PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
May 2016
315
SECTOR
INSIGHT:
.
org
E
ducation
and
P
rofessional
D
evelopment
in
the
G
eospatial
I
nformation
S
cience
and
T
echnology
C
ommunity
T
he
United States Geospatial Intelligence
Foundation
(USGIF) offers collegiate accreditation
and professional certifications developed by
Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) community
volunteers with support from USGIF staff and contractors.
Accreditation of collegiate geospatial intelligence programs
was established in response to rapid growth of GEOINT
analyst workforce following 9/11, workforce growth that
was outstripping supply of geotechnology graduates from
USA universities.
1
Professional GEOINT certification was
mandated by the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence
USD(I) in 2011 to improve workforce effectiveness and clarify
career development pathways within the federal enterprise.
2
USGIF certification serves non-government analysts and the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) certification
serves government analysts.
USGIF is a not-for-profit educational foundation
that blends elements of trade association and
professional society towards advancing geospatial
data science capabilities within and beyond the
federal national security enterprise. In addition
to supporting DoD/IC interests, USGIF is an
active voice across the broader civilian geospatial
community, including representation on the
National Geospatial Advisory Committee
(NGAC)
and the
Coalition of Geospatial Organizations
(COGO).
USGIF has supported geospatial education since it was
established in 2004, launching a scholarship program that
same year, and will award a summary total of roughly $1
million by summer 2016.
USGIF collegiate accreditation
was launched with a first cohort of accredited schools January
2007, and is recognized for substantive review and a traditional
respect for pillars of emerging geospatial discipline.
USGIF
collegiate accreditation
was originally built upon elements
of the
GIS&T Body of Knowledge
, updated with Department
of Labor’s 2010 publication of
Geospatial Technology
Max Baber, Ph.D., FBCart.S
USGIF Collegiate Accreditation and Universal GEOINT Professional Certification
Competency Model
(GTCM), and now adding USGIF’s more
recently published
Universal GEOINT Essential Body of
Knowledge
(2015).
3
Students completing USGIF accredited
programs demonstrate knowledge and skills across broad
range of remote sensing, geographic information science,
data management, and data visualization capabilities with
emphasis on problem-solving complex human security
challenges using geospatial analytics.
The human security emphasis is deliberate. Some in the
civilian geospatial community make assumptions about
USGIF based on the word intelligence. DoD/IC use of
this term does not make it exclusive to national security
applications.
Business Intelligence
is in common parlance,
as is
Location Intelligence
, and neither connote the DoD/
IC enterprise. The DoD/IC do not own the term
Geospatial
Intelligence
, regardless of what some might think to contrary.
USGIF collegiate accreditation
and
Universal GEOINT
professional certification
both operate within this
broader human security context and are not constrained
to national security interests. This human security context
opens GEOINT to much, much wider community of interests,
including emergency response, resource management, public
health, and predictive analytics, to name a few.
The growing community of USGIF accredited schools is more
diverse than many realize, with the most recent accreditation
“An intelligence is the ability to solve problems, or to
create products, that are valued within one or more
cultural settings.”
– Howard Gardner,
Frames of Mind:
The Theory of Multiple Intelligences
4
1
2
3
4
Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences,
by
Howard Gardner. New York: Basic Books, 1983, 440 pp.
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 82, No. 5, May 2016, pp. 315–316.
0099-1112/16/315–316
© 2016 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.82.5.315
