2009) Continuing professional education via distance learning – success factors and challenges: A case study based on the worldwide UNIGIS network. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Vermessung

The UNIGIS network of universities has offered postgraduate distance learning in GIS&Tsince the early 1990s (Molendijk and Scholten, 2006). Since then it has grown from a European consortium into a global network offering different types of academic programmes and qualifications in several languages. This paper discusses insights gained from UNIGIS courses graduating several thousand students in many countries and from very different backgrounds. Taking for granted the fact of an increasing demand for professional and management skills in the geospatial technologies and GIScience sectors, it is clear that continuing (and in-service) education plays an increasingly important role as first-cycle education does not entirely fulfil the needs of the marketplace. This is particularly true in a cross-sectional methodology-oriented discip-line where many experts have graduated from their original ‚application discipline‘(e.g. Ecology