Welcome UNIGIS Turkey!

Dr. Deniz Gerçek

Turkish language 'lifelong learning' students are now supported through a local UNIGIS Turkey contact point that is coordinated by Dr. Deniz Gerçek. Dr Gerçek received her PhD from the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara and conducted part of her PhD studies at the University of Salzburg.

Since 2010 she is affiliated with Kocaeli University in İzmit. Her research focus is on Remote Sensing and Object-Based Image Analysis connecting with other fields of GIScience including Spatial Statistics, and Application Development.

The first cohort of Turkish students will be welcomed for the next student intake in autumn. Applications for UNIGIS professional and UNIGIS MSc programs already have been opened.

If your native language is Turkish, are interested in our distance learning programmes and are keen to develop your career in a geospatial discipline, UNIGIS@Turkey as a partner of the University of Salzburg is looking forward to hearing from you via office.turkey@unigis.net!

Top award for UNIGIS América Latina Director Richard Resl

Jack Dangermond with
Richard and Domingo on stage

During the plenary session of this year's Esri User Conference (see link at bottom for bilingual slides), Richard Resl and Domingo Ankuash received the 'Making a Difference' award from Esri's Jack Dangermond. This distinction highlights their work towards preserving Amazonian Indians' land rights and livelihoods.

Domingo's present to Jack Dangermond:
'maps serving as our spears'

Through the AmazonGISnet initiative the territories of indigenous groups are documented to preserve this native and pristine environment for their next generations. After being applauded by the 15000 strong audience for their impressive talk, Domingo presented a ceremonial spear to Jack Dangermond, symbolizing the role of maps and GIS in defending their homelands.

Richard Resl, Josef Strobl,
Domingo Ankuash and ESRI's Mike Gould

Congratulations to both leaders of this initiative, and to Richard for not only successfully managing UNIGIS in Latin America, but also facilitating outstanding participative GIS support for various groups of citizens!

>>> Presentation slides

50th workshop at UNIGIS Kraków, Poland

In the middle of June students of intake 2015 together with the organizers celebrated  the 50th workshop in the history of Postgraduate Studies in Geographic Information Systems UNIGIS at Jagiellonian University in Kraków.

After regular classes on GPS data collection in laboratories and in the field, students and teachers gathered in the social room of the Institute of Geography and Spatial Management JU. A speech of the programme director prof. Jacek Kozak opened the meeting, then students and teachers tasted cake and strawberries, that accompanied informal consultations.

With this significant anniversary we started next enrolment of candidates for the UNIGIS studies beginning in October 2016. For further information please visit http://www.unigis.uj.edu.pl/ or send an e-mail to unigis@gis.geo.uj.edu.pl.

Registration for 2016 intake in Poland is now open!

Meet UNIGIS at the Esri conferences

Meet UNIGIS at the biggest GIS event of the year, the Esri User Conference in San Diego. From June 25th until June 30th, you can find UNIGIS in the different exhibition areas during the Esri User Conference:

June 25 and 26 at the Esri Education GIS Conference table #E202

June 27 at the Esri Academic GIS Program Fair table #A105

June 28, 29 and 30 at the Esri User Conference booth #2401

We look forward to an exciting event together with you!

More information about the different UNIGIS programmes: www.unigis.net.

UNIGIS accredited by AQ Austria

Through systematic evaluation, feedback and international cooperation, UNIGIS Salzburg has always strived for top national and international quality standards in terms of content, structure and organisation of the two distance learning study programmes UNIGIS professional and UNIGIS MSc.

National regulations in Austria, however, do not provide a legal framework for external evaluation of study programmes at federal universities by the official national accreditation agency AQ Austria. Therefore guidelines for a voluntary accreditation first had to be established.

Today we can proudly state that UNIGIS is the first continuing education programme ('Universitätslehrgang') at a national university in Austria reviewed and successfully accredited by AQ Austria. After a thorough pilot assessment process UNIGIS Salzburg not only was awarded full and unconditional accreditation, but also received excellent feedback from the review committee. In parallel with the accreditation, the 1-year programme UNIGIS professional was certified to meet level 6 of the European Qualification Framework (EQF 6) and UNIGIS MSc fulfills the EQF 7 standard of European Master programmes in Higher Education.

The official award ceremony will take place on  Thursday, July 7th during this year's AGIT / GI_Forum conference.

Summer school opportunities 2016

Cabot Institute Summer School on risk and uncertainty in natural hazards 2016

11 - 17 July 2016 at University of Bristol, UK
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/events/2016/cabot-summer-school-2016.html

Smart Cities: Designing Places and U

rban Mentalities - Vienna Summer School 2016

21 - 29 August 2016 at TU Wien, Austria
http://summerschool2016-smartcity.tuwien.ac.at/

N.B. Upon the successful completion of summer schools, ECTS could be awarded towards the Elective subject, both for MSc and UNIGIS professional study programmes.

GI_Forum 2016 registration now open

GI_Forum 2016
open : spatial : interfaces

July 5- 8, 2016 | Salzburg, Austria

GI_Forum 2016 provides a platform for dialogue among geospatial minds in an ongoing effort to support the creation of an informed GeoInformation Society. Bearing in mind different perspectives from a variety of professions, presentations as well as workshops and exhibitions will concentrate on innovations in education, science and technologies. The spatial sciences today contribute significantly to a more just, ethical and sustainable society. Prominent keynote speakers will highlight new developments, offer insights into trends and visions, and at the same time be individually accessible for our Young Researchers.

Themes & Application Fields. 

This year’s GI_Forum motto is “open:spatial:interfaces”; we thus solicit contributions as full and short papers focusing on, but not limited to the following themes:

• Advances in GIScience, especially analytics and geovisualization
• Innovations in geospatial technologies
• Spatial Data Infrastructures 
• Spatial citizenship
• Empirical research in spatial education 
• Learning Environments: primary and secondary education

Special sessions, tracks and workshops

• Urban Geoinformatics: Citizen Engagement and VGI Analytics for Smart Cities
• GI-Curriculum Design 2.0
• Spatial Perspectives on Transport Systems
• Integrated Assessment of Risk and Vulnerability

GI_Forum is organized by the Department of Geoinformatics – Z_GIS in cooperation with the Austrian Academy of Sciences and runs concurrently with the highly regarded German language conference on Applied Geoinformatics – AGIT. The two symposia share the innovative AGIT EXPO exhibit and stimulating social events.

Registration is open until June 25, 2016! Follow this link to register: http://gi-forum.org/registration.

SPECIAL RATE of € 220,- for active UNIGIS Students

The special rate includes all events of the GI_Forum and the German-language counterpart, AGIT. For the registration note the aforementioned deadline and link.

We are looking forward to your contribution!


Josef Strobl - Conference Chair

Adrijana Car - Programme Chair

Thomas Jekel - Programme Chair

Celebrating 25 years of UNIGIS UK

Friday 24th June 2016, 1pm (for a 1.30pm start) – 5pm

University of Salford, Digital Performance Lab, Salford Quays, M50 2HE

Are you a GIS specialist? Are you interested in GIS? Want to learn more about
developing a career in GIS?

Join UNIGIS UK for an afternoon of activities to celebrate 25 years of online and distance
learning in Geographical Information Systems.

The occasion will include:

• a discussion panel with guest speakers from academia and industry, including Professor Bob Barr (OBE), Dr Richard Armitage (University of Salford), and Rob Sharpe (ESRI UK);
• a poster session showcasing the work of UNIGIS students and staff; 
• and a networking event offering attendees the opportunity to connect with people working in the GIS sector and discuss the key issues for those wishing to become GIS professionals.

If you are interested in what GIS can do for your place and would like to find out more,
then come along to this free event, where you can meet industry and university
researchers who will be showcasing the kind of work that they do.

Attendance at the event is free but please reserve your ticket online.

For further information contact the UNIGIS UK Office (+44 161 247 6199;
unigis@mmu.ac.uk)

UNIGIS is a worldwide network of universities cooperating since 1992 in the design,
development and delivery in Geographical Information Systems. Over 1,000
professionals from all over the world are following the UNIGIS programme.
UNIGIS UK is a partnership between University of Salford and Manchester
Metropolitan University.

Workshop: Geo-Entrepreneurship - Using Location to Enhance Your Competitive Advantage

Recommendation for UNIGIS students and alumni, AGIT/FOSSGIS 2016 participants!

Special offer for this 1,5 days workshop around AGIT 2016 in Salzburg! Build your Geo-business idea and learn how to face certain issues on the way towards market readiness. The participants of this workshop will deal with these issues and experience important skills to bring their business into market. These skills are not only for young entrepreneurs, they are helpful for company projects as well. The workshop will take place during AGIT-week in Salzburg.
Also consider visiting www.agit.at/startup

 


Dr. Ian Heywood teaches at the Business School at university of Aberdeen with a focus on practical contexts guiding through crucial business startup processes. One of the highlights of this workshop will be the guest lecture by Ed Parsons, Googles Geospatial Technologist, giving hints about GI entrepreneurship.

Deadline extended. you can still register!



Workshop details and registration 

UNIGIS professional Workshop: Replacing Question Marks

Who are those people running UNIGIS? 
Who will be my colleagues? 
What are their reasons to acquire in depth GI-knowledge and skills? 
How will the study-year to come be organized? 
What can I do to get the most out of it? 
Was it a wise decision to invest a considerable amount of time and money into this endeavor?

 
Questions like these our 16 new UNIGIS professional students might have had in mind, when traveling to the introductory UNIGIS professional workshop taking place in Salzburg last weekend. Although predominantly very positive answers from our graduates to the last question are promising, individual answers will require a personal long term retrospective. Apart from that, we are confident that the workshop provided enough opportunities to remove most of the remaining question marks and replace them by an overall positive outlook towards the intensive period of learning ahead!