By Mohamad Nor Said Mohamad and Ghazali Hashim, Department of Geoinformatics, Faculty of Geoinformation and Real Estate, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (2013)
Human resource development is a part of the major components that constitute a successful implementation of Geographical Information System (GIS). Technical knowledge and skill is always required in ensuring a GIS is applied effectively, no matter for what purpose. Hence, a properly designed curriculum at various levels of teaching and learning of the subjects related to the discipline is very important. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) has taken a lead in this very demanding field by offering a bachelor degree program in Geoinformatics since 1994. The curriculum was initially designed by referring to various academic development and GIS applications and implementation throughout the world. It is further improved from time to time to suit and fit the local requirements both by the industries and the government authorities such as Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE), Malaysian Qualification Agency (MQA). Having a current number of about 500 graduates, the GIS industries seem to grow significantly and thus help the government speeding up various development projects with the use of GIS. At a higher level, UTM also offers postgraduate programmes mainly to carry out researches related to various issues related to GIS implementation and developments. With the establishment of Malaysian Centre for Geospatial Data Infrastructure (MaCGDI), UTM plays greater roles in collaborating with this agency in providing professional training as well as contributing expertise towards helping the development of Malaysian Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). This paper reports on various academic and research activities as well as professional training conducted by UTM.