Searching for opinion and feedback from industry professionals.
Has the time come to require formal and dedicated GIS courses be incorporated into Surveying Technician curricula? As an elective? As a requirement? Not necessary?
What do you think?
> Searching for opinion and feedback from industry professionals.
>
> Has the time come to require formal and dedicated GIS courses be incorporated into Surveying Technician curricula? As an elective? As a requirement? Not necessary?
>
> What do you think?
Requirement.
One course. Basic applications.
then
Elective:
Subsequent course on 'real world' survey applications.
Al,
I think a class in GIS would be a prudent class for inclusion in a surveying program. Any class that helps a student and future surveyor with technology and different aspects of the mapping profession has merit. If it is not required, it could most certainly be offered as an elective.
Surveyors missed the boat in the front end of the GIS explosion, in my opinion. Many saw it as a threat to the profession, and it can be, but had the surveying profession jumped in on the front end, it probably could have been regulated better, and been a revenue source for surveying firms.
Just my opinion, for what it's worth.
We have always captured data and information. But it's been kept in field books and our notes.
We capture the attributes in our field books but now the clients want the attributes as deliverables and in a digital way.
I'd say yes. They need some training, otherwise they will fall by the wayside in this day and age. And also some training on datums, projections and other things related to the GIS world.
Like it or not, GIS has become an increasingly integral part of the surveying profession.
Anyone who reads POB, Professional Surveyor or American Surveyor need only to peruse the ads to see where things are heading.
The situation surrounding the popular ESRI Conference in San Diego is another example. ACSM is rapidly moving towards the realization that the future of what used to be called "land surveying" lies in areas other than boundary determination.
If the intent is to create graduates who can earn a decent living, then GIS should become a necessary addition to the curriculum.
Yes! it was a big part of our work at NMSU. I'm glad that I got exposure to it then.
Sure, why not.
As an elective or general credit.
As a matter of fact, I just signed up for a general GIS class through FSMS, that will earn me 6 (of 24) credits.
:coffee:
Yes. 20 years ago...no. But times change.
Al,
I have to say a BIG "you betcha"!!! I have recommended to my Marine son (23) that he should take some GIS classes if he's interested in taking over the business. I'd rather he emphasize the GIS actually.
Integrating GIS into our business is my goal, I want to be the 'go-to' guy for the local towns!
Don
Absolutely, I was happy to receive GIS training in my studies. I haven't used ESRI in years and the versions I trained on are pretty obsolete but Autocad has enough functions and features to get the job done. Someone with a simple understanding of the GIS process, and a solid understanding of surveying can be very useful and marketable. More so (IMHO) than someone with a solid GIS understanding and simple survey knowledge.
Just in the past two years we have been awarded jobs because we can provide the information in a GIS format. I have already seen some municipalities dedicating funds for contacts related to rectifying and or correcting areas of their current GIS databases. It's a fast moving train that we need to be jumping on-board.
Yes, just about everywhere you go you encounter some kind of GIS, basic knowledge of this is essential IMHO.
Maybe at least Intro GIS as an elective, at technician level, and compulsory Intro GIS plus Intermediate to Advanced GIS electives, at professional/academic level.
Having more surveyors study more GIS is a bit like having more GISers studying more surveying: it may appear a frivolous extra to some, but generally, it improves the understanding of and communication between each others work. (Result: fewer "GIS acres".)
This is a crock. Who ever went into surveying to sit behind a desk? Surveyors need to be out cutting brush, avoiding water, and looking through that scope. Why would you want a surveyor who grabs internet data of questionable reliability to make a map, rather than actually going into the field to make a real map?
Pffft!
We see the industry rapidly changing, with much of what we formerly called "Surveying" and "GIS" merging into one field.
Out of what's left in the former Surveying industry, a big chunk is being replaced by machine control. The remaining chunk is turning into brokered land surveys, done at rock-bottom rates with barely any room for profit for one-man shops run out of the owner's home.
As things are going now, if you don't get on board with what's happening in the GIS arena, the only work left for you will soon be the mortgage survey brokers...
there will always be that...but if you choose to stick your head in the sand on the general progression of this industry towards the geospatial 'catch-all' (surveying, GIS, geodesy, etc), it will leave surveyors with your kind of attitude fastly behind.
> Searching for opinion and feedback from industry professionals.
>
> Has the time come to require formal and dedicated GIS courses be incorporated into Surveying Technician curricula? As an elective? As a requirement? Not necessary?
>
> What do you think?
I'd say it depends in part upon what any time spent on GIS will displace from the surveying curriculum. For example, will you be abandoning remedial trigonometry in order to teach students how to run some particular piece of GIS software?
About learning a particular piece of software... every time I've had to do some research it seems like I've had to learn their software on the fly or get help.
I think only a time or 2 have I ran across the same software.
My point is, why waste my time and someone else's money to learn a particular software when [in my experience] it's not likely I'm going to run across it.
Maybe learn some basics - like things generally key off a PID [again in my experiences]. But, if you don't have PID how to do some other types of searches to get a PID then go from there. That would be helpful.
I Had A GIS Course At NJIT
As a part of the surveying degree and I hope that I am more than a technician.
So Yes, I think a technician should have some contact with all forms of survying.
Paul in PA
Folks, I'm looking at the issue from the other side. I'm a geospatial engineer (gawd, I HATE the term 'GIS professional'; GIS is the software, geospatial engineering is the discipline).
Getting a strong understanding of GIS software and fundamentals will be critical to your future success. I am convinced that GIS applications will form the cornerstone of spatial data delivery and visualization in the very near future, and this includes survey data.
And here's where you can help! By getting in on the conversation now, and helping to steer this wagon, you can help fix a lot of the 'slop' that exists right now in the 'GIS professional' arena. In an effort to be the answer to every problem, ESRI has studiously avoided (and perhaps intentionally hindered) the development and adoption of spatial data accuracy standards. ESRI spends a lot of time talking about data schema standards (attribute frameworks) but is virtually silent on the topic of spatial accuracy standards. Strange, because the ArcGIS software can easily maintain data in a highly precise and accurate spatial data framework. The problem has been the difficulty in obtaining precise and accurate data - GIS systems need a LOT of data to be effective, and the tighter the spatial data accuracy requirements the more expensive the data. That paradigm is changing as we get better accuracy and precision out of lower cost "mapping-grade" GPS-based systems, but the GIS field is still operating under the old axiom that "close enough is good enough", and each GIS jockey gets to come up with his or her own definition of "close enough".
So get involved, learn GIS and help us get our house in order!
And, reciprocally, should GIS technicians/engineers/pros get formal training in surveying and coordinate systems?
15 years ago, i was teaching part of a 1 year GIS "advanced diploma" program. I tried to include very basic surveying & geodesy as i think such matters are essential to GIS. (Of course, some students complained "this is supposed to be GIS, not surveying".)
Whenever disciplines overlap, it's proper for teachers/practitioners in each to become conversant in the realm of the overlap.