Distance education experiences at the College of Geoinformatics

Szepes András dr. <a.szepes@cslm.hu>

NyME Geoinformatikai Fõiskolai Kar

Szepesné Stiftinger Mária <m.stiftinger@cslm.hu>

NyME Geoinformatikai Fõiskolai Kar

At the University of West Hungary's College of Geoinformatics (formerly called College of Surveying and Land Management), the distance education of post-graduate engineers started in 1995.

The first such course was called UNIGIS, which is a post-graduate course in geographical information systems. Its curriculum was developed in the United Kingdom, and we only adapted it. At that time the training was available in 13 countries, today this number is 22. Meanwhile we developed the Hungarian equivalents of the materials, so students now have the possibility to choose the language of their modules.

The next step was to develop our own new curriculum in the framework of TEMPUS and PHARE programs. Besides paper, the material was also published on CDs. After the 3 or 4 semesters long training students received a post-graduate engineering diploma.

Further courses, which were listed in the National Training Register, were supported by further European applications. These materials were only published on CD, but we also started to utilise the possibilities of the Internet. A student supporting system was established during these courses.

The courses following have been developed to be based on the Internet and are fully operational.

This rich set of curricula created for different courses resulted in the demand for establishing a national GIS knowledge base. It was designed to help updating older course materials and to form the base of future training.