(1) PROMAS - Universidad de Cuenca
P.O.BOX 01-01-1081
CUENCA, ECUADOR
fax : (+593 7) 832 183
e-mail : jdeckmyn@ucuenca.edu.ec
jdeckmyn@az.pro.ec
(2) UNISIG - Escuela Politecnica Nacional de Quito
QUITO, ECUADOR
(3) CINFA - Universidad Nacional de Loja
LOJA, ECUADOR
ABSTRACT
The Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance (VVOB) has, during the last five years, sent a group of GIS professionals to different Ecuadorian universities. The idea of this cooperation is primarily to improve the academic standard regarding GIS related subjects. A complementary benefit, however, is the implementation of GIS in both private and public projects. Experience was gained in the field of GIS applications in collaboration with academic staff and students within the faculties of civil, agricultural and/or computer engineering of the National Polytechnical School (Quito), the University of Cuenca and the National University of Loja.
From these experiences some conclusions can be drawn regarding the situation of GIS at university level in third world countries. Topics are: the general and preliminary knowledge of computer and agricultural engineers, the availability of hardware and software at universities, the introduction and acceptance of new technologies and the career perspectives of GIS-trained professionals and their special interests.
The mentioned universities were chosen because of their interest and the likelihood of reaching a desired goal. A collaboration with the faculties of civil, agricultural and/or computer engineering within these universities was considered the most likely to achieve success. Obviously the academic / scientific situation is quite different for each one of them. Moreover the support and collaboration offered by the local partners is characterized by its heterogeneity, due to political and financial differences. Nevertheless some general conclusions, remarks and suggestions can be made.
Introduction : Ecuador, VVOB, development aid, GIS
Ecuador (1996)
The "Vlaamse Vereniging voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking en Technische Bijstand" (Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and Technical Assistance), is a development organization, supported by the Flemish federal government (Belgium), whose aims are to organize, stimulate and coordinate the transfer of knowledge between the Flemish community and foreign countries, mainly through projects in secondary schools and universities. The organization is active in Asia (Thailand, China, Vietnam), Africa (Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Rwanda and Burundi) and Latin America (Ecuador, Surinam and Chile).
Development Aid
A few years ago some press releases on failures in development programs started a profound discussion in Belgium about development aid: Where should we work? What should we do? How should we work? ...
Recently the tendency seems to be to concentrate efforts both spatially and thematically. The spatial concentration means that only a few countries receive development aid from Belgium. The choice of these countries is based upon previous experiences and upon the probability of a successful intervention, which is often related to the degree of corruption, the presence of organizational frameworks and in general the ripeness for cooperation. The thematic concentrations intend to focus the efforts on existing needs in fields of health, agriculture, infrastructure and other primary needs.
So, why GIS ??
In recent years computer tools such as geographic information systems (GIS) have become fundamental for environmental assessment, regional planning, ecosystem conservation and natural resource management. Also in developing countries there exists a growing interest in these tools, both in the public and private sector. GIS offer a wide range of possibilities in the fields of inventory making, planning and decision making. With GIS one can store and manage geographical data, integrate different types and analyze relations between data themes, perform spatial modeling, etc. . The results are displayed visually on maps to help decision-makers better understand and solve problems.
GIS is an interdisciplinary tool. Therefore it receives attention from various disciplines such as agricultural engineering, civil engineering, computer science, sociology, etc. . This is positive in a way, for indeed it is necessary that all the involved disciplines become partners in the process of implementation of the GIS, on the other hand it also complicates the situation because each one of them tends to neglect the global picture. A sociologist does not worry about projection systems, an agricultural engineer does not see the need of a neatly structured database, a computer scientist does not understand the final goal of his new toy, ... and each one of them wants to have or to be himself "the" GIS specialist.
Experiences of VVOB GIS professionals in Ecuador
Cuenca
Context :
The Program for Land and Water Management (Programa para el Manejo del Agua y del Suelo - PROMAS) of the University of Cuenca is being executed by an interdisciplinary team of local engineers, economists and sociologists and 3 foreign experts (some 12 persons in total). . It is the only location where a GIS professional sent by the VVOB works in a "program", clearly defined as interdisciplinary. This team is active in research projects, teaching and consulting. The need for a GIS expert was expressed by the team and VVOB sent this reinforcement in November 1996.
(Cuenca is the third city of Ecuador with its 300000 inhabitants.)
Current situation :
PROMAS has been working several years with GIS, acquiring thus a good working knowledge of the system. Currently the main ongoing actions are to structure and divulge this knowledge, to fill the gaps (on precision, error, decision making, ...) and to clean and organize the extensive dataset. This work is being done within the different research projects, by organizing seminars, by lectures and through the guidance of thesis students from different faculties (civil, agricultural and computer engineering).
The experience with this group of last-year students and recently graduated collaborators shows the success such an interdisciplinary group can have due to the complementary character of its members. These young people demonstrate a lot of enthusiasm to learn new skills and often prove to be good in acquiring these fully autonomously. Unfortunately the different scientific branches of the university use to be isolated from eachother. The lack of interfacultary contact prevents a rapid improvement of the academic level in general and especially with regard to GIS. The knowledge of computer sciences is very low in the agricultural faculty, more acceptable amongst the civil engineers, and very application oriented in the school of computer engineers. The knowledge of geography is limited amongst both the agricultural and civil engineers and nonexistant amongst the computer engineers. Hydrology, soil sciences, topography, computer science, ..., are all different disciplines taught by different professors in the different faculties without any form of discussion or interrelationship between the disciplines.
As a result of this situation, GIS took off in the school of computer sciences, at that time computers were not even available in the other faculties. ArcINFO was bought and installed on one of the first workstations of the university. A few collaborators participated in some ESRI courses and started digitizing and storing maps. This work was done by computer engineers with a very limited knowledge (if any) of projection systems, scale, error propagation, cartography, ... . As a later stage GIS became a course in the school of computer sciences, naturally dictated by a computer engineer. Only recently have other faculties shown an interest to incorporate GIS in their curriculum. The main problems here are the almost complete lack of fundamental computer knowledge, the unavailability of an adequate infrastructure and in some cases the stubbornness of colleagues.
Last year a series of seminars was organized which demonstrated that the students throughout the whole university generally have not developed a sufficiently critical and analytical mind. Apparently the reasons for this phenomenon should be sought in the low level of education before university and the learning system which is based on memorizing.
The main inhibitor for a rapid improvement of the current situation is lack of cooperation and the poor divulgence of knowledge between faculties and departments. At least three other groups in the university are interested in and working with GIS (IDRISI, ArcInfo, ArcView, GRASS, MapInfo, Microstation), but unfortunately the contact between these groups is restricted because of political or even strictly personal problems. The same problem occurs with other schools and institutions in the same city also working with GIS.
Loja :
Context :
The Center for Agricultural Computer Science (Centro de Informática Agropecuaria - CINFA) was created in 1994 at the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering of the National University of Loja by a local soil conservation specialist and two VVOB experts. The center's main goal is to introduce computer science in the fields of agronomy, irrigation and forestry, at university level as well as in local governmental and non governmental organizations.
Current situation :
Between developed and developing countries there exists an increasing technology gap. In a similar way, due to centralisation, the remote places within developing countries obtain new technologies at a slower pace than the bigger cities. In Loja, one of the smaller and remotest cities of Ecuador (100.000 inhabitants), only during the last few years have computer sciences been reaching a larger scientific public. Although the computer is mainly employed for word processing, in some cases it is used to run spreadsheets and CAD-systems, but only in exceptional situations an interest in GIS is shown. Therefore the principal activities are teaching and advising about GIS and Remote Sensing.
Presently GIS-education is not included in the curriculum of any of the faculties of the National University of Loja. The process of bringing the curricula up to date with the technological and scientific advances is very retarded because of the conservatism existing in Loja. Often professionals seem to lack curiosity, an open-minded attitude, initiative, imagination, an analytical mind, ingenuity, and planning capacity.
Moreover the infrastructure for GIS courses is still very limited as the basic needs of the university and the educational tools for the principal departments (eg chemistry, physics, biology, ...) are attended to in the first place.
Quito
Context:
At the Escuela Politécnica Nacional, the department UNISIG (Unidad de Inteligencia Artificial y Sistemas de Información Geográfica) was founded three years ago. The aim of the department is to organize courses of Artificial Intelligence, GIS and Remote Sensing and to participate in GIS related projects formulated in other faculties of the university. The team of professionals working at UNISIG consists of two foreigners (an agricultural engineer and a computer engineer), a local computer engineer and an electrical engineer. Because the department UNISIG is part of the 'Faculty of Computer Sciences', most of the students which are doing their thesis are future computer engineers.
(Quito, the capital of Ecuador has about 1 million of inhabitants.)
Current situation:
Most of the teams time is dedicated to education ; lecturing at pre- and postgraduate level, seminars about geostatistics, remote sensing, ... . The follow-up of thesis students is another major activity. Most of the thesis students are dealing with GIS-database management applications in areas such as hydrology, irrigation, tourism, city planning and natural resources management. There are contacts with other faculties and private organizations in order to start GIS related projects. Although it seems there is a lot of interest, funding usually is hard to find. Another problem is that UNISIG was created within the Faculty of Computer Sciences, and therefore lacks the multidisciplinary contact which is needed within a GIS-workgroup. UNISIG has to contact and make agreements with other institutions which complicates the work.
Other projects regarding GIS education in Ecuador :
MAG (ministry of agriculture)
At this moment of group of consultants is analyzing different commercial GIS. By the end of this year a report is to be published with the results of this study and from January the training of personal with the selected software/hardware is expected to start.
At this moment there are two groups that have already started working with GIS : DINAREN (Direccion Nacional de Recursos Naturales)and INEFAN (Instituto Nacional de Forestacion de Areas Naturales). The main tools they use are ArcInfo, ArcView, IDRISI and PCI.
The training of staff is still a critical point. Only a very limited number of people have had any form of training at all and if there was any training, this training generally is limited to the use of one or another commercial GIS. This can be quite harmful as the underlying knowledge of projections, error assessment, scale, ... is completely neglected.
Other universities
The "Universidad de Azuay" has been working on a GIS for the city of Cuenca. Unfortunately this effort resulted, so far, only in a prototype.
The "Escuela Politecnica del Ejercito" (ESPE) is the only university where a Faculty of Geographical Engineers exists. It is probably one of the best equipped institutes in Ecuador, both in hardware and software. In addition they have privileged contacts with the CLIRSEN (Centro de Levantamientos Integrados de Recursos Naturales por Sensores Remotos).
The Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) is currently working with the "Escuela Politecnica del Litoral" (ESPOL) in a project "Monitoring the Guayas Estuary using GIS".
In the "Universidad Tecnica Estatal de Quevedo" (UTEQ), a former collaborator of the CINFA (Loja), a center for agricultural computer sciences has been created. Next year VVOB will send a GIS-expert to support this center.
Commercial organizations
In Ecuador the vendors of GIS software provide very little user's support. ESRI is giving some introductory courses in Quito and TNTMips has been starting to divulgate his GIS and to organize courses.
Main problems
Most of the problems in developing countries also occur in developed countries but become more critical in these economically weak countries.
The development cooperation and technical assistance organizations must contribute to diminish the technology gap. Their principal means are education and transfer of knowledge. But this is not altogether easy because of the following obstacles :
(a) The basic knowledge of mathematics, statistics, geography and other base sciences is limited, a situation which originates from primary and secondary education and which is not sufficiently corrected at university level.
(b) The knowledge of English is also quite rudimentory and prevents often reading GIS related literature and obtaining fellowships.
(c) The low wages for university professors sometimes cause a competition for the knowledge in the new "high-tech" fields and are in some cases the reason why the transfer of knowledge to colleagues or students is limited.
(d) Generally one can state that the employment opportunities for GIS professionals in Ecuador are still limited. Companies are not yet aware of the full possibilities of GIS technology and therefore did not create the corresponding job positions. The main possibilities at this moment are governmental institutions and universities. Regarding the employment opportunities in universities, one has to consider that these are usually not very attractive because of the low appreciations and salaries and the limited resources for research.
(e) GIS equipment for education is still very expensive, especially with reference to wage levels (eg. a university professor earns ± 400 US$ a month). Universities are also subject to the national economic pressures.
The task of education and transfer of knowledge will take a long time, but can be sped up through small development centers with a catalytic function and which serve as examples.
The future ?
The growing interest from both foreign development aid organizations and local institutions to apply GIS to a huge variety of, still largely unexplored, problems, should be guided by well trained personnel. Foreign professionals can have an important role in this as they can support and/or organize courses. These courses should be organized around a well-thought GIS curriculum.
As it is rather hard to believe that the existing faculties will create the space for such a complete GIS curriculum within their program, one should try to create introductory GIS courses within the given structure and extend these with a specialization post-graduate course.
To achieve a high standard of local GIS expertise, a national GIS forum should be created, international contacts should be made enduring and research projects using GIS - in a scientifically responsible way - should be supported.
As in the developed countries, it is necessary that the government takes positions on data standards, data policy and recognizes GIS training centers / degrees.
As stated above, the problems, needs and possibilities for GIS are quite similar in developing countries and in developed countries. Though, there are differences in economical possibilities, the stage in the development cycle, and the specific needs.
Only if they are fully aware of these differences, the presence of foreign experts can have a positive impact in these countries.