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TECHNICAL COMMISSION VI EDUCATION AND OUTREACH
President: Kohei Cho Scientific Secretary: Mitsunori Yoshimura State of Science and Technology of Commission Topics E-Learning is expanding the possibility of education. Concept of LMS (Learning Management System) is realizing systematic management of e-Learning courses, and standardization of e-Learning such as SCORM 2004 is allowing e-Learning materials to be shared among various organizations that are using different LMSs. By utilizing latest internet technology, many universities are now organizing e-Learning courses. The future of e-Learning is quite promising. However, in order to optimize the role of e-Learning, various issues still remain to be solved. The cost and technology required for implementing e-Learning are still quite expensive which are slowing down the speed of e-Learning dissemination. Various approaches for reducing e-Learning cost are required. Many teachers are waiting for easy and inexpensive tools for making e-Learning materials. The educational software contest CATCON organized by Commission VI/2 is encouraging the development and dissemination of educational software for remote sensing, photogrammetry and spatial information science. Due to the recent multimedia technology advancement, the levels of free educational software are much improved than before. The accreditation of e-Learning credits among different universities/countries is another important issue. The WG VI/1 and 3 are working together to find the way for ISPRS to contribute on this matter as an international academic society. The number of home pages providing educational materials is rapidly increasing. However, not a few students are frustrated by not finding proper educational materials from the information flood of internet. Certain categorization and reviewing process are necessary for assisting students to find the suitable educational materials from internet to meet their requirement. WG VI/4 is constructing a procedure for categorizing and reviewing homepages for education in the related field of ISPRS. Anyhow, the most important part in education is of cause human interface and face-to-face education. WG VI/3, 5 and the Special Interest Group on Caravan are conducting various approaches on capacity building, promoting student activity, organizing summer school, seminars, and tutorials in various countries. Accomplishments of the Commission
Photo1. Opening session of the ISPRS Com. VI. Symposium 150 participants from 27 countries have attended the symposium. Total of 53 papers were presented at 16 technical sessions. Various presentations on e-Learning proved that e-Learning technologies have become powerful tools for education. The levels of the educational software nominated to CATCON4 were much higher than our expectation. But, at the same time, the weak points of e-Learning were indicated at the session discussions. "E-Learning is likely to simplify the reality by forcing users to answer the questions from limited alternatives." "E-learning software cannot answer properly to various questions raised by the users." These opinions are suggesting the importance of blending e-Learning with face-to-face education. At the discussions on capacity building, it was pointed out that the poor internet infrastructure in Africa is making a serious disparity of the region against the rest of the world on education. Expectation to the activity of ISPRS in Africa is increasing. The JICA distance learning demo organized during the symposium emphasized the advantage of conducting distance education for developing countries.
Through the symposium, the relationship between the WG chairs/co-chairs and members of WG were strengthened. In order to clarify and reinforce the aim of each WG, some changes were made on chairs and co-chairs. In this occasion, the Commission VI President would like to address sincere appreciation to Dr. Timothy W. Foresman, Dr. Rahmi Nurhan Celik and Mr. Alain Dupe'ret for their kind contribution to the Commission for the past two years.
Group photo of the Commission VI Symposium Working Group Activities during the Current Year WG VI/1 Educational Frameworks and Methodologies Chair: Henrik Haggren(Finland) Co-Chair: Anders Boberg(Sweden) State of Science and Technology of Working Group Topics The following actual issues are listed within the framework of the WG TOR's:
The main trend in Europe is currently the change of the academic curriculum system according to the so called Bologna agreement. In many universities the complete academic programme in surveying or Geomatics would in future correspond to the 3+2+3- structure. The full studies will consist of three years for the Bachelor degree, two years for the Master's degree, and three years for the Doctor's degree. This has the consequence that the modular curricula in Photogrammetry, remote sensing and Geomatics will be change accordingly. In general, the change is performed differently in each university. It is necessary, that the WG would actively follow this development and collect data of the new curricula. Accomplishments of Working Group The WG VI/1 had two sessions in the ISPRS Technical Commission VI Symposium Chair of the WG VI/1 participated in the EUGISES 2006 meeting, The 5th European GIS Education Seminar, which was held in Cracow-Pieniny, Poland 7-10 September 2006. Working Group News and Future Plans The WG seeks for a new co-chair! The second co-chair of the WG VI/1 Anders Boberg has moved from academia to a consulting company and is not currently committed to pedagogic activities. In Tokyo the matter was discussed e.g. with the colleagues at Dublin Institute of Technology. However, we still lack of this resource. WG VI/1 will be represented at the FIG XXIII Congress in Munich, Germany, 8-13 October 2006, in the meeting of WG 2 on Professional Education. WG VI/1 will update its home pages as soon as possible according to the ISPRS recommendations. The next EUGISES 2009 will be held at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester, UK. The exact dates are still open. WG VI-I will plan committing this meeting. EUGISES is organized by the members of The Association of Geographic Information Laboratories for Europe (AGILE). WG VI/2 e-Learning Chair: Gerhard König, Germany Co-Chair: Mark R. Shortis, Australia State of Science and Technology of Working Group Topics Searching for information using the Internet rather than other sources becomes more and more relevant with the growth and speed of computer networks. More and more educational content will be available online, which means that e-Learning material will play a significant role in future education. Meanwhile activities in Western societies seem to be stagnant, an increase of e-learning material in the Asian area can be noticed which corresponds to the thirst for education in those countries. During the last years a huge number of valuable e-Learning materials have been developed. However, the acceptance using e-learning materials is still suboptimal. Major reasons are pedagogical aspects; digital rights problems, and publicity of excellent material. The most severe constraints concern sustainability (continuous operation and maintenance), reluctance of persons involved as well as lack of skills in media competence. Accomplishments of the Working Group Based on ISPRS specification a new Internet representation is in operation since early November. Typo3 as content management system easily allows WG content editors to produce and maintain web pages using standard internet browsers. As discussed during the Board meeting in Tokyo, a comprehensive overview on educational material on the web is under development. Visitors will find a list of links to various useful online resources and freely accessible materials. Of course the list includes the results from the last four Computer Assisted Teaching contests (CATCON) organised by WG VI/2. Promoting online information to the public will help to achieve a wider recognition and improve and foster acceptance of e-learning material. Additional input or update information from ISPRS members are kindly welcome. WG VI/2 participated in the ISPRS Technical Commission VI Symposium "E-LEARNING AND THE NEXT STEPS FOR EDUCATION" in Tokyo, organized by Kohei Cho as commission VI president. 15 lectures covering WG VI/2 topics were discussed in four sessions, focussing on Tools and Materials on Remote Sensing, e-learning Experiences and Strategies, Data Acquisition and Visualization Tools as well as GIS and Remote Sensing Courses. The lectures presented by experts from Japan, India, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, Spain and Germany gave an excellent overview about the current state of general education in Remote Sensing & GIS and on challenging activities in e-learning in this field. Unfortunately papers and talks from American colleagues were missing. All contributions are available on the proceedings CD. One main highlight within the Tokyo symposium was the CATCON4 on 29th July. The contest is carried out to promote the development and dissemination of good/ user-friendly software packages, video as well as data sets for computer assisted teaching (CAT). In general, the software of dataset should be non-commercial and should be provided to the users on free of charge. Each nominator had 5 minutes of oral presentation to explain one's software / dataset in advance to around two hours of demonstration. There were 14 contestants participating in CATCON4. All the registered members were requested to vote for their favourite software/ dataset. The result of that vote had a strong impact on the jury's decision, which consisted of the Council members and Commission VI chairpersons. The awards - 1000US$, 700US$ and 500US$, sponsored by the ISPRS Foundation - were given at the Closing Ceremony. The winners were: 1. E-Tutor for GIS (version 1.0) - P. Venkatachalam from the Indian Institute of Technology (http://www.csre.iitb.ac.in/gram++), 2. CARST 1.0: Computer Assisted Remote Sensing Training package version 1.0 - Nguyen Dinh Duong from the Vietnamese Academy of Sciences and Technics ( HYPERLINK "mailto:duong.nd@hn.vnn.vn" mailto:duong.nd@hn.vnn.vn) and 3. SV3DVISION: Didactical Photogrammetric Software for Single Image-Based Modelling - D. G. Aguilera from the University of Salamanca (mailto:daguilera@usal.es). Working Group News and Future Plans WG VI/2 is planning to organize an education session at the Spatial Sciences Conference to be held in Hobart, Australia in September 2007. Of course the WG will be involved in technical sessions on computer assisted teaching and training, and distance learning during the XXI ISPRS Congress in Beijing, China, July 03-11, 2008. WG VI/2 intends to organize the following sessions for Beijing: Technical Session Innovation in e-Learning This session focus on collecting "new" approaches and techniques, for example pod casting, virtual worlds and what's behind the buzzword Web 2.0 Joint Session Web-based education and training (with WG VI/4) This session will mainly be open for best practice reports on e-Learning but also for other web-based activities. Following the success of CATCON4 at the TC VI Symposium in Tokyo, WG VI/2 plans to organize CATCON5 at the ISPRS2008. The session needs at least three hours including 5 minutes presentation by each nominator and total of 90 minutes for software demonstration each nominator in parallel. As a long term objective, e-Learning materials and modules have to be peer-reviewed or comply with a quality assurance process which will provide confidence and strengthen acceptance. For further education and training a certification should be aspired. The WG will apply for ISPRS funds which will help realizing these tasks in a future project. WG VI/3 International Cooperation and Capacity Building Chair: Sjaak J.J. Beerens (Netherlands) (as from June 2006) Co-Chair : Xiaoyong Chen (Thailand) (as from June 2006) Regional Coordinators: South America: Osmar Gustavo Wohl Coelho (Brazil) Southern Africa: Musisi Nkambwe (Botswana) (as from July 2006) Mid Africa: Olajide Kufoniyi (Nigeria) GEO Point of Contact: Imraan Salojee (Switzerland) (as from November 2006) CEOS Point of Contact: Chu Ishida (Japan) (as from June 2006)
State of Science and Technology of Working Group Topics A rapidly increasing interest in and support to Capacity Building in earth observation can be observed. This increased interest in Capacity Building provides both a challenge and an opportunity for the Working Group. Considering the many initiatives in capacity building, the Working Group is confronted with the opportunity to strengthen its activities by collaborating with other initiatives and organizations. Apart from the contacts with the CEOS Working Group on Education that have been ongoing for the past two years, an additional step has been made to enter into collaboration with GEO, the Group on Earth Observations with a Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland (http://www.earthobservations.org/index.aspx), GEO has Capacity Building as one of its cross-cutting spearheads as part of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems 10-Year Implementation Plan. The international cooperation issue almost by default raises the issue of national legal restrictions to cross-border collaboration in education and training in terms of recognition and accreditation. To fill in on this initiative WG VI/3 in collaboration with GEO have decided to organize a special event in 2007 to address this topic, also in preparation to a special session organized in collaboration with WG VI/1 during the Beijing Congress in 2008. Accomplishments of the Working Group In order to achieve the goals expressed in its Terms of Reference, WG VI/3 has organized the following concrete activities during 2006: During the ISPRS Commission VI mid-term Symposium from 27-30 June in Tokyo, the Working Group was actively involved in a number of Technical sessions on international cooperation and capacity building with participants from Asia, Africa and Europe, entitled: During Geo Brasil Conference on July 18th 2006, in the Imigrantes Convention Centre, São Paulo city, Brasil, a special WG VI/3 workshop was organised about "Remote Sensing Data Distribution policy in Latin America. This workshop was organised as a joint effort of Campus Brasil-CRECTEALC, INPE and ISPRS-WG VI/3. WG VI/3 was also represented at the MERCOSUR Congress on education in remote sensing in Argentina. WG VI/3 contributed to a Special Student Session during the Asian Conference on Remote Sensing organised by Commission VI WG VI/5 held from 9-13 October in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Capacity Building in/for Developing Countries. As part of the 6th African Association of Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE) Conference in Cairo, Egypt from 30th October to 2nd November in collaboration with AARSE, ISPRS Council, Group on Earth Observation (GEO) and European Space Agency (ESA), Working Group VI/3, organized a Special Session on Capacity Building and Human Resources Development in Earth Observation. The Special Session comprised both a Plenary Session and a Technical Session with presentations on capacity building and international cooperation by various organizations such as GEO, ITC, ISPRS, AARSE, ESA, CEOS, NOAA, Canadian Space Agency, RCMRD and RECTAS. Furthermore a complete overhaul of the WG VI/3 website was realised in September to comply with the ISPRS guidelines in terms of format, layout and structure (http://www.commission6.isprs.org/wg3/). Working Group News and Future Plans To share and rotate responsibility, Chair and Co-chair changed their position for the second two years of the period, with Sjaak Beerens becoming Chair and Xiaojong Chen becoming Co-chair. Furthermore for personal reasons, Ulrike Rivet, Regional Coordinator for Southern Africa had to step down and was replaced by Musisi Nkambwe of the University of Botswana. The position of Regional Coordinator Mid Asia was annulled after Karl Harmsen moved from India to Ghana. In return a Regional Coordinator for the Middle East was appointed, Sultan HasanAlSultan from Saudi Arabia. The CEOS Point of Contact Yukio Haruyama was replaced by Chu Ishada also of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and finally, as mentioned already, a GEO Point of Contact was appointed being Imraan Salojee of the GEO Secretariat in Geneva. In preparation of a Technical Session and a Joint Special Session at the Beijing Congress in 2008 WG VI/3 has an ambitious plan for 2007, intending to organize a number of events and activities for which preparations have been made during 2006. At international level a special event, seminar or expert meeting, will be organised in close collaboration with the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) during the second half of 2007 at ITC, The Netherlands. This event will deal with the restrictions to international collaboration in capacity building resulting from national and regional legal educational frameworks (in terms of accreditation and certification). In Africa a Special session on international cooperation is scheduled as part of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Commission for Development Information (www.uneca.org/codi) meeting VI in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in April 2007. During the AfricaGIS Conference from 10 - 14 October in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso a special session on international collaboration and capacity building within the framework of NEPAD (New Partnership for African Development) will be organised as a joint effort of WG VI/3 with regional and national institutions in Africa operating under the flag of the UN ECA. During the Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS) from 12 - 16 November in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, WG VI/3 will contribute to the Commission VI tasks regarding preparing, organising and implementing special sessions, workshops and tutorials, assuming responsibility for international cooperation and capacity building matters. In South America WG VI/3 is planning a project of GIS/RS learning at grammar and high-school level. This Project will be driven by INPE - Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais and UNISINOS - Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos, and will start in South Brazil. WG VI/4 Internet Resources and Datasets Chair : Tuan-chih Chen(China-Taipei) Co-Chair : Koki Iwao (Japan)
Accomplishments of the Working Group 1. Chaired the session "Internet Resources for Education" on the Commission VI Symposium in Tokyo, Japan, including 3 papers:
2. Presented the invited paper "37 Years of Internet, 12 Years of ISPRS Online" on the Commission VI Symposium in Tokyo, Japan. 3. Joint session on ACRS 2006, 9-13 October 2006, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. 4. Presented the invited paper "ISPRS on Internet -- education, e-learning, and distance training" on ACRS 2006. Working Group News and Future Plans
WG VI/5 - Promotion of the Profession to Students Chair: Mojca Kosmatin Fras (Slovenia) Co-Chair: Zhu Qing (China) Secretary: Anka Lisec (Slovenia) Student Coordinators: Jaakko Järvinen (Finland), Esra Erten (Turkey), Sultan Kocaman (Switzerland), Yohei Shiraki (Japan), Göksel Accoca (Turkey), Uyanga Bold (Mongolia), Hitoshi Taguchi (Japan), Petek Tatli (Turkey) State of Science and Technology of Working Group Topics Promotion of the Profession to Students and hence Student Consortium was founded in ISPRS 2004 Istanbul under ISPRS Working Group VI General focus and working fields of working group has been defined as follows that are also the Terms of references of the Group.
In order to realize above terms of references the group targets establishing World-wide Student Network. Therefore to encourage this goal: Organizing scientific and social events such as summer schools, summer camps, national, regional and global status reports on education, and technical and scientific professional topics. Accomplishments of the Working Group Student Consortium (hereafter SC) web page server moved from ITU Turkey to Switzerland and information has been updated. New web address is: www.studentconsortium.isprs.org, and new logo of Student Consortium was designed. Advertising bookmarks have been produced by SC that will be distributed to students in occasion of different events. Development of new ideas for more attractive design of the web page, but were not implemented yet. Representatives of SC coordinators took part in the TC VI Symposium in Tokyo, 27-30 June 2006. The coordinators prepared reports for board meetings and participated with the papers and presentations. The chair (from Turkey) and co-chair (from China) were not able to attend the TC VI Symposium. A database of SC members was produced in a form of a member list (name, country and e-mail address). There are around 100 members from over 30 countries registered in this database. At IGSM 2006 in Cracow, the organization and work of WG VI/5 and the SC were presented to the participating students. FIG Congress in Munich, October 2006: a SC member from Turkey gave information about SC and its past activities in his presentation. ACRS pre-conference tutorials and special student sessions in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, 6-8, 11 October 2006 was organized jointly by the Asian Association on Remote Sensing, ISPRS Commission VI Special Interest Group on Technology Transfer Caravan, ISPRS Student Consortium, Asian Institute of Technology, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and local students. As the result of co-chair activities the following two events were co-sponsored:
(http://www.liesmars.wtusm.edu.cn/Geoinformatics2006/). Working Group News and Future Plans Change of chair person: In order to move the WG activity to next step, in September 2006, the WG chair was changed from Rahmi Celik to Mojca K. Fras. We would like to thank Rahmi for his dedicated work on the setting up of SC. Develop further organizational structure of SC, strengthen and broaden the SC member network through different activities. The goal is to establish a global student network. Organization of student consortium summer school 2007 in Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1 - 6 July. Tutorials for students in the framework of ICORSE 2007, June, in Costa Rica, in cooperation with Technology Transfer Caravan. Tutorials and sessions for students within "Optical 3D Conference" in Zurich, 9 - 12 July 2007. Details are in discussion with the organizer of the event. Produce more sophisticated member database. Redesign and modernization of web page which should become interactive and smart, as a portal, including member database and queries. SC Newsletter: every three months issued and web distributed to SC members, with interesting information for students. Interview to the ISPRS professionals that will be published in SC Newsletter and other WG5 and SC materials. Preparations for Beijing Congress: establishing local organizing group of students and local responsible leader/coordinator for organization of pre-congress student consortium summer school. Special Interest Group "Technology Transfer Caravan" Chair: Armin Gruen(Switzerland) Co-Chair: Shunji Murai(Japan) Accomplishments of SIG
During the Conference: Special Session: Writing and Presentation Techniques, White Elephant Lecturers A.Gruen, Sh. Murai, J. Trinder
Photo 5 and 6. JICA Distance Learning Demo ( http://cholab.yc.ycc.u-tokai.ac.jp/vod/isprs/jica/ )
Short Report on JICA NET Distance Education (By Shunji Murai)
344 participants of Remote Sensing Course and 472 of GIS Course have been conferred the Certificate of Successful Completion. The table shows the statistics from 2004 to 2006. The teaching materials of power point and text in English with 12 modules in total in each course have been developed by JSPRS. Video conference for Q&A session after each module is conducted with the support of a resource person (Prof. Shunji Murai) and a site facilitator from each participating country. The summary of Q&A sessions is published in written document which will be useful as a supplementary text. The JICA NET Distance Education was demonstrated at the Com. VI Symposium held in Tokyo, Japan in June 2006. All participants were invited to the demonstration as visitors, when Prof. Ian Dowman, President and Prof. Orhan Altan, Secretary General, ISPRS made greetings to those participants from Palestine, Kenya, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka through Video Conference. SIG news and future plans for 2007 For 2007 the following events are planned:
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The accomplishment of the Commission VI for the year 2006 could be characterized by the mid term Symposium organized in Tokyo in June 27-30. The followings are some of the highlights at the symposium. For details, please see the report from each WG.
Photo2. Keynote Speach by Dr. Hans van Ginkel of the United Nation University
JICA NET Distance Education on Remote Sensing and GIS for Developing Countries. Throughout 2006. Lecturer: Sh. Murai. Teaching Material (Word and Power Point Files) and VOD lectures on 9 CDs.