IS GIS a science or a tool ?

What is a difference between GIS and geography ?
let us wait to hear from you before we continue . Actually there is no clear cut answers to such types of questions, but inspite of this we must try to answer them depending upon our own conceptual models about science and tools or geography and GIS . Anyhow we must be patient to answer confusing questions like the above mentioned one.
According to our teachers in the elementary school “understanding the question is half of the answer " , following this principle we must differentiate first between tools and sciences , then it is possible to rely on an answer.

The objectives of GIS are to solve geographic problems, or problems of spatial nature. From the beginning it is essential to differentiate between GISystems and GISciences. Once again is it a science or a tool? This is one of the most frustrating questions that every body could face. As I do believe that there is no clear cut answer to such types of questions, but it is creditable to spend some time in trying to answer it.
Suppose that you are a GIS user, relying on the most popular and updated software in your daily works. Of course you will end up with results according to your daily GIS activities and you may get the fascinating stuffs by which you can present and print out your final results or layouts to render your audience speechless. Although presentation itself is one of the most fundamental steps in GIS , BUT the big question that you must answer before presenting your works is “ how do you know those results are accurate ? “
You need the fundamental knowledge that lets you judge about your results, and if you don’t care your audience do.
I can argue that any one with a desire can learn how to deal with different software or even programming languages. It is just a matter of time to follow up the help topics that associates any software and newly distributed programs. But how this user can benefits more from these soft wares without knowing their principles. How to deal with errors that may propagate while playing with those soft wares?
Before going further, it is really worthy to suppose the opposite. If you are a car driver, did you really need to know how the engine works while you are driving? Really all the people don’t bother themselves by the mechanics of cars , they just need their cars working well. Also other people may ask if any body can drive a car without learning the principles ? swinging between such types of questions , it is possible to conclude that there is a common knowledge that most people must share while performing certain activities. This assumption can be extended to many fields, e.g. MS Windows’s users, VB programmers, e-games players and GIS users, etc….
As a result you cannot carry out any activity without knowing the basic knowledge that tells you how to perform it. Moreover a child may play with his father’s camera ending up with fascinating photos around him, but he cannot process the film himself.
Consequently there are common skills that must be shared by the average GIS users. But this common knowledge is not sufficient to claim that those users are scientists.
At this point it is better to conclude that there is an uncertain line that separates between sciences and their tools. And GIS Science should study the fundamental problems and concerns that evolving from geographic information “information about somewhere …”

GIS is much connected to the academic discipline of geography and other disciplines that deal with the earth’s surface, like geology, surveying, planning and etc...
More obviously it has its own roots from the spatial analysis techniques belonged to geographers. According to Longley;, Goodchild , Maguire and Rhind , spatial analysis

““ is the process by which we turn raw spatial data into useful spatial information” .

In the near past, GIS was much constrained by different obstacles, some of them were, the lack of data and technology.

The advent of GPS and newly remote sensing satellites smoothed the progress of creating data in a way that is not possible before.
For those who trying to build GIS infrastructures in Sudan, they must pay their attention in the way they collect and create the relevant data. Educational and governmental bodies must be involved in a constructive way. Not only making use of the new forms of data and technology, but also the traditional methods can be organized in a better way than the informal one that is followed now. I am not saying this only to criticize the governmental bodies, but also trying to plan for a prosperous future for our beloved country, Sudan.

While I am trying to do my dissertation about implementing GIS techniques in describing the malaria epidemic in Sudan , I had contacted the malaria main departments in Khartoum via my brother Dr. Mohammed Eltayeb to have a unique spatial data by which I can trace the geography of the disease. Unfortunately all the malaria departments failed to provide me with the relevant data. Imagine that this is not a miracle, it is just to provide the locations of your patients, and the problem of confidentiality can be solved by assigning IDs instead of the patient’s names. Consequently I failed to start such a work, which I thought it may be very useful in a country like Sudan.
I do confirm that we are not here to blame ourselves, instead we must inaugurate our GIS data and metadata for a new era , in which the geographic information plays an important role in this age “ information age”.

From where to start?

Although it is a simple question, it is meaning less to answer it without the awareness of the governmental and educational bodies.
The answer is very simple and direct; we can’t establish any GIS infrastructures without putting GIS principles and techniques into our educational and training systems practice. It is our mistake to make our kids feel that geography is an un-treasured discipline. Educational planners must put geography and GIS techniques in the core syllabus of both elementary and secondary schools. This of course will be one of the most steps that should be taken urgently. The other parallel action that should also follow is the implementation of a planned training schedule to encourage employees and researcher to deal with GIS technology in a productive way.

Conclusion:

GIS is an evolving tool/science world wide, in a way that can solve many geographic problems in a way that is not possible before. Unfortunately in our beloved country Sudan this technology is not well implemented. As there are problems there are solutions too. In order to deal with this problem we must face it instead of sinking our heads in sands. There are so many things to do like:

Ø Introducing GIS sciences in elementary and secondary schools.

Ø Reorganizing our old data in a way that it can be accessed easily to the researchers.

Ø Trying to build our own data according to our needs.

Ø An extensive training procedure must followed to collect our data in a reasonable way.

Ø And so many others……..