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Do you think a Survey Technician needs FORMAL GIS training?
bharen replied 13 years, 3 months ago 20 Members · 21 Replies
Absolutely!
I am regularly amazed and disappointed at the low level of basic understanding many (perhaps most) “GIS professionals” have of the geodetic sciences. Many can’t identify the fundamental difference between NAD83 and NAVD88! No kidding – most don’t even understand that one is a horizontal datum and the other vertical. And I’m talking about kids right out of graduate or certificate programs. I had one winner with a GISP certificate ask me recently “what datum are we using?” (what she was really wanted was the coordinate system, not the datum). I was tired of fielding her dumb questions and told her “NAVD88”. She came back about 15 minutes later and told me she couldn’t get it to work. I hid the smirk on my face and said “Oh, I’m sorry. I meant to say NAD83”. I then went on to give her a short class on coordinate systems.
I’ve had more than GIS student tell me that their GIS Field Methods class was little more than walking around campus mapping the trees.
I’m not saying that every GIS student needs to become a surveyor, but we clearly need to spend more time emphasizing the geodetic fundamentals.
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