Cartographic Education in Geomatics Curriculum

Geomatics is a multidisciplinary science branch connected with many different subjects such as surveying, geoinformatics or remote sensing. Also cartography and spatial data visualisation represent a important part of geomatics. What is the current position of cartography among above mentioned sciences in geomatics curriculum? It is necessary to realize that cartography transforms complicated spatial data products to clear, intelligible and attractive outputs (maps and similar products). Cartography summarizes and presents all results of other parts of geomatics. Also cartography influences all disciplines focused on spatial data capturing and processing as well as it is influenced by them. This paper describes the role of cartography (as the tool to spatial data visualization and presentation) in geomatics curriculum in general, including relation to change of paradigm of university education. The following part shows the state-of-the-art of cartographic courses (e.g. Thematic Cartography or History of Maps and Mapping) and related subjects (e.g. Introduction to GIS or Social-economic Geography for Geomatics) at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (Czech Republic), where the strong connection between cartography and geomatics has a long tradition (more than fifteen years). The last part introduces the new activities focused on cartography. It means research projects (VisualHealth), networking projects (NeoCartoLink), educational projects (Multimedia Geomatics) and implementation of results of bachelor and master thesis. The new activities are also connected to application of new knowledge (domain knowledge as well as common pedagogical knowledge) and cartographic trends (web cartography, real-time mapping or server solution for historic and old maps).