Abstract
In this paper a new revised undergraduate course on Thematic Cartography (TC) is presented as a 5 ECTS compulsory core course of the 300 ECTS undergraduate curriculum of a relevant European University engineering School leading to a five years engineering degree, comparable to the MEng degree, after the submission of the diploma dissertation. The paper presents the underlying philosophy for the course design, respecting fundamental criteria of university education and considering the fact that this TC compulsory course is the basis of a series of other nine cartography plus GIS related elective courses available in the curriculum, oriented in various engineering disciplines (geodesy and surveying, cadastre and photogrammetry, infrastructure engineering, including road construction, transportation, hydraulic works, environmental engineering). This course is focused not only on the theoretical issues of TC but also on implementation in terms of a web-based course, targeting at the familiarisation of the students with a series of relevant free software applications in relation with the mining of relevant data from the EUROSTAT free provider, in order to develop modularly a TC project. It is shown how this key course covers the educational and student needs of a spectrum of other courses that follow in the engineering curriculum and raises an overall interest of engineering students for cartographic science and technologies.
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Notes
- 1.
The issue refers to the new TC course developed and implemented at the School of Rural and Surveying Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), Greece (http://www.topo.auth.gr/main/index.php/en/studies-atm-2/undergraduate-studies), one of the seven independent Schools of the Engineering Faculty providing 300 ECTS engineering degrees at the MEng level. This School was established in 1962 third, after Civil Engineering (1955) and Architecture (1957). It consists of three Departments: Geodesy and Surveying; Cadastre, Photogrammetry and Cartography; Transportation and Hydraulic Engineering, all providing undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and research. The AUTH School and its counterpart at the National Technical University of Athens, offer the MEng level degree in “Rural and Surveying Engineering” leading to the professional engineering State license, after a legal examination, and to the enrolment at the Technical Chamber of Greece, the official technical adviser of the State.
- 2.
Definitely engineering-born and historically related to engineering higher education development (Livieratos 1993), also because, in contrast to other European countries (including the neighbouring countries), the geography higher education studies started very late, only in the mid-1990s.
- 3.
ICA: International Cartographic Association (http://www.icaci.org); IAG: International Association of Geodesy (www.iag-aig.org); ISPRS: International Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (www.isprs.org); FIG: International Federation of Surveyors (www.fig.net).
- 4.
Headed by Prof. Evangelos Livieratos, who since then (1979) and for the next 36 years dedicated efforts, energies and resources in developing cartographic teaching and research in Thessaloniki. TC was taught for the first time in Greece by E. Livieratos, at the National Technical University of Athens in 1978; his text-book General Cartography and introduction to Thematic Cartography, Ziti Editions, Thessaloniki (2nd ed. 1989), is a basic reference, in Greek, for teaching introductory cartographic courses.
- 5.
The HCS is since 1995 a member of the International Cartographic Association; before its establishment the AUTH Department of Cadastre, Photogrammetry and Cartography was an affiliate member of the ICA.
- 6.
Established in 1997 and operated as independent public legal entity under private law to 2013, when was merged in the General State Archives of Greece operating since then as its distinct section.
- 7.
Commission website: cartography.web.auth.gr/ICA-Heritage; e-journal on sciences and technologies affined to the history of cartography and maps, website: www.e-perimetron.org.
- 8.
Respectively: Profs. Chrysoula Boutoura and Alexandra Kousoulakou the academic staff; Dr. Maria Pazarli and cand. Dr. Nopi Ploutoglou, the external volunteers for the Archives of Cartographic Heritage by the General State Archives of Greece; dipl. Math. Filippos Makris, the senior student; Dr. Angeliki Tsorlini, post-doc fellow at IKG-ETH Zurich, winner of the 2015 “Prix Carto—digital” of the Swiss Society of Cartography for the product OCAD 12 ThematicMapper with the IKG ETH Zurich and the OCAD AG firm.
- 9.
The TC course web site: http://cartography.web.auth.gr/Thema_Carto.
- 10.
A high number of students, attended the new TC course, participated in the 2014 National Cartographic Conference of the Hellenic Cartographic Society and in 2015 the Conference on Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage, organised by the relevant ICA Commission.
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Boutoura, C., Kousoulakou, A., Tsorlini, A. (2016). Thematic Cartography: A Key Course in Geospatial Engineering. In: Gartner, G., Jobst, M., Huang, H. (eds) Progress in Cartography. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19602-2_21
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