UNIGIS is a worldwide network of universities cooperating since 1992 in the design, development and delivery of distance learning in Geographical Information Science and Systems (GIS). Members of the UNIGIS network offer Postgraduate Certificate, Diploma and Masters courses in GIS by open and distance learning, following the mission of Educating GIS Professionals Worldwide. [1]
Members of the UNIGIS network also work together in research and curriculum development activities related to GIS education. Programmes and courses are under continuous development and are currently being offered in English, German, Hungarian, Portuguese, Spanish and Polish languages. UNIGIS each year enrolls more than 600 new students worldwide.
UNIGIS courses are modular and flexible study programmes. The content varies to meet local student needs. Optional courses give the opportunity to tailor the programme to meet individual student needs, and residential workshops are offered to support areas of the courses. Topics covered in the UNIGIS courses include:
Students use digital and printed study materials including specially developed study notes, guided readings, and practical exercises. Professional GIS software to support practical work is provided at no cost to students. Students are encouraged to use their work experience in the course, and to apply their new knowledge from their study to their work situations.
A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database, however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system also to include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, the body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations.
The University of Akureyri was founded in 1987 in the town of Akureyri in the northeastern part of Iceland. It is today a school of health sciences, humanities and social science, and a school of business and science. Over 2000 students attended the university in the autumn semester of 2014, around half of them through flexible learning, making the university the largest provider of distance education in the country. The University of Akureyri coordinates with other Icelandic Universities to operate the University Centre of the Westfjords located in Ísafjörður, which operates two master's degrees, one in Coastal and Marine Management and the other in Marine Innovation. Additionally, The University of Akureyri coordinates with other Nordic Universities for the West Nordic Studies and Polar Law Masters programs.
The Open University of Sri Lanka is a national university in Sri Lanka. It is unique within the Sri Lankan national university system for being the only university to offer programs of study leading to certificate, diploma, degrees and postgraduate degrees up to PhD level through the Open and Distance Mode of Learning (ODL). The degrees awarded by the university are treated as equivalent to degrees awarded by any other Sri Lankan University under the preview of the University Grants Commission.
Geomatics is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as the "discipline concerned with the collection, distribution, storage, analysis, processing, presentation of geographic data or geographic information". Under another definition, it consists of products, services and tools involved in the collection, integration and management of geographic (geospatial) data. It is also known as geomatic(s) engineering. Surveying engineering was the widely used name for geomatic(s) engineering in the past.
Geoinformatics is the science and technology that develop and use data, software, and computing facilities in the cyberinfrastructure ecosystem to address the needs of geosciences and related branches of science and engineering.
Geographic information science or geoinformation science is a scientific discipline at the crossroads of computational science, social science, and natural science that studies geographic information, including how it represents phenomena in the real world, how it represents the way humans understand the world, and how it can be captured, organized, and analyzed. It is a sub-field of geography, specifically part of technical geography. It has applications to both physical geography and human geography, although its techniques can be applied to many other fields of study as well as many different industries.
The University of Pécs is an institution of higher education in Hungary. The modern university was established in 1912 but has its roots in the medieval university founded in Pécs in 1367 by King Louis I the Great. A total of 20,000 students presently attend the University of Pécs, approximately 4,500 of whom are international students studying in English or German.
Universitas Terbuka is Indonesia state university and employs Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system to widen access to higher education to all Indonesian citizens, including those who live in remote islands throughout the country, as well as in various parts of the world. It has a total student body of 1,045,665 .According to a distance education institution in the UK, which published "The Top Ten Mega Universities", UT-3 ranks closely with universities from China and Turkey.
The Open University of Cyprus, in Lefkosia (Nicosia), is one of the few online/distance universities in Cyprus. The university was established to fill an important gap for open, telematic and distance education in the higher education system of the Republic of Cyprus, in response to the growing demand for continuing education and lifelong learning. It is the first and only Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Cyprus that provides open and distance education at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Placing great emphasis on research, the OUC promotes research programmes aiming towards the development of methodologies and corresponding high technologies for open and distance learning.
The Institute of Geographical Information Systems (IGIS) was established by the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan (NUST) to focus on the educational needs of students in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS). IGIS is presenting a number of programs starting from basic short courses and diploma courses to the degree level programs like MS and Ph.D. IGIS makes good use of its relationship with relevant government organizations to provides best level of education to its students.
The Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of Applied Sciences (HvA), or Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS), is a large institute for higher professional education in the Netherlands, established in 1993. The HvA mainly offers bachelor's degree programmes, but also has a number of (professional) master's degree programmes. For students from the HvA's international partner institutes it is possible to study at the HvA as an exchange student.
e-Report - transnational virtual study circles: e-learning supports for tutorship and learning groups - is a communitarian project aiming at the constitution of a repertory of reference material with regard to the development of innovative methods in the field of e-learning system for educational projects and also for distance learning in VET. The activities of research, experimentation and analysis are combined with the use of ICT with massive use of tutoring activities, learning groups and transnational virtual study circles.
The Remote Sensing and Geospatial Information System training centre is located in University of Pune, India's premier institute for graduate and post graduate courses. The courses offered for GIS and RS here are held under the Department of Geography.
Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) is an open distance education university in Zimbabwe. Established in 1999, ZOU is the only distance education university in the country. Student enrollment at ZOU has been growing steadily from the time of its formation and in terms of enrollment it is the largest university in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Open University has seven faculties under which the academic programmes are conducted.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are an increasingly important component of business, healthcare, security, government, trade, media, transportation and tourism industries and operations in China. GIS software is playing an increasing role in the way Chinese companies analyze and manage business operations.
Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG) is a national agency by the Government of Gujarat to facilitate to provide services and solutions in implementing map-based GeoSpatial Information Systems. BISAG's SATCOM network is a satellite communication network service to provide distant interaction statewide.
The School of Geography is part of the Faculty of Environment at The University of Leeds based in the UK.
Josef Strobl is an Austrian geographer. He is a professor at the University of Salzburg and leads its Centre for Geoinformatics and the GIScience Institute. Strobl was key to the implementation of the worldwide UNIGIS postgraduate distance learning programme. He leads the annual AGIT and GI_Forum symposia in Salzburg.
The British College is an independent institution located in Trade Tower Business Center, Thapathali, Kathmandu. It offers British and international qualifications.