Surveyors´Curricula – The Contents of VA Kirsi Virrantaus Helsinki University of Technology Chair of Commission 2

Problem of finding the best and most suitable curriculum several universities develope VA and other e-learning applications they want to open their university for global market, get new students/clients from the clients´ point of view the problem is : ”how to find the best curriculum, either in virtual or real university?” – ”how to compare different curricula?”

FIG has the SEDB Surveying Educational Database more than 400 educational programs a real database accessible in Internet descriptive and statistical data on universities universities have pw:s to update their data design is good and user interface is easy formalized queries can be made links to academic memebers are provided

However some problems exist (did you try SEDB ?) the use of the SEDB reveals the shortcomings the database is not up-to-date a lot of information is missing the motivation of the user is decreasing immediately when he/she realizes that information can not be relied on universities do not update their data the data contents does not reach the needs of the users – they require other information database is not the correct way of describing VA !

Students and teachers need information on curricula who are actually the users of SEDB? 1. STUDENTS who search for a university in which they can spend a year they need to know the profile of the subjects taught they need to know in which topics the university has advanced programs 2. TEACHERS who want to get references when they develope their own educational contents they need detailed descriptions of courses

A quick analysis on the users´ requirements LEVEL 1: general contact information is rquired LEVEL 2: profiles on specializations and information on special strengths are required LEVEL 3: detailed information on course contents are required LEVEL 4: approaches to VA applications !

How SEDB could be developed, what else could be established in the SEDB there is a lot of information universities would offer more information the SEDB should be redesigned in a way that the data contents would be easily updated the profile of each university could be easily outlined the detailed information on courses and other educational principles could be easily achieved theVA applications could be visited !

Levels of information provided and the possible solution 1. LEVEL: contact/general info; SEDB 2. LEVEL: showing the the main topics education - profiling each university according to these main topics; GUI to SEDB 3. LEVEL: giving detailed information of courses; via home pages of universities 4. LEVEL: providing access to VA; via home pages of universities, maybe via home page of COM 2 if coordination can be provided !!!

What we need for the practical implementations ? suitable taxonomy of surveyors´ educational topics active universities reflecting their educational programs to the model updating procedures for the SEDB a good user interface for the application

Taxonomies – selections of main educational topics several approaches to surveyors´ curricula contents exist – some examples Allan´s report Scandinavian/European (CLGE meeting, presentation by Hans Mattsson) Latin American (presentation by Pedro Cavero) Asian (presentation by Liu Yanfang, PR China) US (presentation by Jud Rouch) Polish (presentation by Adamek and Kaminski)

Subjects in Allan´s report, (first made during the mid 90´s, now updated) measurements maps and GIS law planning and development valuation economic and real estate management construction and cost control

Subjects in North American approach (combined from old and new, Rouch) mathematics and science photogrammetry geodesy land information systems humanities and social science

Subjects in Latin American approach (Cavero) basic technology land administration property economy law humanities

Subjects in the Polish approach (Adamek and Kaminski) Geodesy, Astronomy, Geodetic Systems, trigonometry, Satellite Geodesy Engineering Surveying, Urban Land Systems, Surveyingb in Forestry and Agriculture Underground and mining surveying Cadastre, LIS, Law, Economy Cartography, Photogrammetry, RS, Topography Mathematics, Physics, Geometry

Soil Sciences, Ecology, Environment. Sciences. Methodology in Geosciences Surveying data processing, Computer sciences Sociology, Languages, Sport

What to do with the different approaches after having a collection of taxonomies we can make both an intersection and a union of them an intersection means the ”core” subjects which are represented in all curricula a union means a collection of all possible topics represented in any curricula

The core curriculum is not possible in CLGE work it was found that surveyors´ curricula even in Europe are so different that the core curricula is impossible to create if the widen the approach to the entire world the task is even more difficult

The collection of all topics produces a long list of all kinds of topics without any preferences can represent much more than only surveying field needs generalization, organization and processing

Processing the list of subjects 1. we list all possible fields of science and practise which are represented in any surveyors´ curricula in the world 2. all universities are asked to make their profile according to the ”map of subjects” – to pick out from the list the subjects they represent 3. universities can be then characterized according to the balance between different subjects and main fields of interest

Examples a university can be IT oriented having a lot of GIS courses and a strong co-operation with IT departments remote sensing oriented economy orineted with a lot of real estate economy courses and a link to university of economics traditional – having all sectors in balance

In Mattssons report for CLGE he found in Europe at least three different models: the German model the Swedish-Danish model the Finnish-UK model differences between these models were in the balance between some main topics

The three-part-model also in the CLGE work professor Enemark introduced the so-called three-part-model surveying and measurement land management geoinformation management this three-part-model, if accepted could be one filter for our approach also others: today professor Psarianos gave a set of different definitions of surveyors profiles !!!

How this can be implemented? LEVEL 1: contact information and general data maybe statistics implementation by getting SEDB up-to-date LEVEL 2: profile of educational program implementation by characterizing educational programs according to the 3PM/or other

LEVEL 3: detailed information on curricula courses implementation via the home pages of academic members perhaps some process could be defined according to which also this information could be filtered into presentations, perhaps graphical ”map of curriculum”

LEVEL 4: access to Virtual Academies and other e –Learning applications via the home pages of universities via SEDB or COM 2 homepage COM 2 tries to collect information on qualified applications and introdude them to FIG

Portal on Surveyors´ Education the goal could be to develope a Portal on surveyors´ education inlcluding access to Virtual Academies materials SEDB web sites of universities

We should discuss what we can do before Washington what should be done after Washington how WG 2 Virtual Academy and WG 3 Surveyors´ Curricula should co-operate