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 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 outlines the procedures involved in digitizing, the potential errors that may occur and the ways of correcting them, as well as a working knowledge of digitizing terminology. It describes pre-digitizing tasks such as map preparation and registration, digitizing in each of the two modes and error detection and elimination.

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 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 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.

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 describes types, example uses and implementation of different overlay operations. Using commands in ESRI’s Arc/Info, it summarizes necessary pre-overlay and overlay tasks in an example application in which locations for Gypsy Moth traps must be determined.

This unit describes Coordinate Geometry (COGO), a method of inputting surveying or engineering data into GIS, CAD or mapping software. It includes materials for a lab exercise using Arc/Info COGO in which students coordinate a subdivision plan, making use of traversing, sideshots and curve layout operations. Also included are lecture notes outlining uses of COGO and basic operations, data conversion and attributes in Esri’s Arc software.