National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

An outline of the GIS Core Curriculum for Technical Programs, organized by topic, is presented with hyperlinks to each unit's material on eScholarship. Note that hyperlinks are only active if the PDF file is downloaded.

This introduction provides a historical overview of the GIS Core Curriculum for Technical Programs. It describes the working group and initial work session where a framework for the curriculum was developed, and it includes a task list outlining the topics originally intended for the curriculum.

In this unit students will learn how to assess the needs requirements and evaluate options in order to implement and maintain a GIS laboratory and how to plan and manage GIS project work. A generalized list of questions to ask when beginning any project and list of tasks are presented to illustrate a common approach to project management.

This unit describes the map scanning process with attention to map preparation, scale and accuracy, image types, file considerations, spatial resolution as it relates to map scale, hardware, and post-processing considerations. Image enhancement techniques such as contrast and brightness adjustment and gamma correction are noted.

This unit focuses on methods for acquiring GIS data over the Internet, including understanding Internet data transfer methods and developing skills in manipulating a variety of data formats. Procedures for connecting to remote computers, locating desired data sets, retrieving data in various formats and preparing data sets for transfer to other users are described.

This unit introduces some potential applications of transportation data and the appropriate data types and typical sources for each class of application. A practical exercise teaches students about acquisition and processing of data, and issues of data quality, costs and benefits are discussed.

This unit describes the process of address matching, which allows the GIS user to convert postal addresses and/or zip codes to geographic coordinates. Example applications from the medical field, government, marketing and distribution are given, along with practical examples with step-by-step instructions.

This unit is designed to assist the technical GIS educator in identifying the computer skills required for GIS tasks. Basic computer literacy skills are presented as a foundation for technical GIS computing skills. The latter are organized into several categories (e.g. 'Systems', 'Programming', 'Databases'), with lists of skills at different levels of achievement (Awareness, Competency, Mastery). 

This unit introduces digitizing—the transformation of information from an analog format to a digital format—as it relates to GIS. It describes essential points to consider when planning a digitizing project including scale, coordinate system, accuracy and software constraints.