EUGISES - 7th European GIS Education Seminar, 2010

03 July 2009, 2:03pm

First Announcement for
Seventh European GIS Education Seminar
9-12 September, 2010
Serres, Greece

A specialist meeting on GIS education in Europe

This will be the seventh European GIS in Education Seminar - EUGISES. After very successful meetings in the Netherlands (1998), Hungary (2000), Spain (2002), Austria (2004), Poland (2006) and Cirencester (2006), it will come to Greece, the town of Serres in 2010. The basic purpose of the seminar remains unchanged, an occasion for all of those interested in the teaching and learning of GIS in Europe (and beyond) to meet to share ideas, best practice, innovation, the odd confession and possibly a drink or two. The social aspect will be important as this will be a meeting of old and new friends with a shared interest and passion.

Delegates will be able to submit full technical papers and posters and more importantly will have the chance to participate in the discussion of this presented work. The papers will be presented in a single stream through the seminar to ensure that all delegates can attend any session.

Date and Venue

EUGISES 2010 will run from Sept 09 (Thursday) – Sept 12 (Sunday) 2010. It will be held in Serres, Greece. Serres is a city located in the north part of the country, about 80 km from Thessaloniki, which is the biggest transportation hub in the area. There are many regular international flights from Thessaloniki to many other European cities and during the touristic season (between April and October) many charter flights as well. Then there is a bus service from Thessaloniki that runs every half an hour and takes approximately 1 hour and 15 minutes to reach the city of Serres.

Serres is referred rather early (5th century BC) in Greek history and has played a significant role being placed between two important rivers, Nestos and Strimonas. The surrounding area has a lot of natural beauty with main attractions being the Lake Kerniki (an artificial lake created to regulate the waters of Strimonas river) which is now a protected area and the Cave of Alistrati, one of the most beautiful in the country. Serres has about 100000 inhabitants, with about 10% of them being the students of TEI of Serres, giving a livelier note to the city.

TEI of Serres was founded in 1979, is publicly owned and belongs to the Greek tertiary education system since 1983. The T.E.I. consists of two Faculties, the Faculty of Applied Technology and the Faculty of Administration and Economics.

The total number of registered students amounts to 12000 whereas that of the teaching staff (both permanent and temporal) comes up to 400.

Structure of the meeting

Following in the footsteps of the previous EUGISES meetings, this seminar aims to gather people from all over Europe, and some guests from outside Europe, in an informal setting to discuss GIS education.

A new element is that a limited number of specialists will be asked to prepare a vision paper. The vision paper will also be used to focus the programme on the key issues. Keynote speakers will be invited to introduce the main seminar themes. Papers and posters on topics relating to GIS education and addressed in the vision paper will be presented during the three conference days. There will be ample opportunities to discuss GIS education related issues with each other at formal and informal meetings throughout the daily sessions and at the evening social events.

The meeting will start with a welcoming address and an ice breaker party on the Thursday evening. The main presentations will run from 9:00am to 6:00pm on Friday and Saturday. There will be a conferences dinner on the Friday night on the campus and a social evening on Saturday. On Sunday morning there will be a summation meeting and future planning meeting, with the seminar formally finishing at lunch time.

Preliminary agenda

The seminar will start on Thursday evening, September 10th. On Friday and Saturday plenary paper and discussion sessions will take place, as well as a keynote address. Both evenings will offer the opportunity to participate in a social event. Sunday morning will be used to sum up and discuss ideas for future co-operation.

Sessions

The plenary sessions will have various forms: paper presentations, discussion, working groups, (computer) demonstrations, poster presentations etc. Presentations will be short, so we do not expect participants to present their full paper at the seminar but to select those issues that could stimulate discussion and the exchange of ideas. Sessions will primarily linked to the vision paper that will be published later, but other issues could be: best educational practices, harmonisation of (GI) curricula in Europe, geo services, GI education for professionals, GI education for end users, incorporating new technology in GI-teaching, interoperability of teaching materials, quality assurance mechanisms for GI-education, and business models in education

Fee

The seminar registration fee is expected to be around €400-450 and will cover as usual all conference materials, coffee/tea, meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) during the conference days, and accommodation for three nights in the same hotel where the conference takes place.

East European sponsor programme

The organizing committee will try to support the participation of colleagues from Central and East European countries who are unable to cover the costs of participation. To the extent that these funds are available, grants will be given to cover (part of) the costs for the conference fee and accommodation for those who apply. Information about these grants will become available early 2010.

Preliminary time schedule

Fall 2009: Call for papers
January 2010: Deadline paper and poster proposals
Spring 2010: Results review process paper and poster proposals
Spring 2010: Registration
June 2010: Final draft programme and papers available on conference web-site
09-12 September 2010: 7th EUGISES Seminar (Serres, Greece)

Local Organizing Committee

Dimitris Kotzinos (TEI of Serres), Lila Theodoridou (TEI of Serres), Ritsa Kariotou (TEI of Serres), Vassilis Pappas (University of Patras

Programme and Advisory Committee

Fred Toppen, Marien de Bakker, Wolfgang Reinhardt

More information:
http:// www.eugises.org (made available soon)

More general information can be obtained from:

+ Dimitris Kotzinos, Department of Geoinformatics and Surveying, TEI of Serres, email kotzino@teiser.gr
+ Fred Toppen, Faculty of Geographical Sciences, University of Utrecht
email f.toppen@geo.uu.nl
+ Marien de Bakker, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen
email M.de.Bakker@rug.nl

Geo: International