The Department of Geography - University of the Philippines Diliman in collaboration with the Centre for Geoinformatics (Z_GIS) of the University of Salzburg, has again successfully conducted its second International GIS faculty development workshop with the theme: “SPATIALreason: Integrating Spatial Reasoning in Interdisciplinary Research and Education” last November 4-8, 2011 at Palma Hall 207, UP Diliman, Quezon City.
The second workshop accommodated 21 participants: two (2) from Indonesia, three (3) from Malaysia, five (5) from Thailand and 11 from the Philippines. The Filipino participants, composed of faculty members and researchers, came from various fields. One each from UP Diliman’s Department of History, Department of Anthropology and the National Institute of Geological Sciences (NIGS), five (5) from the college of Public Health of UP Manila and one each from the School of Environmental Science and Management and the College of Arts and Sciences of UP Los Baños. A participant from the National Economic Development Authority – Region 7, Cebu, also joined the workshop.
With participants coming from a wide range of disciplines, GIS in interdisciplinary research and education continues to play a significant role. What makes this workshop more relevant and different from other GIS workshops/seminars, is that, it deals with the importance of understanding basic geographic concepts behind the use of the software (e.g., ARCGIS). It emphasizes the role of spatial reasoning in understanding spatial patterns of physical and social phenomena such as land use, population, economic activities, climate, diseases and health problems, transportation and many others.
The said workshop is one of the collaborative activities under the Academic Cooperation Agreement between the two institutions and part of the Department’s Internationalization efforts to enhance its programs and capabilities. It was facilitated by Dr. Shahnawaz and Dr. Josef Strobl, Coordinator and Director of the Centre for Geoinformatics, respectively, and Prof. Ma. Simeona Martinez and Mr. Emmanuel Garcia, ENP of the Department of Geography - UP Diliman.
