International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B6. Istanbul 2004
3.1 Accreditation
The ITC MSc degree courses have to maintain their high
reputable place in the new Dutch and European higher
education structure; accreditation procedures to ensure the
quality of the offered courses have been already started under
the official Dutch accreditation system, i.e. by the National
Accreditation Organisation (NAO), that independently award
accreditation to educational programmes and assures that the
final judgement is formal and public.
3.2 Decentralization of education
ITC in order to address the increasing demand for flexibility in
academic degree programmes is, among other things, on the line
to decentralise parts of its educational programmes.
The term decentralisation is used to indicate the process of
transferring components of ITC accredited educational
programmes to partner organisations in countries or regions of
course participants, conditional to continuous upgrading and
quality control by ITC and the partner organisation.
Besides being implemented outside ITC's headquarters in
Enschede the Netherlands, the actual implementation (i.e.
including student acquisition, registration, quidance, lecturing
etc) become largely the responsibility of staff of partner
organisations.
ITC staff members are involved mainly to introduce new topics
and for quality control purposes, including assessment.
Staff of partner organisations is also involved in the
implementation of the components at ITC in the framework of
staff exchange and quality control.
Parallel to the decentralisation process the option of full-time
study in ITC's headquarters in the Netherlands is fully
maintained.
ITC has been involved in a number of decentralised courses, i.e.
joint courses for some years now. The delivery of the joint
courses was transferred (partly) to the staff of the partner
institutes. One of the main challenges ITC has faced with these
joint courses is to maintain quality standards at the level applied
in the internal courses, to safeguard the interest of the students
in external courses and to safeguard ITC's brand name in the
world.
Since the start of the joint courses, ITC has worked hard on
quality maintenance, during the development of the curricula,
the training of trainers, the establiment of assessment criteria
and the joint assessment of the final MSc thesis research.
Two successful implementations of decentralisation of
education at the MSc level in Geoinformatics are given here.
The first is with decentralisation partners in Iran. In this case
there are two decentralisation partners, the Research Centre
resorting under the Ministry of Jahad-e-Sazandegi and the
Khajeh Nasir Toosi University of Technology. The first stream
started in July 2001 with 8 candidates. The second stream is
likely to start in October 2004.
The second implementation is in India with decentralisation
partner the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (HRS). The
implementation of joint MSc course in Geoinformatics started
in July 2002. Ten candidates graduated with an MSc degree in
December 2003. The second stream is now running.
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The implementation process of decentralisation of education
consists of the following phases:
* Identification of potential partners and courses
* Pre-feasibility assessment
* Development of the collaboration and joint course
e Implementation and consolidation. Including a
training of trainers component that will precede the
start of actual implementation.
The above process phases have been already initiated for the
identification of further potential decentralisation partners.
4. CONCLUSIONS
We have highlighted the MSc degree course in Geoinfortmatics
of ITC, an institute that in the 55 years of its history was and is
at the front line of Geoinformation Science and Earth
Observation.
The goals of the MSc course are clearly pointed out, and can be
summarised as being the critical understanding of, and
competence in, developing systems and tools for the acquisition,
processing, transformation, analysis, storage, presentation and
use of geo-information. In addition skills are developed to
enable participants to design and undertake research and
development projects in various fields of Geoinformatics. as
well as participate in multidisciplinary research and
development projects.
The course of 18 months duration is composed of a series 23
modules of three-week duration each. The final stage of the
MSc course of six months duration is dedicated to the execution
of a research project on an individual basis, sometimes directly
linked to the home country and/or the profession of the
participant. Most of the time is linked to the ongoing research
programmes of the two scientific departments which support the
Master of Science Degree Course in Geoinformatics, namely
the Earth Observation Sciense and the Geoinformation
Procesing Departments.
Special attention was also given to the two important issues of
accreditation, and decentralization of ITC's MSc degree course
in Geonformatics.
Accreditation procedures to ensure the quality of the offered
course and in order the course to maintain its high reputable
place in the new Dutch and European higher education structure
have been already started under the official Dutch accreditation
system.
Furthermore, two successful implementations of
decentralisation of education at the MSc level in Geoinformatics
with partner organisations in Iran and in India are also
summarised, whereas the phases of the implementation process
of decentralisation of education are outlined.
Parallel to the decentralisation process the option of full-time
study in ITC's headquarters in the Netherlands is fully
maintained.
5. LITERATURE REFERRED TO
Baltsavias E. P., Bouloucos,T., Mtalo, G.E., Niederoest, J.,
Rivett, U., (Eds.). Developments and Technology Transfer in
Geomatics for Environmental and Resource Management Proc.
of ISPRS Commission VI Workshop, 25^. 28" March 2002,
