UTILIZATION OF MULTIMEDIA TECHNOLOGY IN GIS EDUCATION 
Xin Zhuang, Graduate Research Assistant 
Department of Agricultural Engineering 
and 
Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing 
Purdue University 
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1146, U.S.A. 
(317) 494-1187 
zhuang@ecn.purdue.edu 
Raghavan Srinivasan, Associate Research Scientist 
Black Land Research Center 
Temple, TX 76502, U.S.A. 
Bernard A. Engel, Associate Professor 
Department of Agricultural Engineering 
and 
Laboratory for Applications of Remote Sensing 
Don D. Jones, Professor 
Department of Agricultural Engineering 
Purdue University 
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1146, U.S.A. 
Commission VI: Economic, Professional and Educational Aspects 
of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 
ABSTRACT: 
The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) in the U.S.A. has developed the NCGIA Core Curri- 
culum for GIS instruction. However, teaching these materials, even selectively, cannot be easily done, and parts of these 
materials need to be updated from time to time because GIS is rapidly evolving. Students require to learn and review GIS at 
any time in a random and nonlinear knowledge-searching style. Computerizing NCGIA's educational GIS materials by utiliz- 
ing the emerging multi-media technology can provide capabilities for random and nonlinear knowledge-searching by students, 
random access instruction by teachers, and regularly updating the NCGIA's GIS materials. In this project, parts of NCGIA's 
GIS materials were re-organized based on multimedia organization principles using a public-domain hyper-media tool, Hyper- 
NeWS. The slides associated with the NCGIA Core Curriculum were digitized into a graphic database in support of the com- 
puterized NCGIA educational GIS materials, which is named Hyper-GIS. In addition, graphics, images and even sounds help- 
ful for teaching and understanding were added to Hyper-GIS. Local successful GIS applications were also included. With 
Hyper-GIS, students can do random and nonlinear knowledge-searching, and teachers can provide random access instruction 
according to students' knowledge of GIS. Computerizing the NCGIA's GIS materials can also provide capabilities for updat- 
ing the materials matching the latest GIS developments and for incorporating local GIS applications. 
KEY WORDS: GIS Education, Multimedia, Computer-Assisted Instruction. 
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