This article was originally published in URISA’s The GIS Professional Issue 284
The idea of distance learning is, historically speaking, relatively new. In the late 1720s, a teacher, Caleb Phillips, advertised lessons on shorthand note taking offered by mail; this correspondence course was completed through the exchange of letters, or correspondence, between the student and teacher. This form of education was popularized through the expansion of the increasingly ubiquitous and effective US Postal Service. By the mid-1800s, this style of learning had spread throughout Europe and the UK’s University of London boasted the first courses at the university level. Technological advances in the early 1900s saw the creation of e-learning, with courses being disseminated using radio and television broadcasts, and in the late 1900s broadband enabled internet-based platforms. Coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier, University of Prince Edward Island, the newest iteration of distance learning is the idea of the massive open online course (MOOC); the trend is towards a free, non-credit course, available to anyone with an internet connection.
Esri’s MOOC program sprang from their Education Outreach team; pitched in early 2014 as a way to enable users to “test-drive” the spatial analytics tools in ArcGIS Online (AGOL). The first course Going Places with Spatial Analysis launched in September 2014 and aimed to complement offerings by colleges and universities. In the second half of 2018, Esri now offers 5 MOOCs:
- Going Places with Spatial Analysis (Season 2)
- The Location Advantage
- Go-It-Yourself Geo Apps
- Earth Imagery at Work
- Cartography.
The following article provides an end user’s perspective on the two MOOCs recently offered by Esri, The Location Advantage, and Cartography. (read Cartography full stop) which ran from the end of April to June.
Cheval Blanc 1947
As part of the cohort from the analog generation, I was thrilled to experience the rapid uptick of technology in the late 20th century and the excitement that each year would bring massive improvements over the last. Looking back, perhaps I was too optimistic on how quickly or efficiently we would use the seemingly un-ending bounty of tech. The first blu-ray movie that I ever saw was Pixar’s Ratatouille. The perceived villain of the story, Anton Ego, is a feared critic whose harsh review caused a reversal in fortunes for Chef Gusteau and his self-titled restaurant, which neatly sets up story line and plot that again culminates with the expectation of another scathing review. In this story, we’re neither the anthropomorphic hero nor his human compatriots; just prospective diners, deciding where to spend the currency that is our time and attention.
As a pairing, initially, I thought Cartography. and The Location Advantage complemented each other well. Map making and actionable analysis. Data presentation in two forms, the artistic and the practical. Declarative and persuasive. Coming off the heels of the SCAUG annual conference, I felt energized enough to attempt these two courses in tandem. As defined by Esri, these courses:
Cover a single theme
Involve four to six weeks of instruction, with two-three hours per week of study
Require registration but are free to take
Run once or twice a year with firm start and end dates
Provide certificates to students who complete the course material
Introduce students to subject matter experts from across Esri and its community
The Evolution of Esri’s MOOC Program, Part IV note from the future, resource links that are now dead have been removed
Signing up is probably the easiest part of the process, the interface is handled through the My Dashboard section of esri.com/training; depending on your organization’s internal policies, your named user may not be “enabled for Esri access.” If so, treat yourself to a free (Essentials Plan) ArcGIS Developer account (developers.arcgis.com); it is similar to the ArcGIS Public Account but has access to premium content, premium apps, training labs, and 50 free credits a month. After signing up, the MOOCs will appear as training items in your dashboard, clicking on one will bring you to that course’s home page, and from there you “enter” the course, another dashboard-type situation.
Chew it Slowly
Like any pairing, comparisons between two items experienced concurrently are inevitable. As much as I tried to avoid it, I had a definite preference going into the MOOCs. My favorite course in school was Applied Retail GIS; case studies, ArcGIS Business Analyst Online (BAO), and applied location analytics. I was dreading a course on cartography, probably one of the weakest aspects of my professional work. As part of our organizational ethos, we strive for self-improvement– –I was determined to improve myself in this aspect. Esri has opted for a more traditional experience with the majority of their MOOCs, content is incrementally unlocked on a weekly schedule and a syllabus has been prepared ahead of time. This meant that each week I experienced the pairing anew. A tot of Cartography. followed by a chaser of The Location Advantage.
Only Think About the Taste
The newest of Esri’s five MOOCs, the premise behind Cartography. is two-fold; one, an introduction to modern cartographic technique, and two, an introduction to map-making within the less-than-appreciated ArcGIS Pro (Pro). I had only recently devoted myself to the Dao of Pro, after completing a time-cube project for a poster presentation at the 28th Annual SCAUG Conference in San Antonio. I was curious to see how this course would reinforce what I had learned independently. I was instantly captivated. The very first video is set up as a panel-format and casual discussion between 3 of the course authors and professional cartographers at Esri. “What is Cartography?” (hosted on YouTube) was 17 ½ minutes of a conversation that was an incredibly effective way to build excitement for what could otherwise be a course titled The Worst Part of Your Job.
Like any course, the first session has some housekeeping tasks that you’ll need to complete. Opening exercises get you to download and install Pro, and provide you with a named user account for AGOL (and Pro) specifically for this course. After these have been squared away, the last task is to make our first map. After downloading a pre-prepared dataset, the exercise has you move through the major steps of map-making: metadata, setting a coordinate system, importing data, definition queries, symbolization, labeling, layout creation, and exporting. All of these steps are documented well and allows anyone that has never used Pro the ability to take it out for a long test drive.
This first exercise took a lot longer than I had originally budgeted my time for. When I thought I had reached the end of the exercise, I was greeted with a series of three stretch goals. Tasks to make the map more unique; suggestions with no steps or walkthrough. Afterward, you’re encouraged to post an introduction to a forum that is specific to the first week. Week 1 really gave me something of a reality check about the time requirements for this course. On the course homepage it says, 2-3 hours of study a week is required. I’d say that 3+ hours is a more reasonable estimate. For a subject like cartography, this is a good thing.
Now, Try them Together
The Location Advantage is the second MOOC that Esri launched in 2015, and geared specifically for recent graduates and current students of business schools at the bachelor and graduate level. Similar to Going Places with Spatial Analysis, the course allows students to “try on” BAO. This is accomplished, again, with a named user given for the duration of the course. The flavor of this course is decidedly different. The opening video (hosted directly through Esri’s site) feels more like a prolonged voicemail rather than an invitation to explore; it is thankfully short.
Outside of the housekeeping tasks, on the list of exercises for the week, we had several items that caught my eye: additional videos with Esri staff, a case overview, and a weekly guest lecture from an industry expert. A software developer at Esri gives a much-needed extended introduction to the concepts of how geography and location information can benefit businesses, this feels like the warm welcome that Cartography. nailed on the first swing. The lecturer for Week 1, is none other than University of North Texas professor, Dr. Murray Rice, the same instructor that taught the unforgettable course Applied Retail GIS. I felt right at home and excitedly began to devour the content. Unfortunately, it felt like as soon as the “lecture” started it was over. The interview was done over the phone, so a single slide is presented during the entirety of the conversation. The host asks four complete rounds of questions and then calls it a day.
The case overview video briefly introduces the actual exercise, giving it more of a narrative feel: you work for a fictitious Canadian Bank that wants to increase the services offered. In this exercise there is not an actual BAO component, everything is done within AGOL. Your task is to locate company buildings from a .csv, load them into a web map, alter pop-up settings, alter symbology, add demographic data from AGOL layers, and author a swipe/spyglass story map to consume your work. Documentation is great, and those unfamiliar with AGOL should fly along without a problem.
You Must Try Things that may not Work
Over the next 6 weeks, the time-demands were pretty significant. If you have the ability, I would whole-heartedly recommend carving out research & development time during your working day. Doing more than treading water in the ever-expanding ocean that is spatial technology requires us to deliberately increase our skill set by trying out processes and discovering new ways to do things better. My R&D time was largely spoken for, which is why I opted to spend my lunch hour completing the MOOCs, even still, I ended up doing some of this work at home as well. In the end, what was left?
Understanding the Esri MOOCs requires understanding MOOCs in general. The biggest deficiency of these programs happens to be their best selling points, low barriers to entry and accessibility from anywhere form a disconnect between the student and the material. Unlike compulsory education, there is no school building that you go to daily, no teacher to reprimand you for failure to meet expectations, and no peer pressure to complete the learning journey together. While MOOCs enjoy high rates of registration, completion rates lag far behind. The Esri MOOCs are not exempt from this trend, using viewing rates from the Cartography. videos hosted on YouTube as a proxy, the approximate attendance rates for Week 1 started at 20,332 and finished Week 6 at 3,440. While the 83% decrease overall seems shocking, the largest numerical drop is between Week 1 and Week 2 (6,088); if viewed from Week 2 to Week 6 the attrition rate is a more realistic 44%.
Esri has opted for a more traditional experience with the majority of their MOOCs, content is incrementally unlocked on a weekly schedule and a syllabus has been prepared ahead of time. Dialogue is mostly uni-directional; although, there are some open forums during some weeks of the MOOCs (course instructors participated!), most of the time a student is offered a one-and-done response to finish the section each week. Each course did include an ask-me-anything session hosted on Esri’s GeoNet, the participation in each course varied dramatically with 18 comments in The Location Advantage and 165 comments for Cartography.
Lightning-y
Cartography, full stop. It would be easy enough to end it here. As the fifth iteration of Esri’s MOOC program, Cartography. enjoys the benefits of high production values. Apart from the magnetic on-screen talent, video is captured using multiple shots, audio is professionally recorded, and pains are taken to reduce the apparent use of scripts and talking points. The syllabus and materials are well-thought out, there are multiple links to additional examples and further reading, and two exercises a week. The weekly video discussion is the show that I wish I could watch on Netflix (and maybe Netflix agrees?). It has a simple introduction and theme with background music, appropriate B-roll throughout, the cartographers are informative, enthusiastic, and easily connect with the audience while discussing their passion. Finally, recurring segments give the series continuity from week to week: word of the week, carto-fails, famous cartographer, analog tools of the cartographic trade, and a weekly tea with biscuits. And lastly, the stretch goals felt appropriate; less intimidating than a blank canvas, but enough to feel like you’re building ownership for the project.
The ability to use BAO in an unlimited way is hands down the best perk of The Location Advantage. Other notable benefits included the lecture videos with Esri employees, and the phone interviews with academic leaders in business, both of which were nice ways that the course delved into areas beyond how to simply use particular tools within the BAO environment. These conversations helped to show the necessity of approaching business objectives with a geographic lens in your toolkit. Further, each of the exercises has a scenario in which you are asked to imagine that you are part of a company or have some sort of economic interest in a specific topic; for me, these helped to spur my imagination into industries and use-cases with which I am unfamiliar. The greatest benefit shared between both courses is that all materials are downloadable in PDF format including exercises and video transcripts.
Anchovy Licorice Sauce
Anton Ego speculates that, negative criticism is fun to write and to read; my personal interest is in identifying ingredients that do not work in the overall MOOC dish. While Esri is offering a meaningful piece of itself, in terms of both time and resources required to produce these courses, their end goal is to increase the use of their platform and services. Although these courses are technically free, there is a significant commitment in terms of time and mental energies expended to follow through to completion; ultimately, it is the end-user that must be satisfied and fulfilled by the exchange.
While The Location Advantage was only produced in 2015, it has an incredibly dated look and feel. Video segments of the host and guest lecturers from within the Esri organization are shot from tripod mounts and possess no differentiation in terms of angle, zoom, or other fundamental spices from the videographer’s kitchen. Scripts were un-memorized, read verbatim, and clearly visible from the reflection of eye glasses of some lecturers. These videos were not hosted through YouTube and were affected by a technical outage during the course, making them inaccessible for a time. These are all hurdles that Esri has easily cleared in the Cartography. course and there seems to be little reason to not revisit the video production pieces in this instance. I had that feeling of regretting the meal I had ordered, and lusting after the plate at the table next to mine.
What should have been the best part of The Location Advantage ends up being its most lackluster, the so-called “guest lectures” with academic business leaders. These guest lectures are actually phone interviews, in each segment, the host asks 3-4 rounds of questions, and concludes the interview. Production-wise, there is nothing else to stimulate the viewer except a power point card showing the interviewee’s name, institution, and photo. While an in-person taped interview would be easy for a global company to manage, at a minimum, the effective use of B-roll would go a long way to making these conversations seem like more than an afterthought. Those that are taking this course are interested in the subject material, and the target audience is paying or has paid tens of thousands of dollars to learn more about the subject matter in business schools across the continent; the brevity of each interview is akin to baking a delicious meal, only to serve your patron a tablespoon’s worth, and expecting them to be satisfied.
The hosting of forums per week within the in-house educational platform feels very limited. An inability to search forum posts and limited screen real estate are obvious barriers to fulfilling participation. GeoNet is a great platform and could be used more effectively for course communication; although it would cause some of the content to bleed out beyond registrants, an unexpected benefit is to whet the appetite for the next course offering. Esri’s method of rewarding the most active users of the forum (with a free personal license or Esri published title) feels a bit forced, and seems to encourage over-commenting in lieu of substance– –perhaps guided discussions from the course teachers could compensate, or grouping participants into clusters to break down the overwhelming feeling of anonymity. Spending your temporal currency dining out should have similarities to the physical experience: charming service, stimulating conversation, and an intimate atmosphere.
Hungry for More
I will admit that taking two courses concurrently was a bit challenging, and perhaps not something that I will repeat; but it’s hard to say no to a great pairing. In terms of time spent, I learned things that I did not know, that I had forgotten, and had never considered. The technical aspects were great in terms of learning more about functionality that I had not yet explored in ArcGIS Pro and Business Analyst Online, and from that view, these courses were a wild success. The ability to learn about a technical subject and to have fun while doing it is the sort of privilege that is rare amongst most professionals, and meeting face-to-screen with some of the giants in the industry is even better. I am looking forward to seeing Esri continue to dedicate resources to producing original content, keeping existing courses current, and hopefully extending some screen time to individuals outside of their immediate organization.
The climax of Ratatouille sees the food critic Anton Ego discover the true identity of the famous new Chef at Gusteau’s, and despite this, write a surprisingly unabashed endorsement of the restaurant. In our conclusion, the reviews are mixed. Many aspects were well-thought out, creative, and contribute to the continuing evolution of MOOC best practices. Other features seemed ill-prepared, unimaginative, and posed a general disregard for the appetite of the intended audience. I will return again, and my expectations will be high.
The people at Esri are enthusiastic about their work and that enthusiasm deserves to be shared as widely as possible; I’d like to thank them for stepping out and taking risks with distributing their work in this fashion. The next round of MOOCs will launch September 5 and run through October 16, on the menu is Cartography. and Do-It-Yourself Geo Apps. Another two courses will be available starting October 31 and ending December 11, Going Places with Spatial Analysis (Season 2) and Earth Imagery at Work.