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.

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.

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 discusses strategies, considerations, media and software for presenting a GIS project. Data types, file formats and methods for capturing graphics from GIS software are described and a generalized process for creating presentations is outlined.

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 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 introduces the mechanics of scanning and the concept of resolution. It discusses scanning hardware, how to select the appropriate resolution for a scanning project and image file formats.

This unit describes basic concepts related to the scanning of air photos, including vocabulary, potential applications, spatial scale and file size considerations and image processing software. Image types (e.g., 1-bit black and white, 8-bit grayscale, 8-bit color) are described and a table of typical aerial photo scales as they translate to pixel resolutions and file sizes is included.