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Efforts to integrate spatial information disciplines have 
been primarily pushed by the advances of technologies. A 
number of proposals, however, have been made by 
Scientists and scientific committees to define an 
integrated science or discipline rather than just looking 
into the progress of technology. For example, the 
Surveying program of the University of Laval in Québec, 
Canada, developed a radically revised curriculum and 
degree program in 'Geomatics' (Bédard, et al., 1988) The 
term Geomatics was subsequently adopted by other 
Canadian organizations and institutions concerned with 
Surveying and mapping (Groot, 1989). 
Similar efforts to integrate specialized spatial data 
handling disciplines resulted in the formation of a 
Department of Geoinformatics at the International 
Institute for Aerospace Survey and Earth Sciences (ITC) 
in Enschede, The Netherlands (Ehlers and Amer, 1991, 
Groot, 1989). The Geoinformatics Department integrates 
photogrammetry, cartography, remote sensing, GIS/LIS 
and computer science (applied informatics). The ITC 
approach did not radically change an existing program in 
higher education but rather added a new and integrated 
rrows indicate possible conversion strategies) 
geoinformatics component. Their approach has been 
primarily driven by the need to integrate multi-source 
geodata within a common system (Figure 1). 
It has to be noted, however, that the field of 
geoinformatics is only an evolving one. Other 
approaches have been initiated from disciplines such as 
geography (Dollinger, 1992, Goodchild, 1992) or treat 
geoinformatics as a subarea of surveying (Bill, 1992). 
In this process, geo[infor]matics has been defined as 
"...the science and technology dealing with the structure 
and character of spatial information, its capture, its 
classification and qualification, its storage, processing, 
portrayal and dissemination, including the infrastructure 
necessary to secure optimal use of this information” 
(Groot, 1989); as "...field of scientific and technical 
activities which, using a system approach, integrates all 
the means used to acquire and manage spatially referenced 
data as part of the process of producing and managing 
spatially based information" (Gagnon and Coleman, 
1990); and as "...the art, science or technology dealing 
with the acquisition, storage, processing, production, 
379