AUTHORS:

(*)School of Surveying – School of Exact Sciences, Engineering and Surveying – National University of Rosario – Av. Pellegrini 250 (2000) - Rosario - Argentina

ABSTRACT:

           The technological changes mankind has achieved at the end of the Century have improved Surveying. State-of-the art technologies contribute rapidity, security and economy to the professional work of Surveyors. It is essential to incorporate this into university education.
           Topography has to be thought as vectorial, resulting primarily in spatial coordinates. The choice of methods and instruments must be based on precision, incorporating the idea of geo-referencing.
           Satellite technology has provided Geodesy with the unique chance of a worldwide reference system. However, height problems relate to the study of geoids. Calculation is not a limitation any more.
           We need time and effort to provide for change in professional practical applications, together with deeper knowledge.
           We think of education as an ongoing process that extends into post-graduate studies. We also believe research is crucial to development.

INTRODUCTION:

           The second half of the XXth century witnessed crucial technological changes. Particularly, electronics and informatics have suffered a qualitative leap that has greatly impacted on science. It has been a true Technological Revolution.
           This revolution has been so wide and significant that it has impacted on the whole of human activities. Man is still the same, human desires and conflicts have not changed. However, the way human beings perform their activities has notoriously been modified. The how of human activities is notoriously different.
           Just to mention some examples: communications change almost every day, at a very fast pace. So do activities as dissimilar as war and economic output. Our every day life, both as individuals and as a social group suffer incessant modifications.
           Surveying, a professional activity that captures, manages and produces territorial data and information for different purposes (legal, cadastral, building, planning, cartographic purposes, etc.), has not only been greatly impacted by these technological advances but also has significantly improved and transformed its capabilities.

           This paper aims at explaining at least some of the contributions that the new technologies have provided both to Surveying and to the university education of it.
           Our first conclusion is, undoubtedly, that the new technologies have created very powerful tools for capturing, managing, processing and producing territorial information. These tools have profoundly modified the professional work since they have contributed rapidity, safety and economy of efforts. Many traditional, long-standing techniques have been quickly and successfully overcome. New ways of measuring, processing and representing information have been established.
           Our second conclusion derives from the foregoing. It is essential to incorporate the new technologies and the tools these technologies have created into university education. The different schools of Surveying have been implementing this curricular change to a greater or to a lesser extent, quite successfully.
           So, is this it? Or, is there a third and missing conclusion?
           It is a well-known fact that time and effort is needed to move from a successful scientific research to the actual application and resulting technology. Likewise, time and efforts are needed to allow this new technology result in professional practical applications based on sound, proven expertise.
           We have heard of total stations being used as a theodolite with coupled distance meter. Or a GPS being used to determine the shape and dimensions of rural polygons, with no adequate link to a general reference system.
           Achieving the general and adequate application of a new technology requires education. If education is properly implemented, this transition will be faster.
           A change in the professional culture is required, not only in the tools that allow this new culture to exist.
           We would like here not to state a third conclusion, but to make a question, instead: Which are the new concepts to be taught? Which are or should be their consequences when applied to surveying university education?

           It is, as it should, an ambitious question. We are fully aware that our attempt to answer this question will be partial and will of course reveal both our expertise and limitations. We simply aim at making a contribution to a global answer that, we believe, requires great expertise.
           The following are, in our opinion, some of the main technological and conceptual changes to be considered:

           These technological and conceptual changes materialize in practical tools. We have now different software for calculation and graphic imaging, some very basic, some very complex. We have now modern measurement instruments, such as the total station and the GPS receptor. Communication satellites with image capturing systems, atmospheric measurement systems, with powerful software to manage, process and analyze information, such as GIS, and, of course, a whole set of tools that if properly linked to method and expertise result in the successful application of the technologies we have mentioned.
           We may even benefit from another idea, another thinking. These transformations provide for a huge improvement of surveying in all of its traditional applications and may also be the grounds for completely new applications.

           What do we have to change in university education?
           First, let us mention informatics and electronics.
           We believe informatics is to be given a key role. We have to aim at training skillful users who can also make a clever use of available resources. We have to aim at users able of critical analysis based on their own knowledge and practical experience. A good professional may adapt his methodology to the available informatics resource. However, a professional should never passively subdue to technology or he would be jeopardizing his work. Informatics is to be thought of as a tool. We are to know it in order to handle it in our own benefit.
           As regards electronics, our approach is different. We believe students need to have a general, basic knowledge of Physics. It is of course true that most our tools and instruments are electronic and will make further use of electronic advances. However, going “deep” into electronics requires a specialized education unrelated to surveying. We do not mean we have to disregard or be ignorant of how to control, assess and eventually calibrate and /or verify our measurement instruments. It is possible to assess precision, corrections, and accuracy by proper reading of measurement results.
           There are of course some changes we have to foster in traditional and new disciplines. For instance, Photogrammety or Cartography were activities reserved to big, well-funded institutions or ample professional teams. Nowadays, university education can train professionals able to produce photogrammetry and cartography by making use of tools that small or medium size university schools can have access to.
           It is necessary to introduce remote sensing to surveying university education. Students should also be trained as excellent producers of GIS basic layers and to provide consultancy on GIS implementation.

           We have only mentioned these disciplines but have not gone deep into them, so as not to be partial or restrictive. We do pretend to analyze more in depth other disciplines we believe are more related to our experience as university professors.
           We refer to Topography and Geodesy.
           It may be worth stating that by Topography we mean everything that is necessary to survey and/or draw any portion of the Earth surface with enough detail and including natural and cultural accidents. By Geodesy, on the other hand, we mean the tasks that are necessary to build networks of points that will support detailed surveys while, at the same time, will follow the global aim of determining the shape and dimension of the Earth.

           We briefly state some suggestions we believe are worth consideration:
Topography
           The traditional technology treated planimetry and altimetry as separate entities. Besides, precision was based on the scale of representation, since the product was basically a graphic product, just like a calculation. Many of these concepts still exist in the literature.
           Nowadays, the essential field instruments are the total station and the GPS. In both cases, determination is spatial; either by coordinate differences in a GPS or by distances and angles in a total station. In short, we are measuring vectors.
           We have to think in a vectorial topography which primary result is a set of spatial coordinates. This information is basically expressed as a digital terrain model. Consequently, precision is the starting point for method and instrument determination. Scale or scales are decisions to be made afterwards, in accordance with the use to be made of the information.
           We have to introduce and incorporate the idea —as well as the theory and practical fundamentals — that topography is the means to achieve geo-referenciation. Topography links the element subject to the measurement to the referencing framework provided by geodesy.
           It is not in the least our intention to deny proven and widely used techniques no matter how old they are, since they have to be supported and respected. We simply mean to cleverly introduce them and integrate them with more modern techniques.
           A subject that has always deserved the most traditional respect in Topography education is instrument handling and managing. Instruments design varies at a fast pace, so do their capabilities and precision. It is no longer possible to “train” students in the use of all instruments. Education has to insist and deepen on the fundamentals of measurement, such as theory of errors, electronic measurement of distances, and, in general, ample information on instruments feasible and present developments.
           We have to live through a contradiction: intense, constant drills with instruments that we know are, in many cases, obsolete mostly in Argentinean university schools, always short of proper funding.

Geodesy
           Satellite technology has provided a remarkable development to geodesy.
           We can at last have a single worldwide referencing system. Geodesy nowadays provides the necessary referencing framework to geo-reference all human activities in relation to terrestrial space.
           Satellite geodesy has become essential in surveying university teaching.
           At the same time, while they have always been part of geodesy education, the following topics regain significance: referencing systems, translation of coordinates between different systems and mathematical approaches in order to obtain plane projections.
           The problem of heights, which was traditionally approached separately, gains a totally new approach. The study of geoids and, in particular, the production of models that may provide precise solutions to height differences.
           Nowadays we also see the need of a single reference vertical system, consistent in nature and able to provide conceptual clarity to the different existing systems of possible heights.
           Astronomy education has to be positively changed. Its aim is no longer setting the observers’ coordinates; astronomic geodesy has to provide the knowledge to understand satellite constellation behavior, to transform universal coordinates into geocentric coordinates, the concept of time and its measurement, etc.
           Calculations in geodesy have been completely changed. Available software capabilities and specificity have simplified a powerful limitation. University education should focus on developing the fundamentals of ellipsoid mathematical calculation and on the proper use of adequate software.
           Adjustment and compensation witness a similar reality. Least squares, so thoroughly applied by experts to a limited number of problems is today applicable to geodesy, photogrammetry, image referencing systems, etc. It is convenient, therefore, to teach students the fundamentals of it as well as the adequate use of the information provided by this solution.

Some general considerations.

           We should finally highlight the fact, noticeable in traditional bibliographies, that the development of theory has paid attention to observation instruments and calculation tools available in each period of time. This resulted in wide scope developments which single aim was to, from captured or surveyed data, calculate with required precision, by means of tables, mechanical or manual calculators, abacus, etc.
           Can we mention other issues? Of course not. It is a very well known truth: training and education is more important than mere information. Choices are to privilege the possibilities provided by new technologies. Several problems that used to be solved by complex, tortuous instrumentation and calculations do have now simple, accessible solutions that students are to know and learn.
           Selecting topics to incorporate or eliminate from the curricula is equally important.
           Knowledge undergoes permanent change and new technologies crucially urge us to update and upgrade education. As we said, a professional cultural change is needed.
           Not only university education has to be updated and upgraded. Professional training and post-graduate studies are also paramount. Surveying education is to be seen as an ongoing process.
           Technological developments require research. Transferring information on new technologies is not teaching to use them adequately and creatively. To achieve this objective, we have to integrate research and teaching, coordinate them and foster research responsibilities on professors.

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