FIG Commission 2

REPORT TO THE 24th GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN FIG PC MEETING SEOUL, MAY 2001

General

Commission 2 has been working according to the work plan. The planned symposium has been organized in Rosario and Commission officers have participated in several other occasions like CLGE seminar in Delft, Malta Seminar and of course Prague working week. Two newsletters have been published and web site updated. Among the Working Groups WG 2 has been the most active and is currently preparing the next Workshop on Virtual Academy.

Work plan

Commission 2 has followed the accepted work plan without major changes. Minor changes in responsibilities happened in the development of SEDB where Commission only took part in the design of the new system but the implementation and further update was decided to be made by the FIG Office.

Commission meetings

Annual meeting of Commission was held during the Prague Working week as well as two two open meetings, each of them attracting 10-15 participants. Commission Meeting was organized on the 22nd of May, The Open Meeting on Virtual Academy on the 23rd and the Open Meeting for Surveying Students on the 24th of May. In the meetings Commission Vice Chair Pedro Cavero informed on the Rosario (Argentina) Symposium, October 2000, and Esben Munk Sörensen and Henrik Haggren introduced the plans for The WG Seminar, June 2001 in Espoo, Otaniemi.

Working Week and other Seminars and Symposia

In Prague Working Week Commission 2 organized one technical session with four presentations (Henrik Haggrén and Esben Munk Sörensen, Bela Markus, Ales Cepek and Josef Hnojil, Jud Rouch, Svato Mihalzak).

FIG Commission 2 organized also a Symposium "Surveying in the Third Millennium: Universitary Formation and Professional Development" in Rosario, Argentina, 18.-20. October 2000. Vice Chair Pedro Cavero was the main organizer together with the local organizers, Schools of Agrimensura of Rosario and Santiago del Estero National Universities. In the Symposium there were 128 participants from 10 different countries and 18 papers. Three round table meetings were also held. Pedro Cavero and Stig Enemark gave presentations. Pedro Cavero outlined the future plans for Commission 2.

In addition to Prague Working week and Rosario Symposium, Commission officers took part in the ACCO meeting in Copenhagen in January 2000 (Cavero, Virrantaus) and Malta Seminar (Cavero, Enemark, Virrantaus gave presentations) as well as the CLGE Seminar in Delft.

Working Groups

Working Group 1: Management skills, professional competencies and CPD policies.

Contributions are somehow overlapping with the Task Force on Mutual Recognition. The WG will finish its work and give the final report in Washington Congress.

Working Group 2: Virtual academy – distance learning.

WG Chair Henrik Haggren and Esben Munk Sörensen are organizing a Workshop and Seminar on Virtual Academy. More information on it in Chapter 6.

Working Group 3: University curricula – content competencies, trends and assessment.

Jud Rouch is chairing the WG. The main goal has been to collect information on various approaches and models in surveyors´ education. Presentations have been given on curricula in USA, Europe, Asia and Latin America (presentations in Wuhan seminar, Sun City and Prague Working Weeks, Malta seminar and Rosario Symposium). The goal is to produce a model which could be used in comparing and describing various curricula. SEDB will be a part of this approach. Kirsi Virrantaus is co-working with the chair.

Working Group 4: Surveying students.

Vice Chair Pedro Cavero in chairing. The main goal has been to organize FIG seminars and symposiums outside Europe and USA, so that as many young surveyor and student could participate. Another goal is to develop the SEDB to be better useful also for students searching for information about study possibilities abroad.

A new Working Group has been established under Commission 9, "Education of Valuers", the Chair is professor Kauko Viitanen (Finland). This happened in Prague on the proposal of Commission 2.

Forthcoming events

As mentioned WG 2 will organize a Workshop and Seminar on Virtual Academy on the 5.-8. June, 2001. The Seminar will be organized at Helsinki University of Technology, Lifelong Learning Institute, DIPOLI in Espoo, Finland. Further information on the seminar in www.dipoli.hut.fi/geomatiikka.

Commission 2 will organize two technical sessions with ten papers on Virtual Academy and Surveyors´ Curricula in the Seoul Working week May, 2001. Commission 2 also co-operated with Commission 9 in getting papers on Education of Valuers as well as supported on of the invited speakers to the plenary sessions. We are going to organize also annual meeting in Seoul.

Information

SEDB is now available in web. Universities have their passwords for updating. Academic members have been linked to the site.

Co-operation with sister societies, especially ICA and ISPRS seem to be important especially on the topic of virtual academy. In the future the Chairs of Commissions on Education in ICA and ISPRS are invited and encouraged to participate in the Commissions seminars as well as Working Weeks. Newsletters will be also sent to the corresponding chairs. Newsletters and other related material are available in the web.