1.4 Compiling the Survey Folio

1.4 Compiling the Survey Folio

Sources: SURCON Application for Professional Examination, Parts D, E.1, F and H; Survey Regulations Parts II-IV (field survey methods, demarcation, and survey plans, records and information).

The Folio is the only component of the examination that cannot be produced in the examination hall. It is assembled over two years of pupilage, and the candidates who struggle are almost always those who began assembling it in the last three months.

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1. What the official form requires

The application form is short and precise. Part F, the candidate's personal declaration, requires the applicant to attach:

• (a) evidence of age;
• (b) evidence of enrolment with the Council;
• (c) evidence of academic and professional qualifications; and
• (d) written attestation by project supervisor(s).

Part H is a Certificate of Supervising Surveyor / Employer, in which the supervisor certifies that the applicant is well known to him or her, is of good character, and worked under his or her supervision for a stated period, and signs with a telephone number, e-mail address, registration number and year, and signature / SURCON seal.

Part D asks the candidate to tick the area or areas of professional specialisation - Land Surveying, Photogrammetry / Remote Sensing, Hydrographic Surveying, or Others. That tick should be consistent with what the Folio actually demonstrates. A candidate who declares hydrographic specialisation and submits no hydrographic work invites exactly the question at the oral he or she least wants.

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2. Selecting projects

There is no published national list of compulsory Folio project types, so build to the standard the Council can actually test: work that exercises the full range of competences a Registered Surveyor must sign for. In practice this means covering, at minimum:

Choose projects you personally executed and can still walk to. The oral interview is not confined to your write-up; you may be asked how the ground looked, where the marks were witnessed, and why a particular line was run where it was.

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3. The documentary chain

The Folio is assessed as a chain of evidence. Every link must be present and every link must agree with the next.

  FIELD BOOK  ->  COMPUTATION  ->  PLAN  ->  DEPOSIT
      |               |             |          |
  entered in ink   forms approved  content per  copy to the
  as measurements   by the S-G     reg. 31     Surveyor-General
  are made;         or equivalent  (title, grid,  within one month
  no erasures,      ruled paper    origin, beacons, of completion
  no pages torn                    scale, area)    (Survey Law s.4)

Regulation 5(D) of the Survey Regulations governs field books in terms you should be able to quote: all necessary measurements shall be entered in ink as they are made; no erasures shall be made or pages torn out; and the contents shall include the surveyor's name, title of survey, location, identity of instruments used, error of the field tape and the date of its last standardisation, index and dates of observations, explanatory diagrams where necessary, and measurements to permanent features on or alongside the boundaries.

That last item - tape standardisation - is a favourite oral question, because it is the one field-book entry candidates forget and it goes directly to whether the linear measurements can be trusted.

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4. Presentation

SURCON does not publish a binding specification, so apply the professional standard the Regulations imply for the plans themselves and keep the rest disciplined and consistent:

• A contents page and tabbed sections, one per project, in a fixed order: project description, field records, computations, plan.
• Original field records, not transcriptions. A neatly re-copied field book destroys the evidential value of the entry-in-ink rule.
• Plans drawn to the requirements of regulation 31 - title, description of land, locality, the person for whom the survey was made, the surveyor's signature and designation, the date, the grid defining true or Colony north, a description of the origin of coordinates, the position and nature of all beacons including Government beacons connected to, adjacent lot names or numbers, the scale, and the area to the prescribed accuracy.
• Each plan bearing the correct bearing annotations of regulation 31(e): LB for the initial bearing adopted, CAL for values deduced from computation rather than direct measurement, P.O. (per original) for values adopted from a previous survey, and AZ for astronomical determinations.
• A statement, for each project, of the datum and belt used, and of the connection made.

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5. Why folios are referenced

1. The chain breaks. A bearing on the plan that does not appear in the computation, or a distance in the computation that is not in the field book. Assessors look for this first because it is the fastest test of authenticity.
2. No connection, or an unexplained connection. Regulation 4 requires connection to a Government triangulation or control traverse beacon within three miles, or the establishment of a properly sited local origin. A Folio that shows neither has not met the standard of survey.
3. Demarcation not evidenced. Regulation 17 requires that where a beacon is placed by computed data or in line with two beacons, proof must be shown by actual measurements recorded in the field book and any necessary computations. Assert the placement without the proof and the assessor has a ready question.
4. Transcribed records. Typed field books, erased entries, missing pages.
5. Specialisation mismatch. The declaration in Part D not supported by the work.
6. Supervisor's attestation incomplete. Part H unsigned, unsealed, or with the registration number omitted.