GIS FUNDAMENTALS, APPLICATIONS AND PRACTICE
UCB Extension Course Outline
Summer 2000


PURPOSE OF THE COURSE

In this class, you will be introduced to the history and development of Geographic Information Systems and the concepts behind the planning, design and deployment of GIS applications. Through labs you will also learn key technical skills that will serve as the foundation for more advanced GIS training.

GIS is used by private and public organizations worldwide to perform a broad range of mission-critical tasks including: mapping of a company's sales and product information linked to a customer's address; managing vital ecological systems such as forests and wetlands; serving maps, data and geographic analysis tools over the Internet; analyzing demographic trends at the local, regional, national and global levels; real-time tracking and coordination of transportation functions such as package deliveries and fleet management; and maintaining infrastructure networks in the telecommunications and utilities industries.

This course will be accepted as one option for satisfying the required prerequisites of the UC Berkeley Extension GIS Certificate Program, which will be officially launched in Fall 2000.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

Professionals with university degrees who need new skills and knowledge in GIS, which will allow them to integrate fully these new technologies into their work.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  • The course will provide an overview of the five topics:
  • Fundamental GIS concepts
  • Basic GIS technology and software capabilities
  • Applications of GIS in business, planning and resource management
  • Finding and working with spatial data
  • Introduction to spatial analysis


Upon completion of the laboratory sections, students will have the ability to display, edit, perform queries, perform analysis, and construct and plot a map. Students will be familiar with the ArcView interface and elements such as views, tables, charts, and layouts that are used to display, and analyze different kinds of data and information.

INSTRUCTIONAL METHODS

This 30-hour course will provide a thorough introduction to GIS consisting of a 10 bi-weekly lecture and laboratory sections. Hands-on laboratory exercises will introduce to ArcView (ESRI, Redlands, CA), a powerful desktop GIS software package, while GIS software from other vendors will be discussed.

READING REQUIREMENTS

Reader (TBA) & Introduction to ArcView GIS

GRADE REQUIREMENTS

  • 25% in-class midterm exam
  • 25% in-class final project
  • 50% laboratory exercises

CONTENT OUTLINE

Week 1: The fundamental GIS concepts

  • What is a GIS and how does it differ from other information systems such as relational databases?
  • What types of information needs can a GIS meet?
  • What types of resources are needed to develop GIS: people resources, data resources, computing resources.
  • Introduction to GIS usage in the real world: brief examples from real estate, natural hazard mitigation, habitat management, urban planning and utilities management.
  • A brief introduction to ArcView and its architecture, with emphasis on the View and Project interfaces

Week 2: Basic GIS technology

  • Overview of the fundamental principles of GIS: spatial relationships, scale, latitude and longitude, the Earth's shape, coordinate systems, projections, vector, TIN and raster data, topology.
  • An introduction to database concepts and terminology: network, hierarchical, relational and object-oriented databases.
  • Building upon the fundamental GIS concepts, a more in-depth functional overview of GIS software packages will provide an introduction to ArcView, ARC/INFO and others.
  • Different GIS software packages will be reviewed as well as hardware networking and scripting and programming options.
  • An introduction to the Table, Layout and Script interfaces, with more detail on the View and Project interfaces.

Week 3: Finding and working with spatial data

  • Issues of data sources, data and file formats, geographic projection and coordinate system, data quality, and metadata will be discussed.
  • Discussion of where to find GIS data on the web.
  • Introduction to TIGER, DEM-SDTS, DLG-SDTS, DOQ and Census data.

Week 4: Introduction to spatial analysis

  • Brief discussion of types of vertical and horizontal spatial analysis:
  • Discussion of some of the AV Extensions

Week 5: Adding functionality and hints on undertaking a GIS project

    Part I: Adding functionality with scripts

  • Extensions and Map Objects
  • Brief introduction to GIS on the Web and ArcIMS
  • Future directions in scripting, applications, ASP design for GIS.

    Part II: How to implement a GIS project

  • How to plan, schedule, order, organize and delegate tasks
  • Dealing with expenses, budgeting, personnel, data and equipment.

ENROLLMENT

Course Number for GIS Fundamentals, Applications, and Practice is 821
To enroll: https://www.unex.berkeley.edu/enroll/

For more inormation about this program, please contact Michelle Cobb at UC Extension. Email her at mcobb@pacbell.net

DETAILS

Course name & number:
GIS Fundamentals, Applications and Practice 821

Dates:
Summer 2000, July 13 - August 15, 6-9 PM

Location:
Extension Downtown Center, 425 Market St

Instructor:
Austin Troy

Cost:
$650 (not including text book & reader)