URISA's Policy Advisory Committee is important and valuable!
There are a lot of components that join together to consider a field of practice a ‘profession’. These can be argued and presented many ways, but essentially professions share common tenets. These may be advanced training and experience, adherence to a code of ethics, recognition by peers and the public, demonstration of competence, ongoing education and training, contribution to the profession, and many more. GIS professionals (GISP) share these core principles.
One of the areas of continuing education is understanding and following policies that impact the profession, both negatively and positively. The GISP is an international certification that demonstrates minimum competence in GIS. This is the beginning of a professional career in GIS, but it just the beginning. Continued training and education are paramount to a professional, and also paramount to just keeping up in our rapidly advancing technology environment.
Part of continuing education and engagement in a profession is contribution to the profession and community. An often overlooked, but highly impactful, area that URISA works in is its Policy Advisory Committee (PAC). Government policies impact GIS professionals both personally and professionally in many ways. Knowing what is going on, and at times, providing feedback and influencing policy outcomes is part of being a professional.
The PAC has tracked many issues over the years. We live in a tech world that moves very quickly, unlike government policy that moves slowly and has a difficult time keeping up and often causing negative impact to all of us.
Surveying and GIS. States regulate the land surveying profession. With the ubiquity of high accuracy GNSS/GPS, lidar, imagery and drone data collection, GIS professionals cross paths with land surveyors regularly and policy and regulatory language is outdated. The URISA PAC has been working with the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS) and the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying’s (NCEES) to try help modernize the Model Laws and Rules for surveying which states often use as a template for their statutes.
Broadband. Another area you may find of interest is the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Broadband DATA Act which identifies where broadband is and is not available. These maps are contested by many local governments and these maps set policy where federal funds will be distributed. Understanding the quality of this data in your community is important.
Census and Redistricting. The 2020 Census data is used for redistricting US congressional representatives’ districts. This is a contentious issue in several areas in the country. URISA published the non-partisan “Redistricting: A Guide for the GIS Community” which helps guide GIS practitioners to for equitable and fair legislative boundary redistricting. And its never too early to understand what the US Census is doing with the American Community Survey and how they are preparing for the 2030 census.
URISA isn’t going alone. URISA was a founding member of the Coalition of Geospatial Organizations (COGO) which serves as a forum for several nonprofit organizations concerned with national geospatial issues including the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) Assessment. The NSDI Assessment evaluates the progress made by federal, state, regional, tribal and local governments that have worked in concert with the private and academic sectors to develop a National Spatial Data Infrastructure. URISA is heading the team evaluating the progress of the addressing theme which URISA was instrumental in it being added to the original seven NSDI themes.
These are just a few highlighted areas where URISA is analyzing and influencing policies that impact GIS professionals. For more than 60 years, URISA has been instrumental in developing and guiding GIS and GIS professionals. The PAC is just one of the many benefits the URISA community.
As the GIS profession grows, so do individual commitments to the profession. URISA provides the framework and community to support GIS professionals. Consider becoming active in URISA. It’s the professional thing to do.
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