GIS Data & Tools  

Use the Acquiring GIS Software page to participate in the University's ESRI ArcGIS license (for any campus).

Use the Virtual Campus Courses to participate in the free online tutorials for special topics using the ArcGIS software (for any campus).

Use the Online Resources page to see which kind of mapping support you might need and links to tutorials.

Use the GIS Newsfeeds to find literature from scholarly journals on GIS topics.

Use the GIS Metadata links to find the right metadata scheme for your project.

GIS 

Geographic Information Science or Geographic Information Systems "are integrated spatial data handling program[mme]s which will collect, store, and retrieve spatial data from the real world."

Oxford Dictionary of Geography, 3rd ed. 2004. Mayhew, Susan. Oxford University Press: New York. p. 220.

This means that some kind of data is associated with a particular place can be analyzed for spatial patterns and statistical significance.

GIS can take the form of online maps, where you choose the layers of information you want to display for a particular place.

GIS can be the kind of tabular data that you can use with your own electronic maps to manipulate the data and display it in a visual way.

GIS can be the the kind of analysis you perform on spatial data for specific statistical operations.

What kind of assistance do you provide?

1. Finding data and base maps. We can help you to locate data sets that can be used for your GIS project, or find base maps that fit your needs.
2. Introduction to GIS. We can introduce you to a few resources that may help you display data visually on a map.
3. Data manipulation. We can help you figure out what kind of data manipulation you need to put your data into GIS software for analysis.