TITLE:
Open Source GIS Software Options for Forestry Education in Papua New Guinea
AUTHORS:
David Lopez Cornelio
KEYWORDS:
Open Source Software; GIS Software; Forestry Education
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Ecology,
Vol.4 No.4,
March
28,
2014
ABSTRACT: Although open source softwares (OSS) for GIS and Remote Sensing are
rapidly expanding and improving in the global context, there has been
uncertainty at higher education institutions in developing countries, such as
the department of forestry (Dfo) at Unitech, Papua New Guinea (PNG), regarding
appropriate GIS softwares and hardware to acquire and use for teaching and
research purposes. The paper briefly describes the characteristics of some
mature OSS and discusses their main capabilities, advantages and disadvantages.
Their adoption in the Dfo curricula may be advantageous in the long term,
considering issues of learning curve steepness, versatility, affordability,
effectiveness, and documentation available on them.