An analysis of remote sensing, GIS, and World Wide Web utilization in geoscience education in the UK

The study aims to examine the usage as well as the potential future use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing, and the World Wide Web (WWW) for teaching and learning the Geosciences in higher education institutions in the U.K. via information gathered through a questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to all geography departments in the U.K.. Forty-one departments returned it, giving a response rate of 51.2 percent. All institutions were ranked based on their use of each technology; an overall usage ranking was calculated as well. Institutions achieving the highest scores for remote sensing were Southampton, Swansea and Edinburgh Universities. For GIS they were Leeds and Edinburgh Universities and for the WWW it was Southampton University which was also the highest overall ranking institution. A large proportion of the institutions surveyed were not fully aware of the variety and depth of information accessible via the WWW and of the potential of its use. The analysis revealed that there is a correlation between the individual use of these technologies within each institution and an overall expectation for increasing the usage of all technologies in the future. Traditional universities had the highest ranking for each technology as well as the highest overall usage of all three technologies.