EGIS (1994), copyright EGIS Foundation.
This survey proposes to outline the state of the art of GIS education in Italy, both at university and not university level. In our country an outstanding awareness on GIS arose from the last eighties: nevertheless the situation is different from the existing one in countries that, though not on the leading side for GIS diffusion -such as for example Spain (Comas, 1993) and Poland (Widacki, 1993)- offer some "institutional" courses both in university and in higher education. GIS education shows instead in Italy peculiar characteristics because institutional courses are not offered in universities: more than 30 seminars are however held, framed up inside university and post-university courses. Moreover other GIS courses are offered by different organizations, making GIS education rich in terms of subjects, techniques and different approach level.
This paper is made up by three different parts, for GIS education, for research and for technical instruments available for them.
KEYWORDS:
On occasion of EGIS/MARI'94, we have carried out a survey on GIS research and education, with the aim of getting a thorough outline of the italian situation. We consider this activity as an "institutional" task for GISIG whose main goal is to favour GIS environment and to spread out any element that can help GIS awareness. As far as the chosen method is concerned, we must remind that the word GIS was given a wide meaning: spatial data coding and handling. digital cartography, thematic mapping, LIS, facilities management, spatial decision systems, different and many-faceted applications. For their relationship with GIS topics were also considered issues that as a matter of fact refer to other related disciplines, such as for example remote sensing and image processing.
This is the second edition of our survey and it was done by sending a questionnaire to people we got in touch before by phone. The questionnaire, also for the sake of uniformity and comparison, was assembled on the structure of the previous one by Masser and Toppen (1991). and took also into account some issues from Bill (1992) and Koussoulakou (1992). Finally it was tried to fit it to our experience of the italian situation, that according to the 1992-1993 edition of the survey came out to be very heterogeneous. The "mailing list" was further widened thanks to any possible source: of course it can' t be complete because we couldn' t get in touch with some people and surely some other were unintentionally neglected; we apologize for that.
[End Page 563]
That implies that our survey can't be considered exhaustive and we must consider also that some answers were only partial. But we take it as largely sufficient for a first outline of the italian situation, especially at a university level. We hope to give with our work a support to exchange of experience and to mutual knowledge and collaboration.
An amount of 65 questionnaires was sent in a three months timespan, to people asserting to be active in GIS education and research. The addressees were 49 University Institutes, Faculties or Departments, 4 institutes of the National Research Council (CNR), and 12 various organisations dealing with education and research. We had 46 questionnaires back, with the following regional splitting:
We can see that the greatest part of answers (59%) is from Northern Italy. Central Italy is at 24% and the remaining 17% is from Southern Italy. This splitting reflects the diffusion of GIS and the organisational situation of SIT (acronym for "Sistemi Informativi Territoriali", i.e. GIS implementations) in public administration, at regional, provincial and municipal level (Craglia 1991 and 1992). The questionnaires back were divided into three groups: the first one offering data both on education and research (33), the second for education (8), and the last one for research (5) only.
[End Page 564]
As above said, information on GIS education were given by an amount of 41 questionnaires (33+8). As some questionnaires were referred to more seminars/courses, It was possible to obtain information on 34 seminars in university curricula, 2 seminars at a post-university level and finally 14 GIS courses not afferent to curricular education. The last ones were classified as post-high-school, post-university and post high-school/post-university courses depending on their characteristics. Fig. 2 shows the splitting of GIS education in Italy with reference to the various levels. The courses classified as post-high-school/post-university can be approached by both the two levels and no particular propaedeuticity is required, as it is for some COMETT courses.
To be more precise, GIS education in Italy can be subdivided in this way: at a post-high-school level only one course is given, dealing about management of territorial databases; at a post-university level 2 seminars are given in a master course on environmental engineering and in a master course on geodetical and topographical sciences; furthermore, at this post-university level 7 courses are given about general GIS, thematic mapping, GIS and remote sensing, GIS for natural hazard prevention, spatial data coding, territorial planning and management, and finally for urban planning. At a post-university and post-hlgh-school level we find 6 courses where are considered issues as agriculture, coastal areas, environmental protection, technological networks. planning of natural resources.
At the university level 34 seminars are framed within the following graduation curricula: engineering (civil, architectural, environmental and territorial: 14 items), architecture (4), agricultural sciences (3), human sciences (4), territorial and environmental planning (2), and a scattering of other, very different, curricula: urban planning, computer science, environmental sciences, geology, diplomacy and international sciences, economics. The curriculary disciplines where GIS issues are presented are: cartography and topographical survey (16), urban planning (15), environmental planning (11), geography (10), remote sensing (8), environmental research (7), spatial data modelling (7) and databases (7). Fig. 3 shows and completes what above said.
[End Page 565]
In most cases only one or two teachers are involved in educational activities, mainly from university and research centres, such as for example the CNR, and the percentage of lectures from external teachers is rather low, as can be argued from the following tables, whose indications are only partial because of blanks in the questionnaires.
Summarizing the aforesaid indications, a first synopsis of GIS education in Italy can be given by the following map (just to be geo-oriented!), where all italian region are given the number of seminars and courses offered and their related disciplines.
[End Page 566]
As aforesaid. GIS education is carried on in 50 different seminars and courses with different entry levels and lengths.
Though a seminar was held in Milan in 1982, and others in the following years of the eighties, the main part of GIS educational activities started from 1990. In most cases university seminars do not derive from collaborations with other organisations. but have all the same the presence of external lecturers; many courses or seminars are on the other hand set up in collaboration with foreign universities, with the CNR or in the framework of the European program Comett. This implies that a part of GIS education (up to 15 items) is acknowledged by external entities, such as for example the Italian Ministry for University and Scientific and Technological Research, the EU and its COMETT program, as well as some local bodies.
Summarizing, and partly repeating indications already given, the subjects dealt with in education are the various different applications where GIS can offer support (31 items), cartography (24), the relationship with remote sensing (18), GIS introductory overviews (17), digital elevation modelling (17) and the basic software tools for GIS (14). In GIS applications topics as environmental research and planning, territorial and urban planning, agriculture and rural areas prevail. The following figure shows these and the other considered topics.
[End Page 567]
The duration of the different courses and seminars is highly various.
The only course at the post-school-level is the longest one, having a duration of 1300 hours, and considers other scientific and technical disciplines. The post-university and the post-high-school/post-university courses and seminars present very different durations and from our data it is not possible to be precise on the their actual GIS content.
University courses are usually short (from 10/15 to 40 hours), because they are aimed only at offering some GIS elements within the different curricular disciplines. Most of the activities are repeated yearly, but some of them are activated only upon specific request by users.
As far as the split of activities is concerned, group lessons, training sessions, and or individual test case projects, it is easily to understand that lessons are the most common form, because there are often university seminars where only the first GIS elements can be offered. Also with largely incomplete hints offered by the questionnaires, a good consistency of training sessions is present, while are not common GIS test-case projects, also due to the sometime insufficient-or badly available to students-hardware and software equipment.
Data regarding the number of students show prevalent the classes with more 20 or between 11 and 20 students.
Usually GIS are presented in the last two years of university curriculum, and sometimes are used as instruments for the final graduation thesis.
Some of the courses or seminars use audiovisual and multimedia tools and offer practical demos or presentation on computer.
[End Page 568]
Finally, some actlvities receive special fundings, e.g. from the EU, via the program COMETT and the European Social fund, or from the universities, from local bodies and also from private companies (e.g. Siemens).
Our survey made an attempt to take into account also GIS research activities, but only when and as far as they offer trends, hints and contributions to education. Data were extracted from 38 questionnaires, 5 of them giving information only to research. Most indications came from universities, other from the CNR or from organisations involved in research (e.g. the EU Joint Research Centre or other public bodies and semi-public Consortia).
GIS research is oriented to many different topics, that can be approximately grouped with the same rules used for courses and seminars. These groups are repeated because some specific topics can have interest:
GIS research exploits different opportunities: research agreements and contracts, CNR project funding, Ministry of University and Scientifical and Technological Research funding, EU programmes and contracts, also with reference to collaboration with Eastern Europe, industrial collaborations and funding.
These opportunities correspond to the different types of committments, to which we have to add local bodies (Regions, Provinces, Municipalities). Finally, it is convenient to point out that in our survey as well in Ciancarella et alii (1993), environment and related risks is one of the issues where an increasing number of GIS applications, research and experience is addressing to. This happens at an international level too, where research, according to expectations of a sustainable development, is particularly active in fields as pollution monitoring, EIA and vulnerability, management and protection of environmental resources.
In most cases, as shown in the table, hardware equipment ranges from 1 to 5 computers, for research and educational activities. It seems rather poor and in fact some of the answers point out that it is not sufficient for the number of students.
[End Page 569]
The operating systems are usually DOS and Unix, C and Fortran the programming languages. The most common databases are the DB3 family. AutoCAD the most frequent graphical CAD engine.
A number of GIS softwares are present. The following table refers to those ones mentioned more than once:
GIS educational activities appear to be in Italy not sufficient for number of courses, especially if we compare them to the potential market requests and to the number of target users. Furthermore, some of the GIS courses are held not regularly, but on the basis of specific requests: their number is then changing every year.
At the university level the situation is not good, especially when compared to countries as The Netherlands (Toppen, Groen, 1990; Toppen, 1991) or the United Kingdom (Harts et alii, 1990; Masser, 1990). Italian universities do not offer curriculum courses on GIS, but only a series of seminars based on the specific personal interest and willingness of the lecturerers.
In some cases, for example at Venice Architecture Institute -where a master on GIS is planned for the next months-, groups of teachers and researchers try to upgrade and improve educational activities. Their master will be carried on as a first experiment with the eye on the future "short degree" curriculum on GIS, planned for the next years.
In other cases instead, the potential teachers are faced to big difficulties in making university administrations aware on the importance of these tools and in upgrading hardware and software equipment.
As a consequence, sometimes GIS are affordable in an adequate manner only for students who choose them as the subject or the support for their graduation thesis.
To give also an optimistic indication, we can observe that though italian GIS situation is curbed by a not sufficiently systematic approach and by a lack of coordination (Guarrasi, 1992) it is all the same rather vital as comes out from the national and international networking of the people we got in touch with. As regards structures, the international contacts and networks or programs that were mentioned by the questionnaires are mainly the European Science Foundation, the US NCGIA and the EU programs Erasmus, Tempus, Comett and its filiation GISIG.
At a national level must be mentioned the fact that some of the interviewees are not only active in GIS education but also in consultancy to public adminiatration. It seems that this fact is somehow reflected by the issues considered in education, where territorial planning and generic environmental management prevail.
Finally, we wish to underline that in these last years italian interest to GIS gradually increased. Masser and Toppen (1992a, 1992b) sent to Italy for a
[End Page 570]
european survey 43 questionnaires, receiving only 4 answers. Our previous survey (Roccatagliata, Primi, 1993), presented in an oral communication to EGIS' 93, received 23 answers from 44 questionnaires. In the present survey we could have a greater number of answers (46) and we found also a greater interest and interactivity by the interviewees.
It seems that GIS education, though with organisation problems, appears to become furtherly diffused: this is shown also by the fact that between 1993 and 1994 three more university seminars and three post-university courses were activated or promoted.
We hope to find in the near future the results of all these activities, in terms of a more structured and institutional presence of GIS educational activities in the regular italian didactic curricula.
Bill R. (1992), "On the situation of GIS education at German universities" EGIS'92 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation, Munich, pp.846-854.
Ciancarella L., Durazzi A., Secondini P., Valpreda E. (1993), "Geographical Information Systems in environmental analysis and planning: reasoning through a review of the principal European and Italian experiences", EGIS'93 Proceedings. EGIS Foundation, Genoa, pp. 555-564.
Comas D. (1993), "Evaluating GIS education at the University of Girona: reflexions on an active method", EGIS'93 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation, Genoa, pp. 294-301.
Craglia M. (1991), "Aspetti organissativi nella gestione dei sistemi di informazione geografica", Documenti del Territorio, 22, pp.26-39.
Craglia M. (1992). "Jumping at the deep end: GIS in Italian local government", EGIS'92 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation, Munich, pp. 629-638.
Guarrasi V. (1992), "Informations Systems and geographical research in Italy", Research projects and working groups 1990-1993, Patron, Bologna, pp.117-125.
Harts J., Ottens H., Scholten H. (1990), "EGIS'90 and the development and application of Geographical Information Systems in Europe," EGIS'90 Proceedings. EGIS Foundation, Amsterdam, pp.1-10.
Koussoulakou A. 11992), "GIS education in the Netherlans: profile and prospects", EGIS'92 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation, Munich, pp.84-92.
Masser I. (1990), "GIS in Britain: the Regional Research Laboratory initiative" EGIS'90 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation, Amsterdam, pp.721-728.
Masser I.. Toppen F. (1992a), "A proposal for a European GIS education Special Interest Group", EGIS'92 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation, Munich, pp. 855-863.
Masser I., Toppen F. (1992b), "Survey suggests GIS education trends in Europe", GIS Europe, 1, 8, pp. 40-43.
Roccatagliata E., Primi A. (1993), "GIS education and research in Italy: a preliminary survey, unpublished.
Toppen F. (1991). "GIS knowledge and skills. Supply and demand in the Netherlands", EGIS'91 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation, Brussels, pp. 1106-1115.
Toppen F.. Groen J. (1990), "Job opportunities and GIS curriculum development; GIS courses in human geography at the university of Utrecht", EGIS'90 Proceedlngs, EGIS Foundation, Amsterdam, pp. 1088-1097.
Widacki W. (1993), "GIS education in Poland", EGIS'93 Proceedings, EGIS Foundation. Utrecht, PP. 733-737.
[End Page 571]