A VerySpatial Podcast – Episode 327

A VerySpatial Podcast
Shownotes – Episode 327
October 23, 2011

Main Topic: Certification rerevisited

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    Music

  • This week’s podsafe music: “Pumpkin’s Fancy” by Cady Finlayson & Vita Tanga
  • News

  • Galileo off the ground
  • iPhone 4S added to the list of GLONASS phones
  • Esri acquires SpotOn
  • GeoInt Blitz
  • Web Corner

  • TrekEarth
  • Main Topic

  • In this week’s main topic, we take another look at geospatial certifications after the recent rollout of DigitalQuests new certifications. Links of interest – Digital Quest, GISP, ASPRS, and Esri
  • Tip of the Week

  • MapQuest Vibe
  • Events Corner

  • International Geospatial Geocoding Conference: 6-7 December, Redlands, CA
  • UCGIS 2012 Spring Symposium: GISCIENCE 2.0: 30 May-1 June, Washington, DC
  • Tenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities: 14-17 June, Montreal, CA
  • Esri Ed User Conference: 21-24 July, San Diego, CA
  • This week, A VerySpatial Podcast is sponsored by Esri
    A new version of ArcGIS Explorer Desktop is available. This updated, free GIS viewer includes integrated GPS capability, support for querying features, and the ability to add geotagged photos directly to a map. For more information and to download, visit esri.com/arcgisexplorer.


    2 Replies to “A VerySpatial Podcast – Episode 327”

    1. Adena Schutzberg

      Hi all,

      I’m not sure the SPACE certification really fits into the discussion of technical and professional certifications. It’s more focused on a specific educational product set and an exam at the end. I for one have yet to run into the first certification from Digital Quest, the STARS one, in the wild. I wrote about the newly announced SPACE certification in detail on my blog.

      http://blog.abs-cg.com/2011/10/what-geospatial-practitioners-need-to.html

      Adena

    2. Jesse

      That was what prompted the conversation, but it was lost (as often happens) in the conversations we continue when we come back around to a topic broadly. It is what we came close to getting back to with the discussion of certificates, but didn’t quite make it. From my perspective SPACE is an orange in a basket of apples and pears. The closest thing to SPACE currently in the pipleline seems to be the ASPRS’s Provisional Certification program which allows students to have a level of certification that shows that they have the “edumacation” but not the work experience. However, this is still a distant cousin of SPACE since the provisional certification is not clearly integrated into the student’s education, though it is a test that many students coming out of university with a geo-focus can take.

      The question that started the conversation is what to do with the varying certifications since eventually students, professionals, and hiring managers will need to be able to say what is useful for them. As we know from the GISP debates (which could just as easily impact the ASPRS, Esri, etc certifications) the idea of industry acceptance, let alone buy-in or support, is not guaranteed broadly no matter what the certification’s web page states (beyond those named of course).

      As for me, I am tentatively excited about SPACE as a new offering and the potential for STARS to gain ground. We have a good number of very smart people who have been embedded in the industry and education working to implement certificates and certification that respond to the GTCM, but the best way to figure out what works and doesn’t work is to put something out there that others can start to bang on to see what sticks and what falls away. After the great presentations by k-12 students at GeoINT, EsriUC, and other industry conferences, it is clear that there is a need from educators who aren’t generally Geographer’s, desire from students, and the overwhelming potential within the industry for trained specialists.

    Comments are closed.

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