Geospatial Expertise Symposium

As part of the Spatial Cognition 2020/1 conference, we invite individuals to attend and present at the Geospatial Expertise Symposium. Individuals who want to present at the symposium should submit short papers discussing their perspectives and research on geospatial expertise. Short papers will be reviewed by the symposium organizers and authors will be informed if their paper is accepted. Accepted short papers will be presented by the author(s) at the symposium in the form of 15-minute talks and a round-table discussion. Our interest is in collecting multiple views of geospatial expertise, its definition(s), quantitative and qualitative measurement, testing, acquisition, pathways to learning, barriers to learning, setbacks, mechanisms for improving acquisition, unique characteristics from other forms of expertise, contribution to the science of learning, contribution to STEM learning, and potential impacts of artificial intelligence. We invite experts in spatial cognition, geospatial educators, geospatial practitioners and others who share an interest in the topic to contribute short papers on their specific area of interest. We anticipate having accepted short papers published online in a proceedings, along with inviting authors on a competitive basis to submit short articles to a special Geospatial Expertise Forum of the Annals of the American Association of Geographers. Should there be enough interest we will also invite expanded versions of selected papers to be submitted to a special issue of Transactions in GIS.

Submission Guidelines

All papers must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. The following paper categories are welcome:

• If you want to share your perspective on the development of geospatial expertise, please submit a short paper. Short papers should be a maximum of 2,000 words in length and follow the APA formatting style. Note that papers not adhering to the style guidelines or the word limits will be rejected without review. Manuscripts will be reviewed by at least two members of the symposium organizing committee. At least one author of each accepted paper must be present at the symposium to give the 15-minute presentation.

List of Topics

Short papers, and their accompanying talks, must focus on some aspect of developing geospatial expertise. The author(s) field(s) may include any discipline that deals with geospatial expertise. Disciplines include, but are not limited to: Geography, GIScience, Geoscience, Geoinformatics, Psychology, Neuroscience, Education, Learning Science, Linguistics, Engineering, and Public Health. We are interested in topics, including but not limited to:

• How can geospatial expertise be explicitly defined?
• How can geospatial expertise be measured?
• How is geospatial expertise acquired?
• What are the waypoints to acquiring geospatial expertise?
• What blocks or redirects the acquisition of geospatial expertise?
• What makes geospatial expertise different from other types of expertise?
• How can understanding of geospatial expertise contribute to the science of learning?
• How does geospatial expertise contribute to STEM learning?
• How can knowledge of geospatial expertise acquisition be translated into learning environments?
• How to measure relevant mileposts (positive or negative) for learning?

Organizing Committee

• Dr. Heather Burte
• Dr. Jung Eun Hong
• Dr. Michael N. DeMers

Venue

The symposium is being held on August 1, 2021 as part of Spatial Cognition 2020/1 in Rita, Latvia or online (http://sc2020.lu.lv). 

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to heather[DOT]burte[AT]tamu[DOT]edu