Capacity Building Initiatives of UNIGIS Latin America

During the last weeks, UNIGIS in Latin America carried out a series of capacity building initiatives in Ecuador and Colombia. By beginning of March, a new residential program for GIS-based Management of Indigenous Territories in the Amazon Lowlands was initiated under the lead of Richard Resl, UNIGIS program director at USFQ. He and his highly motivated staff welcomed a first group of members of the indigenous communities of Woarani, Siona, A' I (Cofan), Siekopaai, Shuar, Kichwa, and Achuars to become part of this initative over the next five months. For further information please see: http://amazongisnet.blogspot.com

In cooperation with the UNIGIS study Center at Universidad ICESI in Cali, Colombia two 5-day LIDAR courses were offered to an interested and diverse group of students of the Federal Department of Maritime Affairs (DIMAR) and members of the National Colombian Center for Coffee Research (CENICAFE), who showed great interest to introduce this technology at their institutions.

GIS for managing vulnerable environments of the Galapagos-Islands

Over the last decades, the Galapagos Islands have faced a considerable rise in human activities (tourism, population growth and migration, exploitation of natural resources like fishing and agriculture) which has resulted in increased pressure on both, the marine and terrestrial ecological system of the islands. In order to develop a GIS-based information-management system that allows controlling of human interaction with the islands’ environment and adjusting human activities to its limited capacities, a group an international group of GIS-experts under the lead of ZGIS was invited by local authorities and the UNIGIS-partner in Ecuador USFQ to participate in a 7-day workshop at the GAIAS extension of USFQ (Universidad San Francisco de Quito) at San Cristobal Island in February, 2014, that addressed this topic in tight cooperation with local communities and citizen initiatives. For further information about this ongoing initiative please see http://geogalapagos.blogspot.com.

Learning step by step: UNIGIS Salzburg offers a new Microlearn-Application

The UNIGIS distance learning programme provides not only theoretical concepts in Geoinformatics and GIScience, but also highly application-oriented skills: Keeping up with the latest concepts in methodology and didactics is one of the goals of the UNIGIS Team.

Since February 2014 UNIGIS Salzburg offers the opportunity to use the Microlearn-Application “Knowledge Pulse”, developed by Research Studios Austria. As we know it from "googling" or learning of vocabulary with index cards, Microlearning is a learning concept to strengthen the knowledge step by step within a short period. Especially students of a distance learning programme have a lot of advantages by using this application: The software can be installed on notebooks, smartphones or tablets and can be used regardless of the location. A great number of UNIGIS students are already using the great opportunity of Microlearning.

More information on UNIGIS distance learning: > www.unigis.net