Abstract
There has been a rapid development of Information and communication Technologies (ICTs) globally, and this includes the Geographic Information Systems (GISs) which has evolved over the years and aimed at solving many geographic problems as fast and efficiently as possible. The importance of GIS to students and lecturers in higher educational institutions is it’s ability to easily analyse locations together with the conventional database systems. This paper assessed the correlation between the availability and use of GIS in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs). The study is exploratory in nature and employed the use of questionnaires as instrument to collect data. Simple random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and ten (110) lecturers one thousand five hundred and seventy-nine (1579) students from a university. Findings revealed that GIS for analysis is still at its lowest ebb and hence calls for an action to motivate or encourage lecturers and students to use it. Though there are indications that GIS will be of great value in schools, students and lecturers they will be happy to use it for their teaching and learning. The study also revealed availability of GIS was not tied to its usage.
Highlights
The availability of technological facilities and resources if widely utilized in everyday life, as well as in workplaces will enhance social development
Geographic Information Systems (GISs), being an integral part of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) has gone a long way to helping HEIs to solve critical problems as it aids in the provision of low-cost education, problem-solving and decision making (Mitchellet al., 2018; Fleischmann & Van der Westhuizen, 2017; DeMers, 2016; Lehner, Jekel, & Vogler,2017; Musakwa, 2017; Yuan, 2017)
The technological advancement of GIS has reached a new level. This is because of its ability to move to the stage of critical spatial thinking. This enables spatial issues to be learnt from a problem-based learning viewpoint, instead of a technical GIS viewpoint
Summary
The availability of technological facilities and resources if widely utilized in everyday life, as well as in workplaces will enhance social development. Institutions must assess and utilize ICT to understand their learning environments as well as their professional lives (Aharony & Shonfield, 2015). As attention is being shifted to the 21st-century innovative skills, there must be an expansion to programmes that are related to the diverse and sophisticated ways of carrying out activities to accommodate all forms of societal values. In today’s emerging technologies, one of the most conspicuous and important contributors to society is the Geographic or Geospatial Information System (GIS). The geospatial angle of information system is mainly the visual aspect of data through maps to facilitate interaction, communication and discussion among various stakeholders.
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