At its face-to-face Board of Directors meeting on May 23, 2011, the GISCI Board of Directors continued consideration of the proposal submitted by the GISCI Core Competency Workgroup and the public response collected during February concerning that proposal. In March of 2011, the Board adopted a resolution recognizing the role that the current portfolio based process has played in recognizing the professional attainment of those certified. The Board made the following resolution during the May meeting:
• GISCI is committed to the advancement of the GIS profession for the benefit of society and individual practitioners.
• GISCI’s Board of Directors believes that portfolio-based certification augmented by a competency-based examination has the potential to further advance the profession in that direction.
• In response to the Core Competency Working Group’s GISP Update proposal, we resolve, therefore, to embark on a methodical, multi-stage process to carefully explore, develop, and implement an examination.
• GISCI will only add an examination requirement if an exam can be made accessible and fair to GIS practitioners regardless of their specializations or backgrounds.
• Our next steps will include establishing an Examination Development Committee as recommended by the Working Group.
We acknowledge that members of the GIS community hold differing opinions about an exam and we believe that this course of action will provide information that will help address those concerns.
The "GISP Certification Update" proposal is available for public review at http://www.gisci.org. The public comments will be available for review through the end of June.
For more information about GISCI and GISP certification, visit http://www.gisci.org.