|
|
|
|
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.
|
Time does fly, doesn't it? Here's already the third electronic UNIGIS Newsletter, edition Autumn 2006.
The first official UNIGIS Amsterdam Annual Conference is some months behind us. Ahead of us is the new study year. As always,
we have a fresh new groups of GIS-students starting their curriculum.
What do we have for you in this newsletter? OK, let's see. We have some news on our advancements in the official accreditation procedures for the
UNIGIS studies, we have one of our new MSc applicants introducing his research topic, reports from the Alumni day and of course we have lots of
news from the past Unigis Conference.
Enjoy reading your UNIGIS news!
Unigis Amsterdam General News
|
back to top
|
To educate, to discover, to enjoy...
by Henk Scholten
|
What makes our life of UNIGIS teachers so interesting is not just the task to educate.
It is a wonderfull experience to get the possibilities to learn more of the background and daily secrets of our students.
Of course they are no secrets at all for you, but they often are for us. To discover the equipment one of you uses, including the rubber boat
itself, for mapping a river through Washington State untill the border of Canada. And that story, including the pictures brings
me to another story where the student went one step further than showing the pictures, inviting all of us, to experience the
possibilities of the brand new catamaran of the Ministry of Traffic and Water to map the floor of the North Sea.
|
|
Some of us will prefer the pictures of the rubber boat in Seattle instead of the high-speed boat
(top of 25 knots means a racing machine!) but as a sailor man I really enjoyed this part of our work, life time experience.
But it is just an example, you all have so many interesting stories to tell, and there is ample time
to listen. Why not starting our UNIGIS Google Earth Community, putting our stories on the google earth globe?
Jasper and I have put the pictures of our catamaran experience already on the globe, and we look forward to receiving yours, including the ones of the rubber boat.
You can download the KML-file of our Unigis Alumni trip to RWS by right-clicking and saving the zipped KML-file
here.
Henk
|
New Intake has started
by Mathilde Molendijk
The September Intake 2006 has just started with the programme,
consisting of a group of 12 students from 7 countries (from Japan to Curacao and from Elst to
South Africa). The educational background varies as well (surveying, informatics, forestry, consultancy and more),
like the place of work (National Forest Service, Water and sewerage management, consultancy firm and more). Some of the students will
introduce themselves in this newsletter.
On behalf of the UNIGIS team, we wish the new students lots of success with their studies.
|
Collaborative learning pilot module 1
by Mathilde Molendijk
To make life difficult from the start, we introduced a new way of learning
in the first Module: an assignment in which small groups of students have to deliver a group report on
the 'Analysis of a GIS: components and linkages'. The idea behind this assignment is that the professional
students cannot only learn a lot from the module materials, they can learn substantially from each other!
(FYI: this is backed up by evidence from numerous academic educational studies of course).
We used modern software to support this collaborative distance learning: connecting to the virtual meeting
place at the same time, we could meet the students, demonstrate the websites of the students (the software
has application - and desktop sharing possibilities), see each other via the webcam, chat etc. Not all people
survived the software battle, and for some unknown technical reasons, the connection failed. In some cases
we shifted to Skype. Being the new tutor of Module 1, I liked the virtual meetings a lot and this way the learning
for me becomes less 'distance'. I appreciate your efforts to participate in the meetings a lot, thanks! We are
looking forward to your results.
|
As the world turns
by Mathilde Molendijk
Before the end of this year, we expect a so-called 'site-visit' of the NVAO,
the Dutch accreditation organization. This organization will assess the UNIGIS programme and will advice
on whether or not we can start with the fulltime variant of our GIS education (for regular daytime students).
The UNIGIS programme of our colleagues in the UK has just been assessed formally, with positive results.
Congratulations, and I hope UNIGIS Amsterdam will follow soon!
|
New MSc applicants
by Jasper Dekkers
The new intake also brings new MSc applicants. Next to our MSc student from Europe, we currently have
two African students doing their MSc project and one American student. André Coleman, the American student, who some of you may
have encoutered at the UNIGIS Conference last June, was asked to introduce his thesis subject to the readers of this
newsletter. Don't let the title of his project scare you of, it is truly interesting. Enjoy reading!
|
An Adaptive Landscape Classification Model Utilizing Geoinformatics and Artificial Neural Networks
by André Coleman
Geographic Study Area
The Columbia River watershed boundary can be viewed using Google Earth via the following KML file available from my website:
crws.kml
Summary of Proposed Thesis Work
Environmental management and research within large heterogeneous watersheds provides challenges for consistent evaluation and
understanding of system processes. Many large river watersheds throughout the world exhibit highly diverse characteristics
of climate, hydrology, physiography, ecology, and anthropogenic influence within its boundaries. Assessing, mitigating, and
managing large systems is difficult largely due to varying natural characteristics, large geographic areas, domestic and
international political boundaries, and varying degrees of spatial, temporal, and empirical data availability and quality.
These characteristics often allow only specific geographic areas and research/monitoring topics to be realized. Through
the development of data relationships and patterning, existing geographically specific studies and data can be used to
infer responses of other areas which have limited available data, but exhibit similar landscape characteristics.
An Adaptive Landscape Classification Model (ALCM) is introduced which utilizes Artificial Neural Networks applied to
observed and derived geospatial data. This research specifically evaluates landscape patterns to estimate characteristic
watershed responses to precipitation and land use for several unique and diverse areas within the Columbia River watershed.
The model provides an adaptive and evolutionary capability in which varying types of data can be incorporated to evaluate
different management needs such as water quality, aquatic habitat, groundwater recharge, and land use. This approach aims
to achieve a consistent, system-wide, and multi-scaled approach for providing data and information to environmental managers
and researchers.
Read more...
|
|
Alumni Field Event 2006
Friday September 8th had the annual Unigis VU Alumni day. This time, the Alumniday was organised
at Rijkswaterstaat in the province of Noord-Holland. We had an excellent opportunity to "go backstage" at this organisation and see what role GIS plays in the daily
tasks of Rijkswaterstaat's employees and processes.
Read more...
|
|
|
Alumni Invitation for 2007
UNIGIS Alumni - please note in your agenda's: June 15 2007, Amsterdam: UNIGIS Annual Conference 2007. We will organise
a special session for the alumni on this day to discuss Alumni access to new study material and other interesting issues.
Alumni, be realistic: you simply can't afford to miss this event!
|
|
Alex Lugadiru
|
My name is Alex Lugaridu from Kenia. I studied Polytechnic, with as main subject Land survey & cartography.
I am still studying at the Kenian School of professional studies, with as main subject IT. I am Currently working at UNEP as a GIS assistant.
Since l work in a Humanitarian Organization,the programe will enhance my GIS skills where we have to make meaning of trends, monitoring and
evaluation, planning, analysing patterns and anomalies and effectively communicate this to the Humanitarian community, the public and the other
players in the region as a whole. It will also put me in a more diverse position interms of approaching this issues.
|
My name is Peter van den Pol and I work as a GIS consultant at Staatsbosbeheer.
After I followed many short workshops and courses in the field of applied GIS, I decided to look for more: more theory, more in-debt knowledge
and a more academic approach. I wanted to have a better theoretical baggage so that I can place my usual work in the total perspective of GIS.
With this idea in my mind I started researching the possibilities for post-graduated education in GIS. Some months later I entered the UNIGIS
programme. The theory I was looking for, the international and the possibility to combine studying with daily work made me enthusiastic to join UNIGIS.
I look forward to meeting people who work, research and think in the field of Geo-information. A warm welcome at SPINLab last September assists
me to succeed in the programme. Finally, the start was interesting: discussing essays via a webcam and a headset with two African classmates!
|
Peter van den Pol
|
|
Graziella Ito
|
My name is Graziella Ito. For the past 10 years, I have been a humanitarian worker in various war-affected countries,
trying to assist the population in having access to reasonable water- and sanitation facilities, mainly facing emergency situations and urgent needs.
Throughout these experiences, always in remote areas and with very few work-related data available, I often faced difficulties of organisation skills,
decision-making, and orientation of the actions to take, mainly because we have very little access to information/data and very little time to react.
|
Common sense has always been THE helping tool. These various arguments brought me to believe that GIS could be a very comprehensive helping tool to
face these situations, mainly as a user of the implementation of GIS (mapping is a key in remote places, but also organisation skills).
I believe that the GIS implementation will help me, in a situation, to setup an efficient working framework assisting me in decision-making and appropriate action.
In addition, being the mother of 2 kids (Umi - 6 years and Chjara - 3 years), I will not be able to work in such a emmergency context
(safety being a valuable limitating factor). However, I would like to continue to assist the humanitarian actors. As an external actor, GIS could
bring me to provide material, experience and expertise to humanitarian actors in the field (i.e. producing maps, data collection and other
remote-controlled actions/missions).
|
|
New staff
We welcome three new colleagues at the SPINlab, who will be working on various projects in both
Research and Education: Simone Verzandvoort (EduGIS), Harmen Hofstra
(GDI for Disaster Management) and Alessandra Scotta
(Touch Table Apps). Welcome!
GIS is growing rapidly, also at the VU: The SPINlab team now houses 29 people of whom the larger part is involved in UNIGIS in some way.
Read more...
|
|
Unigis Amsterdam Annual Conference - June 12-16 '06 - Amsterdam
by Mathilde Molendijk
In June we organised for all UNIGIS students the Annual Conference 2006
in VE'90 in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. The programme consisted of a mixture of plenary lectures and
parallel workshops. Twenty-six students attended the conference, from eight countries. The weather was wonderful,
the surroundings superb, the lunch buffets and diner at the Wok restaurant were tasty, and on top of this, you
delivered excellent work. On the last day of the conference, the alumni were invited as well. For the UNIGIS staff,
this is the best week of the year and we enjoyed catching up with you. Many thanks for making it a success!
Please note in your agenda's: next years Annual conference 2007 will take place on 11- 15 June 2007 in Amsterdam.
Besides the plenary lectures and workshops, we intend to set up an MSc. session. We will also organise a special session
for the alumni on Friday 15 to discuss Alumni access to new study materials and other interesting issues.
Alumni, you can't afford to miss this event!
|
|
UNIGIS Conference - Workshop 2 report
by Adriaan Tas
This year, not only the location of the workshop changed, but also the topic
and assignment for workshop II were completely modified. Whereas foregoing years, the students were asked
to develop risk maps for a coral reef in the Indonesian Bay of Banten, this year the topic shifted towards
disaster management and students had to work on a solution for creating a risk map indicating high risk areas
for an outbreak of Bird Flu in the Netherlands.
Kick started by presentation by Niels van der Weide, specialist in Bird Flu and currently working as an intern
at the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Safety, and Prof. Dr. Fabbri, Professor in Geo-information
and Risk Analysis at the Free University, the students embarked on their assignment. During two sweaty and one
rather chilly day, they worked out quite different solutions to the problem, which resulted in very interesting
presentations on the fourth and last day of the workshop.
The workshop was brought to a close with a cheerful diner. We were very happy to hear from a lot of the participants
that they really appreciated the workshop and had a very good time with us in Amsterdam. We hope next year the
workshop will be as nice again, successful and gratifying as this year and we wish all students a very good
continuation of their Unigis-studies!
|
|
UNIGIS Conference - Workshop 3
GI(S) and negotiations in spatial planning
by Nancy Omtzigt
|
|
This year was the last time that the Vecht area was used as case study for workshop 3.
The Vecht area is a rural area between the cities of Amsterdam and Utrecht, where the interests of agriculture and
nature are in conflict. Add a rising demand for water storage capacity due to climatic change, and the battle for
scarce space can begin. The outcome of this process should be a realistic spatial plan, acceptable for all stakeholders.
How can that be achieved?
|
|
In workshop 3 this process is supported by a GIS model and a multi criteria analyses tool,
thus illustrating the role of this kind of tools in complex decision making processes. The workshop participants play the role
of stakeholder groups in the study area: farmers, nature conservation and the water board.
According to tradition, the field trip to the study area is accompanied by rain and thunderstorm. But not this year:
sun cream was more needed then rubber boots.
Running the workshop with this case study for the fifth time, you
would expect to know how the participants will take up their role as stakeholders, and how these stakeholder groups
will interact. But also this year the students did surprise the staff with new arguments and creative use of the provided tools.
This illustrates an important learning objective of this workshop: there are many tools available that can be used in spatial
planning processes, however none of these tools will give you the ultimate solution for your problem. But when used in an
intelligent and sensible way, the tools can support these kind of processes. As staff members, we try to encourage the
participants to be critical when using these kind of instruments, and to make them see that the desired outcome sometimes
can be achieved by manipulation or cheating with these models. The participants of this year showed us during the presentations
that they understood how to do the last: all four presented plans appeared to be the best possible solution for the area, truly an amazing result!
Although next year the case study for workshop will change, the learning goals of workshop 3 will remain the same: how can
spatial tools contribute to solve complex land use problems, en how should the results of such tools be interpreted.
|
Calendar &
Activities
November 2006
GIN-conference
Wednesday November 15th the annual GIN-conference (Geo-Informatie Nederland) will be held at the Reehorst in Ede. This year, the theme is geo-innovation.
The Conference will be co-organised by RGI (Ruimte voor Geo-Informatie).
Visit their website for more information
IVM Lustrum conference
Wednesday November 22nd the Insitute for Environmental Studies will celebrate its 35th birthday by organising a conference on 'The Future of the Randstad'.
Lots of interesting guest speakers are invited to share their views with us on climate change, the effects of increased mobility et cetera.
Visit their website for more information
March 2007
Information Session Intake March 2007
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 March 2nd 2007 at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Come and visit us!
Information will be made available through our website in due time.
And of course you can always contact us, through our website or by phone should you not be able to visit us.
Start Intake March 2007
The new intake will start at Friday March 16th 2007 at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam with WOrkshop 1.
Information will be made available through our website in due time.
And of course you can always contact us, through our website or by phone should you not be able to visit us.
June 2007
UNIGIS Conference
Monday 11 through Friday 15th of June 2007, the Annual UNIGIS Conference will be held at vE'90 in Amsterdam.
Workshops 2 and 3, plenary sessions and an Alumni event will be all part of the Conference
Information will be made available through our website in due time.
And of course you can always contact us, through our website or by phone should you not be able to visit us.
Alumni event 2007
Friday 15th of June 2007, an Alumni day will be organised at the UNIGIS Conference. Special guest speakers will be invited and we also want to
discuss with you the possibility of giving Alumni access to new UNIGIS study material.
Information will be made available through our website in due time.
And of course you can always contact us, through our website or by phone should you not be able to visit us.
|
Vrije Universiteit, dep. Regional Economics ; De Boelelaan 1105 ; 1081 HV Amsterdam ; Room 3a-38 (Main Building) ;
Telephone: +31 (0)20-5986099
unigis@feweb.vu.nl
|
|
