Geomatics: Model for a Profession in Transition.

Business owners, managers, educators, and the leaders of the geomatics profession make decisions and mentor new members into the profession in the face of constant and unrelenting professional and social change. The scope of this change is bewildering as one realizes that adaptation is not only necessary in applying new technology to the workplace, but that the workplace is constantly in flux due to changes in the expectation of clients which are due to technological innovations. It is useful to construct a model of Geomatics as a profession in transition in order to explain observed phenomena in practice and in education. The model incorporates the dynamic of change in the Geomatics profession, and it is indexed to the responses of Alabama surveyors to a three-year series of annual questionnaires on recruitment, current challenges in the workplace, and the ten-year future of the profession. This model is used to provide the structure upon which to respond to common questions posed by members of the profession. One of these questions expresses concern that the four-year degree requirement for licensure will fail to provide the number of new members necessary to maintain the profession. In this paper I use the model to suggest the ideal objectives and structure of the four-year undergraduate degree curriculum in Geomatics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]