Fred Toppen, Utrecht University
and Petra Cremers, GEON, The Netherlands
The major focus of the Education SIG was to bring together people from both Western and Eastern Europe, to organize paper tracks and workshops, and to act as a medium for information exchange. The Education SIG was successful in bringing together people and to put GIS education on the agenda of some of the major GIS conferences organized last years. A whole lot of current contacts between people at the European level were initiated during these events and a network of GIS education specialists has been established. Some of these contacts resulted in promising joint education programmes. The Education SIG was less successful in establishing a permanent flow of information between GIS educators and it did not succeeded in promoting and organizing the exchange of GIS curricula. Some possible causes for these activities to work out less succesful are the lack of financial support and the limited number of people that are able to join European GIS conferences.
Some other European initiatives were very important in encouraging the dissemination of information on GIS. Especially EU programs on technology transfer such as COMETT and IMPACT worked out to be successful in stimulating cooperation and information exchange and played a major role in promoting GIS awareness in Eastern Europe.
For the future promising developments might be expected especially in the field of information exchange and a growing number of exchange programmes. New technologies as for example Internet should allow for easier communication and access to information. European initiatives dealing with issues like data exchange, standards, and data availability should at the end be beneficial to all who are involved in GIS education.
Petra Cremers
GEON, Centre of Expertise for Geo-information Studies
Groningen
The Netherlands