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the activities of World War II, when the USA, Britain, 
Germany, the Soviet Union and Japan had to map huge areas of 
the war theatres in a short time. In the Soviet Union mapping by 
the order of Lenin received a special priority, which enabled to 
compile a map 1:100 000 over the entire territory of the Union 
from 1917 to 1956. This mapping priority was taken over by 
China for its territory with Mao Tse Tung. In these countries, 
due to communistic ideals, property mapping was not pursued, 
since land was the property of the state. These countries were 
large enough, that the education of mapping specialists in their 
specialties was warranted for topographic mapping alone. 
In the Americas mapping originally was a military domain. It 
was gradually transformed into civilian organisations. At that 
time the Mapping and Charting Laboratory was established at 
Ohio State University to give graduate courses to potential staff 
of the military and civilian agencies in 1953. The same model 
was used in Great Britain and France. 
In Canada, Australia and South Africa, and later in a number of 
developing countries of Africa and Asia the civilian demands 
prevailed. Therefore undergraduate curricula for surveying 
engineering were established there in the 1960's to meet the 
educational demands in surveying and mapping, including those 
of the cadastre. In view of the expanding computer mapping 
possibilities and the potential of geographic information 
systems these curricula have now in part been renamed as 
programs for geomatics, geoinformation or geoinformatics to 
meet the demands for sustainable development of the natural 
and social environment. 
2. WHAT IS GEOMATICS, GEOINFORMATION OR 
GEOINFORMATICS? 
The content of what is now considered as Geomatics, Geo- 
information or Geoinformatics is shown in fig. 1. 
It contains the subjects of geodetic reference systems, global 
positioning systems, photogrammetry, remote sensing, 
geographic information systems, and cartography as well as 
traditional surveying as core disciplines. 
It relies on the theories of mathematics, physics, chemistry, 
astronomy, physical geodesy, and satellite technology. It uses 
tools of computer graphics, artificial intelligence and data base 
management. 
In its application it is centred on topographic and thematic 
mapping, but it also embraces areas of professional and 
economic interest, such as the cadastre and land management, 
land consolidation, land validation and land use planning. To 
cover these tasks and understanding of the principles of law, 
real estate management and economics is required. It has links 
to multidisciplinary applications of remote sensing in 
agriculture, the environment, forestry, geology, hydrology, 
disaster management, hydrograph, and oceanography. 
It has also links to multidisciplinary applications of spatial data 
management in geography, the environmental sciences, 
agriculture, forestry, geology, geophysics, civil engineering, 
biology and oceanography. 
While the methodologies for topographic and thematic 
mapping, for spatial data management, for land registration and 
land management can be treated in depth in a professional 
curriculum, it is clear that specific remote sensing and specific 
spatial data management applications require cooperation with 
the specific application disciplines, which are impossible to be 
treated in depth in a geomatics curriculum. Geomatics should 
therefore concentrate on the theories and methodologies in 
which it has a chance to lead, but it should work in multi- 
127 
disciplinary cooperation with specialists in the application areas 
of remote sensing and spatial data management. 
These specialists also require knowledge of remote sensing and 
GIS, which can be acquired in graduate studies or at the ITC. 
But in contrast to a geomatics graduate they lack the 
professional vision of a surveying and mapping graduate. 
This professional vision was considered as a prerequisite, when 
surveys and mapping curricula were developed in the 20" 
century. In Canada A.C. Hamilton presented a “bubble chart” 
for the activities of a Surveying Engineer at the first colloquium 
on Survey Education in 1959 (see fig. 2). 
3. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS IN EDUCATION 
Higher education of today is believed to be linked to Univer- 
sities. Surveying Engineering and Geomatics are predominantly 
taught at Universities. From the early origins of Universities 
these were, however, not career oriented. Universities were the 
product of the medieval European culture. The first Universities 
in Parma, Bologna, Oxford, Modena, Perugia, Padova, Naples, 
Salamanca, Siena and Paris originated as a reaction to former 
church oriented schools of monasteries and cathedrals. Contrary 
to church reglementation they promoted free development of 
scientific knowledge. The early academic principles promoted 
academic honours, freedom of teaching and freedom from 
taxes. The first German University was established in Prague 
1348 to be followed by Vienna (1365), Heidelberg (1386), 
Cologne (1388), and Leipzig (1409). The major faculties were 
theology, law and medicine. A lower faculty, that of liberal arts 
covered such practical topics of grammar, dialectics, arithmetic, 
geometry, astronomy, and music. 
The Anglo-Saxon degree structure: “bacchalaureus”, “licencia- 
tus” and “doctor” was created at that time as well as the teach- 
ing division in “lections” and “disputations”. The University 
consisted of the community of all who taught and all who 
learned. 
The oldest American University, the one of Mexico City, is still 
very cognizant of these traditions. The early North American 
Universities, such as Harvard (and its offspring New Brunswick 
after US independence) were originally modelled after British 
University traditions. 
In Central Europe the University movement became very politi- 
cal after the French Revolution as a reaction to the ruling nobi- 
lity. The founder of the University of Berlin in 1809, Wilhelm 
von Humboldt, the brother of the South American explorer 
Alexander von Humboldt) expressed the aim of a University 
education by the ideal of humanity. He introduced the concept 
of unity between teaching and research, the belief of develop- 
ment of a personality by scientific argument, the autonomy of 
the University, the separation of school and University and the 
rejection of thought, that the University was preparatory for a 
professional career. 
Contrary to this thought, engineering, as a practical career 
oriented discipline arose as a requirement of the mechanical age 
in the 1830's at schools, not Universities. The present Univer- 
sity of Hanover originated in 1831 as an engineering trade 
school. In North America institutes of technology became 
important in the days, when the first railways spanning the 
continent were built. 
In contrast to the tradition of the “Artes Liberales” at the 
Universities, where everyone could choose the study subject he 
wanted, engineering schools became career oriented with a 
specific obligatory educational curriculum, a tendency which in 
the meantime had also developed in some specific University 
disciplines such as medicine and law. Engineering was firstly