Haklay, M.

English

UCL Discovery

Issue No 19 December 2007www.gisprofessional.co.uk. . . a largeproportion ofthe new webmappingapplicationsare ignoringmanyimportantcartographicprinciples. . .““AGI’07 was the setting for a provocative debateon whether “GI is a bad career choice”. Speakingfor the motion were GiSPro publisher StephenBooth and AGI past chair Simon Doyle.Vigorously opposing were Gesche Schmid ofAtkins and The Geoinformation Group’s DrSeppe Casattari.The debate, which worryingly for the AGI wasonly marginally lost, sparked lively interestfrom the audience which included GiSProeditorial board member Dr Muki Haklay. heprovides some cautionary comments on careerchoices that once seemed reliable and arguesthat we’re asking the wrong question.IT SEEMS THAT there was never a better time than thepresent to be a GI professional – demand for skills ishigh, pay is good and prospects are rosy. It was adelight for many of us to read the famous article inNature in 2004, announcing increased demands forpeople with knowledge and the ability to operategeospatial technologies. According to the USDepartment of Labor, GI is ‘one of the three mostimportant emerging and evolving fields, along withnanotechnology and biotechnology. Job opportunitiesare growing and diversifying. . .’ What could be better?Veterans of GIS can attest to the dramaticincrease in awareness and knowledge of geospatialtechnologies. If you have been working in GIS formore than five years, then you belong to thegeneration which, when trying to explain what yourjob involved, would launch into a convolutedexplanation, only to end with “oh, well, it’scomplex”. The advance of satnav, geobrowsers suchas Google Earth and the ubiquity of web mappingsites such as Multimap and Google Maps, togetherwith those “mash ups” that bring new applicationson top of them, are making it much easier to explainwhat we do and the importance of maps and howthe use of geographical information can help in dailyroutines and in business. So, you conclude, GI is anexcellent career choice with a fantastic future.Caution from our allies Is the picture quite sorosy? The rise of ‘neogeography’ is highlightingsome risks, and there are certainly cautionary tales tobe learned from our professional allies: landsurveyors, photogrammetrists and cartographers.A significant reason for concern is that in the era of“neogeography” many core geographical concepts areseen as unproblematic and not worth bothering about,as Dave Unwin noted in his 2006 AGI EducationalLecture. There are some issues that matter greatly to GIprofessionals but which the vast majority of users don’tseem to care about. One example is the lack ofmetadata in applications like Google Earth, e.g. theability to tell when the data was collected and thecurrency of each piece of information. Some users ofthese systems even think that they can log on andcheck if their car is still parked in front of their home!Or consider the place of cartography. It seems that alarge proportion of the new web mapping applicationsare ignoring many important cartographic principles –look at some of the current sites and you can spot thelack of legends, poor selection of colour for thematicmapping and other aspects of properly composed maps.Yet, for many users and for too many applications,this problematic world in which geography is useful,but cartographical and geographical informationscience principles do not matter, is a very satisfyingworld and many are happy to live and use geographyin this way. In such a world, what will prevent yourfuture employer from saying: why do I need a personthat costs me so much, when we can hack somethingeasily with a web mapping API*?Lessons learned Here is where we need to look atthe lessons learnt by land surveyors,photogrammetrists and cartographers. Not so longago, maybe 15 or 20 years ago – well within thespan of a professional career – being a surveyor or aphotogrammetrist seemed like an excellent careerchoice. For photogrammetrists, the increased use ofdigital aerial photography meant that there would bea need for their skills and for the surveyor therequirement of ever increasing complex civilengineering projects and the need to understandhow to use GPS, meant that they, too, should have asecure future. But look at what has happened tothose professions today. The entry salary for aphotogrammetrist is very low (that is, if you manageto find a job) and the same is true for land surveyors.This is reflected in the demand for academic courses.Importantly, it is not the case that automation haseaten away all these jobs, though to some extent ithas. What happened is that more and more employersthink that because of automation, GPS, total stationsand satellite imagery, they do not need the highly paidskills of the professional photogrammetrist or thesurveyor – they can just hire a technician and themachine will do all the calculations. . . Of course, manypractising surveyors can provide tales of companiesHow can we ensure that GI is a goodcareer choice?GiSProfessional16GI:a good career choice?Issue No 19 December 2007www.gisprofessional.co.ukthat have discovered midway through a project thatthey actually need the skills – but now they don’t havethem. This attitude has led to widespread errors – butthe overall trend doesn’t change.A profession or a vocation? Arguably, whathappened with these professions is that they failedto convey the importance of the skills andknowledge that they bring to the marketplace. Thisrisk is true for GIS professionals too. The following istaken from “Prospect” – the UK graduate job sitewhich describes the job prospects of cartographers:“With relatively low salary levels and small numbersof job vacancies, this role is often seen as more of avocation for people with a strong interest in mapsand geographical information.” Will the GIprofession follow the same pattern? For too many employers, the justification inemploying GIS professionals is that the software usedto create maps is very complex, so having specialistswho produce maps is justified. But if it is possible tocreate maps with a simple API instead of buying anexpensive and difficult to maintain Internet mappingserver software, or if it is enough to analyse the databy creating a point map on Google Earth – then whykeep the expensive professional?Spatial is special Therefore, we need to change thequestion from the passive ‘Is GI a good career choice?’GiSProfessional19to ‘how can we ensure that GI is a good careerchoice?’ There is a clear need to move away from theconception that GIS is all about making maps. It isactually about analysing geographical information,and in order to do this properly you need a GI analyst– a professional who understands the underlying datastructures, the way in which the data can bemanipulated and how to visualise the output of theanalysis in a meaningful and effective way.As for yourself, dear reader – it is worthconsidering how you structure your career so it doesindeed become fulfilling, enjoyable and long. Therearen’t many jobs in the IT sector that offer a variety oftasks like GI. Develop your skills by ongoing training –and while you are at it, why not become a CharteredGeographer? Read books that help in understandinghow rapidly the world around you is changing –Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat (2007) is one ofmy favourites. Most importantly, start your own localcampaign to explain to your employer, if you areworking for an organisation that doesn’t specialises inGIS, or to your clients, if you are working in a GI-centric organisation, how special is spatial? And inwhat ways the knowledge and skills that you’ve gotare contributing to the operation of the organisation.By collaborating and promoting the wonders of GI wecan ensure that GI is indeed an excellent career choice. *Application Programming InterfaceGI:a good career choice?• Dr Muki Haklay isSenior Lecturer in GIS,Department ofGeomatic Engineering,University CollegeLondon.

How can we ensure that GI is a good career choice?

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

UCL Discovery