What Is GIS: A Profession, Niche, or Tool? - Geospatial Industry White Paper - Prepared June 2005

Geospatial Industry White Paper

What Is GIS: A Profession, Niche, or Tool?

                       Prepared June 2005
    by the Geospatial Information & Technology Association

                     14456 E. Evans Avenue
                        Aurora, CO 80014
            303-337-0513 • info@gita.org • www.gita.org

What Is GIS: A Profession, Niche, or Tool?

                                    GITA White Paper

                                     Prepared June 2005

What is GIS? Is it a profession unto itself? Is it simply a niche technology inside the
broader discipline of information technology (IT)? Or is it a tool that cuts across
numerous professional and technological boundaries?

This debate raged over a period of weeks on GITA’s GEOXchange list server, where
members routinely exchange information and discuss topics relevant to the geospatial
industry. This particular thread touched off such a firestorm that the association
developed a panel discussion on the topic at GITA’s Annual Conference in Denver in
March 2005.

Vince Rosales, vice president of Idea Integration in Denver, moderated the panel of four
industry representatives who spoke before a packed meeting room. Rosales alternated
between comments from the panel and the audience. While no definitive answer to the
debate was reached—as was the case on GEOXchange—it became clear that this
discussion was far more than an exercise in extemporaneous speaking. The geospatial
industry is passionate about this topic as both a matter of professional pride and a concern
over where the industry is heading.

Specifically, many involved in the debate see an accurate definition of GIS as critically
important to the future because it relates directly to the issue of professional certification
and licensing, which has been causing equally stirring discussion within the industry in
recent years.

                                     The Great Debate

If a conclusion has to be drawn from the discussions at Annual Conference 28 and on
GEOXchange, it is that there is no consensus regarding the basic question. Rosales
summed it up as follows: “The argument over whether GIS is a profession, niche or tool
will continue because it is all of those things … it simply depends on your perspective.”

He noted that strong arguments were made for each of the positions, and interestingly,
most participants in the discussion argued from two or more perspectives. Few felt GIS
could be pigeonholed into a single definition. Two of the most prevalent comments, for
example, were that GIS could easily be considered a profession or tool depending on the
context.

Since there are individuals who are trained and employed specifically in the capacity of
performing GIS work, it must be considered a profession. Likewise, how can GIS not be

considered a tool in some circumstances when there are geologists, urban planners, and
environmental scientists—with no particular training in GIS—using geospatial
functionality in the course of their daily work?

One GITA member summarized this point succinctly on GEOXchange: “GIS software is,
in and of itself, a tool. The ability to utilize, extend and improve the software, as well as
the ability to infuse the system with intelligence, to guide decision-making processes, for
a variety of disciplines, is the central task of the GIS professional.”

Speaking at the panel discussion, Peter Batty, CTO of Ten Sails, Greenwood Village,
Colo., cautioned against trying to define a GIS professional because the technology is so
diverse. In order to get anything remotely meaningful, a number of different specific
roles and skill sets need to be defined. The alternative is ending up with a definition that
is too broad to be useful, which is what has happened with existing certification
programs, he said.

Ian Fitzgerald, GIS coordinator at Truckee-Donner PUD in Truckee, Calif., and a panelist
at the discussion, took the debate a step further by clarifying precisely what a GIS
professional is: “A GIS professional is a person who maintains the geospatial data and the
interface through which the data is converted to information. The professional, therefore,
must have a cartographic background, understand database administration, and be an
application developer. Someone who uses GIS is not necessarily a GIS professional.”

Glenn Letham, co-founder and managing editor of GISuser.com, based in Frederick, Md.,
said he could agree with these positions, but that he ultimately came down in the ‘GIS is
a tool’ camp: “I feel that it is best described as a tool. GIS, geospatial technologies, and
related disciplines are now commonly found as the driving force or backbone of many
applications and Web services. GIS has evolved as a tool used and/or required by a
variety of users and is now an indispensable component of any information technology
professional’s toolbox.”

Many preferred to avoid the terms profession and tool and settled on calling GIS a
discipline. One GEOXchange member wrote: “GIS is an ever-expansive far-reaching
discipline. There is a difference between GIS software and GIS. In most cases when
people refer to a GIS, they are referring to an integration of a variety of software from a
variety of disciplines. [GIS] has an academic, intellectual, and theoretical background
based on geographical theory and computer science. GIS is a dynamic system of
relationships between a vast array of disciplines.”

Another voiced a comment with a theme that ran through many discussion threads:
“Indeed, the products are tools, however, GIS is no less a discipline than surveying,
computer science (IT), accounting, engineering or marketing. It is a bit different,
however, as GIS is a blend of many existing disciplines, including math, history,
engineering, geometry and computer science … it will quickly develop as a discipline,
much like computer science did in the 1970s and 1980s.”

While the majority of discussion participants fell into the “profession” or “tool”
categories, a few vocal members voiced opinions that GIS is merely a niche within IT.
The arguments varied, but most cultivated the theme that IT is really the enterprise-wide
technology enveloping GIS applications and data. As politely as possible, the pro-IT
debaters seemed to make the point that GIS couldn’t survive without IT to prop it up:

“GIS projects are most successful when the existing IT establishment is involved,
interested, and consulted on all the usual general issues. Going it alone always brings
failure and relegation of GIS to the ghetto of ‘solutions in search of a problem,’” wrote a
member of the GEOXchange forum.

Another stated, “After 25 years, it is time to realize that the problem is not that the IT
profession needs to understand the real power of GIS. Rather, the geospatial community
needs to understand that there are strategic information technology issues that dwarf the
relevance of GIS, even in what we think of as intrinsically spatial industries such as local
government and utilities.”

Many see the niche argument as pertaining to where GIS technology currently resides in
terms of its evolution. Letham noted that some users are further along this evolutionary
path than others, which may account for the level of disagreement on the topic, but he
saw value in this position as well:

“GIS has matured tremendously over the past five years with new uses and new data
resources coming to light almost daily. I can understand how many look at GIS as a
profession as well as a software tool; however, to realize and experience GIS to its full
potential, [GIS] must be managed and nurtured as an integrated part of a corporate
information system. To do so effectively, a coordinated effort must exist and it must be
managed effectively within the overall IT plan,” he said.

Letham added that getting a consensus on the position that GIS holds in IT will be as
challenging as agreeing on what the acronym “GIS” stand for.

                                Addressing Certification

During the GEOXchange discussion, Fitzgerald stated, “Going around and stating that
my discipline is better than yours serves no purpose in attainment of the final goal.”

Fitzgerald echoed the sentiment of many discussion participants who felt this debate
served a higher purpose—drafting a blueprint to guide the future development of GIS.
Panelists and audience members at GITA’s Annual Conference repeatedly linked the
debate to the subject of professional certification, for which some expressed approval and
others did not.

Among those in favor of GIS certification was at least one individual who said he had
received his certificate, and pointed out that certification had served its purpose by
helping him land a job. But others, such as panelist Perry Harts, information services

manager for the City of Frisco, Texas, felt that certification in its current form performs a
disservice to the industry, perhaps relegating it to a niche, because it doesn’t go far
enough toward mandating educational standards:

“GIS is a profession requiring a broad education and experience. This is in contrast to a
vocation or niche requiring specific task training for a small set of skills. The education
and training of GIS professionals should focus on future needs,” Harts said. “Since GIS is
constantly changing, it requires professional skills and training. GIS students should be
prepared with problem-solving and analytical skills that will enable them to exploit the
next generations of technology.’

Although no general agreement was reached regarding the value of professional
certification and licensing, panelists and audience members shared the belief that some
mechanism needs to be enacted by the GIS industry to ensure that people who work in
the geospatial disciplines have received broad education and training, can perform a
variety of skills, and are competent at what they do.

                           Conclusion: Competency is the Key

GITA is committed to encouraging the “what is GIS?” debate to continue the healthy
discourse that will assist in shaping the geospatial industry and its component parts well
into the future. The association believes this discussion must be moved forward as it
pertains to certification and licensing. Regardless of the terminology—certification or
licensing—used to label someone as qualified to practice in a geospatial discipline, GITA
supports and actively promotes the notion that this industry must come together to make
certain that competent, well-trained people enter the geospatial workforce now and in the
future. GITA also strongly supports any efforts that can be made at the academic level to
ensure that recent graduates with GIS degrees are prepared to make an immediate and
positive impact to the benefit of their new employers as soon as they leave school. After
all, competency is the ultimate workforce attribute.