National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

This short narrative introduces the Core Curriculum in GIS and provides a historical overview of the Core Curriculum Project, including the later Core Curriculum in GIScience and Core Curriculum for Technical Programs. Appended to this description is an original pamphlet advertising the Core Curriculum in GIS.

This unit discusses common issues that arise when an organization acquires and implements a GIS. It describes potential problems within organizations such as overemphasis on technology, rigid work patterns, inflexibility, inappropriate decision-making procedures, staffing and assignment of responsibilities. The conclusion presents strategies to facilitate success.

This unit provides background on the debate about “object-oriented databases” currently raging in the GIS community. It describes the layer view, in which each geographic variable can be conceptualized as a layer that captures the variable’s variation over the surface of the earth, and the object view, in which the world is conceptualized as empty space littered with various types of objects. Data models for representing each view are discussed in addition to the Computer Science concepts of object orientation, identity, inheritance and encapsulation.

This unit discusses several aspects of managing error in spatial databases. It begins with a hypothetical example of a routing problem that is used to demonstrate the process of error analysis and sensitivity analysis in a modeling exercise. Sources of artifacts in raster and vector data, and strategies to avoid them, are presented, and methods for storing accuracy information in a database are discussed.

This final unit of the series considers the future of GIS by offering three discussions: an analogy to the history of remote sensing; convergence vs. divergence in GIS software and markets; and prospects for the future. The unit argues that formal theory is needed in order to realize the full potential of GIS as an integrating technology, and that GIS and its allied fields, e.g. remote sensing, add up to the makings of a science of spatial information as a minor discipline or sub-discipline.

This unit considers Automated Mapping and Facilities Management (AM/FM) as an influential, well organized GIS application area. It explains how two traditional concepts—automated mapping systems and facilities management systems—are combined to provide a geographically referenced inventory of an organization’s facilities. Typical characteristics, functionality and benefits of AM/FM are illustrated with an example from the Eastern Municipal Water District of Riverside County, California.

This unit examines the common methods of data input. It describes the hardware and methods used for digitizing and scanning spatial information from maps and photographs, and it discusses conversion of data between digital formats and associated issues of projection, scale and resolution.

This unit begins a three part module introducing concepts and techniques of spatial decision-making. Although it is far from a complete coverage of the topic, it will provide students with a sampling of the kinds of decision-making activities GIS will be required to support. This unit introduces students to the concept of multiple criteria decision making, outlines some of the simpler strategies developed to solve multiple criteria problems and demonstrates the potential applicability of GIS.

This unit addresses topics surrounding spatial cognition including spatial learning, the form of internal spatial representation and the resulting effects on spatial reasoning and natural language. The topics are presented with emphasis on their relevance to GIS.

This unit discusses fractals as a framework for understanding the way cartographic objects change with generalization or changes in scale. It presents a brief history and introduces introductory concepts related to fractals, including scale-dependence, self-similarity and scaling.