Blogs

UNIGIS Academic Excellence Prize – 2009 Awards announced

Christof Amelunxen from UNIGIS Salzburg has been announced as the winner of the worldwide UNIGIS Academic Excellence Prize 2009.  His thesis titled ”An Approach to Geocoding based on Volunteered Spatial Data” not only led to an award with distinction of his MSc in GIScience by the University of Salzburg, but recently was voted by the International Review Board as the best (English language) UNIGIS thesis this year.  Pedro Pinto from UNIGIS Portugal finished a very close second in a highly competitive finish. He submitted a paper “Urban growth on coastal erosion vulnerable stretches” published in Journal of Coastal Research, Vol. 2, …

Annual Meeting – Girona, Spain

The Spanish/Catalan UNIGIS site in Girona again hosted the annual UNIGIS worldwide network meeting on Nov 13/14, 2009. Representatives from 11 university partner sites were discussing eLearning didactics, curriculum development and new learning materials as well as innovative approaches to acquiring new GIS qualifications.Integration among UNIGIS partner institutions is making substantial progress due to the shared access to learning resources, credit recognition and joint events like summer schools and workshops.Links with the GIS industry are continuously enhanced through cooperation with software companies, publishers and consulting companies, assuring that UNIGIS curricula, accompanying software and application case studies remain on top of …

Two new UNIGIS study centres in India

UNIGIS India (www.unigis.net/India) has launched programmes at 2 new study centres in India. The new centres have been established at Panjab University, Chandigarh (www.unigis.net/PU_Chandigarh) and the All India Institute for Local Self Government (www.unigis.net/AIILSG_India). The introductory-cum-orientation workshops were held in Chandigarh from 4th to 6th September and in Cochin from 11th to 13th September.Prof. Josef Strobl (UNIGIS International and Director of the Centre for Geoinformatics – Z_GIS, University of Salzburg , Austria) emphasised that UNIGIS has the vision of ’Educating GIS Professionals Worldwide’ and Z_GIS (http://www.zgis.at/) is supporting this mission by establishing UNIGIS programmes with partner institutions around the world …

UIA Academic Excellence Prize – Award Ceremony

Andre Coleman (UNIGIS – Free University of Amsterdam), the winner of the Academic Excellence Prize 2008 presented his high quality MSc thesis at the GI_Forum 2009 in Salzburg. His dissertation entitled: “An Adaptive Landscape Classification Procedure Using Geoinformatics and Artificial Neural Networks” was considered unanimously by the Review Board as the best thesis this year. For more details see the press coverage of the GI_Forum / AGIT conference.After the speech he was publicly awarded with a great cup by Josef Strobl in recognition of his work and the academic achievement. Congratulations!The competition for the 2009 Prize is open. All UNIGIS …

Geospatial Education Forum at Map Asia 2009

As a ’Knowledge partner’ in Map Asia 2009 (18-20 August, 2009) UNIGIS is coordinating an education forum on the theme ’From Spatial Thinking to GI Competence’ on Aug 19 in Singapore. This forum has been planned with the mandate to bring together educators and professionals on one platform to share their experience and expertise. UNIGIS programme information materials will be disseminated from a shared booth with GIS Development.

UNIGIS MSc – New Distance Learning Node in Australia

The international UNIGIS MSc postgraduate degree is now offered in Australia through the UNIGIS (www.unigis.net) study centre at the University of Canberra, ACT. Students are invited to enrol in a joint programme combining the capacities from the University of Canberra and University of Salzburg, Austria.Continuing and higher education in Geographic Information Science and Technologies and Geoinformatics methods is important for developing Spatial Data Infrastructures across nations and regions as a foundation for sustainable economies, societies and environments. Increasingly, enterprises, non-governmental organisations and public agencies apply Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to reach their objectives and to better serve their customers. “GIS” …

UNIGIS @ ESRI San Diego Conferences

The week started with a UNIGIS -related highlight, Prof. Henk Scholten opening the Education UC with a keynote on “The Role of GIS in the Development of Spatial Thinking” – leading to his ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ presented during the Monday plenary session. Monday night UNIGIS participated in the ‘Academic GIS Program Fair’, and from Tuesday onwards is providing information on all UNIGIS Distance Learning offerings at our large booth in the main exhibit hall. UNIGIS programs are represented by faculty from several European institutions, US, Latin America and Asia – coordinated by the UNIGIS International secretary, Anna Szukalska from Poland.

IGU-Urban Geography Commission Conference

UNIGIS is conducting a GIS Education Workshop at the ’Emerging Urban Transformations 2009 Conference – Multilayered Cities and Urban Systems, organised by the IGU – Urban Geography Commission from 30th July to 9th August 2009, in Hyderabad, India. The workshop will bring together teachers and students, urban planners and practitioners from various munipalities. They presentaions and discussions will focus on GIS in spatial planning and management as well as on the problems and prospects of GIScience education in India. Dr. Shahnawaz from the Centre for Geoinformatics (Z_GIS), Salzburg University, Austria will conduct the workshop on 3rd August.

UNIGIS at HealthGIS – Hyderabad!

UNIGIS is organising a workshop during the Third International Conference on HealthGIS which will be held from 24th to 26th July, 2009 in Hyderabad, India. Dr. Shahnawaz from the Centre for Geoinformatics (Z_GIS), Salzburg University, Austria will lead this workshop on 26th July. The event intends to demonstrate the applications of GIS, Geoinformatics and GIScience in various fields of health care, epidemiology and related topics. In addition, the role of the international UNIGIS partnership for Online Distance Learning in GIScience is highlighted, enhancing the GI-capabilities of many professionals worldwide.

UIA Academic Excellence Prize 2009

The UNIGIS Int’l Association is pleased to announce the launch of its 2009 Academic Excellence Prize. The Academic Excellence Prize, launched by UIA in 2007/8, is awarded on an annual basis to a student, from one of the UNIGIS partner universities worldwide, who produces the most outstanding MSc Dissertation/Thesis or paper during the academic year (which here means 1st Sept 2008 to 31st August 2009). All UNIGIS centres are encouraged to take part in the competition. Candi­dates must submit their MSc thesis or their paper to the graduating UIA partner institution no later than August 31. UNIGIS members are reminded …