project summary
The environmental as well as the health market call for skilled scientific staff that is able to contribute in developing interdisciplinary practical solutions, based on accurate and up-to-date geospatial information. Therefore competence in GeoInformatics (GI), which is an ensemble of technologies and methods that allow the transformation of geospatial information into trustworthy and actionable information, is highly required. However, a shortage of marketable GI skills among postgraduates has been observed , making their transition to professional life problematic.
In order to bridge the gap between what academia provides and what environmental market requires, FuseGI aims to deliver practical, problem-solving GI skills, and develop professional GI capabilities to postgraduate students, through the development of an active GI network, and provision of up-to-date curricula and modern teaching systems based on cutting-edge ICT tools. These will be achieved by meeting the following objectives:
1. Establishment of transnational open collaboration between academia and SMEs across EU in order to address existing GI training needs in environmental and health risk management.
2. Transfer of knowledge and bridging the partners’ academic and professional experience gap in using GI applications at different key environmental and health sectors
3. Enhancement of professional skills in using open GI platforms for cooperative interdisciplinary data processing.
4. Development, implementation and validation of an innovative, evidence-based virtual learning environment (VLE) for the remote training in using open cloud GI platforms.
5. Design of the architecture of curricula, and establishment and promotion of a postgraduate international programme.
The innovation of FuseGI results from the development of a complete and updatable framework that provides high skilled scientific staff, readily available to the ever advancing environmental market. Adding to that, the developed interdisciplinary infrastructure will allow further direct development of the three FuseGI thematic pillars (water, forest, health).
The methodology that will be adopted to bring together infrastructure, data and skills on risk management, will consists of six main steps:
1. Research, benchmarking and Review (benchmarking, interviews and questionnaire survey) to identify the best practices related to teaching material, training content and focus, teaching and learning strategies, ICT tools for teaching and learning, and curricula standards.
2. Design and architecture of a draft curriculum that will be the base for the final curricula developed at the fifth step.
3. VLE and training toolkit development, to provide an innovative evidence-based virtual learning environment (VLE) that supports remote training and teaching, and a training toolkit that presents the program features, methodology, contents and delivery mechanisms.
4. Testing and validating VLE and training toolkit, through training post-graduate students and trainers, and assessing their performance.
5. Revision and final curricula design (modules structure and content), followed by the design and promotion of an international post-graduate (Masters) programme.
6. Dissemination and exploitation of FuseGI generated knowledge and results, in order to engage European academia to adopt the developed curricula, and encourage the public and private sector to welcome graduates of such Masters programmes.
The adopted methodology is expected to result in:
- Cutting-edge tools for GI training developed and integrated into postgraduate curricula.
- An integrated and updatable solution for bridging the gap between the GI skills that are provided to students and are required by professionals.
- An efficient multi-sector network that supports and strengthens the cooperation among actors in environmental management.
The development of such a complete and updatable framework that provides skilled scientific staff, readily available to the ever advancing environmental market, will bring together experts from the GI and VLE community with the following participant groups, on which FuseGI will focus and have significant impact on:
1. HEIs, which will be provided with appealing up-to-date curricula that will enhance their role in supplying skilled scientific staff to the professional environmental sector,
2. Postgraduate students, who will be able to expand their career opportunities, by developing up-to-date and marketable GI skills,
3. Faculty members, who will be able to modernize their teaching skills, as well and increase their marketable competence,
4. Members of the private and governmental sector, who will become part of a vibrant and proactive network that provides skillful GI professionals, and prospect for further development.
The generated impacts will be sustained by continuous support and promotion of FuseGI results by all FuseGI partners, after the end of the project’s life.
