Case-4-Geo


Case - 4 - GeoSpatial

International Cooperation for Pragmatic Geospatial Education

(co-funded by OeAD, Austria, 2014-15)

INTRODUCTION
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) continuously face a challenge of producing ‘fit-for-job‘ graduates in response to frequently changing demands of job markets. The challenge is more pressing in the study programmes tightly coupled with the modern technologies which are compelled to advance further rapidly for keeping up their dominance in a globally competitive business environment.

Geospatial education is among the fields which encounter challenges of adapting to such continuous changes. There are 3 main driving forces of Geospatial education i.e.:
  • Geospatial Application fields / Domains
  • Geospatial Data
  • Geospatial Technologies / Tools
The interplay of these 3 driving forces is multilateral and reciprocal. The dynamics of their interplay change in a matter of months, weeks and sometimes even days and create a range of Geospatial job opportunities requiring ‘ready-to-deliver‘ workforce. However, HEIs fall behind in responding to the new job-requirements at the same pace because they cannot change curricula every month or every year to incorporate the new developments due to the rules and procedures involved in this process. As a result, by the time graduates enter into Geospatial job-market, their skills are largely outdated or missing.

OBJECTIVE
  • Identify the emerging topics for teaching in university level study programmes
  • Develop conceptual framework and structure of the identified topics
  • Design strategy for imparting ‘hands-on’ practical training of delivering and working with the identified topics
ACTIVITIES
  • Organise intensive planning workshops with the partner HEIs
  • Develop concept notes and structures of the identified topics
PARTNERS
 Coordinating Institution
AUSTRIA:
 - Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Salzburg
 Partner Institutions 

CZECH REPUBLIC
 - Palacky University, Ololouc
 
GERMANY:
 - University of Sustainable Development, Eberswalde
NETHERLANDS:
 - VU University, Amsterdam

CHINA:
 - Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing
 - Wuhan University, Wuhan
 - Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography - CAS, Urumqi

THAILAND:
 - Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani
 - Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai
 - King Mongkut's University of Technology Thornburi
OUTCOMES
  • intensive workshops were organised in Europe, China and Thailand from November 2014 to January 2015
  • 18 Faculty members trained in identifying emerging topics for integrating in university level geospatial education programmes and developing concept framework of each topic.
Contact: Dr. Shahnawaz, Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Austria.