Summary

    EUROGI has defined five new strategic goals after the breakdown of the GI2000 communication draft process - among them - Raising awareness of geographic information (GI) and its associated technologies. Unfortunately, the European GI community still is behind a strong needed strategy for a new GI task force to be reached saying in 2005. In this context not only the R&D programs within Fifth Framework, but also the ADAPT and INTERREG programs of EU have been of special interest and importance for pan-european and cross-border policies and strategies to raise up awareness about, education for and training on Spatial Data Infrastructures.

    IMAGI, founded in 1998 as a federal task force, is responsible for the management of the national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) of Germany. One of the main tasks of IMAGI was to analyse the “status-quo” of spatial data used at the federal level and to develope a strategy of better metainformation on and broader access to existing spatial data resources in Germany. Meanwhile, a special report on GeoDataManagement in Germany has been published by the German Federal Government (GFG). This report clearly shows the priority of needs for using existing digital geodata resources and to raise up more GI awareness beginning with at the federal level. As a result of intensive GI lobbying work undertaken by DDGI (the national German GI association), as well as by parliamentary discussions in February 2001 the awareness on the strategic value of GI use has been brought to the attention of policy and decision makers in Germany.

    SAXONY’s  regional SDI historically is characterized to represent one of Europe's first and best, but now old and outdated mapping infrastructures. Of course, today Saxony's reality is in progress to build a modern and up-to-date regional spatial data infrastructure (RSDI) at large scales, but it is still yet to be developed in a digital form. While only 7 % of Saxony's digital cadastre data is stored in a data base, and about 47% of old cadastre maps have been digitized, more than half of the statewide cadastre has to be scanned, vectorized and transformed into object-oriented form. Actually, after ten years of re-unification the status-quo of the "new" German federal states can be described by urgently needed transition and reform processes not only at federal, but also at regional and local levels, and soon to be at the euro-regional level for the needs of cross-border development and planning tasks. These ongoing efforts must be supported by different activities for more awareness, education and training to make better use of GI in georesource monitoring, protection of the environment and spatial planning of public health and safety.

    The "Bildungswerk Ost-West (BOW)" is engaged in postgradual GI awareness, education and training courses since 1995 and, therefore, the regional and local market needs have been analysed by BOW already from the beginning of OpenGIS process. Later on, in 1998 BOW has evaluated the needs for developing skills and awareness for more GI interoperability in Saxony, and has forwarded the goals and strategy for more awareness on availability of geodata, interoperability of geoinformation systems interoperability and organizations flexibility to support the development of geodata infrastructures at regional and local levels. Therefore, during 1998-2000 BOW realized different awareness, educational and training projects on regional & local  levels to raise up awareness on (multimedial and geospatial) INTERNET technology, as well as on (geomedial and interoperable) OPENGISstrategy which will be described in this workshop presentation and demonstration (poster) paper.

    The raising up of GI awareness still needs a stronger strategic support not only at global and national, but at regional and local levels too, when cross-border and euro-regional territorial development should evolve and progress further. Taking into account the experience of postgradual education and training courses gained at BOW's ContinuingEducationalCenter at local level, as well as the reality so far developed for Saxony's spatial data infrastructure at the regional level, our conclusions are as follows:

• If the European GI community wants to play a global role in next stage of building interoperable Global and continental (European) spatial data infrastructures then that development needs new strategies for both, future interoperability research on GI as well as on e-Learning strategies to raise up GI awareness for a mass user market. These strategies must integrate not only all GI players, researchers from the academic (AGILE) and research scenes (EC-JRC, ESA, Eurostat), but also GI decision makers from administrations (GOV's, NMA's, NATO), organizations (EUROGI, EuroGeographics, DDGI), business (GIS industry vendors, providers, consulters), as well as institutes (GI education and training centers and universities), e.g. it's time for organizing and realizing by EC-JRC a general GI awareness workshop at European level as it has been proposed already by CEEC members at 5th EC-GIS workshop (Stresa, 1999).
• EUROGI should focus its GI awareness campaign and action lines into a permanently strategic initiative for development of life-long education and training needs for GI use, and give support to realize the vision of "Cadastre 2014", a fundamental elaboration of FIG's Commission 7 on a "future cadastre system". However, more personnel needs to be educated for the free GI market; and education not as a privilege of the state is a long way off, e.g. EUROGI should promote measures and raise funds to support regional and local GI awareness measures and/or EC projects for the strong needed education & training of the mass users in the public & private sectors.
• IMAGI has to realise that not only federal but also local, regional and euro-regional (even cross-border) infrastructure development needs too an explicite spatial data infrastructure component, e.g. to improve user friendly and easy access to regional and local geodata by more awareness building about the value and use of GI in a way that the deficites in GI use still existent to achieve a modern administration could be lowered.
• SAXONY should develope a closer co-operation of and collaboration between all action players of the different Saxonia GI communities at the regional level, e.g. the raising up of more GI awareness without new forms of stronger public-private-partnerships can not be reached by an administrative,  "closed-shop" inter-ministerial GI working party only as it is still yet Saxony's reality in 2001...
• BOW will continue forwarding its strategy of postgradual programmes and activities (courses, seminars, workshops etc.) and raising up GI awareness of mass users and decision-makers to be able to integrate distributed geodata resources and to explore spatial data infrastructures in territorial planning, e.g. to extend its methodological expertise and co-operation as well as technological education and training infrastructure in order to make mass users and consumers in public administrations and business more aware on the potential of geodata infrastructures to be used from the local / regional levels to cross-border national and pan-european mulilateral levels. Close cross-border co-operations in Saxony's EuroRegions and collaborative public-private-partnerships are the base for its further success to deploy the value and the potential of GI use and to enable decision makers to build, access and use interoperable spatial data infrastructures at regional & local levels.

1. Raising up GI awareness, education and training

    When former European Commission in 1999 had been re-released, and finally its staff re-newed, the "new" Commission took the decision to include the GI2000 draft proposals into the forthcoming revised Green paper document about "Unlocking Public Information in Europe" and, focussed its different programs for research and development onto activities for transition of European regions, especially on cross-border activities in so-called "EuroRegions" and on the enlargement process of EU.

    Now, for the first time the EC announced the start in 2001 for the Cross-Programme Action 3 (CPA3) - Use of Geographic Information of the IST Programme to be opened for tender in the 7th CallForProposals, currently foreseen from June to October 2001. The aim of CPA3 is to help improve citizens’ awareness and comfort, industrial competitiveness and the efficiency of public administrations by enhancing and supporting the use, access and management of geo-information.

    As described (by RIZZI) at conference AGILE2001 the expected new GI2001 research activities within CPA3 are ranging from the development of GI technologies to location based mobile services, from business models for the GI market to the improvement of GI accessibility, usability and exploitability using metadata and interoperability standardization while supporting GI activities are expected to contribute to the setting up of an European Spatial Data Infrastructure, as well as to promote Regional and Cross-border infrastructure initiatives.

    Also, attention must be paid to new methodological approaches on GI awareness, education and training which have been proposed by different authors at AGILE2001 conference (GOULD, JOHNSON, RHIND and others). But for the success of broader GI use in Europe we have to deal with the real market situation and legislative rules to gain access to geodata resources for mass users and consumers. Therefore, awareness building for SME's and mass users in public administrations and business must be in the focal point of the European GI community and experts (HOFFMANN et al, MICHAEL, RIEGLER).

    The new strategic goals of EC have to be and must be supported by decision-making processes and spatial analysis tools to develop national and cross-border European infrastructures which have explicitely an European Spatial Data Infrastructure (EuroSDI) as the strategic geo-referenced component in order

• to avoid unbalanced development of infrastructures between cross-border EuroRegions
• to intensify cross-border planning and development policies and collaboration
• to support co-operation processes between EC- and Non-EC-Regions
• to built Pan-European networks of infrastructures including CEEC in pre-accession...

    A further obstacle is the diversity of different GI players and GI organizations throughout Europe (as described by LEONHARD, LONGHORN and TEETZMANN). The problems of enlargement process of EU as well it rules to develop in consens taking into account the principles of subsidiarity can be studied through actual problems in developing the federal geodata infrastructure for Germany (see DDGI and WESTERHOFF) where 16 States are responsible for their own regional spatial data infrastructure, but are very slow progressing from federal to local levels.

    At this stage, between 1998 and 2000, the "Bildungswerk Ost-West (BOW)" realized different projects on regional & local level to raise up awareness on multimedial and geospatial internet technology as well as on geomedial and spatial data interoperability which will be described in this workshop presentation and demonstration (poster) paper.
 
 

2. Strategies, priorities and realities to raise up GI awareness, education and training

2.1 EUROGI's strategy to raise up GI awareness

•  to encourage a greater use of GI in Europe
•  to raise up awareness on the value of GI
•  to promote the development of strong national GI associations.
•  to improve the European GI infrastructure
•  to represent European interests at the global level.

    As we know since its foundation EUROGI is focussing resources towards influencing government policies to raise up awareness on the value and the potential of GI within the administrative sectors. But, concerns about the current void in geographic information strategy in Europe are still growing, as is mentioned at EUROGI's website by CORBIN:

• These efforts have had to date varying degrees of success...
• EUROGI is going to change this...

• With the death of GI2000 as a focal point, EUROGI should assume that we are in for a very long period of continuing to alert an even wider audience to the need for action regarding GI and especially pan-European/cross-border GI...

material (literature, press releases, reports, summaries of relevant studies, well-targeted news items, etc.) to get the attention...

cover letters, with simple targeted messages...

meetings with EC officials in Brussels and Strasbourg...

but most importantly, a major document, to provide the focal point for discussion and which sets out ways and means that the target audience can actually help achieve a regional GI policy as well as benefiting from it...

• analysing and portfolio making of what each European national GI association and the private sector is doing towards policy making
• defining the status of GI in each European country
• finding then the common interests
• co-ordinating an action plan
• joining forces and forming one strong European (GI) voice

    If the European GI community wants to play a global role in next stage of building interoperable Global (GSDI) and European (ESDI) spatial data infrastructures then that development needs consensus and strategies for both, future GI research as well as e-Learning strategies to raise up GI awareness. These strategies must integrate not only all GI players, researchers from the academic (AGILE) and research scenes (EC-JRC, ESA, Eurostat), but also GI decision makers from administrations (GOVs, NMAs, NATO), organizations (EUROGI, EuroGeographics), business (GIS industry), as well as institutes (GI education and training centers and universities), e.g. it's time to organize and realize by EC-JRC a general GI awareness workshop at European level as it has been proposed already by CEEC members at 5th EC-GIS workshop (Stresa, 1999):

• if to consider that 80 % of administrative, planning and business decision making processes are mostly related to spatial geodata, and
• if to take into account that 80 % of these decisions making processes are made at the local community & regional county levels, and
• if to assume that 80 % of local & regional geodata resources are large scaled topographic and thematic cadastres for these communities & counties, then
• it becomes more clear that EUROGI should follow this paradigma and should focus its action lines campaign into a strategic initiative for permanently building up pan-european GI awareness, life-long GI education and training, and give stronger support to realize the “Cadastre 2014”, a fundamental elaboration of FIG's Commission 7 vision of a "future cadastre system”.
• However, personnel aware with GI use needs to be educated for the free market; and education not as a privilege of the state is a long way off, e.g. EUROGI should promote measures and raise funds to support regional and local GI awareness measures and/or EC projects for the strong needed education & training of the mass users and decision makers in the public & private sectors.

2.2 IMAGI's priority to develop GI metadata and geodata management awareness

• defragmented and isolated (mostly statewide-based) digitalization of analoque geodata sources
• inhomogenous reference systems used and different standardization processes applied
• not available unique costs calculation and prices principles
• digital datasets produced within 9 of 15 federal departments have not been co-ordinated and not-integrated in the past
• not established juridical regulation by laws for centralizing geodata resources
• metainformation about availability of geodata resources was sectoral, but not federal organized
• lack of awareness on the potential role of GI for innovation in public administrations itself...

    This process of re-thinking at higher political level the status of GI use in Germany, and which is likely similar to the actual "status-quo" of GI2001 in Europe, has been described by WESTERHOFF from the GFG's Chancellor Administration in more detail.

        One of the main tasks of IMAGI was to analyse the "status-quo" of spatial geodata use at the federal level and to develope a strategy of better information on, easier access to and broader use of existing spatial data resources in federal Germany.

    The co-ordination tasks of IMAGI included:

• promotion of more cross-departmental use of federal geodata
• elaboration of the geodata management framework on the federal level
• promotion of consensus on federal/regional GI access and use agreements
• metainformation on geodata resources within federal administrations
• communication and public relationships with the federal government
• expertise on marketing elements for public geodata resources.

• Q14: Which measures The Federal Government takes into account to overcome the lack of professionals in the GI field?
• Der Bundesregierung ist der – insbesondere von Wirtschaftsunternehmen beklagte – Mangel an Fachkräften für Geoinformation bekannt.
• Auch die AdV hat hierauf vielfach hingewiesen. Universitäten und Fachhochschulen haben den Ausbildungsschwerpunkt „Geoinformationswesen“ in den Studiengang Vermessungswesen integriert, der jedoch nicht umfassend genutzt wird.
• Im Hinblick auf den Rückgang der Studentenzahlen in den Ingenieurwissenschaften sollte gemeinsam mit der Industrie nach Wegen gesucht werden, mehr Studienanfänger für die genannten Studiengänge zu interessieren.
• Ferner sollten ergänzende Postgraduiertenkurse zur Weiterqualifizierung, unter Beteiligung der Industrie und der Arbeitsverwaltung, angeboten werden... (click here for the full report).

•  Q15: Does The Federal Government plan the establishment of a new professional technician level due to the needs for more qualified professionals on GI techniques?
• Einschlägige anerkannte Ausbildungsberufe, die sich auf die Erzeugung und Nutzung von Geoinformationen konzentrieren, sind der Vermessungstechniker/die Vermessungstechnikerin und der Kartograph/die Kartographin.
• Die Berufsausbildung für Vermessungstechnik wurde 1995, die Berufsausbildung für Kartographie wurde 1997 unter ausdrücklicher Berücksichtigung der Anforderungen der Geoinformationstechnik neu geordnet.
• Die Weiterentwicklung der Lerninhalte im Hinblick auf moderne automationsgestützte Verfahren zur Gewinnung digitaler Geoinformationen ist insbesondere im Vermessungswesen ausgeprägt und einem ständigen Prozess unterzogen.
• Die Bundesregierung sieht keinen Bedarf für einen zusätzlichen Facharbeiterberuf für Geoinformationstechnik. Auch in den Sondermonitoring-Gesprächen der Bundesressorts und der Kultusministerkonferenz insbesondere mit den Spitzenverbänden der Arbeitgeber und der Arbeitnehmer über die Entwicklung neuer Qualifikationen und neuer Ausbildungsberufe wurde keine entsprechende Forderung erhoben.
• Die Bundesregierung ist aber bereit, substantiierte Vorschläge für neue oder die Weiterentwicklung bestehender Ausbildungsberufe aufzugreifen und bei Bedarf nach Abstimmung mit den Sozialpartnern zu realisieren.
• Die Länder halten die Einrichtung eines Ausbildungsberufs für Geoinformationstechnik ebenfalls nicht für erforderlich. Die bisherigen Berufsbilder des Vermessungstechnikers und des Kartographen haben in die berufliche Erstausbildung auch das Geoinformationswesen integriert. Hier kommt es aus Ländersicht darauf an, die Berufsbilder der genannten Berufe den geänderten Anforderungen entsprechend zügig weiter zu entwickeln... (click here for the full report).

• 55 federal administrations, departments and institutions are using digital geodata resources
• 200 administrative, planning and development tasks are based on digital GI resources at federal level
• 900 000 different digital sets of geodata have been explored and catalogized for further use...

    The analysis of "status-quo" of German GI resources and their use is a federal only framework. Unfortunately, at regional & local levels this analysis still has to be done !

    Also, new German metainformation servers [http://www.imagi.de | http://www.sapos.de | http://www.atkis.de | http://www.geodatenzentrum.de] have been established. These metainformation servers give now an up-to-date picture of the priorities set by IMAGI to improve and to raise up GI awareness at federal level.

    As a further result of geopolitical debates a new centralized geoportal with metainformation on GI resources at federal level is still under development which is discussed in detail in the Report on GeoDataManagement mentioned above. Its framework content can be characterized by five main objectives where explicitely a special GI awareness topic is included too:

• Development of a Federal Metadata-Information System
• Optimization of technical and organizational responsibilities for management of geodata resources
• Harmonization and optimization of administrative rules for access and delivery of geodata
• Public relations, Topic 4.5: education, training and awareness (underlined by FH):
• 4.5 Aus- und Fortbildung (click here for the full report)
• Die einzelnen Einrichtungen, die Geodatenbestände erhoben haben, werden aufgefordert, Informationsveranstaltungen und ggf. Schulungen für Mitarbeiter anderer Bundeseinrichtungen durchzuführen.
• Dabei sollten die jeweiligen Geodatenbestände, die zugrunde liegende Prinzipien zum Aufbau und zur Fortführung sowie die möglichen Austauschformate vorgestellt werden.
• Für die Geobasisdaten wird das BKG solche halb- bis eintägigen Veranstaltungen anbieten.
• Um innerhalb der Facheinrichtungen die Möglichkeiten des sich technisch schnell entwickelnden Geoinformationswesens zu nutzen, sollten die Aus- und Fortbildungsmaßnahmen im GIS-Bereich verstärkt werden.
• Für die Nutzung fachübergreifender Geodaten sollte geprüft werden, ob durch zeitlich befristeten Austausch von Spezialisten Synergieeffekte erzielt werden können.

(Member of German 'Bundestag', Dr. JORK, visiting the GIS Lab of BOW-CEC Dresden, November 24th, 2000)

    This was a good opportunity to make aware the Member of German 'Bundestag' with the "status-quo" of geoinformation

• at local level (introducing to the digital cadastre system at City Survey of Dresden),
• at regional/state-wide level (demonstrating the state-wide system for Saxony's public real estate State  properties) and last, but not least, the educational situation
• at global/federal level (representing the GI awareness programmes of BOW, DDGI, EUROGI and OGC).

(Introduction of MP Dr. JORK into EUROGI's awareness campaign and GI courses at BOW-CEC Dresden)

    As a highlight of this awareness visit the live ONLINE Access to the Digital Geodata Base of the Land Survey of Finland could be demonstrated over the INTERNET to visiting members from federal and local parliaments.

   Obviously, lobbying and awareness building among (geo-)politician decision makers is of great importance for the success of greater GI use and building spatial data infrastructures at regional & local levels.

    After intensive lobbying work undertaken by DDGI (the national German GI association) as well as by parliamentary discussions, the strategic value of GI has been brought to the attention of policy and decision makers during the parliamentary debates in German 'Bundestag' which has been based on the key objectives of IMAGI's Report on GeoDataManagement:

• analysis and report on existing federal metainformation systems and geodata resources within federal administrations
• development of a framework for an efficient federal geodata management system
• awareness building on geodata use within federal departments
• information and communication for the public on the internet.

• 1) to apply the initiative of IMAGI's GeoDataManagementReport not only at the federal, but also at the regional & local levels...
• 2) a sustainable strategy is needed for better integration, unique leadership and centralized delivery of geodata for federal & regional access...
• 3) publicly funded and uniquely georeferenced base-data can be used as a public infrastructure with high actuality, quality and liability, which is available in accordance with the principles of the EC Green paper on "Public Sector Information", and can be used by public organizations, citizens and industry, but the development of the NSDI needs further sustainable investments, especially for geotechnical and applied research, and easier access for SME's to geodata...
• 4) GFG should improve the use of thematical geodata not only at federal, but should also include geodata at regional levels realizing an efficient GeoDataManagement based on priority tasks of the IMAGI concept...
• 5) to improve user friendly and easy access to geodata by awareness building about the value and use of GI and lowering deficites in GI use still existent to achieve modern administrations
• 6) GFG should examine the compatibility of unified federal geodata processing within the framework of international initiatives to built a GSDI and ESDI with the american "Freedom Of Information" in mind...
• 7) GFG should support further the leading position of german geodesy & geomatics and nominate a compentent geopolitician GI co-ordinator for euro&global initiatives... therefore, GFG should support german interests agreed with its federal states, and develop further the process of adaption of IST concepts of EU...
• 8) GFG should support sustainable development of urban and rural territories by use of efficient technique including GI, and apply it for all application sectors...
• 9) GFG should give a report of progress on GI matters every 3rd year from the start of parliament's election period...

2.3 SAXONY's reality to build up local/regional and cross-border GI infrastructure awareness

    Actually, the reality of the "new" German federal States can be described by urgently needed further transition and reform processes for local and regional, and soon to be cross-border development and planning tasks: today, the population of about 15 Mio. inhabitants within so-called "new" states  is organized in nearly 6000 communities (50% of them with less than 500 inhabitants) while the "old" federal states have organized their 66 Mio. citizens in about 8500 communities only...

    The Free State of Saxony is one of the five "new" German federal States. Saxony's regional spatial data infrastructure (RSDI) is characterized historically to represent one of Europe's first and best, but now old and outdated mapping infrastructures. Of course, today Saxony's reality is in progress to build a modern and up-to-date RSDI at large scales, but it is still yet to be developed in a digital form. While the topographic geodata infrastructure based on ATKIS 1:25.000 digital landscape model is ready for use, at large scale 7 % only of Saxony's digital cadastre data is stored in a data base and about 47% of old cadastre maps have been digitized, but still more than half of the state-wide cadastre has to be scanned, vectorized and transformed into an object-oriented form. It is assumed that an up-to-date RSDI of Saxony should be finalized within next 3-5 years. The web-based information on Saxony's geo-statistics, environment, forestry and agriculture has progressed since last year and is available now on the Internet. The most advanced, intranet-based local geodata infrastructure in Saxony has been build by the City Survey Department of Dresden based on its digital cadastral referencing system and modern object-oriented database technology. Of course, these geodata resources are still isolated solutions and a lot mor has to be done to reach status of online access over the Internet.

    Saxony is located at the outer border of EU. It has direct connections with Poland and Czech Republic, two CEE countries in pre-accession stage to join the EU. Therefore, Saxony in the future opens the regional cross-border doors from EU to south-eastern CEEC's.

        Its capital, Dresden, soon will become a central European focal point on the cross-border highways from the East to the West as well as from the North to the South of Europe, but the cross-border traffic infrastructure needed is still under construction. Its completion is to be planned for finishing within next five years likely as is its euro-regional spatial data infrastructure.

    Another problem of transition since the re-unification of Germany is the situation on the labor market which is characterized by a high unemployment rate in the "new" federal States in general and, as shown at the picture in Saxony especially (click here for an enlarged picture!).

    Regional administrations in Germany are still limited with legislative and executive planning "State borders" between local and federal levels. This is of very importance when building Regional Spatial Data Structures - RSDI.

    Until recently regional business geography is taking into account only technical, social and economical infrastructure properties when analyzing the problems, as well as when proposing the goals for sustainable euro-regional and cross-border development. Unfortunately, even the actual INTERREG-III problem analysis and synthesis for cross-border development compiled at Institute of Ecological Research and Territorial Development (IÖR) does not include explicitely the need for and potential of spatial data infrastructures component. (Click into pictures to get a full presentation ! )

    If in the future to develop cross-border infrastructures between Saxony and its adjacent Czech and Polish EuroRegions, where the Saxony side will be granted by national only EU fonds of INTERREG-III with about 200 Millions € during years 2001-2006, then it will become obvious that a strong spatial data infrastructure must be developed not only in parallel with that program, but it must be introduced in advance to allow efficient spatial planning and decision-making.

 (Source: IÖR, Dresden 1999, edited: F. Hoffmann, Dresden, 2001)                      (Source: SZ Dresden, December 5th, 2000)

    These problems become even more complex taking into account that the EU still ends at Saxony's eastern borders. While the INTERREG-III projects will be granted directly by national EU subsidy fonds, the complementary territorial planning and spatial development at Czech and Polish borders still have to be granted by the EU program PHARE-CBC to be decided by EC directly in Brussel...

    Therefore, a very complex, but not very transparent decision process takes place. It's not surprisingly, that the actual INTERREG-III calls for proposals are still delaying and have been postponed for months now... (not to mention the problems connected with the actual approval of EC's documents of Nice/Nizza).

    On the other side, the problems described above make clear that a closer co-operation between cross-border GI communities and the territorial planning administrations has to be developed. Actions taken by EUROGI within the ongoing ETeMII, as well as the forthcoming GINIE projects could be of strategic importance to raise up more GI awareness and overcome these problems still existing.

    Therefore, BOW-CEC Dresden is now engaged to find partners and solutions on the local & regional levels to contribute to the solution of these GI infrastructure awareness problems, but it seems that the lessons learned with BOW's ADAPT and INTERREG-IIc cross-border projects are not only a specific Saxonian awareness and cross-border problem. It's a long way to go to develop closer public-private-partnerships, as well to build up cross-border and euro-regional spatial data infrastructures. A strong strategic support is further needed to be given by EUROGI, IMAGI and KoBIT to raise up GI awareness reality in cross-border EuroRegions of Saxony.
 
 

3. The Euro-regional approach of raising GI awareness at BOW-CEC

    The main fields of activities at BOW educational and training centers are:

• project management and expertise for SME's, especially based on EC's innovation programme for SME
• seminars and workshops for administrations, business and citizens on multimedial and geomedial technologies
• postgradual courses, training tutorials and vocational classes on informatics, telematics, geomatics technologies
• longterm re-qualification and postgradual specialication courses on behalf of the employment administration.

(Educational Profil and cross-border EC project management for SME's at BOW-CEC Dresden)

    The themes for vocational, social, technological and academic courses, seminars, tutorials and workshops can be summerized as follows:

• expertise and consulting for EC project management and cross-border collaboration with CEEC's
• business, marketing and human resource management in SME's
• vocational education of ICT and office automation for business, health care and social services
• technological education and training for mechanical engineering (AutoCAD, CNC), Facility management (EIB)
• academic courses and awareness seminars for multimedial and geomedial ICT, geospatial, environmental and territorial informations systems, OpenGIS and WebMap Technologies.

    It is important to mentione that our GIS course participants are not only coming from the Dresden and other Saxonian regions, but also from different universities or organization throughout Germany. It seems that our investments in a modern networked, technical and communication infrastructure has become a reason too for participation in these GIS courses:

    An overview of actual courses, seminars and tutorials available can be taken from BOW's website (URL - http://www.bow.de).

    During last five years more then hundred of postgraduates after finishing their university degree in disciplines like mathematics, informatics, geology, hydrology, forestry, surveying and mapping and other disciplines, as well as practitioners coming with expertise from consulting and service firms have been certificated for specializing in GIS technology.
On this base postgraduated engineers and students have improved their qualifications in order to get better chances for employment in administration and business. The generalized table of contents of BOW's postgradual (one year) courses is characterized by its unique theoretical, methodological as well as technological components:

• theoretical knowledge on Informatics, Telematics and Cybernetics (440 h)
• methodological knowledge on Geosciences, Environmental and Spatial sciences (216 h)
• technological knowledge on Cadastre, surveying and mapping sciences (56 h)
• theory and practice of Geomatics, OpenGIS, OpenATKIS and OpenALKIS (104 h)
• introduction into desktop and mobil GIS (72 h)
• specialization on desktop GIS (120 h)
• introduction and specialization on professional GIS (160 h)
• introduction and specialization on internet GIS and web mapping technology (120 h)
• specialized seminars on GIS trends and excursions to City and State Surveys (16 h)
• a 3 months practical training on-the-job at different GIS administrations, consulting and service firms.

    Unfortunately, when reviewing IMAGI's website for education & training courses in Germany you get informed about some courses in western colleges or even at universities abroad only, but not a full picture on what is actually happening at the GI awareness front in Germany... Nevertheless, further development at BOW will be undertaken to focus on OpenGIS principles of interoperable geomodelling and geoprocessing, as well as to introduce new principles of OpenGIS, e_Learning and distant education (GOULD, HOFFMANN, JOHNSON).

    Another initiative of GI awareness building at CEC-Dresden has been the orientation on the OpenGIS process for interoperable geodata management and integrated web mapping technologies.

    In order to support the OpenGIS interoperability initiatives of OGC the BOW-CEC Dresden elaborated just after the IMAGI foundation in 1998 a seminar framework and, using the results of the 5th EC-GIS workshop (Stresa, 1999), compiled the detailed table of contents for a special awareness & strategy seminar series entitled

• "OpenGIS & GeoDataManagement & OpenALKIS"

    Participation in the GIS Day2000 initiative as well as one day awareness seminars on other relevant GI systems expertise (GeoMedia, Smallworld, PolyGIS) and GI applications for schools (ArcView based DierckeGIS for schools) are rounding up BOW's agenda for GI2000 initiatives.

    This way BOW demonstrated its capability for building public-private-partnerships and postgradual education and training courses, especially in co-operation with leading GIS industry vendor ESRI++ Geoinformatik Kranzberg/Leipzig. In  the future co-operation is to be continued with the leading GeoMediaPro technology provider INTERGRAPH and also planned is a closer collaboration with Institute of CommunityGIS Darmstadt to develope awareness on GI matters for decision-makers at local, regional and federal levels (click into pictures to get an enlarged view of presentation slides):

    BOW has contributed and is contributing not only to IMAGI’s  priority goals for more comprehensive GI use
at the federal level, but is realizing activities at the regional & local levels for urgently needed education and
training tasks to raise up more awareness to build innovative OpenGIS based geodata infrastructures for
territorial planning and management of cross-border, Euro-Regions between Saxony and CEEC's.
 
 

CONCLUSIONS

    Summarizing up, the following conclusions and recommendations should be taken into account:

• If the European GI community wants to play a global role in next stage of building interoperable Global and continental (European) spatial data infrastructures then that development needs new strategies for both, future interoperability research on GI as well as on e-Learning strategies to raise up GI awareness for a mass user market. These strategies must integrate not only all GI players, researchers from the academic (AGILE) and research scenes (EC-JRC, ESA, Eurostat), but also GI decision makers from administrations (GOV's, NMA's, NATO), organizations (EUROGI, EuroGeographics, DDGI), business (GIS industry vendors, providers, consulters), as well as institutes (GI education and training centers and universities), e.g. it's time for organizing and realizing by EC-JRC a general GI awareness workshop at European level as it has been proposed already by CEEC members at 5th EC-GIS workshop (Stresa, 1999).
• EUROGI should focus its GI awareness campaign and action lines into a permanently strategic initiative for development of life-long education and training needs for GI use, and give support to realize the vision of "Cadastre 2014", a fundamental elaboration of FIG's Commission 7 on a "future cadastre system". However, more personnel needs to be educated for the free GI market; and education not as a privilege of the state is a long way off, e.g. EUROGI should promote measures and raise funds to support regional and local GI awareness measures and/or EC projects for the strong needed education & training of the mass users in the public & private sectors.
• IMAGI has to realise that not only federal but also local, regional and euro-regional (even cross-border) infrastructure development needs too an explicite spatial data infrastructure component, e.g. to improve user friendly and easy access to regional and local geodata by more awareness building about the value and use of GI in a way that the deficites in GI use still existent to achieve a modern administration could be lowered.
• SAXONY should develope a closer co-operation of and collaboration between all action players of the different Saxonia GI communities at the regional level, e.g. the raising up of more GI awareness without new forms of stronger public-private-partnerships can not be reached by an administrative,  "closed-shop" inter-ministerial GI working party only as it is still yet Saxony's reality in 2001...
• BOW will continue forwarding its strategy of postgradual programmes and activities (courses, seminars, workshops etc.) and raising up GI awareness of mass users and decision-makers to be able to integrate distributed geodata resources and to explore spatial data infrastructures in territorial planning, e.g. to extend its methodological expertise and co-operation as well as technological education and training infrastructure in order to make mass users and consumers in public administrations and business more aware on the potential of geodata infrastructures to be used from the local / regional levels to cross-border national and pan-european mulilateral levels. Close cross-border co-operations in Saxony's EuroRegions and collaborative public-private-partnerships are the base for its further success to deploy the value and the potential of GI use and to enable decision makers to build, access and use interoperable spatial data infrastructures at regional & local levels.

REFERENCES (Status of Internet Links shown as per June, 9th, 2001):

Awareness GIS Day, November 14th, 2001 (URL - http://www.gisday.com)

Awareness Week on Hurricanes, May 21-25, 2001 (URL - http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW/index.htm)

BOW - Bildungswerk Ost-West gGmbH, BildungsZentrumDresden (URL - http://www.bow.de)

COGI - Commission Inter Service Group on Geographical Information (COGI): Towards a Geographic Information Policy for the European Commission: A Position Paper from the Joint Research Centre, DATA POLICY IN THE COMMISSION, Brussel: September 20th, 2000, 13 pp.

CPA3: Information Day on Use of Geographic Information,Brussel: EC ISDG, June 18th, 2001, (EGIP Mail Communication Letter by D. Rizzi: Invitation to an Information Day on CPA3, an IST programme call on the use of Geographic Information, Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 16:58:30 +0200, From: Daniele.Rizzi@cec.eu.int)

DDGI - The German Association for Geoinformation URL - http://www.ddgi.de

• Actual News: URL - http://www.ddgi.de/ddgi/ddgi_news/neu_nach.html
• Bundestag unterstützt Förderung der Geoinformation: URL -  http://www.ddgi.de/ddgi/ddgi_news/2001/BT-Debatte.html

Deutscher Bundestag: Report on GI Use in Germany to the German Federal Parliament delivered by Federal Government (Answer to RFI), Drucksache 14/4139, Berlin: September 27th, 2000. 28 pp.

Domahs, D. / Michael, K.: Your Business Future with e-Commerce - A Training Programme for SMEs, Dresden 2000: Bildungswerk Ost-West (BOW), BildungsZentrumDresden, The ADAPT EU-Project "Pegasus" (CDROM, Version #2)

EUROGI: Business Plan 2000-2003. (URL - http://www.eurogi.org)

EUROGI: Towards a strategy for geographic information in Europe - A CONSULTATION PAPER, Vers. 1.0, Apeldoorn: October 5th, 2000, 11 pp.

EXPO-Projekt: Cross-border Public Transport Infrastructure - Grenzüberschreitender Öffentlicher Personen-Nahverkehr (ÖPNV). Video-Projektmanagement DTI, Beierfeld 2000 (URL - http://www.kabeljournal.de)

Gould, M., Herring, J.R.: Redefining Geographic Information Systems, Brno (CR): GI in EUROPE, 4th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, April 19-21, 2001, pp. 615-620.

Hoffmann, F. / Hoffmann, G.: GEO-UMWELT-RAUM - Informationssysteme, Bildungswerk Ost-West (BOW), BildungsZentrumDresden , (URL - http.//www.bow.de)

Hoffmann, F. / Hoffmann, G.: "From ADAPT via INTERREG to GI2001", Brno (CR): GI in EUROPE, 4th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, April 19-21, 2001, pp. 713-714

Hoffmann, F. / Hoffmann, G. [Editors]: Die OpenGIS-Strategie, GeoDatenManagement und OpenALKIS,Dresden 2000: Bildungswerk Ost-West e.V., BildungsZentrumDresden, Seminarreihe GI2000 (CDROM,  Version#000817-2245)

Hoffmann, F. / Hoffmann, K. / Huang, Yuxia: "INTEROPERABILITY AND REALITY @ GEObit’98 - Availability, Interoperability and Flexibility of Data, Systems and Organizations", Conference Proceedings GIS Brno 1998: GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS: INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES AND INTEROPERABILITY FOR THE 21st CENTURY INFORMATION SOCIETY, June 28 - July 1, 1998, Brno, Czech Republic

IMAGI - Interministerieller Ausschuss für Geoinformationswesen (IMAGI): Konzeption eines effizienten Geodatenmanagements des Bundes (Stand: 6. Oktober 2000), 5. Sitzung des Interministeriellen Ausschusses für Geoinformationswesen (IMAGI) am 6. Oktober 2000 von der Arbeitsgruppe "Konzeption Geodatenmanagement" unter redaktioneller Bearbeitung durch die Geschäftsstelle des IMAGI im Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG), Frankfurt am Main: 2000, 140 pp.

IMAGI: Protocol of the parliamentary debate on GI use in Germany, Berlin, February 15th, 2001.

ISRPE2001: International Symposium on "Regional Policies in Europe - The Knowledge Age: Managing Global, Regional and Local Interdependencies", Eisenerz (Styria/AT), September 21 – 23, 2001

Johnson, A.: GIS and Distant Education, (Abstract, EducationWorking Group Session), Brno (CR): GI in EUROPE, 4th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, April 19-21, 2001, pp. 72.

KoBIT: Koordinierungs- und Beratungsstelle für Informationstechnik des Freistaates Sachsen  mit einer ressortübergreifenden Arbeitsgruppe “Geodaten und Geographische Informationssysteme“ (KoBIT), URL - http://www.imagi.de/A_BL_einzeln.htm#Sachsen (Link status as per June, 9th, 2001).

Konecny, M. et al [Editor]: GI in EUROPE: Integrative, Interoperable, Interactive. 1st Edition, Brno: Mazaryk University 2001, pp. 775, ISBN 80-210-2579-4

Leonhard, J.: “HE WHO PAYS THE MAPPER CHOOSES . . . ?”, Eurogeographics: Paper delivered to CONSAS2001, Cape Town, March, 2001, 9 pp.

Longhorn, R.A.: "Awareness raising and a new (post-GI2000) focal point", EUROGI: Lobbying EU Institutions on behalf of European GI (Internal Report), Luxembourg, March 2000, pp. 39

Michael, K.: "BOW-Multimediaprojekt zum Einsatz moderner Technologien in Klein- und mittelständischen Unternehmen (KMU)", Dresden 2000: Staatsministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit, EU Programm ADAPT (CDROM - Workshop #1)

NCGIA: Discovering Geographic Knowledge in Data-Rich Environments. Report of a Specialist Meeting held under the auspices of the VARENIUS project (compiled by Miller H. and Han J.), Kirkland, WA: March 18-20, 1999, 70 pp.

Rhind, D.: Global and national GI policies, practice and education in a G-business world. Brno (CR): GI in EUROPE, 4th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, April 19-21, 2001, pp. 15-26.

Riegler, S.: Diffusionshemmnisse Neuer Lerntechnologien in der betrieblichen Aus- und Weiterbildung. Dissertation, KFUni-Graz 2000, pp. 280.

Rizzi, D.: "Current EU activities on GI: supporting the use of Geographic Information",  (Plenary Session, PPT-Presentation only). GI in EUROPE, 4th AGILE Conference on Geographic Information Science, April 19-21, Brno (CR): Mazaryk University 2001.

SAXONY: A Regional Guide to Saxony (URL - http://www.sachsen.de/en/index.html)

SAXONY: A Local Guide to Dresden (URL - http://www.dresden.de/rooteng/city/city.html)

SAXONY: A Geoinformation Guide of Dresden's City Survey (URL - http://www.dresden-stadtplan.de)

• City-Images: URL - http://www.dresden-stadtplan.de/index.php3?anzeige=l
• City-Maps: URL - http://www.dresden-stadtplan.de/index.php3?anzeige=s
• eCommerce-GI-Products: URL - http://194.123.224.183/spkdd/shop2/default.asp

Westerhoff, H.D.: "Geoinformation als immaterielle Infrastruktur - die Rolle der Bundespolitik bei der Schaffung des Marktes",  7. Internationales Anwenderforum für Geoinformationssysteme, 07. - 08.03.2001 Universität Duisburg
 
 

AUTHORS contact address:

• Dr. Gudrun Hoffmann, BOW-BildungsZentrumDresden, Löbtauer Str.48, D-01159 DRESDEN

• Doz.Dr.Frank Hoffmann, GEO System-Consult Dresden, M.-A.-Nexoe-Str. 4, D-01217 DRESDEN