GIS Certification and Accreditation : An idea whose time has come

This paper makes the case that the time is right for certification and/or accreditation in GIS. The paper begins with a brief history of the debate, and details current trends in the field of GIS that are driving current initiatives in GIS certification and accreditation. The two major driving factors are major growth of the GIS profession, and initiatives coming from the Surveying community. In the next section, the paper describes two alternatives, which the GIS community may employ either separately or in tandem, certification of GIS professionals and accreditation of GIS programs. While noting that the relatively recent creation of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science provides an institutional framework for implementing GIS certification or accreditation that did not exist in the early 90s, the paper concludes by suggesting a strategy to develop certification guidelines. Introduction As Yogi Berra has been quoted, “It’s deja vu all over again.” As the nineties began, members of the GIS community began to ask one another whether there was a need for accreditation or certification for GIS professionals, and URISA provided a key forum for raising this question (Goodchild & Kemp 1992; Obermeyer 1992, 1993; Burley 1993; Craig 1993). At the time, a concerted effort among the surveying community to require certification of GIS professionals provided the primary stimulus to a consideration of the necessity of such an action for the GIS community as a whole. At the time, the impediments to implementation of either certification or accreditation seemed impossible to overcome, and the GIS community seemed still small and cohesive enough to allow peer pressure to keep the relatively small number of potentially incompetent or dishonest practitioners in line. Moreover, the surveying profession eventually backed away from the idea, and, consequently it fell by the wayside. Today, at decade’s end, the issue arises again, this time motivated by several factors. Among these factors are the continued exponential growth in the number of GIS practitioners and a vast increase in the size of the GIS “community;” the coalescence of a GIS “profession” (Obermeyer 1994; Wikle 1994, 1997); and the official admission of “GIS Specialist” into the United States Department of Labor’s Dictionary of Occupational Titles. In addition, several institutions of higher learning, including the University of Minnesota, San Diego State University, Rutgers University and the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee have introduced programs that enable their students to earn certification in GIS (Minnesota has an actual MA program in GIS). In addition the International Standards Organization (ISO) has also expressed an interest in GIS certification. This paper revisits the ideas of certification and accreditation within the GIS community, this time coming out in favor of the idea of developing guidelines for GIS certification programs. The paper begin with a brief history of the debate, then discusses why the time is right for taking these steps. Finally, the paper suggests a process for developing certification guidelines within the field. A Brief History of the Certification/Accreditation Debate in GIS GIS have proliferated exponentially in the 1990s as public and private organizations alike have adopted the technology. Along with the well-entrenched general purpose GIS, such as those developed by ESRI and Intergraph, there has been a rapid growth in the development and marketing of special-purpose GIS, designed for business applications, crime mapping and analysis, and a whole host of other market niches. This proliferation has created many related opportunities, including the development of new GIS publications targeted to specific interests, such as Business Geographics. The GIS explosion has also created numerous career opportunities for individuals, as GIS vendors and implementers alike search for qualified employees to assume the many duties associated with the implementation of GIS in their own organizations. Entrenched GIS vendors run advertisements continuously in GIS publications and on their own web sites in an effort to meet their staffing needs. Public and private organizations must also find qualified GIS staffers. Finding qualified staff is not always an easy task. If the constant advertising by GIS vendors is any measure, demand for qualified GIS practitioners outstrips supply. Researchers on GIS implementation have been raising the issue of certification and accreditation in GIS since the early Nineties (for example, see Craig 1993). One of the first groups in the GIS community to try to take action to address the issue of professional competence, which underlies the debate about certification and accreditation, was the professional organization of land surveyors, which proposed instituting a licensing program for GIS professionals in the early nineties. This initiative failed to gain the support needed to institute a licensing program throughout the U.S., but the issue of ensuring the qualifications of GIS practitioners has remained on the radar screen of GIS topics ever since (Goodchild & Kemp 1992; Craig 1993; Obermeyer 1992, 1993; Wikle 1997). As is often the case, talk has not quickly been translated into action. While individuals and organizations have periodically urged that the GIS community “do something” about these issues, the broad-based nature of the field has made action elusive. Initial discussions of this issue identified several impediments to the establishment of either a generally accepted GIS certificate or accreditation of GIS programs. A major impediment seemed to be the broad based nature of the GIS community. The general usefulness of geographic information systems has meant that over the years, it has been adopted and adapted by all manner of organizations: public, private, and non-profit whose missions span the range of human activities, from engineering, transportation and environment to economic analysis, crime, and health and human services. There was a perception when this issue arose several years ago, that it would be impossible to find common ground among these many and varied uses. A second impediment to establishment of certification and accreditation in the early 90s is closely related to the breadth of the GIS community described above. Because the community was -even in 1992 -so large and diverse, scholars considering the ideas of certification and accreditation observed that there existed no single umbrella GIS organization that could coordinate so sensitive and potentially volatile an issue. The recent creation of the University Consortium of Geographic Information Science, a multidisciplinary group instituted to foster the responsible implementation of GIS, has addressed this issue in a way that builds in the disciplinary diversity so characteristic of GIS users. And of course, URISA also has a history of disciplinary diversity. Finally, the lack of models for certification of GIS practitioners was another impediment to the development of certification and accreditation. In recent years, a variety of options for certification have appeared. Vendors themselves have developed certification programs for their own software. More significantly (certainly for the academic community), several institutions of higher learning have also established GIS certification programs, thus establishing credible models for the GIS community at large. Significantly, these programs are in a variety of disciplines, including planning, geography, and surveying, social sciences and at the graduate, undergraduate, and community college levels. Why the Time is Right for Certification/Accreditation As we approach the next millennium, the surveying group is once again pushing licensing as a means to address the issue of responsibility in GIS, and the ISO has also joined the certification bandwagon. As before, these initiatives threaten to inaugurate a turf war over this valuable technology. At the same time, both URISA and the University Consortium on Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) have established subcommittees to explore the potential for GIS certification at the individual level, and program accreditation at the institutional level. It is not necessarily a foregone conclusion that any of these efforts will bear fruit; still, it is important to address the issue head-on. The fact that this issue has arisen before suggests that it will continue to arise until the GIS community brings it to resolution. URISA and the UCGIS represents perhaps the best hope yet for facilitating consensus on these issues, and defusing potential turf wars. GIS and its profits -are big enough to go around. Another important external stimulus for developing GIS certification and accreditation programs is the rise of the GIS profession itself, and the growth in the market for qualified GIS practitioners. The problem of identifying qualified GIS practitioners affects different organizations differently. Established GIS vendors know the field extremely well, know specifically what capabilities they need in their employees, and know where to find qualified candidates. They have favorable institutional reputations, the contacts, and the financial capacity to hire the best and the brightest GIS practitioners. On the other hand, an organization implementing its first GIS is less likely to have great familiarity with the technology, a clear idea of the qualifications that will best meet its needs, or the expertise and experience to evaluate the candidates who apply. Furthermore, novice GIS implementors may in some cases lack either the reputation or the financial resources (or both) to land the candidate of their choice. Implementation of uniform programs of certification and accreditation would help address these personnel