UNIGIS

This is a chapter of the Z_GIS Annual Report 2021 - click  here  to access the full report

With 561 active students, 176 first enrolments and 178 graduations in 2021, UNIGIS Salzburg contributes about one third of the total student numbers of all 40 continuing education programs offered by the University of Salzburg. Together with the residential study programs of ZGIS, it honours PLUS to be the leading academic institution in the field of Geoinformatics education within Europe. However, UNIGIS Salzburg itself is part of the worldwide UNIGIS network.

UNIGIS is a global network of universities addressing the educational needs of in-service professionals by cooperating in the design and delivery of distance learning programmes in GIS. As a cofounder of the UNIGIS network, the University of Salzburg offers two internationally recognized academic qualifications, a one-year (60 ECTS) academic certificate course "UNIGIS professional" and a two-year (120 ECTS) course "UNIGIS MSc" leading to a Master´s degree. UNIGIS Salzburg delivers both study programs in German, English and Spanish language and thus itself serves students around the globe, as is evident from the map below:

German speaking students are directly instructed through the University of Salzburg. The same applies to students in the English programs, with the exception of students from Nepal who use our study material but are instructed through a local UNIGIS study centre, operated by the Kathmandu Forestry College. Our programs in Spanish language entirely use this concept: While our students from Latin America learn on our platform, instruction and tutoring is provided by our UNIGIS study centre in Ecuador, hosted by the Universidad San Francisco de Quito.

Regardless of location and language: UNIGIS Salzburg provides highly valued academic qualifications in GIScience and Systems using the latest software technologies within real world application examples. While the one year "UNIGIS professional" certificate-course is tailored to needs of GIS practitioners, the MSc study program provides a conceptual understanding of the methodological, technical and organisational foundations of GIScience. Through its postgraduate academic degree, it facilitates career advancement for working professionals. Graduates of both study programs are enabled to solve space-related problems across disciplines and application domains. The apparent need to use geospatial technologies in a wide range of domains is illustrated by the diversity of our student's backgrounds:

As with many within-service and postgraduate studies, most UNIGIS students quite precisely know their learning needs and goals. Many already had contact with GI-technologies and seek to advance their more or less basic knowledge acquired in University or on the job. The professional experience of our freshmen results in an age distribution that differs from conventional bachelor or master programs that typically attract people in their early twenties.

Besides the Master Thesis, our modules serve as the main building blocks of our certificate and MSc studies. In 2021 the UNIGIS Salzburg team headed by Assoc.Prof. Dr. Gudrun Wallentin guided our students through the following modules:

Compulsory modules are the backbone of our UNIGIS study programs. They are based on the UNIGIS common core curriculum, which is discussed and adjusted by the worldwide UNIGIS Network. In addition, the advice of internal and external experts and feedback from student-evaluations of the study materials flows into their continuous revision. In addition to this "common ground", optional modules address specialized topics. According to personal background, professional targets and current needs of the market they are an excellent possibility for individual specialisation. The UNIGIS Salzburg team supports our students in respective decisions and works hard to keep them happy.

In 2021 we had a total of ten intakes, including the intakes administered by our two study centres. Except for our international study program in English language, we commonly start our intakes with on-site workshops in Salzburg or in the respective study centres in Kathmandu and Quito. Due to the corona pandemic, we had to switch to an online format for the introductory workshops of several of these "regional" intakes too. For the participants of the UNIGIS professional October-intake for the DACH-region (photo), it was, however, possible to physically meet in Salzburg and jointly prepare for an intensive year of distance learning. In total, 176 new UNIGIS students enrolled at the University of Salzburg. The map below provides further information on their allocation to study centres and programs.

In 2021, 178 students have been graduating from our programs, which aligns with the high number of graduations in previous years.

The wide spectrum of UNIGIS master-theses topics reflects the diversity of UNIGIS biographies. Topics are ranging from GI applications in Archaeology to the field of space science. We congratulate all our graduates and welcome them as new members of the UNIGIS Alumni Network.

We particularly congratulate our 2021 graduate Frank Willing, who won the highly competitive  AGEO Award  with his Master-Thesis comparing different types of machine-learning and deep learning algorithms for crop-type classification based on Sentinel 2 satellite images. The AGEO Award will be handed over at the  GI_Salzburg  conference in July 2022. A list of featured Master-Theses (including the one of Frank Willing) with links to the Thesis-documents itself can be accessed through our UNIGIS Websites for the  German  and  English  programs.

The global network of universities offering UNIGIS programs is not limited to a united voice towards software vendors and cooperation in curriculum developments. It also allows our students to take optional modules from other UNIGIS sites. In 2021, for example, five of our students took advantage of the optional "Internet GIS" module at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam while five students from the Netherlands took one of our optional modules.

However, UNIGIS is not just a network of universities. With our  ClubUNIGIS  we also established a comprehensive network of our students and alumni and thus enable lifelong learning in a community that extends far beyond the actual study period.

On June 16, we held our first Optional Modules Day to keep our students and alumni up to date on our own range of optional modules. Nine of our optional modules were presented and discussed by the respective lecturers to an audience of 110 actively participating UNIGIS Salzburg students and alumni and to another 140 external persons, watching the livestream of this successful event.

Our newsletter, UNIGIS offline, informs our well-established D-A-CH alumni-network about current GI-trends, book reviews, software tests, the presentation of master theses or other UNIGIS related news. UNIGIS offline is published three times a year and comes to our student´s and alumni home as a classic print medium.

Visit our websites to learn more about our degree programs:  German ,  English ,  Spanish