David Unwin

Geographical information systems and the problem of 'error and uncertainty'

Consider the following superficially simple problem that might be solved using a geographical information system (GIS). In medical geography we wish to find the rate of incidence of a bronchial complaint in children living on ’cold’ clay soils and compare it with the equivalent for children living on ’warmer’ sandy ones. Given the availability of GIS technology, an obvious approach is to take some post-coded health data, use map overlay to find the number of reported cases on the two different soil types, repeat the overlay using the census small-area statistics interpolated on to the same soil areas to find the numbers at risk, and then compute and compare the incidence rates. There are some substantial technical difficulties along the way but, in principle at least, the analysis can be handled by most GIS and the entire exercise is the kind of thing that you might well do with your students in a second-year laboratory class. Having obtained the results, it is natural to ask questions about their quality in order that

Teaching GIS&T

This special issue contains a series of short papers on teaching with and about geographic information science and technology (GIS&T) in a variety of educational contexts, with contributors originating from both sides of the Atlantic. Although geographical information systems (GIS) already has an edited volume that purports to outline its history (Foresman, 1998), we have yet to put the entire phenomenon into its proper perspective, evenmore so into its pedagogic context. Briefly, most authors cite the Canada system of the 1960s as the first ‘GIS’, but the term did not gain much currency until the mid-1970s, when the first academic, research-oriented meetings were held. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a proliferation of programmes designed to teach the technology and, more importantly, what Goodchild (1992) called the ‘geographic information science’ (GISc) that underpins it. It seems to us that both the content of courses in ‘GIS’, with or without the ‘c’, and the ways bywhich they have been delivered, reflect an interplay between the available technology, the GIS industry and the academy. For better or worse the educational agenda has followed a technology-driven set of imperatives. Sometimes it also pays to revisit things one did and wrote some time ago and in looking at these stages we revisit the chapter ‘Enabling progress in GIS and education’ that one of us co-authored a decade ago for the second edition of the ‘big book of GIS’ (Forer & Unwin, 1999). Although much of the content of that chapter now has a vaguely antique flavour and the perspective reflected that of two geographers working in the context of academic geography, five ‘dilemmas’ that at the time seemed important for educators were listed and described:

Teaching Geographic Information Science and Technology in Higher Education: Unwin/Teaching Geographic Information Science and Technology in Higher Education

Book synopsis: Geographic Information Science and Technology (GISc&T) has been at the forefront of education innovation in geography and allied sciences for two decades. Teaching Geographic Information Science and Technology in Higher Education is an invaluable reference for educators and researchers working in GISc&T, providing coverage of the latest innovations in the field and discussion of what the future holds for GI Science education in the years to come. This book clearly documents teaching innovations and takes stock of lessons learned from experience in the discipline. The content will be of interest both to educators and researchers working in GISc&T, and to educators in other related fields. More importantly, this book also anticipates some of the opportunities and challenges in GI Science and Technology education that may arise in the next decade. As such it will be of interest to chairs, deans, administrators, faculty in other subfields, and educators in general.

Book reviews : Martin, D. 1991: Geographic information systems and their socioeconomic applications. London: Routledge. xviii + 188 pp. £12.99 paper. ISBN: 0 415056977

both the strength and weakness of self-help. Turner’s concepts were formed while observing unrepeatable circumstances: Lima’s economic expansion encouraged an underclass to seize waste land in sufficiently large numbers to withstand their violent ejection, which had been their experience hitherto. They did not threaten the intervening property, the owners of which benefited from infrastructure built to the barriadas.

Book reviews : Mounsey, H., editor, 1988: Building databases for global science. London: Taylor & Francis. xv + 419 pp. £35 cloth

competitor countries. Belatedly, the Thatcher government has changed the rules of the game to introduce competition, but the response of UK electronics firms, most notably GEC, has been to enter defensive alliances to protect its domestic market where profit margins are still up to three times higher than they are in most continental European countries, largely because of the feather bedding of the past. As the rules of the game are changed, interesting corners of the relationships of the electronics industry to finance capital are being illuminated. Along with many other radical and even not-so-radical analysts of the plight of the UK IT firms, Morgan and Sayer blame the City for the short-termism whereby firms could not get the long-term, secure financing available to, for example, Japanese firms, to develop new products, enter the market with loss leaders, and eventually defeat the competition. However, US firms operate on short-term financial horizons too and they have been successful. It seems that in the UK, financial market short-termism is reinforced by the companies themselves because of poor strategy development and communication. In other words, feather bedding has given UK electronics firms high price-to-earnings ratios. Any dip in these reduces share price which communicates instability to potential investors or lenders. If companies had, and communicated, long-term strategies to financiers as they do in the USA the self-reinforcing cycle of short-termism could be broken.