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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | [gislist] Support for non-certified instructors to teach GIS classes |
| Date: |
02/14/2007 12:15:00 PM |
| From: |
Scott Madsen |
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Listers,
I'm disappointed with ESRI's response (or lack thereof) to my request for
help in putting together a low-cost GIS training class for my county. I'm
curious to find out if any other GIS Coordinators or the like have
experienced similar frustration in this area. (Please excuse the length of
this post but I wan to make sure I explain the situation properly).
The class I'm trying to put together will cover Beginner ArcGIS 9.2
instruction for at least 12, maybe as many as 20 county government folks
including commissioners, department heads and staff. We have a lot of
interest in GIS at our county, however, employee training budgets are
stretched far enough the way it is so we just can't afford to bring in a
certified instructor or send these folks to a certified class when, as the
GIS Coordinator, I am perfectly capable of teaching the class myself.
I've attended certified ESRI training courses and have found them to be well
structured using well-organized training resources (workbooks, Power Points,
etc). So, I'd like to teach a similar class using the same or similar
teaching resources: yet, without the cost of a certified instructor. For a
class of 20 people, this would save us thousands of dollars so, it's a
no-brainer.
I realize that, in a utopian society, all GIS users would be able to afford
an ESRI sponsored instructional course. However, small businesses and local
government folks don't usually work within such an environment - typically,
we have to find less expensive ways to do things. Invariably, it
disappoints me when I talk to current and potential GIS users who make the
comment that they'd like to attend a certified ESRI training course but
can't afford to do so. When I suggest that they use ESRI's online courses,
attend GIS user conferences or become members of GIS user groups in order to
get more training, many of these folks respond that they don't like online
training and that the costs associated with travel to conferences or
meetings is often cost and/or time prohibitive.
The only real alternative for many local government and private sector
businesses is to have a class taught locally with minimal costs associated
with it. This means taught by a county GIS Coordinator like myself in a
local county meeting room with only the cost of instructional materials to
consider. I've already done a fair amount of research on instructional
materials and have found a couple of ESRI workbooks including temporary
software licenses that look like they would work for this purpose (GIS
Tutorial and Getting to Know ArcGIS Desktop).
However, my frustration with ESRI is that they refuse to release their
instructor resource materials to a non-certified or non-university
instructor. ESRI has left me in limbo by telling me to go online and search
out my own teaching aids (Power Points, etc) or to make my own. My response
to my local ESRI representative was simply, 'why the heck can't I just
acquire the same teaching materials that you would readily make available to
any university or certified course instructor? What's the harm in it?'
Their response was simply to reiterate corporate policy - really not the
answer I was looking for.
Does my request for assistance in this matter seem out of line? Are there
others out there that are dealing with the same situation? Is ESRI really
so oblivious to the value of training (and subsequent product endorsement)
by local folks like me that they can't see that, if through my classes, I
can get more local folks interested in GIS, my efforts will likely sell more
of their software licenses?
This is just the opinion of one disappointed and increasingly frustrated
ESRI customer. Maybe I'm just talking to the wrong people at ESRI. If so,
could somebody please point me in a more productive direction before I
grudgingly start devoting countless hours to creating my own teaching aids
for this class?
If you have taught a non-certified Beginner ArcGIS 9x class for local
government folks in your area, would you please share the name(s) and
source(s) of the training aids you acquired and how effective each was in
teaching the class? Thanks for your feedback and help.
Scott Madsen
GIS Coordinator
Brown County, SD
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