Welcome to Introduction to Geographic Information Science!

On this page, you’ll find links to most of the course materials.

Course Logisitcs

Instructor: Dr. Michael France Nelson -

Course Lecture Meetings

The synchronous lectures are Tuesday and Thursday 9:45 - 11:00 via Zoom. You will find the Zoom link in Moodle.

You may attend the lectures in real time via the course Zoom channel, or watch the recorded lectures on Echo360. I’ll record the synchronous lectures and post them to Echo360 shortly thereafter.

Note that you’ll need to log into Zoom using your UMass credentials to join the Zoom channel.

Lab Sessions

We’ll set a time for lab meetings in the first week of class. Enrolled students should fill out the When2Meet poll posted in Moodle ASAP.

Syllabus

Check out the course syllabus:

Labs

Lab 0: Software Setup (Informational Only - Not Graded)

This is a previous verison of the software setup lab. It is not graded, but I’ve provided it here for your reference because it contains more information about software setup.

Lab 1: Software Setup

In this lab, you’ll set up the software you need for the course.

Lab 2: Intro to Arc and Spatial Data

In this lab, you’ll get acquainted with importing, displaying, and manipulating spatial data in Arc.

Lab 5: Coordinate Systems and Projections

Lab 6: Scavenger Hunt

The following resources may be helpful for Lab 6:

Lab 7: Working With Raster Data

You may need to manually create the attribute table for landcover.

  • To create the attribute table for landcover, do the following:
    1. Open the symbology tab in the landcover.tif properties.
    2. Click on Unique Values.
    3. Hit yes on the popup to create an attribute table.

Lab 8: Geostatistics

Some students have reported issues with the raster data sets when using Windows Virtual Desktop.

If you are unable to add the Nevada topography and/or the Idaho precipitation data sets, try downloading this zip file. It contains versions of the two rasters in two different file formats. I have tried adding the data in WVD using both file formats and it has worked for me.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

  • Be absolutely sure you use the ‘Add Data’ button and not the drag ’n drop method. For some mysterious reason, Arc does not like drag ’n drop in WVD.

  • If the import still fails, try again without restarting Arc.

  • If it fails again, try these alternative format files:

  • Lab 8 Raster Data: Alternatre Formats

Midterm

The midterm exam will be available on Moodle to enrolled students.

The following study materials will give you a chance to practice the concepts you’ll need to know to successfully complete the midterm.

Final Projects

The final project consists of three parts:

Final Project Supporting Documents

Use these resources to help choose a project.

Final Projects: Examples from previous semesters:

Final Projects Help and Tutorials