11 Professional Land Surveyors of Oregon | www.plso.org Featured Article relationship to the experience. If a person wants to take both exams before having any experience or formal education, they can. Conversely, if a person wants to take both exams after all the experience and any education is complete, they can. Or they are welcome to take the exams in any other timing relationship with their experience or education. Applicants only submit their application for professional registration to OSBEELS after completion of education (if applicable to the person), experience, and passing scores on all exams. The two Oregon-specific exams (one for surveying and one for forest engineering) are the only two exceptions. In the case of those two, registration to take the exam is the first application to OSBEELS. However, those exams, like the NCEES administered exams, can be taken at any time during the process. There are no qualification requirements for either exam beyond signing up for the exams through the MyOSBEELS portal (https:// www.oregon.gov/osbeels/aboutus/Pages/ MyOSBEELS.aspx). New PLS Requirements OSBEELS staff noted in the summer of 2021 that there were broken portions of the then-current standards for education and experience to obtain PLS licensure. The Board agreed and the taskforce that I chaired was born. Everyone involved in the process was cognizant of the need to remove barriers to licensure by qualified applicants while maintaining sufficient standards to ensure those applicants were qualified. Following is a brief summary of the pathways now available for PLS licensure: 1. ABET-accredited bachelor’s degree in surveying/geomatics plus three years of experience. 2. ABET-accredited Bachelor’s degree in engineering. a. 16 quarter hours (or 11 semester hours) of survey/geomatics electives plus four years of experience. b. No credits in survey/geomatics electives plus six years of experience. 3. Associate’s degree in engineering or surveying plus six years of experience. 4. NCEES Credentials Evaluation. The Credentials Evaluation is a service provided by NCEES to compare a college transcript against the Surveying Education Standard. It doesn’t matter whether a degree was earned or a smattering of classes taken. It doesn’t matter what the degree track was. The evaluation identifies any classes on the transcript which align with the standard; if enough classes are present to meet all requirements of the standard, the evaluation is deemed equivalent. Credentials evaluations are primarily a tool for graduates from a non ABETaccredited program, students who did not complete a degree, international degrees, or degrees from other fields (such as Resource Management or GIS). a. Equivalent plus three years of experience. b. Not equivalent—reduction of the nine years of experience in number five below, reduction based on a ratio of one semester credit hour of qualifying education to one month of experience. 5. Nine years of experience. Additional details regarding these pathways and the opportunity to utilize military experience are in the newly adopted OAR 820-010-2020. The result of decoupling is that, with a few minor exceptions, OSBEELS has no involvement in the exam process.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTY1NDIzOQ==