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2. The Impact 
As we all aware, at present, most of the photogrammetric and 
remote sensing education institutions have to review their 
curricula. The main reason to do such a review is because they 
have to cope with the quickly changing environment of 
technologies and tools. These changing mainly because of the 
IT influences. Some impacts due to that changing may occur, 
for example: 
First is the setting up of new education program. Since the name 
of IT becomes very popular there are many possibilities to put 
IT as a selling point. The SEAMEO BIOTROP in Bogor - 
Indonesia for example now offered a two years master program 
on IT for Natural Resources management. The course was 
started in the beginning of 1998. The goal is to train students to 
become experts in the application of IT for natural resource 
management. The primary aim of the program is to deal with 
quantitative approaches to enable the development of a reliable 
decision-support system for natural resource management. The 
core (major) courses consist of (1) Simulation Modelling and 
Expert Systems, (2) GIS, (3) Remote Sensing/Image Processing, 
and (4) Decision Support System. As we can see, no doubt that 
IT plays an important role in this program. 
Second is how to incorporate IT in the course subjects. In the 
Institute of Technology, Bandung (ITB) there are at least 4 
departments try to incorporate IT within their course though it 
is mainly in GIS. This is applies because the relationship 
between IT and GIS is more explicitly (Chan & Williamson, 
1995). By definition for instance a GIS comprise of five 
elements, i.e.: data, information technology, standard, expertise 
and the organisational setting. Here it is explicitly shows that IT 
is an element (out of five) that required meeting an 
organisation's geographic information needs. Thus, without 
touching it too much IT is there already. This situation may 
occur in other university as well as the high learning 
institutions. 
Third is the possibility of free access and use of information. 
For example a number of tutorial subjects are now available and 
can be access through the Internet. This mean, in addition to the 
lecture in the classroom, the student could learn directly from 
different sources. No limitations found on the learning process. 
It will cover a complete range of the learning process. This may 
includes the literature studies, understanding the exercises and 
the case studies. The Internet also provides a place for hosting 
data that can be accessed by anyone, without the need to explain 
why and to what use it will be put regardless the possibility of 
piracy of data for sale. 
Fourth. IT will open a new era of long distance education 
'broadband'. Even with the availability of the advanced network, 
the satellite images can be retrieved in real time mode. In this 
regard a Remote Sensing expert could disseminate their 
knowledge to the larger audience. In Indonesia this will be a 
promising model in order to improve the student knowledge 
from other university in which the remote sensing expert is not 
available. The curricula will then be standardised as well. 
Those four examples above only show some indications on how 
the IT could influence the education. However, the challenge is 
still there. This includes: 
• Investment: the education institutions should make an 
investment in IT. IT affects strategic issues, account for 
large expenditure, competes for resources, is complex, and 
could eventually become at the core of educational 
process. The approach to evaluating cost and benefits 
depends on whether we are interested in big issues or local 
ones. On the other hand, education is an investment in the 
future of a nation. The impact of technology development 
such as IT toward education system should be carefully 
studied in order to make the best used of IT. 
• Employer: employers need workers skilled in all aspect of 
IT. Level of technological skill needed may vary. Some 
require large teams of many specialists to produce and 
deliver learning materials. Others need only normal staff 
level of IT skill (e.g. word processing, spreadsheet, etc). 
Others even need very little learning IT skill. But in 
general they should have the following skills: (a) teaching 
in higher education, (b) computer science, (c) 
programming, (d) information handling: text, library, 
database, Internet, (e) graphic design, (f) CAL 
development, (g) technical writing. 
• Infrastructure: Computer and network infrastructures. 
Making a decision to adopt new technologies on a large 
scale is not trivial for an organisation or nation. It requires 
long term survival as the criteria, rather than short-term 
profitability. Educational change should be driven by 
teaching and learning needs, which in them selves are 
usually driven by external pressure. Therefore it is 
important for education institutions and individual 
lecturers to evaluate and make decision on investing in the 
effective use of IT in delivering learning. 
3. The Internet Challenge 
Discussions among various education institutions are ongoing 
and it appears that the special Government task force for 
regulating the so-called information superhighway promised 
some time ago has yet to be organised. Indonesia appears to lag 
behind its ASEAN neighbours in crafting a comprehensive 
regulatory response to the perceived opportunities and threats of 
the Internet. Meanwhile, enthusiasm for the Internet access by 
educational institutions continues (Gingerich, 1996). 
In ITB the most successful utilisation of IT or Internet access is 
at the library. It was started on September 1996 when ITB 
installed a Ku-Band earth station equipment to access JCSat-3 
satellite that was support by AI3 Project from Japan. This is a 
big leap for Indonesian educational institutions to connect them 
to Internet (Ismail Fahmi, et.al. 1999). It is hope that Internet 
will motivated the learning process of the students. This is 
because the Internet allows students to directly access various 
sources of information around the world. 
However besides the merits there are some demerits of using the 
Internet in education. Example of demerits (Miyazawa, et.al.): 
• Exposing the malign information e.g. pornography, 
aggression, racism, etc. 
• The staff cannot cope with the movements, especially in 
hardware and software, and it is difficult for them to 
undertake administration on the network. 
• There are insufficient number of trainers to provide advice 
both to the lecturer/teacher and students. In addition, the