22 = 
To assess the feeling of those in the profession of civil engineering to this 
proposal, reactions from civil engineers in education, public service, and private 
practice were solicited. The first step in this process was to request from se- 
lected national reporters (16 reporters in Europe, North & South America, and 
Asia were contacted),-a list of civil engineers in their respective countries 
who might be of assistance in this venture. When these lists were forthcoming, 
a letter was then transmitted to each of the recommended individuals requesting 
+ 
heir reactions to the proposal that ISPRS establish standards of competence in 
hotogrammetry and remote sensing for civil engineers and asking for their comments 
the subject and for suggestions as to a practical approach towards achiev- 
ing the objective. A copy of this letter is attached as Appendix A. 
Oo fj 
"5 
Letters were sent to a total of 45 individuals located in various countries (Aus- 
tralia, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and USA). The number of 
countries involved was limited due to lack of response from national reporters. 
A total of 19 responses from 5 different countries was recieved, prior to this 
writing. 
It is necessary to emphasize that this report is directed only toward exploring 
the feasibility of establishing standards of competence in photogrammetry and 
remote sensing for civil engineers and to stress the author's belief that this 
feasibility must be based on reactions from those in the profession of civil 
engineering. In other words, it would be useless and somewhat presumptuous of 
the ISPRS to recommend any kind of standards without the full concurrence of 
the relevant professional societies in a majority of the countries respresented 
in the ISPRS. 
Since the sample of 19 respondents does not represent any kind of a majority 
of the countries in ISPRS, the conclusions reached in this paper can hardly be 
said to be binding. However, the comments generated are very interesting and 
do represent answers from a fairly good cross-section of the civil engineering 
profession. Thus, the discussion which follows provides a legitimate starting 
point for judging the feasibility of a continuing effort in establishing standards 
of comvetence in photogrammetry and remote sensing for civil engineers who use 
the products or techniques from these fields. 
Results of the Study and Typical Comments 
Of the 19 respondents to the letter, 3 are in public service at some government 
agency, 5 are in private practice and 11 are in education at technical institutes 
or universities. The countries represented are: Australie (2), Austria (1), Belgium 
(1), Netherlands (1), United Kingdom (6), and USA (8) where the number following : 
are the number of answers from that country. Thus, the survey of opinion is heavily 
biased in favour of educators from English speaking countries. This bias was 
unintentional and definitely does not indicate the author's original intent or 
desires. It probably does reflect his circle of immediate acquaintances or thos 
most likely to respons quickly to the request for information. 
4 respondents are in favour of establishing standards of competence. All of these 
4 are educators. 7 feel that standards of competence are not desirable. Of these, 
three are in private practice and 4 are in education. The remaining 8 (2 in pri- 
vate practice, 2 in public service, and 4 in education) believe the idea is good 
in principal, but wish to qualify their opinion or see no practical way of imple- 
menting the concept for a field with such breadth as exists in civil engineering. 
Typical comments of respondents in favour, those straddling the fence, and those 
against standards of competence are as follows: 
In favour 
"If one defines standards of competence as the development of syllabi outlining 
the minimum level of photogrammetric education required of civil engineers, then 
I believe this would be extremely useful. There are however certain difficulties 
which arise." (educator, United Kingdom, U.K.) The difficulties are then explained 
as being the current non-uniform nature of education in photogrammetry for civil 
engineering students in the U.K. and the level of understanding which would be 
difficult to define. 
Anderson D