NCEES Approves Revision to Model Law for Surveyors

Those of you who have been following the resolution of legal responsibilities for licensed surveyors in the creation and maintenance of GIS-based maps/data may recall that in October, 2000, a Task Force comprised of representatives from five Surveyor professional associations and two GIS professional associations issued recommendations for clarifying respective GIS roles and responsibilities. The recommendations were sent to the National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) with the objective of changing the national Model Law, a document from which most State surveyor licensing laws are derived.

The recommendation for modifying the Model Law was passed by the full NCEES Council during the week of August 8 in San Diego. The acceptance of the report by the Council now triggers the actual implementation of the revised language into the NCEES model law and model regulations, a process that will occur at the NCEES committee level throughout this year. The final passage of that language and adoption of the revised model law and regulations by the full Council will occur Summer, 2003. The NCEES Councilis comprised of representatives from each state's Board of Registration.

The full text of the Task Force recommendations may be seen HERE, the report title is "GIS/LIS Addendum to the Report of the Task Force on the NCEES Model Law for Surveying". Most notable in the report is "Appendix B" which lists examples of practices related to GIS data which should be included in, or excluded from, the definition of the 'practice of survey' for which licensure is required. A general description of the Task Force recommendations may be downloaded from FTP://joffes.com, the file name is"GIS-Surveyor_Accord.pdf".

For more information, contact James Plasker, ASPRS Executive Director (jplasker@asprs.org), or Bruce Joffe, URISA Board Member (GIS.Consultants@joffes.com).