Michelle Toner

Over the years I have wondered a lot about whether it made sense to pursue my GISP. A GISP is a certification designation as a “GIS Professional” that is administered and reviewed through GISCI and originally developed by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA). Whether to get GISP certification is a divisive topic in the GIS realm. I hear more negative than positive, and while I don’t disagree with the negative, I think the positives push things in the favor of being worth it.

I’ve been adverse to becoming a GISP in the past because it is a high cost to document what you know and have done without teaching you anything. There’s even chatter about it being a money grab. The challenge in evaluating these comments may be at the root of why the GISP certification exists.

The last I looked, the GISP test has approximately a 60% pass rate. Anecdotally, the number of people who fail on their first try is staggeringly high. Is it a problem with the test or a problem with the knowledge and skills?

My husband, who has formal education and over 20 years of experience in instructional design took one look at the practice test and said, and I paraphrase, if this truly replicates the exam, there are flaws in the exam. That’s from someone who designs professional knowledge assessments as their job. But what if the real exam is better formatted and the problem IS with the skills?

How does this skill gap happen?

The easiest skill gap rationale is people come to this discipline from many avenues, so they do not all have the same foundational knowledge.

Some people who have bachelor’s and master’s degrees in GIS may lack foundational knowledge as well. How can that happen? Not every college GIS program is created equal. Many people think they’ve been well prepared because they don’t know what they don’t know. Perhaps I might even be one of them. I hope not but I’m willing to find out and address the gaps.

This means that there are a lot of people in GIS that are unaware of their skill deficits. They may realize they don’t have advanced level knowledge but they believe they have enough knowledge to be successful and contribute in a meaningful way… and they probably do! But it is it enough knowledge for an advanced certification?

How does this skill gap affect GISP test perceptions?

Imagine a person having a lot of experience running GIS programs for over twenty years only to find that they are unable to pass a GISP test. This only gives two possible conclusions:

1. The GISP test is unfair as someone with that level of experience surely knows how to do their job. The GISP test should be achievable by this level of professional, so therefore the problem is with the certification and the test.

OR

2. This person has been running GIS programs for 20 years and could have done a better job with more foundational knowledge, or worse may have even led people astray. They thought they were great at their job and got excellent performance reviews from staff who know less than them about GIS. But it turns out they could have done better.

I don’t know about you, but number 2 is a hard pill to swallow so it’s more likely to either believe the first conclusion, which could be correct, or claim the first conclusion to save face.

Due to a failing in how the test results are reported they also only know they scored less than 76%. Did they get a 75% and are really quite capable but fall just short of the certification or did they score 30% and truly have some skill gaps to address. It’s quite easy to believe they must have gotten somewhere between 70%-75% which is still a good grasp of the content and they are being denied entry to a club by a slim margin.

This only addresses one scenario. There is another scenario that puts people in a poor mood about the GISP. These are people who have extremely specialized knowledge in one discipline of GIS but never touch other areas. I could see it happen that someone is brilliant at remote sensing interpretation, programming, and data collection but knows very little about GIS program needs design for multiple fields, cartography, or analysis.

This is a tough situation but in the end a capable GIS professional should have some broad foundational knowledge because what they create will touch other disciplines in the industry. Thinking they don’t need to know about other areas limits their ability to create products that function with the whole system to their best capacity.

The purpose of GISP certification:

The complaints about the GISP certification and test may unfortunately be a side effect of why the GISP exists to begin with, to address a foundational knowledge gap that exists throughout the field. If that knowledge gap is truly there, then a lot of people will not be able to pass a foundational skills test.

There may have also been some justified complaints that the test wasn’t an adequate measure when it was first created. Anyone who became a GISP prior to 2015 only needed a portfolio review. As a relatively new exam, those who took the first versions of it were likely subject to test questions that weren’t great. It’s hard to get a test like this right, so it’s quite likely the first test versions weren’t adequate indicators of knowledge. The GISP certification has had a chance to evolve and they’ve developed a better test and better guidance.

I think the GISP designation would absolutely help folks get jobs who have transitioned primarily to GIS work from other fields and don’t want to go back to school for another degree because they already have substantial work and training experience.

For people who came from GIS programs, the GISP is a chance to become aware of your knowledge gaps and address them. This shouldn’t be feared although it’s scary to think of the tens of thousands of dollars spent and years of time to be told there are some basics to address. In addition, the GISP requires a person to have continuing education and contribute to the field regularly. This can surely be accomplished without a GISP designation. But everyone who has a GISP needs to do this so having a GISP certification would put someone in the category of people willing to do the extra for their community. I do think people are starting to notice GISPs are out there being professionals as a group and only some people who don’t have their GISP bother to put in that level of effort.

The GISP is not going away.

Armed with this information, the value of a GISP certification is only going to continue to become stronger and have higher value both in the field and with employers. I personally think it’s time to pursue this credential.

If you are interested in becoming a GISP or want to learn more about the process, you can find more information on the GIS certification institute website here.

Best!

Michelle