New Fast-Track Certificate Program Offers Hi-Tech Training

UHMC, photo by Wendy Osher.

By Maui Now Staff

Starting this August, UH Maui College will offer two accelerated, eight-week credit courses in Geographic Information Systems, leading to a Certificate of Competence in GIS.

Instruction will be delivered through online classes and in-person labs.

University administrators say the versatility of GIS technology makes the certificate applicable for higher skill, higher wage jobs.

“GIS is no longer used solely by geographers. GIS concepts are used by real estate professionals, the Visitor’s Bureau, local government, environmental groups and many more businesses in our community,” said Carol Kennedy, GIS administrator for the Maui Electric Company in a University press release. “With the wide variety of industries that now depend on GIS information and analysis, providing training locally only makes sense.”

Jill LaBram, Natural Resource/GIS Technician for the West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership, also commented in the announcement saying, “GIS allows us to document and map priority invasive weeds that may need treatment, take a location of a rare species that we need to find again in order to monitor its status, or show a potential route for a fence line to prevent ungulates from damaging the native forest.”

“It gives conservation and natural resource managers the ability to look at data on a spatial scale to guide management direction and make effective decisions,” she said.

The certificate is part of a fast track curriculum, which can be completed in one semester.

GIS 150 and GIS 180 will be offered consecutively Aug. 27 to Dec. 18, 2014.

Students must enroll and sign up for the courses before the Aug. 1 submission deadline.