[Sigia-l] legislation, architects, and defining professions

[Karl Fast]

I have a correction, I think, regarding my last and lengthy post.
It's not encouraging.

In talking about the definition of "architecture" I pointed out that
the relevant definition in this case will be defined in some
legislation.

As an example, I quoted the Architects Act of Saskatchewan, which
reads:

  "practice of architecture" or "architecture" means:

  (i) preparing or providing, for hire, gain or hope of reward,
      a design to govern the construction of a building that
      has as its principal purpose human habitation or
      occupancy; or
 
  (ii) examining a building that has as its principal purpose
       human habitation or occupancy to determine whether the
       construction is in general conformity with the design
       governing the construction of the building, and
       reporting on the construction of the building;

   The full act can be found here:       
   http://www.canlii.org/sk/sta/cssk/20030227/s.s.1996c.a-25.1/whole.html


I said this definition was "good news" and that, in Saskatchewan at
least, there would be no problem so long as we don't do anything
related to buildings.

I MIGHT BE REALLY WRONG about that (again, not a lawyer so don't take
this as gospel).

The reason I could be "really wrong" is that we are calling
ourselves "architects" (a specific type, yes, but still using that
word) and we are *not* doing the work desribed by the act.

You see the issue here?

  - We call ourselves information architects and we practice
    information architecture
 
  - the act defines what architecture is and the practice of
    architecture

  - this definition does *not* include the type of work we do
   
  - so we think we're in the clear
  
  - but we may not be because we are using the word architecture to
    perform activities that are not considered architecture in the
    eyes of the law

  - so the architecture profession can say that we are causing
    confusion in the public and violating the law because we are
    calling ourselves architects when clearly we are neither
    licensed as architects nor are we practicing architects

Is "information architect" sufficient to distinguish us from
"architects?"

To me it seems obvious, but it also seems obvious to me that a
software engineer is not an engineer in the same sense that
mechanical engineer is. And that case has been going on for a while.
Recently the big issue has been MCSE certification.
    
The bottom line? Uh oh.
     

--karl