISC 2164/2264 Field Experience or 3) GISC 1391 Special Topics in GIS – Capstone Course. A cooperative is designed for those who are already working in a full-time GIS job. The Field Experience is a GIS internship. It is designed for someone who is not working full-time so that they have time to do an internship. The Capstone course is designed for someone who is working full-time in a non-GIS job. That person would not be able to have the time to do an internship, so the capstone simulates a real-world project. The Cooperative meets one hour per week and the Capstone meets 3 hours per week. The internship meets periodically with the instructor of record. This fall, Bonnie Brown will be supervising all three capstone experiences. I know at least 2 people on this mailing list who are already enrolled in the cartography & database courses, and just need the capstone experience to finish up the Level I certificate. If that is the case for you, please contact Bonnie Brown to arrange to be enrolled in whichever capstone experience is appropriate for you. You can find her contact information on the Fall class schedule on the Web. Please also cc me or email me. As the only full-time GIS instructor right now, it is my responsibility to keep track of the capstone experiences for the Board and our accreditation organization (SACS), so I would really appreciate being kept in the loop although I am not actually the instructor of record.
A little bit about how these new curricula were created. Eighteen months ago, ACC formed a GIS workforce Advisory committee which consisted of 13 GIS experts (including the State GIS Coordinator) from the Central Texas region. About half the members were from the public sector and the other half from the private sector. Some of the entities represented were the USGS, City of Austin, Texas Dept of Health, CAPCOG, DIR, TPWD, PBS&J, URSCorp, GeoAnalytics, Impact Resources, Halff, Baker-Aicklin and Texas State University. We had several meetings over the course of several months during which the committee agreed on the final curricula. The TX Higher Education Coordinating Board’s rules dictated that I could serve only as ex-officio members of the committee. I provided insight to the community college population and guidance to make sure that the curricula met other requirements including those of The Board and our accreditation organization (SACS). After long and sometimes heated debate, the GIS Workforce Advisory Committee designed the curricula for the new certificates and AAS. Given the rigorous nature of the process, we are confident that our programs will be giving you the skills and knowledge that local employers want. I didn’t design the programs and we didn’t just adopt programs from other states/regions. These curricula were uniquely designed for the job market in Central Texas.
I am off-contract (i.e., not getting paid) until the week of August 17th (not that you would know if for all the work I have done while I am supposedly on vacation) and I will be heading to Maine this weekend. I will have very limited email access while I am there, so if you email me between July 25th & August 17th, you may not hear back for a week or more. I know it is bad timing as I am sure many of you have questions, but the Board took so long approving these, that it just worked out that way. I will try to answer emails as I can while on vacation.
I hope to see a bunch of you in our new classes in the next few years. PLEASE spread the word about our new courses/programs. I think our new programs will be extremely beneficial to both students and area employers.
Mary E. Booth, O.D., Assistant Professor, Geography, Austin Community College
