588
July 2014
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
advanced technologies, the best techniques, and the most ef-
fective overall project design. QBS improves the procurement
process and, in so doing, improves service to private entities,
public agencies and end users/taxpayers and ultimately pro-
vides the best value and most fair and reasonable cost to the
client.
QBS, as outlined by the Brooks Act, is widely used for ar-
chitecture, engineering and surveying services procurement.
Professional organizations and federal, and state lawmakers
have long recognized that these kinds of services critically af-
fect life, health, safety, property and/or the public welfare. The
QBS procurement approach best protects the taxpayers’ and
clients’ interest and at the same time best safeguards public
health and safety. The professional level photogrammetric
mapping services outlined in these
Guidelines
share many
characteristics with, are of similar nature to, and are of similar
importance to life, health, safety, property and/or the public
welfare as the engineering, architecture, surveying, planning,
natural resources, emergency/disaster recovery services and
other services that they support.
For these reasons, ASPRS endorses QBS procurement meth-
ods and recommends the Brooks Act or similar QBS procure-
ment process be used for procurement of professional geomat-
ics, photogrammetry and related geospatial mapping services.
Federal and State Regulations Affecting Procurement
and Licensure
ASPRS recognizes that the practice and procurement of many
aspects of professional photogrammetric services are regulat-
ed by federal, state and local laws. These
Guidelines
are not in-
tended to be an interpretation of local, state or federal law, nor
are they intended to imply that all professional level services
defined herein require a licensed professional. These
Guide-
lines
outline those services which, in the opinion of ASPRS, are
professional in nature and therefore warrant consideration for
procurement methods that use qualifications, and not cost, as
the initial and primary selection criteria.
Many states regulate and, by statute, require a license for
some aspects of professional photogrammetric services. Ser-
vices outlined in this document may or may not be covered by
licensure statute for a given state.
State licensing laws must be considered in the procurement
of professional geospatial mapping services. For instance,
many states require a license to practice specific aspects of
photogrammetric mapping and other geospatial mapping ser-
vices. Definitions and regulations vary widely from state to
state. State statutes may refer specifically to photogrammetric
mapping or may regulate mapping under broader definitions
of surveying or engineering. Contracting personnel who are
more accustomed to the procurement of other types of goods
and services, even including more conventional engineering
or surveying work, are not always knowledgeable about state
laws that apply to geospatial mapping services. Contracting
and procurement personnel should contact the state licensing
board for surveying and engineering in the state(s) in which
the work is to be performed to confirm what aspects of existing
survey and engineering statutes apply to their projects. Pro-
curement practices need to comply with state licensing laws.
State legislatures periodically review and modify their li-
censing laws, and state licensing boards periodically modify
regulations in order to address developing technologies and
evolving professional practices. To support this process, the
NCEES has developed a Model Law and associated Model
Rules that serve as a guide when modification of applicable
statutes is deemed appropriate. The NCEES Model Law and
Model Rules consider the application and intent of the work,
and not the tools used, as the determining factor in distin-
guishing between mapping services that should be licensed
and other mapping services that do not require a license. The
NCEES model identifies “surveying” services as any work, re-
gardless of the tool used, that determines or establishes an
authoritative location or measurement of features on or rel-
ative to the Earth, as represented by the resulting “survey,”
map or comparable GIS data layer deliverable. This includes
many remote sensing and photogrammetric services, such as
controlled aerial photography, stereo feature extraction, ortho-
photography, lidar surveys and similar tasks.
NCEES documents are considered by ASPRS to be the best
definitive guideline for determining which geospatial services
should require a professional license. In the absence of specific
statutory licensing language or precedent for enforcement in
a given jurisdiction, procurement personnel are encouraged to
use the NCEES Model Law and Model Rules as guidelines to
evaluate which services may potentially be regulated under
state law. However, the NCEES Model Law and Model Rules
are only guidelines for the purpose of assisting state gov-
ernments in the implementation and interpretation of state
licensing laws. The Model Law and Model Rules do not rep-
resent enacted legislation and do not have any specific legal
authority, unless so enacted in a given state.
The NCEES Model Law was developed to address licensing,
not procurement. The term “professional services” is broad-
er than, and not synonymous with, “licensed” or “regulated”
services. The procurement recommendations outlined in these
Guidelines
are not limited to those “licensed” services iden-
tified by state licensing laws or NCEES Model Law recom-
mendations. These
Guidelines
recognize that there are many
geospatial mapping applications that require professional
knowledge and skill that are not directly tied to engineering,
architecture or surveying, and that may not be regulated by
licensing laws. Qualifications based selection is recommended
for all professional geospatial mapping services and not just
those services that require a professional license. It should
also be specifically recognized that licensed individuals are not
necessarily more qualified to perform a specific professional
service than unlicensed individuals; qualifications evaluation
criteria should be applied fairly and appropriately to all quali-
fied service providers.
Federal procurement laws are implemented in the Federal
