Including Geomatics As An Essential Element Of The Civil Engineering Curriculum

Many civil engineering programs at major Universities are struggling with how to accommodate surveying in an already crowded undergraduate curriculum. Some schools continue to require an introductory surveying class. Others have decided to abandon a surveying requirement altogether instead opting for surveying to be an elective or not offered at all. There are many reasons that neither of these options are desirable for entry level civil engineers in the job market. First, technologies related to surveying are among the fastest developing in the industry, and consequently there is significant demand for skills in latest technology. Second, spatial data collection and analysis is essential to all civil engineering disciplines, thus a fundamental understanding of spatial data collection and analysis techniques is desirable. Furthermore, surveying is covered on the Fundamentals of E ngineering exam as well as the Civil Engineering Professional Engineers exam. Because of the specialized nature of today’s Civil Engineer, their surveying knowledge may be limited to what was learned in their Civil Engineering undergraduate curriculum. This paper describes a widely transferable and technically up-to-date course in Geomatics that expands on traditional surveying by incorporating modern methods of spatial data collection, management, and analysis. The course can serve as a Civil Engineering undergraduate requirement typically taken during the student's sophomore year. The paper presents lessons learned in developing Geomatics courses taught at Clemson University, Georgia Tech, and The Citadel. Findings and recommendations are summarized with respect to broader application issues impacting the civil engineering curriculum. Course topics primarily focus on spatial data collection techniques and methods to process, analyze, and present data within the larger context of addressing engineering and project design issues. Topics include traditional surveying, global positioning systems (GPS), digital photogrammetry, remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS,) and digital terrain modeling (DTM). The paper includes a discussion of lecture material, organization of laboratories, software programs and equipment.