“Creative destruction: Reinventing the university” was The Economist cover of last week June issue. Inside, a brief but condense report discussed on the future of the university and the digital degree, pointing that a new revolution has begun thanks to three forces: rising costs, changing demand and the role of MOOCs as a disruptive technology in the higher-education business.

And what is the situation of MOOCs on GIS-related topics? A quick search gave poor results. First, the Simon Fraser University´s Exploring Geographic Information Systems course seems to be one of the few courses outside the big MOOC providers (Coursera, EdX, Udacity). Even though the big three have so far provided hundreds of courses to over 12 million students, only 4 MOOCs from Coursera are about GIS topics. Let us see them:

The third edition of the Penn State University Maps and the Geospatial Revolution will be launched on March 2015. It is essentially a practical course to show how ubiquitous location and geospatial information are through the use of ESRI ArcGIS Online. The other three MOOCs are new courses.

Penn State University starts a second course in two weeks called Geodesign: Change your world. According to the course information page, geodesign is the glue to connect information to people, using collaboration to better inform how we design our world.Geospatial Intelligence & the Geospatial Revolution is the third course from Penn State University that starts in 6 months. Students will learn how the revolution in geospatial technology combined with the tradecraft of Geospatial Intelligence have changed how we develop insights about how humans use geography, and discover the power of Geospatial Intelligence .

Lastly, University of Minnesota´s From GPS and Google Maps to Spatial Computing MOOC starts in two months with an ambitious aim:  to introduce students in the concepts, algorithms, programming, theory and design of spatial computing technologies such as global positioning systems (GPS), Google Maps, location-based services and geographic information systems.

A few but striking MOOCS in quite diverse GIS topics!