What are basic GIS skills?

Monday, January 14. 2008

A job posting for a senior planner for Queensbury, NY notes that "basic GIS skills are expected."

I have two questions:

What are "basic GIS skills?"

Shouldn't a senior planner have a deeper understanding than "basic?"

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in GIS Jobs at 06:00 | Comments (2)

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AAG published their "GIS Body of Knowledge" -

http://www.aag.org/bok/

http://www.ucgis.org/priorities/education/modelcurriculaproject.asp

I will admit, I have not yet perused it - and I am not sure if the intent is to provide an overview of the depth and breath of activity across GIS, whether it defines any yardstick of minimal competency for GIS proficiency - and what the relationship/overlaps between "basic GIS" or GISCI are...

To your question - a planner should certainly come equipped with substantial and robust analytical capabilities, methodologies and business logic stills to perform the work needed for fulfilling his urban and regional planning duties. GIS most certainly helps facilitate this at a technical level - however, amazingly enough, there are still some very qualified and experienced planners in the community who even today do not employ GIS in their work.

GIS is not planning, just as planning is not GIS, however in the Venn diagram of life, there is certainly a huge sweet spot of overlap between them.

#1 Dave Smith (Link) on 2008-01-14 09:18 (Reply)

To most planners GIS is a tool that can assist (but is not necessary) in the performance of planners' professional duties. An oft-heard analogy is that of CAD and architects. ("You can be an architect without knowing CAD; being a CAD whiz does not make you an architect.")

Being at the crossroads myself (I am an architect and a certified planner, a CAD user who makes a living in GIS), I have been trying to sort these issues out for myself for quite some time. It mostly comes down (for me, at least) to whether one considers GIS a distinct profession or not.

#2 Atanas Entchev (Link) on 2008-01-14 10:06 (Reply)

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