Modernization Courses in Field of Geoinformatics Based on Business – Academia Cooperation

Abstract

Based on the results of the three-year ERASMUS + projects GEOWEB and BESTSDI, which relate to the countries of the Western Balkans and Moldova, the current GEOBIZ project aims to address the issue of building a model of business - academic cooperation in modernizing curricula and developing geoinformatics study courses. The target groups of the project include students, teachers, and companies from the geoinformatics sector in the beneficiary countries. As one of the results of the project, courses with a special focus on practical parts were designed using cases of problem-based learning to modernize existing curricula. Modernization courses have been selected and detailed case descriptions have been prepared for implementation in the teaching process for I and II study cycles, as well as lifelong learning at participating universities from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, and Montenegro. The paper describes the approach used for the design, localization, and implementation of practical parts of the courses, through the cooperation of business and academic partners, and geoinformatics companies from individual countries.

Full text

Modernization courses in field of geoinformatics based on
business – academia cooperation
Almir Karabegovic1[0000-0002-5716-7528], Mirza Ponjavic2[0000-0003-0124-6603], Zeljko
Bacic3[0000-0001-6076-8896], Vesna Posloncec-Petric3[0000-0001-6335-6942], and Andreas
Wytzisk-Arens4[0000-0001-7312-5873]
1 Faculty of Electrical Engineering University of Sarajevo, Kampus Univerziteta u Sarajevu,
71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2 International Burch University, Francuske revolucije bb, 71210 Ilidza, Bosnia and Herze-
govina
3 Faculty of Geodesy University of Zagreb, Kaciceva 26, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia
4 Department of Geodesy University of Applied Sciences, Am Hochschulcampus 1, D-44801
Bochum, Germany
akarabegovic@etf.unsa.ba
Abstract. Based on the results of the three-year ERASMUS+ projects GEOWEB
and BESTSDI, which relate to the countries of the Western Balkans and Mol-
dova, the current GEOBIZ project aims to address the issue of building a model
of business - academic cooperation in modernizing curricula and developing
geoinformatics study courses. The target groups of the project include students,
teachers, and companies from the geoinformatics sector in the beneficiary coun-
tries. As one of the results of the project, courses with a special focus on practical
parts were designed using cases of problem-based learning to modernize existing
curricula. Modernization courses have been selected and detailed case descrip-
tions have been prepared for implementation in the teaching process for I and II
study cycles, as well as lifelong learning at participating universities from Alba-
nia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, and Montenegro. The paper de-
scribes the approach used for the design, localization, and implementation of
practical parts of the courses, through the cooperation of business and academic
partners, and geoinformatics companies from individual countries.
Keywords: Business - academic cooperation, geoinformatics, study courses.
1 Introduction
Learning outcomes are the basic building blocks of the Bologna Process package of
educational reforms. Educational programmes should be in line with the needs and de-
velopments of the market, so consultation processes between stakeholders like industry,
public administration, academia, and other parties are inevitably. The Ministerial Con-
ference held in London in May 2007 raised employability issues and motivated to re-
design curricula and learning methods and to launch study programmes that are inter-
esting for students, socially relevant and build capacities for the labour market.

2
The learning outcomes common to all qualifications of an educational cycle (i.e.
bachelor, master or doctorate) are described by a set of general descriptors [1 - 7], which
must reflect the wide range of professional and academic disciplines and profiles and
must be able to summarize the variety of features of each National Higher Education
System. To help in defining learning outcomes there are Dublin Descriptors [8-10] as
general statements about essential outcomes that have to be achieved by students after
completing a curriculum and obtaining a degree. They consist of the following ele-
ments:
• Knowledge and understanding;
• Applying knowledge and understanding;
• Making judgements;
• Communication skills; and
• Learning skills.
The three priorities of the Bologna process [11 – 13] are:
• Introduction of the three-cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate);
• Quality assurance; and
• Recognition of qualifications and periods of study.
Most of the Bologna action lines (like quality assurance, mobility, double and joint
degrees, the ECTS credit system and the Diploma Supplement) originate in EU funded
Erasmus activities. The EU continues to support these Erasmus activities, which are
now part of the new Lifelong Learning Programme [14- 16]. One of them is an Eras-
mus+ Project named “Business driven problem-based learning for academic excellence
in geoinformatics” (GEOBIZ), which focusses on the modernization of geoinformatics
education in Western Balkan countries. GEOBIZ builds on the outcomes of the previ-
ous Erasmus+ projects GEOWEB (Modernising geodesy education in Western Balkan
with focus on competences and learning outcomes) and BESTSDI (Western Balkans
Academic Education Evolution and Professional’s Sustainable Training for Spatial
Data Infrastructures) like in-depth knowledge of academic systems in the region, user
requirements and ways how to introduce changes in Higher Education Institutions
(HEI). The results from the listed projects provide a platform for developing new inno-
vative models of business-academia cooperation and courses development in the par-
ticipating countries.
Geo-spatial data is the major driver of today’s information society. This data is used
for an increasing number of scientific and practical purposes that aim to benefit the
world [17-18]. It’s a matter of gathering, analysing, distributing and visualizing the data
to make it fit for specific use. Dedicated methods and technologies supporting these
processes are at the core of geoinformatics.
The geoinformatics ecosystem comprises two main stakeholder groups – creators of
the ecosystem (in terms of concepts, methods, technologies, data etc.) and a very broad
spectrum of users. While in developed countries those stakeholder groups’ capacity and
contribution to the ecosystem are in balance and both groups support each other, in
many partner countries this balance does not exist. A critical case occurs, when the

3
main driver for advancements in geoinformatics is the business sector while the aca-
demic sector can’t keep pace and falls behind. This leads to a situation, in which the
academic sector does no longer produce graduates, which are adequately skilled for a
career in the business sector. When we add the already acute shortage of ICT-educated
professionals, we are facing a situation that already has consequences in terms of a
slowed down business development and will have even more serious consequences in
the near future.
Thus, digitization issues are recognized as one of the key areas of EU actions in
Western Balkans, also including the development of digital skills as one of the actions
under the Digital Agenda for Western Balkans (EC, 2018) [19].
Analysing the results of the Erasmus+ projects GEOWEB and BESTSDI, in targeted
partner countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova and Montene-
gro) the following problems were identified:
• academic geoinformatics capacities are low in number and scattered,
• geoinformatics or related curricula are outdated and do not deliver knowledge and
skills about newest technological developments,
• exchange of information between business and academic sector is weak and spo-
radic,
• professional and scientific business-academia cooperation is unsatisfactory and
• sectors do not provide sufficient support to each other in solving their problems and
development.
Relying on those findings, the GEOBIZ project aims to address the question, how to
build a business-academia cooperation model which will:
• support the academic sector to modernise in line with technological and conceptual
advancements in geoinformatics and
• develop geoinformatics study courses to deliver new bachelor and master graduates
well prepared for the business environment and contribute visibly to its activities and
development.
In previous task of the Project, main topics of courses for modernization are:
1. GIS vector/raster data analysis;
2. Navigation and positioning using GNSS;
3. Remote sensing, EO and Copernicus;
4. Advanced GIS applications;
5. Web mapping portals and applications;
6. Sensor integration, UAV;
7. Artificial intelligence.
8. Geostatistics; and
9. Terrestrial laser scanning.

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1.1 The project objective
The GEOBIZ project identifies three major target groups across all partner countries
involved in the project. Those groups are:
• HEI students educated in geoinformatics study programmes,
• HEI teachers teaching geoinformatics courses, and
• geoinformatics business sector companies.
Additionally, there are three secondary target groups:
• Professionals in field of geoinformatics, geodesy, geography, computer science and
related disciplines,
• HEI’s providing study in field of geoinformatics, geography, and related disciplines,
and
• Governmental authorities, public administration, and agencies.
While students need updated, modern courses which will provide them the necessary
knowledge and skills resulting in fast employability in the geoinformatics business sec-
tor, teachers feel the need for a closer cooperation with the geoinformatics business
sector to modernize their courses, to provide additional training, and to be able to use
state-of-the-art equipment to introduce technologically advanced topics.
Geoinformatics businesses need new professionals coming from HEI’s which are
well educated and trained in field of geoinformatics, and university staff which can
support them in development of their companies and businesses.
Professionals need more information, incentive for cooperation and support which
will support them and their businesses in their development. From other side, HEI’s
need platform for better, focused, and productive cooperation with business sector.
Government needs to have well developed business and academic sector in field of
geoinformatics and related disciplines which will deliver capacities capable to satisfy
all their needs for services and products in field of geoinformatics in highly profes-
sional, efficient, and cost-effective manner.
The main aim of the GEOBIZ project is strengthening the capacity of academic in-
stitutions to better respond to the needs of the emerging geoinformatics industry in Al-
bania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, and Montenegro with emphasis on
the following aspects:
• Establishing new and innovative forms of business-academia cooperation to support
interaction in teaching/learning processes in geoinformatics;
• Establishment of business-academia platform supporting excellence in geoinformat-
ics;
• Developing innovative teacher training programs and practical teaching/learning
methodologies and content in technology-based courses in geoinformatics leaned on
business-driven needs and experience; and
• Implementing state-of-the art techniques in geoinformatics teaching process.

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In other to achieve the main objective, the project specific objectives are:
1. To improve and increase business-academia cooperation in geoinformatics at partner
universities;
2. Establish business-academia interactive training program for teachers of geoinfor-
matics courses following Bologna standards;
3. To create of technological preconditions (establishment of geoinformatics labs) for
partner HEI’s;
4. Develop and pilot number of improved university (practical part) and LLL courses;
5. Set up technological platforms to share business-based practical examples in geoin-
formatics among partners and countries;
6. Embed a culture of quality to the project, its outputs and outcomes; and
7. Facilitate adequate management tools for the correct implementation of the project.
GEOBIZ project supports all major objectives of action Capacity-Building in field
of Higher Education in targeted Partner countries, respectively modernisation, accessi-
bility, and internationalisation of higher education in Partner Countries.
1.2 Business-academia cooperation model
A fundamental task of the GEOBIZ project was to identify good practices for business-
academia cooperation, which facilitate the introduction and further advancement of
new GI technologies in the business and academic sector in the partner countries. Such
good practices shall enable a sustainable cooperation based on mutual interest of the
involved parties and need to address the broader general conditions in the partner coun-
tries.
The project identified actors and instruments to
1. involve the business sector in the modernization of geoinformatics curricula (espe-
cially concerning technology related courses), and
2. to involve the academic sector in expanding the business sector to new business areas
in geoinformatics and linked sectors (business development).
To avoid dependencies, the project focuses on best practices, which can be thor-
oughly implemented by actors from academia and business not needing an active buy-
in of other parties. Thus, instruments involving e.g. governments on the regional and
national level as well as the European Commission are deliberately excluded.
Based on a survey on business and user needs, a survey on business-academia coop-
eration practices, the findings of “The State of University-Business Cooperation in Eu-
rope Project” [20] as well as feedback from relevant stakeholders in the partner coun-
tries the following target groups for business-academic cooperation have been identi-
fied (Table 1).

6
Table 1. Target groups for business-academia cooperation.
Higher Education Institutions
Private and (non-academic) pub-
lic sector organizations (in the
field of geo-informatics, geodesy,
ICT, related disciplines and beyond)
Type of or-
ganization
• Universities
• Polytechnic / University of Applied
Sciences
• Research institutes
• Faculties
• Departments, centers, and laborato-
ries that are part of the faculty
• Governmental authorities
• Public administration and agen-
cies
• Companies (small and medium
enterprises, large enterprises)
Stakeholder
group
within the
organization
• Rectors, deans, decision makers re-
sponsible for strategic planning
• (Research) Project managers
• Researchers
• Project support staff (fund acquisi-
tion, controlling, etc.)
• Persons in charge for program and
course development (teachers, ad-
ministrative staff support accredita-
tion processes, etc.)
• Teachers teaching in geo-informat-
ics (and related) courses
• Business developers, product /
service developers, innovation /
research managers
• Knowledge management, human
resources
• Individuals with interest in teach-
ing
Beside business-academia cooperation stakeholders, the obstacles for an establishment
of an efficient cooperation and involvement of business stakeholders in education pro-
cess have been identified in the partner countries. The lack of the cooperation culture
in general, lack of communicational understanding (same words have different meaning
for business and academia stakeholders) and identification of common interest and ben-
efits are major obstacles for establishment of efficient business-academia cooperation.
Therefore, a broad cooperation platform has been established.
The basic structure of potential cooperation fields has been taken from [20] since it
has been confirmed by the GEOBIZ surveys on business and user needs and business-
academia cooperation practices.
The structure shown in Table 2 has been used to organize a living document of good
cooperation practices. Each business-academia cooperation description is structured as
follows:
• Addressed stakeholders
• Joint cooperation goal
• Description of the cooperation measure
• Expected outcome for each actor (stakeholder group) involved

7
• Incentives for each actor involved
• Identification of major barriers and measures to overcome them
• Internal and external dependencies (e.g. funding).
Table 2. Business-academia cooperation activity structure.
Business-academia
cooperation domain
Business-academia cooperation activities
Education
1. Curriculum co-design (e.g. business in curricula design)
2. Curriculum co-delivery (e.g. guest lectures)
3. Mobility of students (e.g. student internships)
4. Dual education programmes (e.g. part academic / practical)
5. Lifelong learning for people from practice
Research
6. Joint R&D (incl. joint funded research)
7. Consulting to business (e.g. contract research)
8. Mobility of staff
Valorization
9. Commercialization of R&D results (e.g. licensing, patenting)
10. Academic entrepreneurship (e.g. spin-offs)
11. Student entrepreneurship (e.g. start-ups)
Management
12. Governance (e.g. participation in business / HEI boards)
13. Shared resources (e.g. infrastructure, personnel, equipment)
14. Industry support (e.g. sponsorship, scholarships)
The living document currently covers 22 descriptions of proven good practices of busi-
ness-academia cooperation.
2 Materials and Methods
A second core task of the project is the (re-) design of geoinformatics courses with a
specific focus on practical parts. Geoinformatics courses which partner universities
have declared to modernize should be re-designed using previously collected problem-
based-learning cases as stored in a cases/courses repositorium developed by the project.
Such cases are being methodologically reprocessed to meet educational needs and come
with teaching and learning materials for students and teachers.
The case design is done jointly by business and academic partners involving also
external stakeholders which are users of geoinformatics products and services in their
countries.
Today there are different ways of organizing collaboration between industry and ac-
ademic sector, also over distance. One idea was to use Scrum methodology for the pro-
cess of course modernization, which could be modified also to include remote collabo-
rations. Also the collaboration platform Slack had been considered, but was not chosen
after deep analysis. In the project all partners work mostly individually sharing only

8
results of their intellectual work, and it was hard to expect them to be part of sprints
with short daily meetings and fast results. Probably, agile methods are better suited to
industrial or commercial projects.
The project team chose a straight-forward working methodology to achieve the task
objectives, defined major milestones and measurable indicators. Three subsequent
phases can be distinguished: the evaluation phase, the development phase, the closing
phase (Figure 1).
Main inputs for this task are:
• 24 problem-based cases and
• Chosen courses for modernization by 9 Partner HEIs.
Fig. 1. Dynamic plan of works.
The task is divided into seven activities:
• Evaluation of cases stored in repository from educational perspective and structuring
the practical part of courses;
• Identification of need for intervention in theoretical part of courses for achieving full
compliance between theoretical and practical part of curses;
• Methodological and educational processing of cases;
• Preparing teaching and learning material for practical part of courses;
• Preparing, where necessary, theoretical sections;
• Internal testing of developed practical part of courses; and
• Analyse of developed courses and describe results testing in a summary report.
The total duration of the project task was 14 weeks. The task deliverables are course
designs (including practical parts) stored in repository.
For communication, the task team decided to have meetings every two weeks using
two platforms for project documentation and results:
• GEOBIZ Moodle – for project documents (plans, reports), and
• GEOBIZ Repository – for designed geoinformatics (practical part) courses.
List of business (problem-based) cases:
1. Soil moisture for micro-locations:
2. Statistical surveys I;

9
3. Utility and government services;
4. Register of spatial units and addresses;
5. Geovisualization in spatial epidemiology;
6. Modelling of house prices using machine learning;
7. GPS for topographic maps;
8. Development of an application for applying GNSS in agriculture;
9. Noise mapping using mobile devices;
10. Mapping air quality;
11. Digitization of paper urban planning maps;
12. Geological assessment of soil stability;
13. Geodata for urbanism and spatial planning;
14. Geomarketing analysis for banking services;
15. Mapping and monitoring of aquatic environments using geospatial intelligence;
16. Land cover and land use mapping;
17. Crop monitoring with remote sensing;
18. Application of remote sensing data in mapping and monitoring forest;
19. 3D measurement with a terrestrial laser scanner and object visualization;
20. Geodata for civil engineering and architecture designing;
21. UAV in urban planning and management;
22. Vectorization of 3D models of objects based on point clouds;
23. 3D urban information models for assessment of the solar potential of buildings;
and
24. Statistical Surveys II.
3 Results and Discussion
An important part of the project was the design of a business-academia cooperation
model. The model describes good practices for business-academia cooperation in order
to facilitate the introduction and further advancement of new GIS technologies in the
business and academic sector in the partner countries. It enables a sustainable coopera-
tion based on mutual interest of the involved parties and addresses the broader general
conditions in the partner countries. Furthermore, it identifies actors and instruments (in
terms of good practices) to involve the business sector in the modernization of geoin-
formatics curricula (especially concerning technology related courses), and to involve
the academic sector in expanding the business sector to new business areas in geoinfor-
matics and linked sectors (business development).
There are recognized four areas for these good practices:
• Education (e.g., curriculum co-design, education co-delivery, mobility of students,
dual education programs, or life-long learning for professionals)
• Research (e.g., joint research and development, or consulting to business)
• Valorization (e.g., spin-off companies start-up) and
• Management (e.g., sharing resources or industry support).

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Another important project task is the (re-) design of geoinformatics courses. The
responsible task group has decided to divide the task delivery in two phases (Figure 2):
• First delivery: Project document describing each case in a form of a course practical
part (three activities), and
• Second delivery: Detailed description of each case ready for use (four activities).
Fig. 2. The Projects tasks workflow.
The first phase delivered 24 case descriptions with 87 lab exercises. In total, these cover
325 class hours.
Partner HEIs chose the courses for modernization and suggested which labs they
would use (Table 1). To facilitate this, the task group prepared a questionary for them
(Figure 3). Nine universities from five countries chose 44 courses with total 465 class
hours (Table 3).
The second phase implies the preparation of a detailed description of the practical
part for every case. This lays the foundation for the subsequent tasks.

11
Fig. 3. Example of a geoinformatics course proposed for modernization.
The final document should have the following sections:
1. Prerequisite (prerequisites for attending the practical part of the course dealing
with the selected use case);
2. Exercises / Use case objective (the objective(s) of exercises with the case study
selected);
3. Problem formulation (formal description of the engineering problem in the use
case selected);
4. Available datasets (data and metadata sets available for practice and problem
solving from the use case including input data and resulting post-processing
data);
5. Used methods, techniques, tools and operations (a brief description of the
methods, techniques, tools, and SW / HW operations used to solve the problem
from the use case);
6. Exercises / Use case content: List of Activities (brief description of exercises
for the use case with conducted activities);
7. Expected outcomes (description of the expected results with its form and
meaning related to the problem);
8. Acquired competences (competencies that the student acquires after success-
fully mastering the exercises for the use case);
9. Lab exercises by tasks (list of exercises described by tasks);
10. Discussion, further research, and data update (discussion of the results related
to the use case solution);
11. Do-It-Yourself (description of the method and examples of independent prac-
tice of students through homework or assignments in the classroom after mas-
tering the exercise); and
12. Theoretical material (listed, mapped, and attached theoretical parts from lec-
tures related to exercises).

12
Table 3. Preferences of HEI partners.
HEI partners from country
Number of
chosen courses
Number of
hours
Number of
Use Cases
Albania
9
136
17
Bosnia and Herzegovina
9
139
10
Kosovo
19
102
39
Moldova
7
112
17
Montenegro
2
8
2
Finally, the process resulted in the modernization of existing or the introduction of new
courses in the syllabuses of partner universities, which have included developed cases
in the practical and where necessary theoretical part of existing or new courses. In Table
4 the modernized/new courses, the volume of modernization (in teaching hours) and
the number of cases implemented are shown for two partner universities from Bosnia
and Herzegovina.
Table 4. Courses chosen for modernization with number of chosen cases and total number of
new hours at partner universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
No.
Partner
Courses chosen for modernization
Hours
Cases
1
University of Banja
Luka
Real-time data processing platforms
20
1
2
Integrated systems of geodetic survey
21
1
3
Laser scanning
20
1
4
University of Sarajevo
Precise Positioning and Navigation
20
2
5
Geostatistics
20
1
6
Geographic Information Systems I
20
1
7
Transportation Planning and Infrastructure
4
1
8
Performance Characteristics of Roads
4
1
9
Environmental Protection
10
1
4 Conclusion
During the GEOBIZ project, we analyzed the environment for business – academia
cooperation in Western Balkan countries, which can be characterized depending on
stakeholders’ roles. Public sector institutions are generally not overly interested in co-
operating with HEIs, and also private businesses have often a critical attitude towards

13
academia. Nevertheless, all stakeholder group stress the potential and thus the im-
portance of an intensified cooperation.
HEI’s staff often cooperates on an individual level, meaning that most business-aca-
demia cooperation is implemented by individual lecturers or researchers, rarely with
the University as an institution. Top level measures from regulators like Ministries or
State Agencies do not show the desired impact.
In past, there was a successful history of business – academia cooperation, mainly
driven by large state-owned institutes. Today, there is a good will to cooperate, but
there is no clear guidance for it. There is no regulation or legislative framework, nor
specified roles and tasks for the involved partners. Moreover, student internships are
not completely regulated and because of that rarely used. There are some positive ex-
amples with dual education at vocational school, but higher education is not completely
covered yet.
This project is partly a response to the challenges related to business – academia
cooperation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The universities of Banja Luka and Sarajevo
recognized the need to modernize courses and proposed nine courses with 139 hours
and ten use cases for implementation in practical classes. Also, as a project activity in
terms of strengthening business – academia cooperation, they launched a workshop for
private companies and public institutions that employ experts in geoinformatics who
use geospatial data intensively in their work.
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