Major technological changes

1. Geospatial Technology Education –Few IssuesProfessor I V Murali KrishnaProfessor in Spatial Information Technology

2. Major technological changes • GeoSpatial data, technologies and information systems no longer seen as niche systems. • They are integral parts of homogenous information systems. • Software Professionals and companies are driving force behind geospatial technologies, • More exactly than being ‘quandary’, Geospatial Technology are almost attaining the status of ‘just another software component’ that can be applied and added to a system as an attachment to e mail. • The human resource development programs in general have not realized this situation.

3. SWOT ANALYSIS OF GEOSPATIAL TECHNOLOGY as in IndiaSTRENGTHS:Low cost of production, Highly qualified skilled workforce, Strong R and D capabilities and Existence of highly competent Geospatial technology Industry. WEAKNESSInadequate investment in tools / training. Sectorial focus of existing organizations Data access problem and Government involvement at all stages of spatial information chainOPPRTUNITIES Plenty due to huge demand from government and industry Growing infrastructure Commercial transactions of economy for eg---Assessment of risk, insurance premium, purchase and sale of land, directed marketing etc, THREATSPolicies of government, Unplanned growth of industry Small scale start up companies Under cutting and over enthusiasm

4. Issue of relevance of courses structure in Academic bodies: • In general the academic bodies teach everything starting from invention of wheel in any UG or PG program. This wastes lot of time leaving little scope for advanced and current technological tools. • Skills that have great value on the current job market are not part of GIS Education in most of the places • What are needed are by the industry are taught under different branches of Technology and Management courses as part of main stream with no focus/orientation to geospatial analysis For Eg Image processing, Software engineering, Mobile communication, Mobile mapping, ERP, CRM, Sequence analysis, MIS / land information systems, Epidemiology, health care, Web interface design, Data mining, Integration of heterogeneous/distributed resources and tools, Virtual reality systems (esp. for real-time communication), Visualization, LINUX, database retrieval

5. The spatial IT skills and functions performed by these people as per the requirement of the employers can be broadly divided into two categories. CATEGORY I ( 80 percent of industry involved in these areas/functions) • PHOTOGRAMMETRY • DATA ENTRY / COLLECTION • TRAINING • TECHNICAL SUPPORT • GPS DATA COLLECTION AND MAPPING • THEMATIC MAPPING • CAD /GIS ANALYSIS CATEGORY 2 (20 percent invoved) • TOPOGRAPHIC SURVEYOR. • TERRAIN SIMULATION AND MODELLING and Geovisulaization • APPLICATIONS DEVELOPER. • SOFTWARE DEVELOPER. • MANAGER / SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR. • SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY

6. CAREER OPPORTUNITIES ASSESMENTThe following are the categories of employment of the students with background in geography, geospatial technology, earth sciences and civil engineeringGIS - 45% ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT - 12%REMOTE SENSING / THEMATIC MAPPING -12%PHOTOGRAMMETRY - 20%CARTOGRAPHY -01%OTHER - 05%

7. Education - Present Situation:It is apparent to me that often GIS is seen as a set of applications, while the technology behind these applications is generally missing. The education programs put little emphasis on techniques such as database design, data base building and data analysis and interoperability

8. Comparison of programs at different universities shows the analysis in Geo-information is treated thoroughly in the field of application, e.g. Physical planning, agriculture, geology and soils, geography, etc. while the technology of GIS is touched only shallowly. Application of GIS techniques are being shown as time-consuming, clumsy or inadequate primarily because of lack of adequately trained teachersSome Examples are : • An overlay is followed subsequently by a selection to obtain for the required elements for input of an analysis of a planning process. • Overlay in raster or vector format? Are conversions from raster-to-vector and reverse possible and how well do they work? Are convolutions required? • How to generate, store and access a DEM? Are gridded, TIN and other software available and what are the consequences in application of each of them

9. Therefore, education programmes in all universities, high schools and other educational institutes dealing with the use of GIS data should deal with possible technological solutions that are available nowadays in order to make utmost use of the capabilities of both the system and the data in a GIS.

10. Geospatial Engineering as Formal University Degree programs • Integrate Earth and environment science, GIScience, Data engineering, photogrammtery, Surveying Technology, principles of management, and economics, ERP, Resources engineering and Communication engineering, Information technology, Numerical modeling • Special software packages –database development – (Landuse, Soil, Building, , demography, utilities like police stations, hospitals, schools, churches, water supply etc),HAZUS, MM5, Mike 11/21 WRF, CMAQ, Hysplit, SQL etc It creates Experts who understand both domain knowledge and computing who are totally missing at operational level

11. Interdisciplinary vs. homogeneity. • Certainly having a homogeneous audience makes teaching easier and students do progress faster. • Specialization programmes primarily address different disciplines so that in the future they can can-operate in common projects, still without one doing the job of the other. • Surveyors for example will continue measuring and modeling the real world, while computer scientists will go on in writing code and implementing systems and applications. • Overlaps and exceptions will always exist and this is acceptable.

12. Statistical surveys have shown clearly that, after computer engineers, the next most adapted to information technologies professional group, is by large that of geospatial technologists This fact may prove extremely redeeming for the future of geospatial technology education.

13. Thank Youivm@ieee.org