HISTORY
THE UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS – popularly known as Unilag – is a federal government university in Lagos State, southwestern Nigeria.In order to achieve rapid industrialization and development after independence, Nigeria needed to invest in the training of a professional workforce. The indispensable need to create more universities to reach this goal was facilitated by the establishment of the University of Lagos in 1962. The Eric Ashby Commission on Post School Certificate and Higher Education was established by the Nigerian Government in May 1959. The Ashby Commission’s report, titled Investment in Education, recommended the establishment of a new university in Lagos, the then Federal Capital, to provide education for students in Economics, Commerce, Business Administration, and Higher Management Studies. In 1961, UNESCO Advisory Commission was assigned the detailed planning of the new university by the Federal Government. However, whereas the Ashby Commission had envisaged a non-residential institution which would be cited in the business district of Central Lagos, the UNESCO Commission opted for a traditional university, "a complete all encompassing institution" with residential accommodation on a large campus. Following the acceptance of the UNESCO Commission’s report, the University of Lagos was established on 22 October 1962 on the authority of the University of Lagos Act of 1962.DEPARTMENT OF SURVEYING & GEOINFORMATICS
INTRODUCTION
The Department of Surveying and Geoinformatics (Formally known as Department of Surveying), started as a sub-department of Civil Engineering Department in 1970. The initial programme of the sub-department at the time was a two-year postgraduate course of studies and research leading to an M.Sc. (Surveying) degree. Graduates in fields cognate to surveying were admitted into the programme. In October 1973, a full-fledged Department of Surveying was established. The first set of undergraduate students in surveying were admitted in October 1974. Today, the Department also runs postgraduate programmes leading to the M.Sc., M.Phil and Ph.D degrees in Surveying and Geoinformatics as well as Master of Geoinformatics (MGIT) and a Postgraduate Diploma programme in Surveying and Geoinformatics(PGD). The name Surveying and Geoinformatics portrays a discipline that deals with acquisition, analysis, storage, distribution, management and application of spatially-referenced data. The Surveyor, as defined and produced at the University of Lagos, is a professional and a geoscientist well equipped to provide spatial and other environmental information necessary for designing and planning of engineering works as well as in the location and exploitation of natural resources. His excellent background in computer science, mathematics and physics, gives him added confidence to tackle problems of diverse nature. He is given comprehensive training in Geormatics which include inter alia Land Surveying, Geodesy, Hydrography, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Cartography and Geoinformatics.
Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, and science of determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional position of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is called a land surveyor. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish maps and boundaries for ownership, locations like building corners or the surface location of subsurface features, or other purposes required by government or civil law, such as property sales.
Surveyors work with elements of geometry trigonometry regression and the law. They use equipment like total stations, robotic total stations, GPS receivers, retroreflectors, 3D scanners, radios, handheld tablets, digital levels, subsurface locators, drones, GIS and surveying software.
Surveying has been an element in the development of the human environment since the beginning of recorded history. The planning and execution of most forms of construction require it. It is also used in transports,communication, mapping, and the definition of legal boundaries for land ownership. It is an important tool for research in many other scientific disciplines.
Geoinformatics is the science and the technology which develops and usesinformation science infrastructure to address the problems of geography,cathography geoscience location and related branches of science and engineering
Geoinformatics has been described as "the science and technology dealing with the structure and character of spatial information, its capture, its classification and qualification, its storage, processing, portrayal and dissemination, including the infrastructure necessary to secure optimal use of this information"[1] or "the art, science or technology dealing with the acquisition, storage, processing production, presentation and dissemination of geoinformation".
geomatics is a similarly used term which encompasses geoinformatics, but geomatics focuses more so on surveying. Geoinformatics has at its core the technologies supporting the processes of acquiring, analyzing and visualizing spatial data. Both geomatics and geoinformatics include and rely heavily upon the theory and practical implications of geodesy.
Geography and earth science increasingly rely on digital spatial data acquired from remotely sensed images analyzed by geographical information system(GIS) and visualized on paper or the computer screen.
