In Retrospect: Summer School Copernicus for Digital Earth 2019, Salzburg

The Summer School Copernicus for Digital Earth “Benefit from the potential of freely available Satellite data and Copernicus services for your domain” – organized by Z_GIS, UNIGIS and

CopHub.AC brought together international students and practitioners from 11 countries. The intense program explored the potential of freely available satellite data and derived information products with a focus on the European Earth observation programme Copernicus and its various service domains. Best practice examples were shown and practical experiences shared. In combination with international key speakers, hands-on sessions and field trips participants had the opportunity to discuss with experts. Finally  the summer school participants presented their group work in form of story maps at a Special Session the EARSeL Symposium and earned a lot of positive feedback!

Contact: Stefan Lang, Barbara Riedler

Re-Viewing GIS Day 2016

Global GIS Day every year is a wonderful opportunity to invite schools to get in touch with Geoinformatics, experiencing how to bridge the real and virtual worlds. More than 200 pupils from several schools in and around Salzburg visited Z_GIS on Nov 16, working their way through 7 different modules ranging from operating robots to learning about drone aerial photography and managing a safe trip to school by bike.

University of Salzburg Rector Prof Heinrich Schmidinger
speaking at the iDEAS:lab opening during GIS Day 2016

This year's GIS Day was an even more special event due to the opening of our new iDEAS:lab, where schools in the future will have year-round opportunities to learn about spatial technologies and related applications. In addition to functioning as a 'learning lab', this facility simultaneously will serve as a 'research lab', an 'open science lab' a 'transfer lab' in collaboration with our industry partners.

Check out photographic impressions from Nov 16 @Z_GIS > https://flic.kr/s/aHskvoj68P

Opening of iDEAS:lab - bridging education, research and the public

About 200 visitors: pupils, representatives from the local and regional governments, from industry and University of Salzburg leadership attended today´s opening of the iDEAS:lab - the main highlight of this year´s global GIS Day in Salzburg. The iDEAS:lab ("Integrated Digital Earth Applications and Science Lab"), located at the Techno-Z in Salzburg-Itzling, is a platform for education, research and cooperation with industry and the public.

It serves as a multi-purpose open geospatial technologies and media lab, where visitors can experience, explore and understand Digital Earth technologies. The lab is open to schools, students, researchers and the public. Additionally, it is designed as an industry hub for networking and hosting business events. The aim of the new iDEAS:lab is to provide an engaging, dynamic and innovation-friendly learning environment for geoinformation science.

In the iDEAS:lab, visitors use geo-technologies to explore solutions for their own lives, such as the safest route to school. In addition, the iDEAS:lab will evolve into an interface between geoinformation science and the public, while at the same time serving as a transfer lab for industry.

Recently the iDEAS:lab concept was nominated as a finalist for the Education Award of the B&C Private Foundation.


Contact: Bernd Resch (iDEAS:lab), Robert Vogler (PLUS School of Education)

GIS Day: School students experiencing real world-applications

More than 200 school students aged 12 to 18 attended this year´s GIS Day in Salzburg. All of them joined seven interactive workshops - offering insights into current developments in Geography, GIS and location-aware technologies. The funniest part of the game: experiencing real-world applications such as OSM. Cornelius Roth (Z_GIS) and Rares Rotar, masterstudent of Applied Geoinformatics at Salzburg University, encouraged them to become mappers themselves. Most impressing for the visitors: Seeing how as mappers they could help in crisis-situations. Such as Rares did in April 2015, when he first volunteered for HumanitarianOpenStreetMap (HOT) after the Nepal earthquake.


About 1.600 events were held at schools and organizations around the globe on this year´s GIS Day. The Salzburg event is organised by the departments of Geography and Geoinformatics (Z_GIS).

SPACIT Pilot course - Iaşi, Romania

The Comenius project Education for Spatial Citizenship (SPACIT) coordinated by Z_GIS piloted from July 8-10 2014 an in-service teacher training course in co-operation with Colegiul Naţional Iaşi, Romania.

The SPACIT project concentrates on geomedia use in everyday life and supports teachers to change their learning environments accordingly. Modules on concepts of space, citizenship education, geomedia
communication and reflection and geomedia technology were tested and evaluated by 28 teachers from Romania and Germany as well as the project team.

• Watch movie

• Project website

Z_GIS Annual Report 2013 is now online!

The Z_GIS Annual Report 2013 is now online! Get informed about our activities, events and projects in the area of research, education and capacity building.

Z_GIS at uni:hautnah 2013 - Science united now!

Z_GIS will attend as presenter at uni:hautnah in Austria's biggest Shopping Center "Europark" from November 7-9, 2013. Within this framework Z_GIS presents two projects: The Project "Easy Rider" and Bicycle Map Salzburg and the YouthMap5020, and Integrating GIS Use in Education in Several Subjects. More information to this event: uni:hautnah 2013

YouthMap5020 KickOff-Event – „…it all started with a Big Bang“

At the beginning of the school year 2013/14 on September 12^th the productive work on the project You^thMap5020 started with a big KickOff-Event at UniPark Nonntal hosted by Robert Kleindienst as representative from the “SchülerUniSalzburg”. All school partners have been invited and fortunately participated, so the project team happily welcomed approximately 150 pupils (7 classes from 6 partner schools).

• Robert Vogler (Z_GIS) introduced the project, 
• Prof. Dr. Josef Strobl (Z_GIS) gave a delightful talk on the background of the project (i.e. geomedia in everyday life), 
• Isabel Bojanovski (Jugendbüro Salzburg) also welcomed the audience and 
• Dr. Sabine Hennig (Z_GIS) explained the detailed project structure and further activities.
• Finally, Lisa Antonia Rajsp, Leonie Einfalt and Johannes Brötzner provided some insights in their project internships which they finished recently.  

...more pictures HERE

As a next project step, the first school workshops will start at the end of September 2013.

Comenius Course "Spatial Citizenship" opens for application

Education for spatial citizenship, a Comenius project developing teacher training coordinated by the Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics - ZGIS at the University of Salzburg is open for application from June, 12th, 2013. The one-week-course is held in IASI, Romania, from April 27 - May 4, 2014, and is fully supported by the national agencies. 

Interested? Apply at the Teacher Training Database until September 14^th 2013 under http://ec.europa.eu/education/trainingdatabase/ reference number: AT-2014-373-001. Get more information here: http://www.spatialcitizenship.org/ict-geoinformation-education/ 

YouthMap5020 internships started

The FFG Regionale Talente funded project You^thMap5020, recently started under the lead of Z_GIS, develops a digital map for the city of Salzburg that targets the specific needs and interests of young people. Supporting project partners are Synergis/ESRI and the city of Salzburg (represented by the youth office). The user centred approach in You^thMap5020 not only refers to map content but also to design and functionalities. Therefore, the target group of this map application is directly involved in every work package (user requirements, data aquisition, implementation, evaluation) through a) the participation of six partner schools and b) several internships in the framework of the project.

(Lisa Antonia Rajsp, Leonie Einfalt & Johannes Brötzner)

Three internships have recently started. Every trainee is responsible for a specific task:

• Lisa Antonia Rajsp (17, Musisches Gymnasium Salzburg) provides an analysis of available spatialized survey tools (combining a questionnaire with a map interface) and develops guidelines for the data gathering
• Leonie Einfalt (16, Bundesgymnasium St. Johann) delivers a state of the art report on existing youth specific map applications worldwide and reviews several examples regarding functionalities, design and content.
• Johannes Brötzner (15, Bundesgymnasium Zaunergasse Salzburg) creates the web platform, which combines both a project information website and a multi-level data sharing- and communication platform for all project partners

(Z_GIS staff in You^thMap5020: Sabine Hennig, Robert Vogler, Thomas Jekel)

"Geomedia 50+" - ...beating the tech generation gap!

In the last years, the way we communicate and exchange information has undergone big changes. According processes are increasingly web2.0 mediated and especially the use of geomedia in everyday life has gained its importance. The intrusion of new communication channels and media is closely related to discussions and research on topics such as geo-communication, spatially enabled society, and spatial citizenship. In order to handle this competently, sophisticated geomedia capabilities and abilities are required. While school education recently has started to impart geomedia competencies, (Geo-)ICT empowerment opportunities for seniors and elderly people just barely exist. Owing to a number of reasons (e.g. social inclusion, information access), suitable adult education and learning activities need to be established. This is in line with numerous, actual efforts of the European Union addressing the demand to increase and intensify approaches to adult education and learning. 

Facing the existing gap on seniors’ geomedia literacy on one hand and thus the promises made by a spatially-enabled society on the other, Z_GIS staff members Sabine Hennig and Robert Vogler held a pilot course “Geomedia 55+” (in the framework of “University 55+” at Salzburg University) that aimed at providing geomedia skills especially for elderly people. This pilot course served as basis for gathering the target group’s specific educational needs concerning geomedia use and started a Z_GIS initiative to provide geomedia skills also beyond (post)secondary education in co-operation with the digital-earth.eu network. 

“geo@web” - New edited book on geomedia and education (in german language)

With the emergence and constant progression of web2.0, spatial communications has gained new importance: Geographic (geo-)media is becoming more and more integrated into the constantly flowing stream of social media information. Objects, events, and even people are georeferenced. “Virtual reality” becomes an “augmented reality”, closely connected to the requirements and needs of life. These changes in the everyday use of geo-media have a huge impact on our everyday relationships with space and, in consequence, they create a big challenge for state of the art geographical education. 

Inga Gryl (University Duisburg-Essen), Tobias Nehrdich (University Jena) and Robert Vogler (Z_GIS/digital:earth:education) recently published the edited book „geo@web. Medium, Räumlichkeit und geographische Bildung“ which focusses on discussing some of these new challenges by providing 13 papers (252 pages) from an interdisciplinary perspective, including geographic information science, social geography, geography education, media science, sociology and more. 

The book is available on springerlink.

Learning with Geoinformation, July 4-8, 2011

Implementing digital earth in education

Within the GI_Forum, the Learning with GI conference discusses initiatives to implement the digital earth vision in education with some 100 participants from more than 20 countries. A keynote by Joseph Kerski, more than 25 paper presentations and a panel discussion develop strategies for the use of GI at school and undergraduate levels. The conference is held in conjunction with the inaugural digital-earth.eu network meeting and welcomes guests and participants from the AGIT and GI_Forum conferences. (Thomas Jekel & Robert Vogler, ÖAW-GIScience)

www.gi-forum.org/learning
Programme brochure
Conference venue: University of Salzburg, Faculty of Natural Sciences

Thomas Jekel, Keynote at HGD-Symposium

Thomas Jekel, senior researcher at ÖAW-GIScience, introduced "Learning with Geoinformation" to the audience at the HGD-Symposium Ludwigsburg 2011: Räumliche Orientierung, Karten und Geoinformation im Unterricht, 7. April 2011.
Abstract (German)

pupils 4 pupils @ GIS Day 2010

One station at the GIS Day 2010 in Salzburg on november 19th was directly related to the GEOKOM-PEP project.

In the summer of 2010 Lisa Sönser and Noemi Müller (pupils at the age of 17 from two partner schools) worked at the GIScience institute in the framework of internships. They conceptualized a first prototype of an online communication platform for participative and collaborative spatial planning which is supported by digital maps.

At the station "Neues Schallmoos: Web2.0, digitale Karten und viele kreative Köpfe" they reported about the recent project progress, presented this prototype and discussed about the concept and possible improvements.

GIS Day 2010 in Salzburg

Salzburg GIScience Research Cluster @ GIS Day 2010

On November 19th, the digital:earth:at organized GISday events at Techno-Z Salzburg have drawn some 400 pupils from schools from Salzburg, Upper Austria and Bavaria.
Presentations and workshops largely relied on staff from all research cluster institutions (Z_GIS, ÖAW-GIScience and iSpace) as well as partners from both public institutions and corporations.

For more images, please refer to the GIS Day homepage and report. http://www.gisday.at/mitteilungen/2010/lernerlebnismitgeoinformation-daswardergisday2010insalzburg.
(Thomas Jekel, ÖAW-GIScience and digital:earth:at)