Real Experience in GIScience Teaching Aid using GIS Open-Source Software

要旨

Empirically, Geographic information System (GISs) and Geographic information science: (GIScience or GISci) teachings in geography as well as environmental sciences are usually depended on certain solutions designed around from proprietary GIS software packages. This has formally been an origin of new legally technical superior software derived from original one with respect to new solutions with better functionality or user friendly interfaces that the graduates who can deal with these particular Geographic Information System (GIS) software products (or the widely used one) well are demanded by most industries. Furthermore, widely adopted web-based GIS and mapping applications today still require advance skill users in considering and evaluating the new sets of GIS software products. Thus, the appropriate GIScience teaching aids are currently necessary to the courses. However, many efforts to develop and improve desktop GIS free software products over the past decade look shorter than user needs. To obtain suitable teaching media or tools, several free GIS software were evaluated for functionality, licenses, and organizational aspect in project development. The software beneficial contexts as well as strength and weakness of free GIS software uses were also discussed in this article.