Geospatial Data & GIS

Please check the schedules of these workshops at dsc.gmu.edu/workshops.

Introduction to GIS and ArcGIS Software.

This session will focus on the fundamental concepts of GIS and the skills needed to begin using ArcGIS software to create a thematic map.  Topics will include: What is GIS? Common spatial data formats; projections and coordinate system;  ArcGIS user interface and basic analysis functions including joining tables to create a thematic map.

See Slide, handout, and data for the exercise.

See Slide for Love Data Week and data for the exercise.

ArcGIS Online Basics

This session will cover the basics of creating a web map and mapping application. Topics will include how to add data from various sources, basic analysis functions, publish and share your web maps and applications.

ArcGIS Online Part II: Creating Story Maps

Using ArcGIS Online, the session will cover how to combine text, images, and videos into a story map that you use geography as a means of organizing this information online. Check out the example of the University Libraries project: March: Book One by John Lewis and other examples in the Story Map Gallery. See also Getting Started with Story Maps.

See Handout.

Introduction to QGIS:

This session will cover the basic platform of QGIS (plug-in functions and connect to cloud source data), spatial analysis functions of QGIS using vector and raster data. 

See Handout

Python Basics:

This session will cover basic information about getting started with Python Programming. Topics will include basic syntax, operators and data type (string, numbers, lists), variables, loop (if, for, while, break, continue, else clauses), etc. 

• See the workshop slide.
• Anaconda Installation on Mac, Windows, and General guide (including Linux operation system).
• Tutorial on handling multi-screens on one monitor,

Intermediate GIS using Spatial Analysis Tools.

This session builds upon the skills obtained in the Introduction to GIS and ArcGIS.  Topics will include: Geocoding of addresses data, common spatial analysis tools such as clip, buffer, intersect, dissolve, and spatial join, etc.

See Slide, Handout and data for exercise

Twitter Data Visualization with Carto:

This session will cover how to collect geo-tagged twitter data using Carto (online web mapping tool) and visualize the data with basic analysis tools offered by Carto Builder. Users need to activate your Google account by contacting Carto (support@carto.com) before the workshop. 

Webscraping with Python Beautiful Soup.

This session covers topics: What is Web scraping? Why do we need it? How to parse a web page to extract data, how to save parsed data in CSV format; terms of services and legal issues involved in website scraping, and more.

See slide.

Data Mining Using Python and Twitter APIs:

See tutorial.

Python for ArcPy:

The advanced workshops will be offered based on request. Please contact the Digital Scholarship Center or Jack Tieszen if you want to have these workshops.