At British Columbia Institute of Technology in Burnaby, Canada, Micro-credential in Introduction to Forest Health Quantification with RPAS Micro-credential is offered as a micro-credential in Health Sciences programme. The programme runs for 4 weeks, delivered on campus. Teaching is in English. Tuition is CAD 1,000 per total for local students.
This program covers the theory and practical skills behind using remotely piloted aircraft systems, known as drones, to quantitatively assess forest health through multi-spectral and thermal geospatial data. It builds hands-on training in multi-layer GIS analysis, photogrammetric image processing, mission planning, and safe drone operations, applied to quantifying variables tied to forest-stand health; valid Transport Canada RPAS certification at the Basic, Advanced or Flight Reviewer level is considered an asset.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: BCIT requires no formal application to this microcredential, and each of its four required courses states no formal prerequisite. The page recommends, but does not mandate, valid Transport Canada RPAS certification at the Basic, Advanced, or Flight Reviewer level. The page states no English-language test score, minimum grade, interview, or portfolio requirement. Delivered part-time in a blended format over four weeks, combining online instruction on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings with Saturday field components at the Burnaby campus, across BCIT's ongoing January, April and September intakes, this program is not available to international applicants.
Application Details
Start Date:January, April and September
Application Deadline:BCIT publishes common credential application dates for most cohort-based diplomas, degrees and Flexible Learning routes, though each program's own page governs: for the January 2027 intake domestic applications run 1 February 2026 to 2 January 2027 and international to 1 November 2026; for the April 2027 intake domestic runs 1 May 2026 to 1 April 2027 and international to 1 February 2027; for September 2027 domestic applications open 1 October 2026 and close 1 September 2027, international 2 July 2027. Openings are 9:00 am and deadlines 11:59 pm Pacific Time, moving to the next business day on a weekend. Admission is not institute-wide rolling, but many programs work first-qualified-first-accepted and can fill before the posted deadline, and several programs, mostly in Health Sciences, trades and graduate studies, run entirely separate application tables of their own. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
