RE: On the links between FOSS developers and theacademia

Jan,  Some university programs focus on employment, and for them it's
important the students know the most popular software...usually proprietary.
Others focus on concepts...with the idea that the students should know --as
you say--- the alternatives available, and that to get a job done the brand
name is not so important. For our computer science students *using* GIS is
not very interesting; they prefer to --and do-- program their own solutions.
This is FAR easier now that important libraries and components are available
(foss), than was the case a decade ago. In that sense I don't see how foss
develpers and academia could collaborate more...things are pretty open and
fluid from what I can see.

Our students collaborate directly with the gvSIG foss project. In fact,
instead of keeping them around after graduation, as a sort of temporary
research associate (with uncertain future), I have been turning them loose
to work for/with the government agency and contracted company which are
producing gvSIG.


Ciao,
-----------
Michael Gould
Department of Information Systems (LSI)
Universitat Jaume I, 12071 Castellón Spain
E-mail: gould (at) lsi.uji.es
http://www.mgould.com
http://www.geoinfo.uji.es
 

-----Mensaje original-----
De: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] En nombre de Jan-Oliver Wagner
Enviado el: jueves, 18 de agosto de 2005 12:12
Para: [email protected]
Asunto: Re: [Freegis-list] On the links between FOSS developers and
theacademia

On Wed, Aug 17, 2005 at 10:38:32AM +0300, Ari Jolma wrote:
> I'm interested in the links between the GIS industry and academia. By 
> "GIS industry" I mean also FOSS GIS, of which a growing part is outside 
> academia. How could we strengthen the link between the academia and the 
> developers of the free GI software?

I have some general remarks:

- IMHO, a GIS methodology should be explained in general
  and then tried in practice with at least two different
  tools.
  Students learn to know that there are alternatives
  and how to evaluate them. A qualification I miss for many
  students.
  Hopefully at least one of the tried tools is a Free Software,
  because students can actually look at the implementation
  of a discussed algorithm - wow!

- If ever something is implemented during studies, the result
  should be Free Software. Even better is to start upon
  a Free Software and invent something new rather then
  invent the wheel again. Contributing to a existing project
  improves a lot more skills than just geoinformatics. Good
  for the students.

Both, the proprietary and the Free Software GIS industry will
be interested in such students.

Best

	Jan

-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/
Intevation GmbH                      http://intevation.de/
Kolab Konsortium               http://kolab-konsortium.de/
FreeGIS                                http://freegis.org/

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