Irene Fellner receives UNIGIS Academic Excellence Prize @AGIT conference

When was the last time, when you lost your indoor orientation in an underground carpark or a large building? Whereas there are a lots of devices and apps that help us in the outdoor navigation, there is little digital support for wayfinding within buildings. Irene Fellners Master Thesis closes this gap: she developed algorithms that automatically identify indoor landmarks from building databases and calculates routes that are based on these landmarks.

Irene Fellner was awarded the UNIGIS Academic Excellece Award after she presented her research in the Special Session on 'Spatial Perspectives on Active Mobility' at the AGIT / GI_Forum conference. We want to congratulate Irene heartly for this achievement!

The real Living Map

What are they doing here?

As you might know there are three different kinds of networks: professional networks, personal networks and Triangular Irregular Networks. This weekend a new group of UNIGIS professional students were heavily engaged in building all kinds of networks in order to set a good starting point for a year of collaborative learning. Read the complete story...

u_Lecture: 'Geospatial Information Licenses for Non-Lawyers' - Feb 1.

This UNIGIS Webinar by Kevin D. Pomfret will be held on Wed, Feb 1, 2017 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM CET - Registration (free)

Kevin D. Pomfret

The geospatial community (government agencies, industry, universities, NGO's) are increasingly creating geospatial products and services by aggregating a wide range of datasets from a variety of sources. In many instances this data is licensed from one party to another, not sold. A geospatial information license does more than transfer rights in geospatial information from one party to another. It is a legal document that allocates operational and legal risks associated with geospatial information between the parties. This UNIGIS u_lecture is intended to help non-lawyers within the geospatial community better understand geospatial information licenses. It will describe the key provisions of a license and how they relate to geospatial information. The goal is to help geospatial professionals understand the rights and obligations that they are agreeing to abide by in entering into a geospatial information license.

Mr. Pomfret is a corporate partner at the Williams Mullen law firm and co-chair of the firm’s Unmanned Systems practice group and the Data Protection and Cybersecurity practice group. He is also the founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Spatial Law and Policy. He counsels businesses and government agencies on the policy and legal issues that impact the collection, use, storage and distribution of geospatial information, such as licensing, privacy and data protection, data quality and liability and regulatory matters. Mr. Pomfret regularly speaks on around the globe on these issues. He began his career as a satellite imagery analyst where he helped to develop imagery collection strategies and identify requirements for future collection systems. He is a member of the U.S. National Geospatial Advisory Committee. Mr. Pomfret is a graduate of Bates College and Washington, Lee School of Law.

UNIGIS MSc 2016 workshop - Let´s talk about place ...

... and a wide variety of issues and topics regarding distance education with a focus on the conception of the Master Thesis. That´s how you could summarise the 2nd UNIGIS MSc 2016 workshop held in Salzburg from 1 to 2 December 2016. The mix of representatives from industry and research creates ideal opportunities for a professional exchange of ideas on a scientific basis.

"Capture 3D data with LiDAR": Webinar on Dec 14

Registration now is open for the u_Lecture webinar presentation by Christian Sevcik on Dec 14 at 5pm CET  >>> https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1918432664800614660

This lecture is a about current LiDAR technology and its various applications: gain insights how point cloud data is acquired and derived with Waveform LiDAR sensors. We will shed some light on what it takes from sending out a laser pulse to a point with 3D coordinates. Learn about the latest trends in the LiDAR industry, from UAV operation, to multichannel and multispectral LiDAR and see some of the industries where LiDAR systems are operational today.

The speaker Mr Sevcik is Manager, Strategic Software Alliances at RIEGL Laser Measurement Systems GmbH, Austria. He graduated with an MSc in Surveying and Geoinformation from Graz University of Technology and held various positions in the geospatial industries before joining Riegl in 2011.

u_Lecture: 'Geo-Entrepreneurship' - Nov 23

Registration is still open for the upcoming free webinar on 'Geo-Entrepreneurship: Using Location to Enhance Your Competitive Advantage' presented by Dr Ian Heywood from the University of Aberdeen Business School.

For details and to sign up > https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8304017966904333316

2017: Studieren mit UNIGIS - Das Info-Webinar

Sie sind beruflich und/oder familiär engagiert und wollen trotzdem an der Universität studieren? Sie arbeiten vielleicht sogar schon mit GIS Werkzeugen und wollen die 'Konzepte dahinter' besser verstehen? Sie wollen ihre Karriere fördern, oder sind einfach nur neugierig auf neue Herausforderungen? Die Anmeldung für den UNIGIS MSc Jahrgang 2017 ist ab sofort möglich, die Frist endet am 31. Jänner 2017!

Zur Orientierung, für Studienberatung und zu Ihren Fragen zum UNIGIS Fernstudium an der Universität Salzburg steht das Lehrgangsteam im Rahmen eines Webinars online zur Verfügung!

Freitag, 2. Dezember 2016, 18:00 - 19:30 MEZ

Webinar-Registrierung: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/2943511753203932417

Winners of the UNIGIS Academic Excellence Prize 2016

The UNIGIS International Association (UIA) announces the winners of its

Academic Excellence Prize 2016. The Prize, initiated in 2008, is presented to the students submitting the best (English language) MSc thesis during the academic year and are nominated by their UNIGIS sites.

This year the competition was extremely tight with seven excellent high quality MSc theses being shortlisted by the Review Panel. In the end the panel decided to make three awards.

The winner of the Academic Excellence Prize for 2016 is Tim Hernon (UNIGIS UK). His thesis

Map section used by winner Tim Hernon
for his case study in Nottingham, UK. 

showed a novel approach to extract urban land use data from Volunteered Geographic Information (in this case, OpenStreetMap data), successfully tested and discussed in detail for a case study in Nottingham, UK.

The first runner up is Nathan Patrick Novak (UNIGIS USC) who proposed an elaborate modelling of Sperm Whale habitats within the Central Gulf of Alaska, using a range of geospatial data.

Irene Fellner (UNIGIS Salzburg) is awarded the third place. In her thesis she presents an innovative way to implement the concept of landmarks in indoor navigation, using a case study at the Vienna University of  Economics and Business Administration campus.

The Review Panel would like to commend these individuals and the four other theses for the high quality of the work.

The winners receive the cash prize funded by the UNIGIS International Association and are invited to present their research at the annual GI Forum, held in Salzburg Austria 4-7 July 2017.

u_Lecture Nov 9: Smart City Information Modeling and Interoperability

Upcoming: u_Lecture 'Smart City Information Modelling and Interoperability'

Dr Martin Huber, Condesys Consulting

Wed, Nov 9, 2016 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM CET

Using a tool called 'Geographic Information System' one would expect to get support to model, analyse and control the dynamic phenomena of a geographic region like a city or a country. The mainstream GIS technology delivered in the last 20 years, however, does hardly live up to this expectation. The information concept of GIS is map-centric and maps are static by nature. Information, on the other hand, is a dynamic piece of knowledge exchanged between different actors to solve problems or to control processes. Even a movie of map sequences only visualizes dynamics, but does not provide hooks to manage dynamic real world systems.

Read more and register >>

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

Build up your skills to bring your Geo-idea to the market! 

In this 1.5 day workshop you will be introduced to a range of techniques used by ‘startups’ to help develop your own geo-enabled business idea. You will learn the steps you need to take to identify and develop your idea, secure customers, and find market opportunities.

The participants of this workshop will be GI professionals, UNIGIS/Geo- students and alumni who want to bring their own GI-project to life, or get a new business idea off the ground. These are not only skills for new entrepreneurs, they will help you develop and champion internal company projects as well! The Workshop takes place in Salzburg on 2.-3. December 2016. 

Programme details
Register now * and meet at the Department for Geoinformatics University of Salzburg.
(Online Registration Deadline:  22nd November ´16)

The workshop will be lead by Dr. Ian Heywood, who teaches entrepreneurship at the University of Aberdeen Business School, with a focus on practical startup tools and techniques. This workshop has been co-created with input from Ed Parsons, an Executive Fellow at the University and Google’s Geospatial Technologist. It will feature a recorded lecture from Ed about GI entrepreneurship. The workshop will be supported by e-learning materials, and will be the kick-off for a UNIGIS elective module.



* Note: The workshop is open to everyone and especially for the UNIGIS community who want to add smart start-up skills to their studies and CV.

Future GIS Professionals Meeting in Salzburg

Professor Strobl and the UNIGIS Professional team had the pleasure to welcome future GIS professionals in Salzburg last weekend. The highly motivated group gathered primarily to get to know each other and the UNIGIS team, but also to get in touch with the study materials and to learn about the various opportunities for specialisation in their UNIGIS professional study program.

Once again it became obvious that GIS skills are required in a vast number of disciplines. The diversity of domains that were represented in the introductory workshop was large: from GIS professionals in a military context to urbanists and from IT developers to public administration. But irrespectively of these differences all participants quickly identified a common ground: the geographical coordinate and the spatial perspective on the respective domain. This is exactly where UNIGIS comes in: we teach generic GIS methods, concepts and tool skills, which are then further developed by the participants for their specific needs in their professional environment.
Currently the new students set up their personal learning and software environment and make their first steps in the introductory module. But we are confident that within a few weeks they become active members in the growing UNIGIS community!

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