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the
UNIGIS and SPINlab staff wishes you a merry Christmas and a very
inspirati
onal
and happy new year!
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Geographical Information Systems (GIS) represents
one of the most rapidly expanding areas in Information Technology. GIS is seen increasingly
as an essential tool in many areas of government and business.
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The frequency of the UNIGIS newsletters has been irregular these past few years,
but we are confident that this silence is now compensated by the first edition of the electronic newsletter.
From now on, you will receive the Unigis Amsterdam Newsletter four times a year in your mailbox: each year
in March, June, September and December.
This new newsbulletin starts off together with the introduction of the new Unigis Amsterdam website.
Enjoy your UNIGIS news in the new format!
Unigis Amsterdam General News
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Highlights of 2005
by Henk Scholten
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Discussing highlights of 2005 is easy since there were plenty: 20 years of
Geodan, 15 years professor at the Vrije Universiteit, and 12 years of UNIGIS. There were many activities
around the celebrations, but at the same moment so many other things have happened. Highlights are always
very personal, so, I am sure that you have your own, and life never exists out of highlights alone.
These past months, many new GI-related research topics have gotten funding at our university, so you will
see the names of new Ph.D. students in our UNIGIS and SPINlab staff, and they are eager to discuss their
views on the future of GIS.
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But we never have spent much time on looking back at all the wonderful things which have happened. We prefer
to look forward, to involve you in our new plans and ideas.
The UNIGIS International organisation has grown, and is stronger than ever. Krakow was an excellent place to
discuss the strength, but also to make plans for the coming years. In these plans, accreditation has become an
important expression. Due to the new European policy on education, all members are in the middle of this certification
process, including Amsterdam. It will enable our network to also become a legally recognized one from European
perspective: everywhere in Europe your diploma will have the same value.
For UNIGIS Amsterdam, based on our evaluation of the cooperation we have with our students, we have put communication
high on our priority list for next year, and we have started working out the plans already as you can see:
- The UNIGIS Amsterdam website has an entirely new layout;
- The newsletter will appear in digital form, four times a year from now on, and
- We move to a new workshop-concept, the UNIGIS Amsterdam Conference: One big Annual UNIGIS Workshop open for
everybody within the Amsterdam network.
And of course, next to these structural changes, we also have other plans:
- We are planning several Workshops for 2006: Oracle spatial, Emergencies & GIS;
- The organization of a UNIGIS Summer Institute in the USA,
- and more...
We hope that by realizing all these plans, we will improve the communication with you, with our alumni, and with our colleagues.
I am really looking forward to our Annual Conference. Elsewhere in this newsletter you will find more information, but
I can tell you that I really love the idea of having everybody together at one conference every year. Everybody means students,
alumni, staff members and also our industrial partners.
In my opinion the Geo-ICT field is on the threshold of a new episode, and I would very much like to discuss together the
direction we have to take in these developments, the challenges and the barriers we see. And since we all know how important
distance can be, one week without distances for discussing the future of GIS, and demonstrating the facts and figures of our
experiences will be a very nice and profitable opportunity.
Enjoy the Christmas days, and I wish you all an inspiring 2006!
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More Highlights
by Mathilde Molendijk
One of the milestones of the past year was the royal decoration of
Henk Scholten as an “Officier in de Orde van Oranje Nassau” for his promotion of geo-information
in a national and international context. Particularly his role within the UNIGIS International
network has been greatly appreciated by the selection committee.
Read more…
Another heyday was the Kijkduin conference, in the dune area near The Hague. The Conference
was called 'A Changing Landscape; Making support to higher education and research in developing
countries more effective' (2005, isbn 9054640391, Ad Boeren and Gerrit Holtland eds.), organized
by Nuffic. Nuffic is the Dutch organization for international cooperation in higher education.
For the meeting, key stakeholders from all over the world were invited to share their views on
the future of international higher education. It was strange to find myself in such an exquisite
and selective company of (former) Ministers of Education, rectors and other VIPS of several exotic
countries, but the reason for my participation was the UNIGIS network as an innovative, feasible
example of international cooperation in higher education. It was inspiring to see that the
educational concepts of UNIGIS International still lies much ahead of mainstream academic education
and we feel very proud of this.
The article we wrote on this can be found at the UNIGIS website
And of course there was the GIS Conference of September in Rotterdam, and the GIN conference in
Amsterdam, where we fortunately met quite a number of UNIGIS students and alumni at the UNIGIS
booth and we could catch up. For me, the time and place dependent learning is more captivating than
the pure distance learning, so I hope to meet you at some of the events we are organizing in 2006,
but in any case we’ll meet at the UNIGIS Conference in June 2006!
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Workshops at the Unigis Amsterdam Annual Conference!
by Mathilde Molendijk
From 2006 onwards, the compulsory workshops of the UNIGIS program will be fully embedded
within a UNIGIS Amsterdam conference, to be held annually! Please write
down the date for this conference: June 12 – 16, 2006 in Amsterdam (VE 90 near the Vondelpark)!
At this conference you will meet all current UNIGIS students, as well as the alumni of the network. The Conference
consists of plenary sessions touching upon current issues within GIS, and separate (still compulsory) workshops on:
Spatial Analysis (the famous Workshop II); on Decision Support (the notorious Workshop III); on the MSc.
research project and the writing of a thesis; and a special workshop for the alumni. This way we still
address the requirements of both workshops, but we facilitate more interaction between all UNIGIS intakes
and alumni. At the same time, we will be able to invite prominent international keynote speakers.
We are convinced this new structure is a big step forward to upgrade the quality of the content as well as the
social and networking aspects of the workshops.
Read more...
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UNIGIS Big Meeting in Krakow
by Mathilde Molendijk
The UNIGIS BM was organized this year by UNIGIS Poland, the newest member of the UNIGIS
International Network. During the meeting the UNIGIS International strategic options, marketing, finances and other
issues were discussed. Highlights were, except meeting all these old friends again, the UNIGIS honorary professorship
for Dr. James Petch and the ……… for the UNIGIS Amsterdam eternal student Han Wammes. There are also plans for
organizing several Summer Schools in 2006; John Wilson from UNIGIS U.S. is planning a Summer School just preceding
the ESRI Conference in California.
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Read more on the Jagiellonian University (Krakow)...
Read more Read more on the UNIGIS honorary awards ...
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New MSc coordinator
by Jasper Dekkers
After having coordinated the MSc trajectory of the Unigis postgraduate curriculum, Margaret Jones announced
she would be moving to the South of France and thus leave Unigis Amsterdam. This meant a vacancy had to be filled. I am happy to announce
that I have taken over the MSc coordination responsibilities from Margaret.
My job will be to guide and support the Unigis students who have obtained their Diploma and are entering the MSc-part of the curriculum.
If you are interested in doing the MSc, you can contact me for more information.
This change also means I will not be coordinating workshop II anymore. Next year my new colleague Willem Loonen will be doing that.
This past period, several students graduated, obtaining their Master of Science title with a fine piece of work! For your information, a
summary of their theses is included below. Enjoy reading!
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GIS and the mayor
In July this year, MSc student Herman Jan Frieling completed his MSc Thesis. The title of his postgraduate research dissertation
is: 'GIS and the mayor - support during calamities and disasters'. It describes the Dutch disaster management system
and pinpoints at two specific aspects; the role of the mayor and the role of GIS in this process and the way the first can
benefit of the second.
Read more…
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Mobile GIS and land valuation
MSc student Jaco de Kock has been with us in Amsterdam for some months during his MSc trajectory in 2004. Back in South-Africa,
he finished his studies and graduated after a virtual presentation for the Unigis exam committee. The title of his dissertation
is: 'Utilisation of Mobile GIS for Optimal Appraisals in Land Valuation and Taxation'.
Read more…
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Geomarketing
Two years ago by now I wrote an artikel as part of my Msc thesis about geomarketing. The paper aims to give insight in the field
of geomarketing. Geomarketing, a case study: the use of GIS for the development of a marketing strategy for the Free University of Amsterdam
serves as an example to illustrate what geomarketing involves.
Read more…
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Alumni most welcome at the UNIGIS Annual Conference
You are invited for the UNIGIS 2006 Conference: June 12 – 16, 2006 in Amsterdam (VE 90 near the Vondelpark)!
Inspired by the Lustrum Conference we organized in Soesterberg in 2003, we came to the conclusion that we should organize such a Conference
on a yearly basis, open for all UNIGIS students and alumni. As from 2006 onwards, we are carrying this out this plan and we hope this new
approach turns out to be a big success, with lots of alumni interested to participate.
At this conference you can up-date your knowledge on new developments in the field of spatial information, and, more important, to get into
contact again with your fellow UNIGIS alumni, meet the current students on the program and meet all the UNIGIS staff of the VU.
Read more…
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Pieter Minnaar
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My name is Pieter Minnaar. I am married and I have three children. In 2002 we made a
big move from South Africa to the Netherlands. Since then I have been working for Realworld, mostly in the utility industry.
One of the reasons that I decided to do the UNIGIS course was to simply broaden my knowledge of GIS and GIS software.
When you work only with Smallworld one tends to not be part of the GIS mainstream. The other reason is to get a
qualification that is recognized the EU.
I have really enjoyed the course so far and I am looking forward to carrying on with the software development track of UNIGIS next year.
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My name is Taciana Soerodimedjo. I’m currently working for the Project Management Unit
of the GLIS-project (PMU-GLIS). The mission of the PMU-GLIS is to put up a Land registration and Land Information
System for Suriname. This system has the same characteristics as a Geographic Information System, with the emphasis on land.
Therefore, it is important that the people who are going to work with the system have sufficient knowledge of the
way Geographic Information Systems operate and to manage such systems.
Furthermore it is important to integrate GIS-studies in the educational system of the Anton de Kom University of Suriname
and the senior secondary-level Technical Institute (NATIN). As a teacher at the senior secondary-level Technical Institute
(NATIN) sufficient knowledge of GIS would help to keep up with the newest technology in the field of Geodesy.
For more information about me, please visit my personal website
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Taciana Soerodimedjo
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Elke Verbeeten
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My name is Elke Verbeeten, working since one year as a research fellow with the Center for
International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in their regional office in Burkina Faso. I am working in their 'Environmental
Services and Sustainable Use of Forests' program, on the 'Forests & Water' subtheme. I am using hydrological models to
gain more understanding of the influence of vegetation on infiltration, ground water recharge and dry season river flow.
Having quite some experience with GIS, but mainly map making, I hope to get a more solid background in GIS with this UNIGIS course.
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Saying hello and goodbye
There have been changes in staff over the last period. Rosan van Wilgenburg, Anne Rooseboom,
Wilem Loonen and Arda Riedijk joined the team, and much to our regret, Margaret Jones and Eleni Koulouki have left the UNIGIS team.
Read more…
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Geostatistics workshop - Girona
by Jasper Dekkers
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On Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 November 2005, Unigis Spain organised the geostatistics workshop. They invited
Konstantin Krivoruchko, a spatial statistics expert and currently leading ESRI´s Geostatistical Analyst software development team, to
give lectures and practicals on geostatistics.
There was a relatively large Dutch Unigis-group present, consisting of three students and four staff members.
Read more…
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Mobile Tourism - Ecomare
by Eduardo Dias
Last summer, the visitors to the Ecomare dune park (in Texel) could try out an
innovative information system, LEDI (Location Entertainment and Didactic Information). LEDI is a mobile
information system that provides visitors of natural areas and parks with information about their surroundings
using smart phones and GPS. The SPINLab was involved in testing the concept in practice.
Read more…
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Unigis staff exchange Amsterdam - Girona
by Eric Koomen
One of the best things of UNIGIS is that it is an international network. This allows
the sharing of knowledge, materials and occasionally personnel across borders. At the Vrije Universiteit´s SPINlab
offices, which host most of the UNIGIS-Amsterdam staff, we have received several staff-members from our
colleague-institute in Spain. So I thought it was about time to make a counter-visit to the beautiful city of Girona.
Read more…
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Calendar &
Activities
January 2006
Symposium Manolo: Mobiel leren in de praktijk
De Vrije Universiteit organiseert samen met Wageningen Universiteit (WUR) op dinsdag 24 januari 2006 te Wageningen een symposium over de
toepassing van mobiele ICT en GIS in het universitair onderwijs.
Tijdens het symposium worden praktische voorbeelden gegeven van toepassingen van mobiel leren aan de VU en WUR, en worden evaluatieresultaten gepresenteerd.
Klik hier voor meer informatie
Since the focus of this seminar is Dutch, the information is provided only in Dutch. Our apologies.
Seminar Rampenbestrijding
Unigis alumni & GUFO organiseren een Seminar over Rampenbestrijding.
Het seminar vindt plaats op donderdag 26 januari 2006 te Almelo.
Klik hier voor meer informatie
Since the focus of this symposium is Dutch, the information is provided only in Dutch. Our apologies.
February 2006
Oracle Spatial Workshop
The Oracle Spatial Workshop to be held February 2 and 3 2006 is now open for subscription. Click on the Oracle logo for more information.
Information Session Intake 2006
Are you interested in GIS and do you want to learn more about the subject? Unigis can help! An Information Session for the new intake will be
held on Friday February 17 2006 at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Come and visit us!
Click here for more information
Of course you can always contact us through our website or by phone should you not be able to visit us.
March 2006
Workshop 1 Intake March
Friday 17th of March 2006, Unigis starts with a new Intake of students.
This day, a first introductory workshop will be held at the VU in Amsterdam from 13.00 to 17.00 hours.
New students are invited to download information and registration forms
from our website.
If you know colleagues or friends are interested in learning more about GIS, please do not hesitate to send them a link to the Unigis network. And do not forget to point out
the possibility to visit our information session on February 17 2006!
June 2006
Unigis Annual Conference
The UNIGIS Amsterdam 2006 Conference will be held June 12 – 16, 2006
Inspired by the Lustrum Conference we organized in Soesterberg in 2003, we came to the conclusion that we should organize
such a Conference on a yearly basis, open for all UNIGIS students and alumni.
The compulsory workshops II and III will be part of this conference.
Click here for more information
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