NCGIA formally approved the RCSS effort as a NCGIA project. A Remote Sensing Note was published concerning this project in the June 1993 issue of Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing (see Appendix). EOSAT sponsored a series of meetings to further the development the design and management of RSCC.

The steering committee felt that it was important to focus initial development activities on a limited number of "classes," representing semester length courses. The four classes prioritizes for the early development phase are: 1) Air photo Interpretation/Photogrammetry, 2) Overview of Remote Sensing of the Environment, 3) Introduction to Digital Image Processing, and 4) Remote Sensing Applications. Each of these four classes now represents an individual volume in RSCC. Volume editors were assigned responsibility for creation of each volume. Each volume contains 10-25 lessons (referred to as modules). The remainder classes were: 5) Introduction to Electromagnetic Energy Theory, 6) Advanced Digital Image Processing, 7) Remote Sensing Field Techniques, 8)Thermal Infrared Remote Sensing, 9) Active and Passive Microwave Remote Sensing, 10) Remote Sensing GIS Integration, and 11) Database Development.

In the fall of 1994, Dr. Timothy W. Foresman, then of the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) proposed to NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth an unsolicited proposal to NASA, entitled. "Research and Development for Remote Sensing Applications Supporting a National Remote Sensing Core Curriculum: A Necessary Precursor to Earth Systems Science Education," to support development of a framework for the initial four curriculum volumes. A consortium of university groups (all steering committee members) worked together under Dr. Foreman's research grant to create the RSCC that exists today on the Internet. NASA awarded the project under NASA Grant NAGW4419, May 1995. Subcontracts were awarded to the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), Georgia Institute of Technology (GTRI), Clark University, and the University of South Carolina (USC). All of the grant funding was used to support undergraduate and graduate student assistance in compilation, formatting, and testing of the RSCC volumes and its modules. Neither the Principal Investigator not any of the steering committee members received remuneration for this effort.

To make operational the RSCC, a proposal was made to the ASPRS Board of Directors in mid-1997 to accept the RSCC as the central element of the Society's educational activities. In March 1998 ASPRS Board of Directors accepted and signed a 15-year agreement with Dr. Foresman at UMBC. He remains the principal investigator and senior editor for the RSCC, working in conjunction with the ASPRS education steering committee and editorial board.

Under the ASPRS agreement, activities for the RSCC expanded to include teacher training through the Conference on Remote Sensing Education (CORSE). A non-profit corporation was formed, the International Center for Remote Sensing Education (ICRSEdu), to manage the RSCC activities under the 15-year agreement. ICRSEdu is responsible for and retains the copyright for the RSCC. ICRSEdu sponsored CORSE in Boulder, Colorado in July 1999, then in Gulfport, Mississippi in July 2000 and at Cayuga Community College in New York, June 2001.

Copyrights for volumes are maintained by the volume editor(s). Rights transferred to ICRSEdu will enable full use of RSCC material by ASPRS and others as per agreement.

RSCC Mission Statement:

The goal of the Remote Sensing Core Curriculum (RSCC) has been to provide the resources to support a state-of-the-practice educational experience for use at national and international collegiate institutions. The RSCC program was developed to meet the needs for a national-level core curriculum as defined by The American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) members in cooperation with the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA), National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) and Earth Observation Satellite Company (EOSAT). This curriculum currently represents a collection of the highest quality resource materials available in this dynamic technological field for use at collegiate levels. RSCC had been initiated under a NASA grant to a consortium comprised of members from academe and industry.

Board of Directors:

ICRSEdu Board of Directors provide overall responsibility for the integrity of the management process, coordination of the volume/modules author/editors, and the professional prosecution and overall success. A significant contributing factor to the success of ICRSE is the significant effort and experience that been expended over the past few years in the design, planning and implementation phases of the RSCC.

Dr. Timothy Foresman, President of the ICRSEdu, was with the United Nations Environment Program as the Division Director for Early Warning and Assessment in Nairobi, Kenya. Dr. Foresman was previously with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he was the Director of the UMBC Spatial Analysis Laboratory. Dr. Foresman was also a professor, where he has instructed and supervised numerous students in remote sensing, GIS, and Earth resources applications. From 1999-2000 he worked for NASA Headquarters as the national director for the Digital Earth Program.

Professor Nickolas Faust, Vice President of the ICRSEdu, is the Associate Director for the Georgia Tech Center for GIS Head, Image Analysis and Visualization Branch Electro-Optics, Environment and Materials Laboratory at Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Faust serves on a variety of scientific panels and committee. He was the co-chair of the International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS)-Commission II Working Group on hardware and software aspects of GIS. He was elected to the Space Technology Hall of Fame (1993) for his pioneering efforts in helping create the ELAS image processing software.

The Treasurer and Secretary of ICRSEdu, Joyce Foresman, has been involved with RSCC from the initial meetings in 1990, giving logistic, managerial, and administrative support. Ms. Foresman was a senior scientist and technical administrator for Lockheed Martin's Remote Sensing and GIS Facility in Las Vegas, Nevada and managed yearly budgets of $1.3m. She continued her career as Project Manager for the planning and operations of the International Symposium of Environment conferences (Tromso, Norway in June 1998; in Cape Town, South Africa in March 2000). She has also been the general manager for two CORSE conferences (Boulder, CO July 1999; Gulfport, MI July 2000) in cooperation with the ASPRS.

Dr. Allan Falconer, is currently the director of the Mississippi Space Commerce Program at Stennis Space Center. He has served on numerous campuses where as full professor he directed research programmes in the application of remote sensing and GIS. He has advised on numerous graduate programmes. At Utah State University, Dr. Falconer led the development of state-wide data systems integrated with national and state land management agencies. He has also served as director of an international remote sensing and GIS center in developing, training, and implementing environmental projects for multiple African nations.