IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2014 - 79

bands). (I) Did not classify the images using any
remote sensing software.
My colleague then goes on to ask if there are qualifications that would allow him to be recognized as someone
that is qualified (in the legal sense) to testify in a court of
law, i.e. to give opinion, based on, in this case, a visual
interpretation. His concern and question resonated with a
discussion that I have been having with the AdCom of our
Society concerning standards for GRS training.
How did we get into GRS? Our Society is part of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
However, this does not reflect the undergraduate training of many of our members. We know that most of us
entered the GRS world during postgraduate studies. Does
the undergraduate degree have a strong influence?
As an example, undergraduate Electrical Engineering
(in fact, all branches of Engineering) in many countries is
regulated within each country by a voluntary agreement,
the Washington Accord. For the countries that are signatories, there are advantages in terms of calibration of engineering training, and also opportunities for engineers to
have mobility between countries in terms of employment.
The Washington Accord avoids being prescriptive
in terms of syllabus detail, but is more concerned with
ensuring that the curriculum consists of certain percentages of basic skills, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and so on. Also important are elements of professionalism, for example. The approach is outcomes based
education, and the assessment system demands that each
student coming through an approved programme can be
shown to have achieved defined Exit Outcomes. Space
precludes an in-depth discussion of the outcomes. At
present, the Washington Accord does not address postgraduate studies.
Is there an appetite in our profession for students
to enter postgraduate studies with a firmer base in the
key topics of GRS? What are these? Should we consider
a GRS equivalent to the Washington Accord? Should we
accept the status quo, and focus more on postgraduate
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ieee Geoscience and remote sensing magazine

programmes? If so, what should be the content of these
programmes, and what are the entry requirements? There
are many such programmes around the world that are
excellent templates.
This could be a first step towards an internationally recognized professional GRS Practitioner type qualification.
People qualified under these regulations can be taken on
confidently by employers, and also make legally qualified
opinions on GRS matters in the courts.
I hope to set up a group of interested members of our
Society in the coming months to investigate these topics,
with the support of Adcom. Again, please contact me if you
would like to contribute to these discussions.
III. CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
We are all painfully aware of the rate of technology
development in our field: it is often terrifying but also
invigorating. To be able to exploit the latest tools (hardware and software), we need to update ourselves continuously. This is the aim of CPD. At present, the GRSS
offers a series of Tutorials on the Sunday before the
IGARSS of a year.
A. TuToriAls before iGArss
The tutorials are either half day or full day. The attendees
receive notes, and the format is usually a slide presentation,
with opportunities to interact with the lecturer(s). These
tutorials find favour with our members. In the annual survey of the IGARSS, we find 80% or more of attendees are
happy with the Tutorials.
We have never formally benchmarked the Tutorials
as CPD. By this, I mean, we have never articulated the
expected outcomes of the tutorials. Neither have we mentioned any entrance requirements for the attendees. For
example, if a tutorial is to bring practitioners up to steam
on a new technique in, say, ocean current monitoring, do we
expect the audience to be familiar with the present technology? Would we like the instructor to articulate the outcomes
of the tutorial i.e. what skills the attendees will acquire?
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine - June 2014