GI2NK geographic information: Need to know towards a more demand-driven geospatial workforce education/training system

The paper presents GI-N2K (Geographic information: Need to Know), a European project aiming to improve the way in which future GI professionals are prepared for the labour market. Its main goal is twofold: updating the existing Body of Knowledge on the basis of the new technological developments and the European perspective, and realizing advanced tools to define curriculum, training opportunities and courses. This project focused on foundational research into the creation of a transformational, dynamic environment for pedagogy, knowledge construction, discourse, collaboration, and research in the domain of Geographic Information Science and Technology (GIS&T). After an initial integrated analysis of the demand for and supply of geospatial education and training, the revision of the BoK and the design of the Virtual Laboratory for the BoK (VirLaBok) are currently under investigation. In particular, the Consortium is now involved into the recognition of a proper revision strategy, in terms of content and its usability through an e-platform. The goal of this paper is to discuss preliminary results of this phase and illustrate problems due to a possible overlapping among different knowledge areas. Finally, a prototyping version of the ontology underlying the VirLaBok is presented.