The Importance of Geographic Information Systems Education at Universities in the Process of Building a European Knowledge-based Society

AbstractGeoinformatics represented by its most powerful technology - Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has become an important part of many disciplines and cuts across all areas of modern information society. Geoinformation industry has seen in the last few years a huge boom. Development of spatially oriented databases, Web map services, navigation and localization using GNSS have brought leap in the use of GIS technology general public. With the development of GIS is directly related to the need for training in GIS issues in higher education. Education of GIS experts in the field of development services using GIS technology requires the establishment a quality bachelor and engineering study programs. Study program with such orientation was established in 2005 at the Faculty BERG, Technical University of Kosice (Slovakia) titled “Surveying and Geographic Information Systems”. Since its establishment the program has been improved several times and his corpus reflects the current needs of the European knowledge-based society. Study program educates mainly GIS professionals with a focus on geodesy and cartography, but graduates are also applicable in other areas of the European labor market too