Metadata education strategy for courses in related disciplines using GIS for applications Course topics are only suggestions, based on a survey of existing GIS-related course outlines. Not all courses of this type will include all these topics, and depending on instructor preference some topics will be emphasized more than others. If a topic is included in a course, links are provided for suggested methods of integrating metadata into the topic. Topics with a "high" designation indicate that the value of discussing the relation of metadata to the specific topic is very high, and it is suggested that more lecture time/exercise time should be devoted to metadata for these particular topics than for topics with a "medium" or "low" designation.
Links to example course outlines
| Course Topics | Conviction | Motivation | Skills | Knowledge |
| Projection/scale | . | . | low | . |
| Database principles | . | . | low | low (database of metadata vs. discrete documents) |
| Data types (environmental/socioeconomic) | . | . | low | . |
| Data models (vector/raster) | . | . | low | . |
| Data sources | high | . | medium(how to read metadata) | medium (clearinghouses) |
| Data quality/error | high | high | medium | low (feature level metadata) |
| Data automation/update | . | medium | low | low (feature level metadata) |
| Spatial Analysis | . | medium (replicate process) | low | . |
| GIS project design/implementation | medium | high | medium(how to read metadata) | . |
| Decision making | medium | . | . | medium |
| Future/GIS trends | medium | . | . | . |
| Interoperability/standards | . | . | . | . |
| Ethics/legal issues | high (liability) | . | . | . |
| Student projects | high | high | medium | medium |