National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

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.

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 unit discusses registration and conflation, two related procedures in which two or more geographic datasets are combined, compared or merged. It presents procedures for re-projecting or rubber-sheeting a spatially referenced dataset to another, and it discusses issues including data model conversions, scale aggregations and other GIS manipulation and analysis functions.

This unit gives an overview of the buffer operation, including its potential uses, basic vocabulary, parameters, and implementation. An example application from natural and archaeological resource management in a national park is presented, along with illustrations of different types of buffers and list of useful related operations in ARC/INFO.

This unit discusses the difference between computer-aided drafting (CAD) and GIS, and how data generated in CAD software can be used in GIS software. It describes the process of registering CAD data, how CAD entities relate to GIS features, CAD file types and how CAD data is organized thematically. Several example applications are outlined that illustrate these concepts.

This unit is concerned with the task of locating demographic data, including data describing the socioeconomic characteristics of the population. Information about the age, ethnicity, gender, income, housing condition and other socioeconomic variables is considered. The scope of this unit is to provide guidelines and suggestions to identify demographic datasets and evaluate whether the data set can be used within a GIS effectively.

This unit introduces digital GIS data libraries, including their uses, types, design considerations and validation. An application example from the area of water resources management is presented along with examples of generalized technical specifications for vector data.

This unit discusses the three major methods of communicating about and distributing GIS products: advertising, presenting demonstrations and providing training and support. It explains the basic advertising principals of AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action) and lists common questions to address when planning a marketing campaign, product demonstration, trade show exhibition or training and support.

This unit discusses land records, one of the largest and most complex of the existing geographic datasets. Tasks addressed include locating and acquiring land records and the appropriate metadata from a variety of sources, combining data of different formats, scales and projections into a single map, and prepare a summary report to accompany the map.

This unit presents a general overview of metadata, its potential uses and relevant vocabulary. Techniques for finding, using and interpreting complicated metadata are discussed and approaches for efficiently creating and cataloging simple metadata presented.