{"id":3705,"date":"2014-11-14T05:21:06","date_gmt":"2014-11-14T13:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/?p=3705"},"modified":"2014-11-14T05:21:06","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T13:21:06","slug":"credential-creep-in-the-gis-field-for-good-or-for-ill","status":"publish","type":"insider","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/credential-creep-in-the-gis-field-for-good-or-for-ill","title":{"rendered":"Credential Creep in the GIS Field\u2014For Good or for Ill?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new generation of credentials herald better times ahead for adult education and workforce development.<\/em><\/strong>
\nHave you noticed the proliferation of GIS credentials?
\nHundreds of GIS certificate programs, dozens of specialized master\u2019s degrees, and even a few bachelor\u2019s degree programs have sprung up at colleges and universities at an accelerating rate since the 1990s. The absence of standards and accountability for academic certification contributed in part to the rise of GIS professional certification programs. These credentials are conferred by a few professional societies rather than many individual academic institutions.
\n\"\"
\nASPRS launched its Certified Mapping Scientist<\/a> program in 1988. This was followed by the launch of the GISP<\/a> program by the GIS Certification Institute in 2004. Now a third professional certification for GIS analysts is in the works from the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation<\/a>. On top of all this, Esri launched its Technical Certification<\/a> program in 2010.
\nWhat\u2019s driving all of these credentialing schemes?
\nWho wants these credentials, and why?
\n
\nCredential Creep<\/strong> <\/strong>
\nCertainly the maturation of GIS technology and the professionalization of the GIS workforce accounts for part of the interest in affirming academic achievement and professional and technical competence. However, the phenomenon is also consistent with a broader trend variously called up-credentialing, credential inflation, or\u2014most colorfully\u2014credential creep.<\/em>
\nThe trend is evident in the number of academic degrees awarded per capita in the US, which has increased at a much higher rate than population growth since the 1980s. One commentator has proclaimed that master\u2019s degrees are the new bachelor\u2019s degree<\/a>. Similar trends are evident elsewhere in the developed and developing worlds, to varying extents. Furthermore, a recent study by Burning Glass Technologies<\/a> demonstrates that many occupations that didn\u2019t require bachelor\u2019s degrees in the past\u2014such as Surveying and Mapping Technician, for instance\u2014now often do require such degrees. The reason, analysts suggest, is that employers use credentials to pre-screen applicants and streamline the hiring process.
\nThe proliferation of academic, professional, and technical credentials in the GIS field implies that many employers as well as job seekers value credentials. However, the trend raises a concern about whether credentialing programs are converging toward the worthy goal of fostering competence and strengthening the GIS profession, or whether they are diverging toward a jumble of meaningless but costly tokens.
\nTwo educational innovations are encouraging.
\nOne is the creation of a free market for credentialing through \u201cmicro-credentials\u201d like badges. You know about badges if you were a Boy or Girl Scout who earned merit badges<\/a> to demonstrate personal advancement. With support from the MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla has developed an Open Badges framework<\/a>, which enables any organization to confer digital badges and individuals to display badges via \u201cdigital backpacks\u201d linked to social media. Earlier this year, Elmhurst College awarded badges to students who completed its massive open online course (MOOC) \u201cSkills for the Digital Earth.\u201d Esri plans to begin awarding badges to learners who complete its various training offerings as part of its forthcoming \u201cEsri U\u201d interface. We believe that badges and other micro-credentials have the potential to enrich education and training by providing finer-grained evidence of accomplishment that advances the positive trend toward volunteered geographic education.
\nA second innovation is the emergence of competency-based credentialing, which represents the legitimization of experience as valid mode of learning. In the US, Western Governors University<\/a> was perhaps the first public higher education institution founded on a commitment to award credentials based on demonstrated achievement, rather than on \u201cseat-time\u201d in classrooms. Precedents for the competency-based approach abound, including the tutorial system at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. However, the establishment of an entire institution predicated on the notion that adult learners should receive credit for what they know, regardless of how they learned it, was a watershed event.
\nMore recently, the University of Wisconsin became the first major US university system to embrace competency-based learning with its \u201cflexible option<\/a>\u201d program. A flexible option master\u2019s degree in geodesign<\/a> that is currently in the planning stage at UW Stevens Point could become the first competency-based academic program directly related to GIS. We believe that even more innovative academic programs in GIS will adopt competency-based credentialing in the coming years.<\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Credential creep is happening in the GIS field. Labor market analysts warn that the phenomenon may worsen the runaway costs of higher education, and cut off career opportunities for those who can\u2019t afford advanced training. However, a new generation of credentials that recognize experience and competence rather than seat-time herald better times ahead for adult education and workforce development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10862],"tags":[278832,162592,241,278842],"class_list":["post-3705","insider","type-insider","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-esri","tag-credentials","tag-education","tag-gis","tag-gisp"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCredential Creep in the GIS Field\u2014For Good or for Ill?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/insider\/credential-creep-in-the-gis-field-for-good-or-for-ill\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Credential Creep in the GIS Field\u2014For Good or for Ill?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A new generation of credentials herald better times ahead for adult education and workforce development. 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