Serena Coetzee

Centre for Geoinformation Science, University of Pretoria

Location: Pretoria, South Africa

I lecture in the Department of Geography, Geoinformatics and Meterology: 'GISc professional practice', 'Research methods' and 'Research project' to Honours students (7th semester) and 'Cartography' to students in the second semester. I am also responsible for geoinformatics in our department, including coordination of postgraduate research. We encourage our students to use open geospatial products or to contribute to these in their research. In a developing country we have limited funds to procure expensive software and data, and the wealth of free online information, virtual communities, access to source code and peer review of source code are very helpful in postgraduate research projects. I have been involved in the academic tracks of the FOSS4G conferences since 2008. My research focuses on the management and maintenance of the ever-increasing volumes of geographic information and the challenges of making the information available and usable. The research is of an interdisciplinary nature, mainly in geoinformatics and computer science. The concept of an SDI (the collection of people technologies, policies and institutional arrangements for facilitating the sharing and use of geographic information) underlies most of my research. My research contributes to understanding and improving SDI practice and theory. Specific research foci are address data, standards, open principles, geoinformatics education and geovisualization. My university web page is here.

Contact

serenacoetzee[at]gmail.com

Spoken languages

German, Afrikaans, English, Tswana (limited)