Background

After having studied a short course on Digital Image Processing in 1986 I joined the ITC in late 1987 as Data Analyst. Until 1991 I continued working in the former Image Processing Laboratory (IPL) where a strong foundation for the physics behind Remote Sensing was established and transferred in short courses. Since my wife and I had no children at that time and thus were quite flexible, I took the opportunity to work for 2 years abroad as RS consultant in the Middle East. Theoretical knowledge suddenly had to be implemented in real life situations. This experience with respect to expert knowledge and culture is something we will never forget.

In 1993 I returned to ITC and gradually became more and more involved in the educational process. A temporary position as Lecturer in Thematic Maps was succeeded by an assignment as Director of Studies of GFM.2 and later as one of the first Programme Directors at ITC. A major achievement was the restructuring of the GFM programme into a modular structure, a structure which was successfully copied to all other programmes at ITC. By that time (1999) the successor of the IPL was established and I took the challenge to become the head of the Geo Technical Support Unit. Being a Unit within the IT Department, this resulted in increased knowledge and expertise on the more generic IT fields. In this management position, the contact with students and the possibility to follow developments in the educational and the technological and application domain was limited.

When a prospective job opening of a lecturer in the Earth Observation Science Department was posted, I did not need much time to decide. And luckily this was also applicable to the Department. Since April 2006 I am therefore right at the hart of teaching and learning and now have the responsibility to manage all educational efforts by the Earth Observation Science Department. I am actively involved in education coordinating the Core Module on Remote Sensing, the GFM.4 Specialisation Digital Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, the Joint Educational Programme with ARDHI University (ARU) and the Distance Course Remote Sensing.

You may wonder why the photograph shows me 'in action'. Consult my personal webpage (www.wanbakx.nl) to find out that I do have other commitments next to my duties at ITC; I compete in track&field Athletics on international Master level. Not to be confused with Master degree level, by the way.

Activities in education

• Coordinator & Lecturer DIP5
• Programme Director GFM
• Director of Studies GFM.3 and GFM.2
• Lecturer GFM.2, GFM.3 and GFM.5
• Coordinator GFM.4 ITC-ARU
• Educational Portfolio Manager EOS

Activities in research

Given the fact that most of my positions were on scientific assistance and/or education and educational management, recognised Research is limited. But multiple MSc and PhD theses and research projects would have been incomplete without my contributions.

Activities in project services

These focus on educational projects like special short courses on DIP of RS, for example the Cyprus Validation Course at ITC and the Digital Image Processing and Spatial Information Extraction for Geoinformation Production course in Nigeria. Recently I was involved in the design (and development) of an online course for FAO on Spatial Data Management.

Publications

ISI Journal Articles

Eleveld, M.A., Blok, S.T. and Bakx, J.P.G. (2000) Deriving relief of a coastal landscape with aerial video data. In: International journal of remote sensing, 21 (2000)1 pp. 189-195. Full text | Full text

Conference Proceedings (full papers)

Bakx, J.P.G., van Zuidam, R.A. and Mulder, N.J. (1994) 3D desktop mapping and volume change estimation of the northern Ameland coast, The Netherlands. In: Proceedings EARSeL workshop on remote sensing and GIS for coastal zone management, 24-26 October 1994, Delft, The Netherlands, 11 p. also published in: EARSeL advances in remote sensing : remote sensing and GIS for coastal zone management : Vol. 4, no. 1-9, pp. 8-14.

van Zuidam, R.A., Mulder, N.J. and Bakx, J.P.G. (1994) Volume estimation and hazard zoning by coastal change modelling using DTM's, and semi - automatic updating using stereo data. In: The second thematic conference on remote sensing for marine and coastal environments, New Orleans, Louisiana, 31 Januari - 2 Februari 1994. Vol. II pp. 518-519.

Koopmans, B.N. and Bakx, J.P.G. (1991) Radar synergism for geological applications. In: Proceedings of the workshop on radar in geology EARSeL, Graz, Austria, 2 July 1991, pp. 39-52.

Scientific and Professional Publications

Bakx, J.P.G. (2010) Remote sensing : course data + tutorial multi spectral image processing + ERDAS 8.7 service pack 2 : 3 DVD : distance education. Enschede, ITC, 2010.

Kooistra, J.F., Bakx, J.P.G. and Maathuis, B.H.P. (2010) Remote sensing, GIS and geonetcast : 2 DVD : distance education. Enschede, ITC, 2010.

Presentations

Bakx, J.P.G. (1993) ITC : paragliding in Sauerland 18-19 September 1993. Enschede, ITC, 1993. VHS-PAL video tape. - approx. 10 min.