SpatiaLABS currently contains 56 exercises: 20 independent topics, 19 for business, and 16 for forestry. The collection of labs will grow each year.

There is an annual add-on fee to add the SpatiaLABS license to your Esri University Site License. SpatiaLABS can also be purchased as an individual license. Within the U.S., contact Esri at 1-800-447-9778. Schools outside the U.S. should contact their local Esri distributor.

SpatiaLABS do respond to a demand for spatial analysis in the social sciences, but they also contain labs for the physical sciences. The first release of SpatiaLABS includes labs that look at point and non-point groundwater contamination to the Floridan aquifer, delineating watersheds, and sea level rise as a result of climate change. We’re also open to proposals for labs in the physical sciences.

Yes. There are several labs within the Business course set that refer to resources available through ArcGIS Online.

All labs include an assessment suggested by the lab author. Many labs also include questions within the body of the student instructions. Instructors are free to alter both.

Three sample labs can be viewed in Levels of Labs; there is one example from each comprehension level of SpatiaLABS.

Level 1 labs are for students with little or no exposure to GIS. There are also some Level 2 labs, which suggest students have what might be called “introductory” GIS skills. Level 3 labs are advanced activities written more like guidelines, providing students with what they need to do, but little, if any, instruction on how. These activities are appropriate for term projects.

There are fewer Level 1 labs, but more are expected in 2013. The majority of labs call for intermediate GIS skills.

Although instructors should have GIS skills, many of the labs currently available will research issues that faculty who don’t teach GIS will be able to appreciate. It should be possible to approach faculty in other departments and demonstrate the value for students to perform one of these labs.

Updates to SpatiaLABS will be released annually and are not on the same release cycle as ArcGIS software.

The distinction we want to make is that SpatiaLABS are investigations. They’re not designed to teach the features of a spatial analysis tool; they’re designed to use spatial analysis tools to examine the spatial aspects of an issue. Because students will be using GIS much of the time and producing maps, they will be learning technology and cartographic skills along the way. But it’s important to understand that these are by-products and not the priority.

SpatiaLABS address many topics with global relevance, including climate change, resource management, environmental justice, and so on. There is a lab that uses spatial distribution of poverty in Sri Lanka and a lab that examines the Yoruba culture in Nigeria, for example.

Much of the data that is provided with SpatiaLABS are in fact US-based. However, SpatiaLABS provide the concepts and framework for you to customize a topic to include local data for higher relevancy. We would look forward to more authors and topics from outside the US for future releases.