Many Forestry and Arboriculture courses include units on Tree Inspection, Risk Assessment and BS 5837. OTISS can be integrated into the teaching programme to provide a low cost, web-based system, suitable for students to gain experience of using modern Tree Survey software systems.

Students are required to gain
skills and experience in …
OTISS supports both tuition and assessment
  • carrying out tree inspections;
  • data collection techniques;
  • data interpretation and analysis;
  • preparing reports with graphics and tables;
  • use of ICT, spreadsheets, etc;
  • use of maps, GPS, GIS and CAD.
  • A low cost, web-based Tree Survey and Reporting system;
  • Tree Safety Inspections;
  • Tree Risk Assessment ISA 2017;
  • BS 5837:2012 Surveys;
  • Mobile phone/tablet (Android) surveying with maps & GPS;
  • PDF and Excel reports for integration into assignments;
  • CAD/DXF files for use with CAD applications;
  • Shapefiles/KML for use with GIS applications and Google Earth.

Free For Students

  • Are you currently attending a full-time or part-time Forestry or Arboriculture course?
  • Would you like access to state-of-the art technology for your coursework?

OTISS is available completely free to all students. All you need to do is to register on our website as an Arboricultural Student for a free, one year subscription.

Register for free

The Arboricultural Student account includes unlimited use of all the OTISS features (sites, tree safety surveys, BS5837 surveys, online maps, photos, PDF, Excel and DXF reports); and of the BS5837 Survey and Tree Survey Android™ applications; up to a maximum number of 100 trees, for a period of 1 year.

We can be flexible, so please contact us if you have any questions.

  • Contact us if you are doing a project that requires more than 100 trees.
  • Students on multi-year courses should contact us at the end of each year to get a further year’s free subscription.

For Course Supervisors

“… as part of their professional careers, our students will carry out Tree Inspections using mobile tablets and modern technology, but we are teaching them with pen and paper!”

We believe that OTISS can be used in many ways to benefit educational establishments.

  1. As a tuition system to demonstrate the information that is required for tree inspections and how that information needs to be captured and reported upon.
  2. As an assessment mechanism: have your students accurately recorded the correct information; have they correctly identified conditions, targets, hazards, risks for Tree Safety; have they correctly measured and plotted the trees (Development Planning / BS5837); have they prepared as suitable report?
  3. As a technology demonstrator to show how modern technology can be used in the industry to simplify the capture of data and production of reports.

Our educational package allows two ways of working. The supervisor decides which approach to use for each assignment.

  • Individual Assignments: Students can work completely, independently on their own assignments or private projects. The course supervisor(s) can have online access to view the student’s survey data so that they can help and guide the student as required.
  • Shared Assignments: Students can collaborate on a survey to inspect trees on the college campuses. Students can view each other’s work, but each student’s contribution is attributed with their own name. This approach has the added advantage of building an inventory of the college’s tree stock and of maintaining an audit trail of inspections.

Our educational package works as follows

Each supervisor in the college or institute is setup with an OTISS account. You all share access to a single ‘college estate’ – ie. a set of sites and surveys for the various campus and teaching locations that you use.

Each student will register independently on the OTISS website. As part of the registration, the student provides their supervisor’s email address (i.e. their OTISS login email).

  • The student is automatically setup with a private ‘estate’ where they can carry out surveys to inspect and plot trees, use maps, generate reports etc. This estate is completely independent of the college estate, and can be used for the student’s individual assignments and projects. The college supervisor is initially given access to this private work area so that they can help and guide the student. The student or supervisor can revoke this access if desired.
  • In addition, the student can also be registered as a user on the ‘college estate’. They have limited view only access until they are assigned to specific surveys as part of their course.
  • Throughout the course, the student can select to work in their own ‘private’ estate (at any time) or the shared ‘college estate’ (when assigned to shared surveys).

Each supervisor can view and contribute to the survey data, maps and photos on the shared college estate. The supervisors can also select to view their assigned students’ private estate.

At the end of the course, the supervisor simply removes the students’ permission to view/survey the college estate. The student can continue to use their own account until the student subscription expires. After that they can opt to upgrade it to a full OTISS Arboricultural Consultants account.

Annual subscriptions for colleges start from as little as £300pa (excl VAT) – this covers the supervisors’ accounts and the ‘estate college’. The student accounts are completely free!  Please contact us to discuss how OTISS could become part of your arboricultural courses.

Forestry and Arboriculture Courses

OTISS can be used to enhance the teaching and learning experience for a wide range of courses, including:-

  • City & Guilds Technicals: Relevant units in Forestry and Arboriculture.
  • LANTRA: Professional and Basic Tree Survey and Inspection, PTI Level 1 and 3.