The Tool aims to help Educators assess the wellbeing of their current subjects/programme and help with planning future subjects/programme. It encourages Educators to be conscious about the amount of time spent on a topic and the expectations they are imposing on the Students. It requires the Educators to quantify and justify their choices in how to teach and how to encourage learning. The Tool diagrammatically shows the wellbeing of the subject/programme in terms of their relationship with Geospatial as defined by the NGC and the Geospatial Curriculum Framework.
There are two versions created: Fixed version, Customisable version.
FIXED VERSION
Subject Diagnosis Tool FIXED VERSION
Enables Users to compare their course/subject with the characteristics and elements identified in the Geospatial Curriculum Framework. Users of this version can interact with the tool by input of the Level of Understanding required for the course/subject, Perceived Importance, and the average Level of Contact offered to students. This version of the tool assumes that the course/subject assessed is Geospatial based. The output is simple, it shows the distribution of Taught Knowledge, a comparison between the importance and actual teaching of various skills, and the Subject Focus of the course/subject (i.e. Data Use Focus or Data Acquisition Focus). It also brings attention to the skills that are thought to be imbalanced (i.e. mismatch between the three elements that Users can input).
CUSTOMISABLE VERSION
Subject Diagnosis Tool CUSTOMISABLE VERSION
Allows a higher level of customisation where users can input in their own descriptors, select the appropriate Topic as identified through the NGC, how it is taught, types of skills it teaches, as well as the same three elements as the FIXED VERSION. This version does not allow for multiple selection of the same descriptor therefore users will have to input the same descriptor multiple times to choose multiple skills/Topic/mode of teaching. This version also has a similar display to the FIXED VERSION, where it differs is that instead of comparison between Taught Skills, it offers the Degree of Geospatialism as this version allows for any course/subject with a hint of Geospatial discipline (i.e. any course/subject that deals with spatial data or makes use of spatial data).