REMOTE SENSING AND GIS EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE AEGEAN
Dr. John N. Hatzopoulos
Professor of Remote Sensing and G.I.S.,
University of the Aegean,
Department of Environmental Studies
Mytilene, T.K. 81100
GREECE
ABSTRACT
Curriculum development and the implementation of
Remote Sensing and GIS at the Department of Envi-
ronmental Studies of the University of the Aegean,
Greece are well presented. The use of a microcom-
puter laboratory to understand and develop software
routines for such technologies, as well as, educa-
tional aspects involved, are presented and ana-
lyzed.
KEY WORDS: Education, Curriculum, Remote Sensing,
GIS, Software, Computer.
1. INTRODUCTION
The department of Environmental studies in the Uni-
versity of the Aegean started for the first time at
the undergraduate level in the academic year
1987-1988 while the graduate program had began one
year earlier in 1986. At the present time there are
four major Sections within the department such as
Ecosystem Management, Environmental Engineering,
Social Environment and Environmental Planing. All
these sections operate under a unique four year
program of studies. There is a number of courses
offered in each section covering related subject
areas. Courses however, related to remote sensing
and GIS are offered in the Environmental Planing
Section. The lab equipment organization, as well
as, the development of courses in remote sensing
and GIS, in such a program of studies have certain
objectives and limitations. The objectives are:
(a) Laboratory support of a GIS system which will
do the management of cartographic and environmental
information accessible to all interesting faculty
and students through individual workstations. The
lab will be used for research and instruction in
both graduate and undergraduate level.
(b) Generation of course material covering the GIS:
principles, development and operation.
(c) Laboratory support of a remote sensing system
for extraction of environmental information from
analog and digital images. This lab will be inter-
faced to the GIS system. This lab will also be used
for research and instruction in both graduate and
undergraduate level.
(d) Generation of course material to cover the
remote sensing methods and provide the necessary
knowledge on environmental applications.
There is, however, one limitation such as minimisa-
tion of the number of courses which cover both
remote sensing topics and GIS. This limitation is
necessary to keep the total number of courses in
the program within reasonable limits for students,
in order to obtain a degree in four years.
2. CONSIDERATIONS FROM NEW TECHNOLOGIES
The term new technologies, or, high technology is
referred to the hardware and software components
necessary to run a system in an area of applica-
tion.
Remote sensing and GIS are two neighbouring areas
and both are using high technology in their appli-
cations. Because they are technology dependent,
they do change as technology changes. The scien-
tific bases where these fields are based on, do not
change as rapidly as the technological components.
The algorithms, however, change to be more effi-
cient any time the computing machines are changing.
A lot of research in those areas is concentrated
into the algorithms and the software. The scien-
tific way to study and analyze those systems in
areas of application such as remote sensing and
GIS, involves methods and theories, algorithms,
hardware and software. The educational aspects of
such complicated systems seems to create diffi-
culties and there are publications such as Dahlberg
R.E., and Jensen J.R, 1985, which express such
conditions for the educator: "at an individual
level one feels both challenged and threatened by
the explosive growth of knowledge". In this presen-
tation the educator is assumed to be challenged by
the high technology and uses the advantages of
high-tech to make the tremendous amount of knowl-
edge easier to understand from what it was before
the technological revolution (Hashimi Syer R.,
1984, Hatzopoulos J.N. 1985).
The proper response to the challenge of new tech-
nologies is to use such technology as an education
aid. Then all become much simpler and easier to
understand. Some strong advantages of high technol-
ogy include its capacity to provide quick and cor-
rect results in very complicated problems and its
ability to simulate most lab equipment, lab experi-
ments and processes. Those advantages if properly
are exploited by the educator, they could create
strong motives to the student who will try to find
out how this happens. In this way the learning pro-
e as shown in Fig. 1, takes a Bottom-Top-Bottom
BTB)
Top
GIVEN DATA
THEORIES
ANALYSIS| N
MATH |—9 ALGORITHMS >| PROCESSING
PHYSICS | /
etc.
: RESULTS
well of
unlimited Bottom
amount of
knowledge
— SCIENTIST/ENGINEER — —— —4- OPERATOR
Figure 1. The advantage of the technology to pro-
vide quick results creates strong motives to study
the scientific bases to a great depth.
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