The IIS, GIS and other "spatial" professions

[BarryM]

I was speaking with the webmaster this week about the IIS, the member population and what proportion of the members are now more involved in GIS rather than surveying roles. I know a number of GeoSurveying and GeoMatics graduates have moved in the GIS direction, and that the focus of the new degree course is aiming towards land management and Spatial Sciences. With this in mind, I'd like to ask;

• Does the IIS know how its membership is deployed in terms of areas of day-to-day profession?
  
• Does the IIS aim to support GIS professionals who have a background in surveying, especially considering how future graduates will have been educated?
  
• Is it appropriate for GIS Professionals to be members of the IIS at all?

As a step towards gaining this knowledge I would suggest that something like the feedback form on this site be used to allow users to update not only their contact details, but also to give an idea of what field they actually operate in. A simple form that populates an online database with specific information, perhaps from dropdown lists to aid classification, would be a quick method. I would then suggest advertising this in the newsletter as a means for the IIS to get to know its membership better as this would be most useful for the IIS Council in determining how they can focus their support for the membership. Unfortunaely We aren't all company owners or indeed operating as land surveyors in the field (unfortunate for me as when I stopped fieldwork I gained weight!) so I would like to know how the other classes of member can benefit from membership.

Just some thoughts that I hope will stimulate discussion

Regards,

Barry M

[PaulB]

Barry,

You raise some valid and interesting points.

In terms of would the IIS support GIS professionals, I would have to say I think it has to. GIS is in a way an extension into technology that traditional surveying, per se, could never achieve. I would see that in the future the land surveying side of things will change in many ways and stay the same in many others.

The ways it will stay the same are from traditional viewpoints of measuring parcels of land, setting out for construction etc., running levels (it is still a way more accurate way to transfer levels over a small distance compared to total stations and GPS) and all other manner of day to day field work. It is called field work because you obviously need to go into the field to do it.

However, field work for a GIS database does not normally need to be so accurate as traditional surveying methods. GIS professionals still need to know (and possibly have a background in) surveying to perform their job to gather data to populate various databases - GPS has become the norm for GIS collection on the whole.

Like all technology it is quite possible to hire "button monkeys" to collect data and data processors, aka "cad monkeys", to populate the data sets. However, there needs to be highly qualified professionals in the field to manage and direct the whole process.

To this end I would think that GIS professionals should indeed be part of the IIS and would also make great additions to the IIS Council.

The idea of a more detailed user profile is familiar to me and a sound idea worth pursuing.

We are not all company owners as you say but the idea of a focused group meeting once a year has credence and the company owners was a good place to start. I think a yearly GIS conference would be good for those in the field and also those who would like to learn more and possibly get more involved in that facet of surveying. Would you be interested in helping to organise the inaugural event?

I hope some others will also chime in here with their thoughts.


All the best,

Paul B

[BarryM]

Paul,

Yes, there has certainly been a shift in how surveying is done, and indeed, the collection of data for GIS databases has probably led to a new breed in data collection techniques where speed and generalised data collection is to the fore. I agree completely that this in no way devalues the knowledge required for the collection and proper treatment of data, so core knowledge in the principles of surveying are, to me, an absolute must.

Personally, my background was in field surveying using total stations and levels, but over the past number of years my career has shifted completely to GIS and the design and implementaion of Enterprise GIS systems. But despite the wonderful database and desktop GIS technology I have at my disposal, data is always the prime concern, and I have found that my roots in GeoSurveying have stood me well.

From an annual GIS conference perspective, IRLOGI and ESRI Ireland hold GIS-focussed conferences, "GIS Ireland" and "Location 2005" respectively. I recall a few yars ago at IIS council level that we discussed the possibility of holding a conference to tie in with the AGM as a way of improving the attendance, but as Survey Ireland was such a well established institution, I think it was felt that we would be diluting the pool so to speak by having a competing event. The same could be said for holding a GIS conference. The Company Owners group obviously works very well, so perhaps a focus group might be a way of exploring how the IIS can respond to its changing(?) membership.

GIS is certainly a wide-ranging field, so there should be alot to talk about!

Regards,

Barry M