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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | Re: [gislist] GIS Certification? |
| Date: |
06/10/2004 10:15:00 PM |
| From: |
Brian Russo |
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At Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 10:55:09PM -0400, Anthony Quartararo wrote:
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > [mailto:gislist-bounces@lists.geocomm.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Harrison
> >
> > Now, onto the GISCI issue. There is one sure way to tell if a
> > Certification Program is vendor-neutral and that's to look at
> > who develops, approves and maintains the Certification. After
> > reading the posts on this list I looked at the "Certification
> > Committee" for GISCI and I only see one vendor.
>
> Why, pray tell, should any vendor have any role in a supposedly "objective"
> assessment of a persons professional competence and qualifications? I would
> contend that as soon as you let vendors inject anything other than a
> long-arms reach pat on the back, you taint the whole process, and by default
> dilute those that achieve certification status.
I disagree, if you look at IT (it's not the same thing of course), take
Cisco's very successful certification program. Someone with a CCIE
(which means they will have experience, it's practically impossible for
such a person to have that cert w/o exp.) can easily walk into a
non-Cisco networking environment (Juniper, Foundry, whatever) and get a
good-paying job, unless the Management are complete idiots (As in they
will be out of business within 6 months).
>
> To throw another fly in the ointment, we discussed this before, but the case
> has been made that these certified professionals will slowly start to expect
> and perhaps demand higher salaries. Should the stroke of a pen on a
> certificate be the justification to up someone's salary by X %? Think of
> their colleague in the next cube over, equally competent, perhaps more so,
> equally educated, equally savvy and analytical, but also sees little
> professional value in seeking certification. Now, the boss acquiesces to
> the newly certified professional and gives a salary increase, maybe even
> mid-year, and this professional skips back to their own cube, sits down and
> resumes scratching his/her head over a spatially-related problem, only to
> ask his neighbor [the uncertified one] for help. Does this sound familiar
> in your office? Can I get an amen ? :-)
So he goes out and gets a certification?
I mean, I don't know especially think certification is desirable, but I
don't really see the above-mentioned scenario as a disaster.
The problem there is the manager, not the certification.
Again, that said, I think the real issue is (as others may have said)..
Why do we WANT certification?
What do we want it for?
and finally
exactly what the heck is GIS anyway?
Does it matter to define it? I don't think so.
Please.. no more blind comparisons to surveying either..
Surveying is far more limited in scope than GIS.
(I have nothing against licensed surveyors.. but that's the truth).
--
Recursivity. Call back if it happens again.
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