Good morning to everybody. I'm Marco Scaglione from Politecnico di Milano University, Italy. The topic I'm going to present is Teaching Geomatics for Geosurk Mitigation and Management in COVID-19 Time. Co-authors of this presentation are Laura Longoni, Luigi Zanzini, Vladislav Jovanov and Monica Papini, all from Politecnico di Milano.

In the early 2000s, Politecnico di Milano concentrated its activities on geosurk mitigation and management on Leco Campus at the border of Como Lake. These include the development of some research activities and projects, as well as teaching. Initially, in 2008, an International Master of Science program on Civil Engineering for Risk Mitigation was established.

Ten years after, a Bachelor of Science program on Civil Engineering for Risk Mitigation started. This one, taught in Italian, has all Bachelor programs in our university.

Since the beginning of the Master of Science on Civil Engineering for Risk Management, we realized that the successful training on geosurk mitigation depends upon a few key points. First of all, a multidisciplinary and integrated teaching approach, an immersion into related research and strict contacts with stakeholders, the importance of let students touch real things, the application of

innovative training methods, the creation of an international environment on both students and teacher sides. The Master of Science program consists of a first year, including some background topics,

followed by a second year, where some integrated training courses are proposed to students. These modules are organized in two tracks, one on the risk for structures and infrastructures, and the second on the ideological risk.

The success of the Master of Science program in terms of student attraction convinced us to start the Bachelor program as well. To do this, we turn an existing program on Civil and Environmental Engineering into a new program on Civil Engineering for Risk Mitigation.

This develops within three years, including a first year with background topics, which are continued and completed on a second and third year. Starting on the second year, an integrated workshop on monitoring techniques for geosurk is proposed, followed by a second workshop on a third year.

In both workshops, geomatics play an important role. This presentation just focuses on the workshop on monitoring techniques for geosurk, which comprehends three integrated topics. Applied geology, providing general information on monitoring techniques for less light.

Geodetic monitoring, providing information on some basic surveying techniques for deformation monitoring. Photogrammetry and remote sensing will be introduced on the third year in another module. Geophysics, which provides assessment and monitoring methods for investigating underground stops.

This workshop is application-oriented and should include labs, technical visits, and field trips. Teachers share long-term cooperation since the beginning of the Master of Science program. Here, one example of the light simulation experiments carried out by Master students is shown.

But just before the start of the first edition of the workshop on March 2020, COVID -19 pandemic cropped up in Italy, with particular intensity in Lombardy region where the university is located.

Due to this problem, all university courses were turned in remote lecture, which were given in real time using Microsoft Teams platform. This change posed several problems and questions. In particular, too big challenges could be resumed by the following questions.

How to let students get practical experience? And how to keep the integration between investigation techniques and geosurk? The change into remote teaching and learning required a revision of the frontal lectures. These were restructured in short blocks, added of material from media, and complemented by numerical lab activities on specific topics.

But the key point to try to maintain the interdisciplinary characters of the workshop was the proposal of a virtual case study to afford. This consisted of a real rock slide in Priel pine region where Leco campus is located, previously investigated by some of the teachers and by others.

Four assignments were proposed to groups of 3-4 students to cope with the case study. Under the geological point of view, each group had to analyze the context and to define some requirements for planning monitoring techniques based on geophysical and geodetic solutions.

In the following we focused on the design of geodetic monitoring solutions. Some general questions were posed to students independently from the specific solution, with the aim of developing some abilities. For example, the definition of goals and performances of each monitoring system wanted

to develop the capability of reasoning, to work in team, and the multidisciplinary integration. The selection of the equipment wanted to develop the design ability and to train in facing real technology. The definition of the measurement rate wanted to develop the decision-making ability and again the multidisciplinary.

Eventually, additional specific questions were differentiated depending on the specific technical solution that was proposed to be studied. These solutions offered a chance of consolidating the background given during lectures and to go beyond the achieved knowledge.

The four assignments related to geodetic monitoring required to design a system based on a robotic total stations for monitoring 3D deformations of the slope, to monitor vertical displacement by means of optical leveling, to monitor 3D displacement

by means of repeated GNSS control network, and to design a permanent deformation monitoring system based on GNSS RTK technology. As an example, I am going to illustrate the concept and development of

one out of the four assignments, deformation monitoring based on a robotic total station. In addition to the basic tasks, two specific questions were added, the definition of control point and robotic total station positions, and the estimate of the theoretical accuracy of 3D control point measurements.

Also, these tasks were thought to develop some specific abilities, as highlighted in red. The solution proposed by students consisted in the implementation of a robotic total station from Leica Geosystems.

Forty-four reflectors were located on the slope surface to be used as control points, as can be seen in the figure. Four control points were placed outside the slide area for calibration purpose. The robotic total station was gazed in a protected hood and established over a concrete pillar.

The measurement rate was decided in dependence from two possible scenarios. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis was carried out to see if this type of monitoring system is adequate to the case study or other solutions should be preferred.

The students also computed and represented the aero ellipses in order to analyze the accuracy of possible measurements. The final evaluation of students was based on distinct exams, one per each topic.

The final score was the average of all single evaluations. About genetic monitoring, the evaluation was based on some intermediate exercises submitted by students and a final presentation on the virtual case study. The presentation was followed by discussion.

In the future, we would like to have a better integration among the evaluations in different topics. The lessons learned concern, on one side, the two big questions that challenge the transfer to remote teaching. The first question was about how students may get practical experience, notwithstanding the remote teaching.

We concluded that the virtual case study helped. Also, some live experiences from the university labs were useful, where teachers could show some instruments and how they can be used to students that, of course, stayed at home.

But it was also important to catch the chance to develop other students' abilities, such as teamwork, reasoning and digital skills. The second question, about the integration between investigation techniques and geoscience, was supported by the geological case study, which focused the interests of different topics.

On the other hand, it was not straightforward to integrate all of them. In the future, we retained that the case study with available monitoring data would help more. On the other side, students followed the activities in serious way, with

an engagement and the production of final outputs that were better than usual. Discussions with students were quite easy, despite of the use of a digital platform. But student criticism was not mitigated by the emergency situation, and the results of quality assessments were quite severe.

Let's now draw some conclusions from this experience. The diffusion of COVID-19 pandemic challenged the organization of the first edition of a new integrated workshop on monitoring techniques for geoscience.

The switch to digital implied a deep revision of the approach to teaching and the preparation of the educational material. Problem-based learning and innovative teaching solutions revealed to be really important to keep high the students' interest much more than in standard teaching in the classroom.

Anyway, a big transformation is undergoing the academy, independently from COVID-19 pandemic. The digital experience we have achieved is a great treasure for preparing the future. In the end of this presentation, I would like to acknowledge all students who attended the

workshop, all those colleagues who helped us, and all of you who are listening to this presentation. In 1955, Alper Einstein said, We cannot expect things to change if we keep doing the same things.

I think that these words describe very well the challenge we are living. Thank you for your attention.