Geographic Info. Systems Committee Report
Texas Society of Professional Surveyors
COMMITTEE ACTIVITY REPORT
COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Jon Hodde
Gary Hudson
Lynn Savory
Maxey Sheppard
Richard Worthey
Stacey Lyle
Brianne Bernsen
Bill Coleman
Paul Easley, Co-chair
Committee Tasks:
Work with Standards Committee to establish guidelines for use of GPS in GIS Projects. To include a checklist that could be used by Client & Provider to determine the scope of the work, deliverables, procedures and anticipated levels of accuracy.
Coordinate with Mapping Advisory Committee
Continue development of GIS curriculum for use by Education Committee
Continue to monitor the relationship between GIS and Surveying industries
Work with TBPLS after legislative session to create and adopt Rules for inclusion and exclusions
This committee has worked hard this past year in accomplishing the following tasks:
The development of a GIS category to be included in the TSPS Manual of Practice. We have revised the draft to incorporate some of the comments received from both GIS professionals and surveyors. We intend to bring the category before the board for approval during the annual meeting.
This committee developed a GIS 101 course that was rolled out at the Spring Symposium in April. We are currently working on some revisions to the course to be ready for the 2005 symposium to be held in Tyler. The committee members are planning on developing a second GIS course in this next year entitled GIS Development.
In April, I attended the ACSM conference in Nashville, TN for a GIS panel discussion to report the status of GIS for each state organization. I shared with the group what this committee has been working on. There were quite a few states represented and it was a great networking opportunity. Some states had very active committees, while others had no official GIS committee.
In August, I attended the ESRI Survey & GIS Summit which was held prior to and in conjunction with the ESRI International Users Conference in San Diego, CA. Texas was well represented with Gary Jeffress, Stacey Lyle, Robert Young, Jerry McGray, Bill Coleman and myself in attendance. There were several good seminars offered and it was a chance to network with people from around the country.
Doug Turner with TBPLS has been assigned the contact for GIS issues. Doug was invited to but was unable to attend the August committee meeting held at West Columbia Resort. We have also asked Greg Smyth if he would be interested in acting as another contact for TBPLS, since Doug’s term is officially up the end of January, 2005. Maxey Sheppard and I are working together to prepare a GIS Statement to be posted on the TBPLS website. We are both planning to attend the TBPLS meeting scheduled for Friday during the convention.
On August 19, I attended a Texas Geographic Information Council (TGIC) meeting and presented our proposed GIS category and presented the idea that some of the GIS professionals there could join TSPS. There seemed to be some interest and they were very open to discussing that possibility. Currently, the GIS professionals would fall under the Affiliate Category of membership and would not be able to vote or hold office (except as Secretary/Treasurer).
I want to thank all of the members of this committee for their hard work and thank President Haberer for the opportunity to serve as Chair of this committee again this year.
Respectfully Submitted by:
Coleen M. Johnson, Chair