UNIGIS at HealthGIS 2013 in Bangkok!

UNIGIS was invited to contribute to a GIScience capacity building workshop at the 5th International  Conference on HealthGIS held in Bangkok, Thailand from 21st to 23rd August, 2013. Dr Shahnawaz (Director UNIGIS S/E Asia) conducted the workshop entitled 'GIScience Education and Training - the Need for Health Professionals' which was attended by more than 30 participants having their disciplinary background in a range of subjects, however a large majority came from various areas of health related fields either by education or by professional engagements.

An extended discussion focussed on the issue that conventionally health professionals are not taught / trained to use geospatial data, technologies and tools. These are becoming increasingly important for understanding the dynamics of several illnesses and diseases. They also expressed that they have rarely come across a GIScience education / training programme designed to fulfíll the needs of the health professionals.

The overall conclusion of the workshop was that there is a pressing need of developing and introducing short duration GIScience education / training programmes specifically designed for health professionals. A nearly unanimous proposal from the audience suggested that an international organisation like UNIGIS should take initiative in this direction, because it has well established experience of designing, developing and offering innovative online distance learning programmes in GIScience and -Systems.

UNIGIS Week in Kathmandu, Nepal!

UNIGIS@Kathmandu celebrated the 1^st year of its inception at Kathmandu Forestry College (KAFCOL) during the week of 12^th to 16^th August, 2013. The event was inaugurated with a meeting of the Board of Studies attended by Dr. Ramji P. Neupane (KAFCOL President), Dr. Bishnu H. Pandit (KAFCOL Principal), Dr. Krishna P. Poudel (UNIGIS Coordinator) and Dr. Shahnawaz (Director, UNIGIS S/E Asia). The board reviewed the progress of UNIGIS during the last year and appraised the overall strategy for further expansion during the next years.

 Dr. Shahnawaz and Dr. Krishna P. Poudel conducted 2 intensive workshops, including an orientation workshop for 12 new students of the 2^nd intake as well as a Project Management and Master Thesis workshop for 2^nd year students of the UNIGIS MSc programme.

The event concluded with a meeting of the Instructors of UNIGIS@Kathmandu leading to a vibrant discussion session with the current and incoming UNIGIS students.

Int'l Journal of Geoinformatics: Special UNIGIS Issue

The UNIGIS special issue in the International Journal of Geoinformatics now has been published. In this journal edition, UNIGIS graduates and teachers from a mix of UNIGIS partner institutions worldwide have contributed current research articles - demonstrating the link between creating new knowledge through research, and conveying current knowledge through education.

As the content is available via open access, you are encouraged to register and peruse this issue online via the following URL (registration is required): http://journals.sfu.ca/ijg/index.php/journal

Special thanks for making this publication possible are due to Dr Shahnawaz as issue editor, and to Dr Nitin Kumar Tripathi as the editor-in-chief!

See below for Table of Contents :
Vol 9, No 2, (2013)

• UNIGIS Online Distance Learning Towards International GIScience Qualifications - Shahnawaz S.
• Accuracy of SRTM-X and ASTER Elevation Data and its Influence on Topographical and Hydrological Modeling: Case Study of the Pieniny Mts. in Poland - Czubski K. 
• Modelling the Spatial Invasive Range of Heracleum mantegazzianum in Europe - Wallentin G 
• Social Media Location Intelligence: The Next Privacy Battle - An ArcGIS add-in and Analysis of Geospatial Data Collected from Twitter.com - Weidemann C. 
• The Effect of ACRC on the Results of Cartographic Classification Depending on Spatial Autocorrelation - Loidl M. 
• Land-cover change in Goa– An Integrated RS – GIS Approach - Kotha M. 
• Multi-Criteria GIS Analysis and Geo-Visualisation of the Overlap of Oil Impacts and Ecosystem Services in the Western Amazon - Zurita Arthos L. 
• Slum Modelling by using Ontology and Geoinformatics: Case study of Gulbarga - Shekhar S. 
• Modeling of Continuous Fields: Coverage Mapping Based on Dynamic In-situ WLAN Measurements - Kapser J. 

ISSN: 16866576

UNIGIS Latin America - Goodbye and Welcome!

The UNIGIS team Latin America experienced a very busy month of June, saying goodbye to a group of 30 students who graduated from the program and welcoming 35 new students in the first intake of 2013. As always, especially the graduation ceremony at the University San Francisco de Quito (USFQ) was a very special event for our graduates, their friends and families. On behalf of the UNIGIS team in Ecuador we wish all of our graduates an exciting and successful professional career!

UNIGIS Krakow student receives UIA thesis award at GI_Forum

The UNIGIS International Association (UIA) awarded this year's Academic Excellence Prize for the best Master Thesis to Agnieszka Wypych, UNIGIS Krakow. Ms Wypych received the award from UIA president Prof. J. Strobl at the GI_Forum conference in Salzburg, where she presented her research to an international audience. To introduce her talk, Agnieszka Wypych reflected on UNIGIS as a life-long learning opportunity. With UNIGIS she aimed at getting GIS-educated to complement her primary domain of meteorology. She demonstrated that she succeeded in reaching this aim at a remarkably high level. Congratulation Agnieszka for the well-deserved award!