Introduction of geographic information systems into business education. The case of Polish students of logistics

Abstract

This article aims to extend current research in the area of teaching geographic information systems (GIS) in business faculties. GIS has a lot of areas of usage (logistics, trade, marketing, infrastructure management, public administration, archaeology, geology, meteorology forestry, agriculture environmental monitoring, aviation, statistics, education), however is not a popular subject especially in business school programs. Young people quickly learn and use new applications and technologies. Therefore, the author presents the GIS classes framework and the opinions of students about their knowledge and perception of GIS systems. The article contains theoretical background of GIS, presents the main areas of geographic information systems usage. The main part of the paper is a framework of ''E-logistics and GIS'' programme prepared for students of logistics at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Poland. The author analyzes also students' opinions about GIS and presents main conclusions derived from quantitative research conducted in a form of online questionnaire performed in January 2017 on a group of 96 logistics students. At the end of the article there can be found the proposal for the future research. The author examined only students of logistics of Faculty of Economics, so small group of young people. Some future research should be performed in order to compare the obtained results with GIS-related programmes from different universities in Poland and abroad.