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| Subject: | RE: [gislist] GIS Certification? |
| Date: |
06/10/2004 10:05:02 AM |
| From: |
Anthony Quartararo |
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I've made my opinion known on this subject in the past. I really hate to
say "I told you so...". This whole certification initiative is a SOLUTION
looking for a PROBLEM. Really now, what was the original impetus for
starting this effort waaaay back when ? How on earth did the GIS industry
ever make it this far WITHOUT "certified" professionals ? One sure way to
stifle innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial endeavors is to suffocate
would-be professionals with certification requirements mandated by
Governments without full consideration for the intended/unintended
consequences. Again, I draw the analogy that many in the GIS industry would
be all-to-familiar with: an ISO-9000 certified/registered company that
still manages to delivery crap. How can this be? This company would have
had to put in place a quality management system, documentation, internal
audits, training, continuous improvement campaigns, endure annual external
audits and re-certification audits, and after all that jazz, still churn out
crap.....all the while, using the ubiquitous and overblown "ISO certified"
logo on marketing materials and blasting everyone within earshot that they
have an ISO system in place. Does this sound familiar to you ?
Well, back to the certification initiative. Remember those people in school
who were great test takers? Multiple choice, True or False? Interesting
interview with the founder and former CEO of Kinkos the other day on the
news, said his father came home one night and found him doing homework late
at night, and asked what he was doing, "memorizing" the answers was the
reply. His father made him go to sleep and told him in the morning to never
do that again, "go to school to learn, not to memorize" was the message.
The relevance being, and admittedly I have not seen a certificate "test" or
exam, but no doubt it is a series of questions that are intended to gauge
whether or not the test-taker knows the answer to the question. NOT whether
the test-taker understands the concepts, the foundations and the real-world
application that the questions were no doubt intended to elicit. Passing a
really hard test does not correspond to how well you have mastered the
subject, it just demonstrates how hard you studied. The ultimate test in 10
years time will be to revisit all those people who insisted, in fact,
mandated a certification for this or that position, etc. and see how it
benefited the consumers of the respected certified professional's services
vs. an equally competent, uncertified professional. Remember, a
professional is simply defined as someone who gets paid to do something, as
opposed to an amateur who does it for free. Both can be equally competent.
I doubt anyone, even in the relatively progressive state of Oregon, has
really considered the impacts of their actions or even the reasons for their
actions. When certified professionals, who until the day prior to
certification were providing sub-par products, services or performance, are
still providing that same level of poor service and performance the day
AFTER certification, who's going to take responsibility and say "uh, maybe
this wasn't such a grand idea....".
Anthony
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gislist-bounces@lists.geocomm.com
> [mailto:gislist-bounces@lists.geocomm.com] On Behalf Of Scott Grams
> Sent: Wednesday, June 09, 2004 6:10 PM
> To: Barricarte, Monica - Monica, CA: Smith Travis G Civ 56
> RMO/GIS: gislist@lists.thinkburst.com: OR GIS List
> Subject: RE: [gislist] GIS Certification?
>
> I have been monitoring the conversation on this board for
> sometime regarding the sanctioning of GISCI at the state
> level. I wanted to take a stab at answering the questions
> posed by Travis Smith in a previous email.
>
> First off, this was a decision made by the state of Oregon
> and not by GISCI.
> GISCI created a voluntary certification program that went
> live on January 1, 2004. As of May 25th there are 284
> certified GIS professionals. GISCI does have a say with its
> certification program. It does not have a say in regards to
> licensure or official endorsement. Licensure is a decision
> made by a state to adopt an existing certification program
> for its own use.
>
> Oregon has been pursuing this initiative through its
> Geographic Information Council for some time. From my
> understanding, they developed a committee to review the
> program and then made a formal recommendation to the Council.
> The state then adopted the program based on the
> recommendation made by the OGIC.
> All states would need to go through a similar process.
> Oregon's decision is not a mandate for the rest of the
> country. GISCI had no part in this process other than to
> create the mechanism that was used for the State'
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