Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
The BoK (First Edition: BoK 1.0) was originally sold by the AAG (one of its pub-
lishers) but today can be downloaded from this website: http://www.aag.org/galleries/
publications-files/GIST_Body_of_Knowledge.pdf. It was copyrighted by both the
AAG and the UCGIS. The BoK 1.0 was essentially a list of 330 topics that were or-
ganized into 73 units and ten knowledge areas [11]. DiBiase noted that each of these
topics was specified in terms of their educational outcomes so as to permit the deriva-
tion of instructional outcomes and assessment tools. It was intended to serve as a re-
source for curriculum design. According to DiBiase the final document incorporated
the suggestions of 31 additional reviewers from the GIScience community (this was
in addition to the input provided by the editorial board, the task force and the advisory
board, described above).
In their introduction to the BoK 1.0, DiBiase et al. [11] recognized the role played
by the original Core Curriculum which was widely tested within the GIS community
before it was published [7]. However, the editors of BoK 1.0 also cited criticism of
the original Core Curriculum referring to the work of Unwin and Dale [35] and Jen-
kins [18] who objected to the Core Curriculum's “inconsistencies and overlap, focus
on content, rigid structure, and lack of a mechanism for updating” [11]. There is some
irony here for the BoK 1.0 also had a rigid structure and a complete lack of any expli-
cit mechanism for renewal. The BoK 1.0 derives much of its approach, philosophy
and resource material from the UCGIS special issue on GIS Education published by
the URISA Journal in 2003 [20] and edited by two of the members of the Model Cur-
ricula Task Force mentioned above, one of whom (Kemp) continued as an editor of
the BoK 1.0 . The paper by Gaudet et al. [16] published in this special issue lists 39
competencies “required for success in the geopspatial technology profession”. In the
original article this is part of a reasonably sophisticated Geospatial Technology Com-
petency Model although the BoK 1.0 attempts to go further than these competencies.
These competencies were divided into four groups: technical, analytical, business and
interpersonal.
The list of 39 competencies within these four groups is far from useful for a num-
ber of reasons. First, it lacks detail, sometimes citing whole disciplines e.g. computing
programming and conflict management (the latter is the domain of a whole school or
faculty within my own university). Second, it privileges two application areas, envi-
ronmental and geological, over all others. One of the standard texts in the field [24]
has chapters on 14 GIS application areas, and this is but a partial list. Third, even the
analytical competencies have a touch of irony for Systems Thinking is included and
yet there is nothing about the Philosophy or Practice of Science, which is odd consi-
dering that the entire field had the decade before replaced Systems with Science as the
S in GIS. Fourth, some of the competencies are banal. Thus Leadership Skills are
listed as a Core Competency followed by Questioning, whatever that is intended to
mean. Fifth, with respect to the computer programming competency, the level of ex-
pertise and skill, the objectives and educational needs of GIScientists, as compared to
computer scientists, are quite different. The GIScientist needs to acquire knowledge
quickly so that it can be applied. Programming is best taught to a GIScientist by
showing the student examples of code that configures algorithms such as those re-
quired in COGO. For example, the solution to a point-in-polygon operation requires
