Mapping the difference of GIS between A Profession, Tool, Discipline of IT

The Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA) has published a white paper, “What Is GIS: A Profession, Niche, or Tool?” which presents some interesting pro-and-con considerations regarding issues involved the definition and debate of geographic information system (GIS).

The key driver to discuss the definition of GIS is not only for being a long debate but also for being highly relevent to the issue of professional certification and licensing. The table below shows some abstracts which indicate whether that GIS as a professional or a tool.

As a Profession Perspective	As a Tool Perspective
people are trained and employed in the capacity of performing GIS	pro by defining "not"- when professionals such as urban planners and environmental scientists can use GIS well without too much GIS training
people with cartographic background, database administration knowledge, and application developing ability	mainly GIS software concern
	"now an indispensable component of any IT professional’s toolbox.”

In my view, perhaps the most approaching perspective to the contoversial debate is that which indicated in the white paper:

"[GIS] has an academic, intellectual, and theoretical background based on geographical theory and computer science. GIS is a dynamic system of relationships between a vast array of disciplines.”

Main points which pro - GIS as a niche technology inside the broader discipline of IT include:

1. like computer science developed as a discipline in the 1970s and 1980s, the GIS will be in the "evolutionary path"
   
2. the success of GIS projects is highly involved with existing IT establishment
3. more to the point, the statement shows: "“After 25 years, it is time to realize that the problem is not that the IT profession needs to understand the real power of GIS. Rather, the geospatial community needs to understand that there are strategic information technology issues that dwarf the relevance of GIS, even in what we think of as intrinsically spatial industries such as local government and utilities.”

Technorati tags: GIS ;map ;GIScience


;geo-writable ;online community mapping