PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STATE BOARDS OF GEOLOGY (ASBOG®) - AN UPDATE

The National Association of State Boards of Geology (ASBOG^®) was incorporated in 1991to facilitate the state licensing of professional geologists by:

• developing and administering national licensing examinations,
• seeking to bring compatibility for procedures used by states in their licensing process, and
• providing information via the state boards to the approximately 40,000 licensees in the 30 states and Puerto Rico, the ASBOG^® member jurisdictions.

Stimulated by concerns and needs of licensed practitioners, ASBOG^® promotes professional ethics via activities including:

• code of ethics for the members of ASBOG^® ,
• guidelines for the enforcement of the ASBOG^® code of ethics,
• model code of ethics for consideration by member state boards,
• professional geological ethics workshops,
• collection and dissemination of individual state boards information regarding professional ethics,
• professional ethics questions on national written licensing examinations,
• periodic statistical evaluation of the licensed profession to determine importance placed on professional ethics by practicing geologists (2005 first survey, 2010 second, 2015 in progress)
• 2010 - statistical analysis of more than 3000 responses from licensed practicing geologists in United States and Canada as to frequency and seriousness of 13 professional ethical issues such as conflict of interest, failure to disclose regulatory violations, plagiarism, practicing outside area of competence, etc.
• Rankings of ethical issues by seriousness and frequency of occurrence varies among respondents from US, Canada, and those practicing in academia.
• Statistical correlation between seriousness and frequency of occurrence of ethical issues various among respondents from US (0.03), Canada (-0.26) , and those practicing in academia (0.38)

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