At its inception in July 2001, IAEGS convened a group of experts (the advisory board) to create a unified curriculum, which, if followed, would provide a student with an effective college major in remote sensing. Suggesting background courses necessary to understand the material in each course, the advisory board identified a prerequisite structure and determined a creation order for the new courses. They then outlined and described the first ten courses. The results were sent out for review and, once approved, were added to a request for proposals (RFP). The first ten courses were effectively launched.

While the advisory board was at work on the curriculum and the courses, the IAEGS staff began to create the Knowledge Delivery Engine and all of the tools necessary to create and deliver courses online. This process was extensive, involving more than hundreds of thousand lines of code, an expansive design document, and a large set of normalized databases. The result is a tool set for course creation, a virtual portal application that ensures a secure delivery environment, an innovative 3D delivery environment, and a unique student tool set using emerging technologies.