GIS awareness for surveyors - A spatial data distribution persective

The rapid technological growth of GIS, internet and mobile devices has steered a variety of innovated and pioneering applications in the past few years. All of these applications require spatial data that meet specified criteria to ensure the quality of the service content. The traditional role for surveyors was to use surveying technology and instruments to determine the location of phenomena of interests and offer map products to serve as the basis for decision making. As the application demands becomes more variety and instantaneous, the role and responsibility for modern surveyors must be examined. Professional surveyors nowadays must have both the knowledge and skills to produce geospatial data that precisely meet the various application needs and correctly convey their understanding about data to domain users to avoid wrong decision making. This paper discussed how we include such considerations into our curriculum design at the Dept of Geomatics, NCKU. During their studies, students are expected to establish a correct understanding about the role and responsibility of surveyors and develop themselves to be "solution providers" for providing reliable geospatial data.