On the 4th of June, Sven Casteleyn and Carlos Granell from GEOTEC, together with Rob Lemmens from the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation at the University of Twente, organised a joined workshop called “Knowledge mapping of people and publications” at the 27th AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Science in Glasgow, UK. 

The workshop sought to inform the scientific community on the Earth Observation and Geographical Information Science Body of Knowledge (BoK) and how to use it to construct so-called “knowledge footprints”. Just as people leave footprints behind when walking, they also leave traces of their knowledge behind throughout their career. Jobs performed, projects worked on, articles published, … they all provide evidence of the person’s knowledge and skills. The workshop explored how to capture and visualise these online footprints, using the Body of Knowledge as a shared, agreed-upon vocabulary for knowledge and skills in the EO/GI domain. Participants were able to generate their own footprint and compare it with their colleagues, and lively discussions ensued regarding the usefulness of such knowledge footprints, the use of the Body of Knowledge and its completeness. Throughout the workshop, valuable feedback on the Body of Knowledge was collected, focusing on missing or incomplete knowledge/skills.

The workshop was held in the context of the SpaceSuite project, of which both the University Jaime I and the University of Twente are partners. The project aims to bridge the skill gap between educational offer and profesional demand in the Space sector, and the Body of Knowledge plays a pivotal role in reaching this objetive. It will be extended towards the Space downstream sector, and the existing software platform and tools, developed by GEOTEC, will be further elaborated and extended.