Association pushes GIS certification

URISA's GIS Certification Proposal

As a way to ensure competency, identify qualified people and improve the clarity and marketability of the profession, a national, nonprofit technology association is promoting the voluntary certification of geographic information systems professionals.

Last October, the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA) — whose 7,000 members worldwide include professionals using information technology in planning, public works, the environment, emergency services and utilities — issued a draft proposal for a GIS certification program based on a self-documented point system.

The organization settled last month on the broad structure of the program, with plans to detail the final proposal in May.

As a relatively new profession, the GIS field lacks professional standards, said William Huxhold, who has headed the initiative for URISA for the past two-and-a-half years.

Because no accreditation process is under way for GIS educational programs, the organization decided it would promote certification of individuals, he said. Many certification programs and GIS degrees are offered by universities, but there's no ruling body that certifies the quality of the content, facilities or credentials of the programs, he said.

"Anyone can get a certificate without [a group] of respected people evaluating that degree," said Huxhold, a professor of urban planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has been involved in GIS since 1974.

Certification recognizes professional competence and integrity, promotes long-term professional development, helps prospective employers assess and hire GIS professionals, ensures ethical behavior among professionals and encourages people to join the profession, Huxhold said.

"I'm very much interested in bringing youth into the profession," he said. "I get out to the high schools and nobody in the schools knows — neither the students nor the advisers — anything about this as a profession."

Under the proposed program, those seeking certification would not have to be a URISA member, but would need at least one year of experience to apply. Applicants would submit a list of their education, experience and contributions to the profession — assigning point values for each achievement — to a proposed GIS Certification Board. The review board would then either accept or reject the applicant.

The program would apply to professionals in the public and private sectors whose primary responsibilities include designing, setting up, managing or supporting GIS applications. Applicants would not have to take an exam. Huxhold estimated there could be upwards of half a million such professionals just in the public sector.

URISA decided last month to pursue a certification model that would provide one common role (GIS professional), but assign five different levels (beginner, novice, experienced, master or expert).

URISA expects to unveil a final proposal in May that would be submitted to the group's board of directors in June for approval. If approved, a yearlong pilot project would begin in August. Afterward, the association would review and revise the program and possibly approve it for final implementation in October 2003.

Scott Grams, URISA's program and journal coordinator, said URISA is talking with several other professional organizations — including the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping, and the American Planning Association — to make the program into a multilateral initiative.