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"The CyberInstitute Short-Course on Geographic Information Systems"

Table of Contents

• The Heart of the Issue - What is a GIS? (3 definitions)
• Tutorials on GIS.
• GIS Terminology Explained (a web-based dictionary).
• Case Histories.
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on GIS.
• Related Discussions on GIS and Spatial Data.
• Bibliographies on GIS.
• What about GIS on the World Wide Web?
• "I want my own system. How do I proceed to find one?" (choosing a GIS "for me.")
• A list of GIS-related meetings, with abstract deadlines."
• Some "Favorite Links."
• Request for suggestions/enhancements. We're not lonely (we get over 1 million Web-hits per year). So don't feel an obligation to email us. However, if you have candidates for enhancements to this short course, or if (horrors!) you find something to correct, please let us know.

• Three Working Definitions of GIS

• A primer on GIS hosted by Queens University Belfast. There is a general introduction to GIS, plus an introduction to Arc/INFO, plus a list of other sites that treat GIS in their own unique and wonderful ways.
• Project ASSIST at the University of Leicester, United Kingdom contains tutorial and other materials on GRASS, including the GRASS seeds tutorial, (and to a lesser extent) Idrisi, and Arc/INFO GISs.
• A tutorial on GIS, emphasizing Idrisi, by Eric Lorup at the University of Salzburg, Austria.
• A tutorial in environmental GIS and remote sensing, emphasizing GRASS, is hosted by David Harbor of Washington and Lee University. (Actually, this is the website home for a semester course in this topic.)
• A tutorial on GIS, emphasizing Arc/INFO and the Austin Carey Forest, is hosted by the University of Florida.
• A tutorial on GIS, emphasizing Arc/INFO, and based on the book "Understanding GIS: The Arc/INFO Method" is hosted by the University of California at Davis.
• An introductory primer on GIS by the U. S. Geological Survey (scan down the page past the introductory materials to reach the primer.) Note that this widely cross-linked tutorial has been passed in detail by the tutorials noted above.

• A Dictionary of GIS Terms hosted by the University of Edinburgh.

• An example investigating desertification (and its risk) using NOAA data.
• An example from the San Francisco area, hosted at the REGIS site.
• Some brief overviews of global environmental analysis with GIS at Clark University's Idrisi Project.

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) on GIS hosted by the Bureau of the Census .

• Data Fusion, and a related discussion on Data Fission.
• On-Demand Mapping (including a bit on Interactive and Real-Time Mapping).
• Precision in GIS.

• The GIS Master Bibliography Project at The Ohio State University.
• The GIS Literature Database at the University of Maine.
• A bibliography on data quality and quality management in GIS at the University of Stuttgart.

• Check out the REGIS site at the University of California, Berkeley, where BAGIS development will begin. Specifically, note GRASSLINKS, a WWW-accessible version of GRASS.
• Reportedly the first WWW-based GIS is NAISMAP, developed by the National Atlas Information Service of Geomatics Canada.
• Read the paper On-Line Environmental GIS by Anthony P. Steinke & David G. Green of Charles Sturt University, and David J. Peters of the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, Australia
• Read the paper Developing Geographic Services on the World Wide Web by Anthony P. Steinke & Paul Bristow of Charles Sturt University, Australia.

• How to choose a GIS?

• Here's a list of selected meetings in GIS, with abstract deadlines. The list is hosted by the University of Stuttgart.

• Yahoo's Webpage on GIS.
• An extensive list of other GIS sites on the World Wide Web is maintained by Harvard Design and Mapping. This list includes data sources, GIS software developers/vendors, discussion groups, project sites, and more.
• Another extensive list of GIS sites is maintained at Kingston University, United Kingdom.
• Sol Katz's favorite WWW-based mapping and metadata sites.
• An inventory of spatial data hosted at the University of Arkansas.

Please email us your suggestions. What high-quality sites should we add to this "short course?":

David Hastings

World Data Center-A, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center