Faculty of Geoinformatics

The faculty started in 1962 in Székesfehérvár with the land-surveying education (Land Surveying Technical High School), and the first professional departments were formed (Department of Surveying, Department of Photogrammetry and Topography). In 1972 there were important changes in the technical high school system and the universities changed the institutions into colleges.

After integrating the college into the University of Forestry and Wood Sciences (UFWS), located in Sopron, the education came back home, since the cradle of the certified education of land-surveying engineers was in Sopron. Based on the decision of the Council of Ministers, the College of Land-Surveying and Land Management (CSLM) was founded in Székesfehérvár as a distant part of UFWS. In 1975, land management education started as a second major. In 1990 the Department of Surveying and Land Management was formed. In 1994 the college founded the first Department of Spatial Informatics in Hungary. In 2001 the training of land registry organizers started first as a correspondence course, later as a regular course. It was accredited together with the Further Education Institute of Law belonging to the ELTE University. The Department of Law was formed to assist this education.

Entering the reform Bologna-process meant considerable changes. The Land-Surveying and Land Management B.Sc. was established from former specializations in 2004, and the B.Sc. in education started in the academic year of 2005/2006. Two institutes were founded to coordinate the educational tasks and the work of the departments following the new academic law introduced in 2006. These were the Institute of Geomatics and the Institute of Regional Development. In 2006 the Senate of the University of West Hungary renamed the GEO as the Faculty of Geoinformatics. The Minister of Agriculture and Regional Development presented the faculty with the title of Land- and Geoinformatics Science Centre.

 

The Faculty of Geoinformatics of the University of West Hungary expanded by offering an M.Sc. in Land Consolidation and a Ph.D. program in Geoinformatics in 2006/2007. The faculty has international relations and a wide reputation at home and abroad. The faculty’s aim is to present an attractive program for foreign students by offering teaching of the subjects in foreign languages, thus improving the quality of Hungarian higher education.

 

Geoinformatics includes all the activities which help to take in geodata from positioning (objects on the surface and the terrain) and from the stored descriptive data of objects as a uniform spatial information system. The students will be familiar with field measurements and data processing, mapping, processing of aerial and satellite images, geoinformatics, land consolidation and regional development. Students can study from B.Sc. to Ph.D. programs in the field of agrarian multidisciplinary sciences, as well as law and public administration.

 

Agrarian technical sciences have a dominant role in the faculty. The Institute of Geomatics provides the following fields of research: up-to-date photogrammetry and remote sensing technologies; vertical crustal movements, economic GNSS technologies, motion detection, and measurement of engineering constructions with modern geodetic instruments. The Institute of Regional Development offers the following fields of research: environmental protection (water resource management in protected areas, enforcement of environmental requirements, the public’s role in environmental impact assessment, current issues of property management (course development, property registration, property law); land consolidation (case studies); technologies in geoinformatics, methodology and application of distance learning; application of geoinformatics in land registry (an information science model of land consolidation, and an automatic monitoring of the changes in digital maps).

For decades, the faculty has cooperated with the Institute of Land-Surveying and Remote Sensing (FÖMI) to participate in common research projects. The faculty has been successful mainly in international projects dealing with methodology, distance education and development of the course curriculum.

 

By the end of 2006 the new building annex was completed in Pirosalma Street. The new wing increases the educational space. In 2007 the former army post in Budai Street was completely refurbished and became the faculty’s second campus, an additional 30% enlargement. The students’ hostel was partially renovated in the same year. The lecture halls were equipped with audio-visual devices and new computers were installed in the laboratories. Valuable geodetic and photogrammetry appliances have recently been purchased. The faculty emphasizes renewing the professional software.

One of the most important organizational units is the Student Hostel for 190 persons. The new rooms are specially high-standard, the old rooms are being renovated.

 

The Career Office has an especially important role: cooperating with the Student Government, it works on the organization of practical education, on the improvement of the students’ entrepreneurial skills, provides lectures on adapting to the labour market, gives advice on how to find a job, how to build a career, how to establish relations among the enterprises and how to survey and analyse the labour market.

 

On 21st May, 2008, the Senate of the University of West Hungary approved the proposal of the Faculty of Geoinformatics to found the Land- and Geoinformatics Science Centre (FTTK). The basic aims of the FTTK are as follows: getting to know the domestic and international aspects of the cutting edge knowledge management technologies in land registration and geoinformatics, and proposing their introduction; the acceleration of the transfer of knowledge and technology between the faculty and professional organizations, networking with national and international experts to share the research work; creating an environment which promotes the development and testing of new products, technologies, services, methods and applications involving the students in research and development, promoting the scholarship of young researchers (pre- and post doctoral); initiating domestic and international tenders together with professional and scientific co-operation.

 

The faculty is surrounded by a professional environment. It has very good relations with the Land Registry and Geoinformatics Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FVM), the Institute of Geodesy, Cartography and Remote Sensing, the county land offices, the Chamber of Engineers, the firms dealing with geodesy and geoinformatics, the professional secondary technical schools and other universities at home and abroad.