GIS101

Taught by

Dr. Abu Z. Badruddin

Professor of GIS
Cayuga Community College
197 Franklin Street, Auburn, NY 13210

Live: (315) 294-8610
Fax: (315) 255-2117
Email: badruddin@cayuga-cc.edu
Office: M274 Main Building

Textbook

Getting to Know ArcGIS, Fifth Edition, for ArcGIS 10.6, ESRI Press (required)

References

• GIS Fundamentals - Paul Bolstad, Eider Press

Course Purpose

This is an introductory level GIS course designed to introduce students to the basic theories and concepts of GISs and their application in exploring and analyzing geographic data. This course is divided into lectures and lab sessions. The conceptual elements are explained and discussed in the lecture sessions while the labs are designed to provide hands-on training to reinforce the concepts and lessons learned in the lectures.

Course Objectives

At the conclusion of the course, students will:

• be aware of the basic structures and functionality of GISs.
• understand, at an introductory level, the nature, characteristics, specification, types, acquisition, processing, organization, and management of spatial or geographic data.
• be able use a desktop GIS package (ArcGIS) for typical spatial analysis.

Laboratory Exercise

Each lab assignment will be considered as an exercise and is due following week. Late submission will not be accepted! Please see me if you have an emergency. Laboratory exercises will contribute substantially to your course grade. Students may be asked to repeat work that is not satisfactory.

Grading

Component	Weight
Exams	70%
Lab exercises	20%
Quizzes	10%

*** The above grading is subject to change at the instructor's discretion ***

Requirements

• A three-ring binder for an orderly & sequential organization of class materials
• Logbook for recording operation, steps, filenames, and problems

Lecture Topics Outline

Week	Topic
Week 1	Introduction, What is GIS? What a GIS is not. Spatial and attribute data, Data vs. Information. Lab: Data source and file management in GIS Lab
Week 2	An overview of GIS data: spatial and attribute data, data vs. information Lab: Introduction to ArcGIS
Week 3	Maps and its characteristics: Concept of scale, accuracy, and standards Lab: Map reading/viewing and exploring spatial data
Week 4	Map composition and design Lab: Designing your company LOGO
Week 5	Symbolizing and classifying spatial data Lab: Working with map symbology & map classification
Week 6	Introduction to Global Positioning System (GPS) Lab: GPS data collection and downloading
Week 7	Midterm Exam Lab: Practice Exam
Week 8	Spatial & attribute query Lab: Selecting features based on attributes
Week 9	Spatial & attribute query (cont.) Lab: Selecting features based on spatial relationship
Week 10	Spatial data models (raster and vector), advantages, limitations, and examples Lab: Working with image data
Week 11	Data Automation: creating and editing spatial data Lab: Making a map of your neighborhood
Week 12	Data Automation: creating and editing spatial data (cont.) Lab: Editing spatial data and adding attributes
Week 13	Thanksgiving Lab: Joining and linking attribute data
Week 14	Spatial modeling with map overlay Lab: GeoProcessing
Week 15	Advanced topic and review Lab: Practice Exam
Week 16	FINAL!