Nelson’s article, “Trends in Spatial Statistics”, although providing a good summary of past trends seems to be disconnected with what is really happening, or in other words the reasons behind the needs and education within GIS. Geographers are mentioned as users and not producers of GIS, but this is only because industry, looks at the short term needs and therefore education teach for those needs rather then get more in depth. As a result of geographers looking at industry needs the more advanced courses that are required for spatial analysis are often considered as “too much training” and students do not ask or take these “advanced courses” in a large enough number for them to be offered as geography specific.
I believe that to solve the problem of spatial analysis, more open source courses online that are not time limited are needed to solve the current issues with spatial analysis skills. These courses would allow professional and public assess to the tools needed in the globalization of GIS and the application of spatial analysis techniques. In addition to courses, much of the technical background of GIS program statistical functions are hidden. It may be beneficial to create a functional window that can display the statistical function’s equations and code.
Finally, geography may have once been the only home of spatial analysis, but in today’s global environment other fields may be better suited with their specialization for analysis then geography. I believe that no one can be a master of all disciplines, therefore the skills that geographers thought were important, may not be today for them. In the global context of knowledge and specialization of skills, people are now becoming a cooperative of learning where goals can be achieved to greater success together through an interdisciplinary approach, rather than a single discipline approach.
C_N_Cycles