GeoTech Center: Innovation in Geospatial Information Science and Technology Education

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The National Geospatial Technology Center of Excellence (GeoTech Center) is a collaboration of two-year colleges, universities, professional organizations, and industry focused on a specialized set of information technologies referred to as Geospatial Information Science and Technology (GIST). The GeoTech Center embraces the opportunity to provide systemic educational change in GIST and assist in the proliferation of successful learners, thereby expanding the field with a well-qualified workforce having a recognized set of industry-defined skills and competencies. The goals of the GeoTech Center are to: 1) Build a Community of Practice focused on GIST by forging relationships between professionals from industry, government and academia; 2) Create and disseminate relevant GIST Curricula and pedagogical tools based upon the current needs of the geospatial industry and the expanding community of ancillary users; 3) Facilitate professional development by offering faculty access to innovative teaching strategies, insight into GIST in related STEM fields, and tools to address differing learning modalities; 4) Provide resources to include a national map of programs, GIST competency assessments, model courses, programs, and additional services through the GeoTech Center Clearinghouse; and 5) Support student success in GIST through the creation of competency protocols, career pathways, and career clusters.The GIST field is important to a variety of industries and therefore it is important to have an educational leader that can meet its existing and changing workforce demands. This Center builds upon previous work and clearly outlines the next steps that are needed, including developing pedagogical methods, in-depth curricular content, and student and faculty resources. These efforts create a community of practice focused on Geospatial Information Science and Technology, as it brings educators together to work on industry-defined needs and demonstrate a broad, national impact on education that will help the US remain globally competitive as essential core needs of the GIST industry are achieved.