ArcGIS Learners Permit

The purpose of this short course is to provide participants with an affordable opportunity to acquire hands-on GIS experience in a casual teaching environment. At the conclusion of this workshop, participants will have enough knowledge to determine whether GIS is an appropriate tool to support their individual business and application needs. This workshop will cover basic GIS concepts and fundamentals, and will provide participants with hands-on exercises and examples.

Topics Covered

ArcMap Interface Basics

• Become familiarized with the ArcMap interface
• Become familiarized with some common techniques used in most GIS applications.
• Participants will learn how to add data to ArcMap
• Participants will learn modify the way data is represented
• Participants will learn how to produce a final map.

Attribute and Data Tables

• Participants will learn some simple techniques for organizing and manipulating attributes and tables to produce an efficient and effective data management environment.

Pictures, Points, & Places

This workshop provides basic instruction in the use of GPS receivers. In addition, participants learn how to "link" GPS coordinates with digital pictures and other images (this could include pictures taken with a digital camera, or with other digital images such as scanned deeds, historic documents, etc.). The workshop incorporates curriculum that was developed by the New Hampshire Geospatial Extension Program. This curriculum has been tailored to the needs of Virginia by the Virginia Geospatial Extension Program. that combines short presentations and lectures, with hands-on activities using GPS receivers and software.

Topics Covered

GPS and GIS

• What is a GPS
• How does GPS work
• Acquiring and downloading waypoints and other GPS data
• Linking photographs/images with GPS data.

Introduction to ArcPad

This workshop provides an overview of ESRI's ArcPad software which supports mobile GIS and field mapping applications. The software relies on PDA's, Tablet PC's, and other mobile devices. ArcPad provides field-based personnel with the ability to capture, analyze, and display geographic information, without the use of costly and outdated paper map books. This workshop will provide an introduction to ArcPad and data collection using ArcPad. At the conclusion of the workshop, participants will be able to upload images and data to a device running ArcPad, capture data in the field, download collected data from the mobile device back to their PC. In addition, participants will gain some exposure to the development of user-friendly to support field-based data collection interfaces in the ArcPad environment. This workshop uses a training manual developed through the Virginia Geospatial Extension Program that combines short presentations and lectures, with hands-on activities using ArcGIS and ArcPad software.

Topics Covered

ArcPad Basics

• Become comfortable and familiar with ArcPad and the ArcPad interface
• Gain experience with a PDA
• Become familiar with some common techniques used in GIS and GPS-based field mapping applications
• Prepare and transfer data from a PC to ArcPad
• Change the way that data is represented in ArcPad
• Collect data in Arcpad
• Learn basic analysis and querying tools
• Transfer data from ArcPad back to the PC, and use the collected data in ArcGIS
• Learn how to create a user-friendly interface to support data collection in ArcPad.

Location, Location, Information: Introduction to GIS

The purpose of this two day hands-on intensive GIS course is to provide accessible and cost effective geospatial training opportunities throughout Virginia. The short course is based on an introductory level Virginia-based GIS curriculum that integrates raster and vector data. This workshop provides each participant with GIS data from their locality (i.e. county). Participants can then apply these data to each exercise.

Topics Covered

ArcMap Interface Basics

• Become familiarized with the ArcMap interface
• Become familiarized with some common techniques used in most GIS applications
• Participants will learn how to add data to ArcMap
• Participants will learn how to modify the way data is represented
• Participants will learn how to produce a final map
• Participants will also learn basic analysis and querying tools common to most GIS applications

Attribute and Data Tables

• Participants will learn some simple techniques for organizing and manipulating attributes and tables to produce an efficient and effective data management environment.

Digitizing and Analyzing Data

• Participants are going to learn techniques for generating new spatial features for a layer
• How to include non-spatial data in the final Map Layout (for example, graphs and reports), making it more useful and informative.

Data and Data Sources

• Familiarize participants with some of the more common means to obtain GIS data, specifically publicly available data.
• In addition, this exercise will expose participants to projections and the inherent functionality provided to manipulate them within ArcGIS.

GPS and GIS

• Familiarize participants with a common GPS unit
• Ways to download and use the data collected on a GPS receiver

For additional information about any of these workshops, please contact Jen Otey (jenotey@vt.edu) or John McGee (jmcg@vt.edu). For additional information about the Virginia Geospatial Extension Program feel free to visit our website www.cnr.vt.edu/gep or contact John McGee, Virginia's Geospatial Extension Specialist at (540) 231-2428 or jmcg@vt.edu.

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