GEOG 482
Making Maps that Matter with GIS

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Welcome to GEOG 482: Making Maps that Matter with GIS

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Welcome to GEOG 482: Making Maps that Matter with GIS

Quick Facts

Overview

Despite its widespread use in thousands of organizations worldwide, GIS remains for many an obscure set of technologies and professional practices. Even practicing GIS professionals may have limited awareness of the breadth of the field and its impacts on government, industry, and non-governmental and non-profit organizations. The course uses case studies of meaningful applications of GIS to reveal key topics across the spectrum of industry sectors defined by the U.S. Department of Labor in its Geospatial Technology Competency Model (GTCM): Positioning and Data Acquisition, Analysis and Modeling, and Software and App Development. Topics to be mastered include concepts like positioning frameworks, uncertainty, and geo-enablement, methods, and techniques including the GPS positioning, spatial modeling, and geo app development, and relevant ethical, legal, and policy issues such as locational privacy. In addition to topical objectives, the course cultivates competencies associated with lifelong learning, a cornerstone of the GTCM. Students achieve educational objectives by searching, discovering, and evaluating information from a variety of sources, including, but not limited to, the World Wide Web. Those with substantial professional experience are encouraged to share their perspectives. Students develop mastery through class discussions, in which they collaboratively prepare to demonstrate individual mastery in tests. They also learn to craft case studies of their own by creating and presenting story-telling web apps using cloud-based GIS technology. They gain self-knowledge by assessing their individual competencies in relation to the GTCM. The awareness, knowledge, and technical skills they gain prepare them for success in programs such as Penn State's Postbaccalaureate Certificate Program in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Master of GIS graduate degree program, and for professional growth.

Learn more about GEOG 482, Making Maps that Matter with GIS (1min 41 sec)

Click here for a transcript of the course introduction.

DAVID DIBIASE: Hi, there. I'm David Dibiase. If you're watching this video, you're probably thinking about taking our course, Making Maps that Matter with GIS. Or perhaps, you've already registered for the course, and you want to know what you've gotten yourself into.

The course situates GIS within the broad scope of what the US Department of Labor calls the geospatial technology industry. We give equal time and attention to all three sectors of the industry, positioning and data acquisition, analytics and modeling, and coding and app development. Technologically, we focus on cloud-based web mapping software as a service, which has become a core component of the modern GIS platform.

The course is also about how professionals learn on the job. We stress that lifelong learning is an essential competency in the rapidly-evolving geospatial tech space. You'll be responsible for discovering, evaluating, and sharing information about key topics in our field.

And finally, as the title implies, this is a course about why GIS matters. Each lesson begins with a case study about how geospatial technologies, methods, and people make the world a little bit better. So, whether you're an experienced GIS user or are more or less new to the field, expect to be challenged, supported, and maybe even a little inspired.

Credit: © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0(link is external)

Want to join us? Students who register for this Penn State course gain access to assignments and instructor feedback and earn academic credit. For more information, visit Penn State's Online Geospatial Education Program website(link is external). Official course descriptions and curricular details can be reviewed in the University Bulletin(link is external).

This course is offered as part of the Repository of Open and Affordable Materials(link is external) at Penn State. You are welcome to use and reuse materials that appear on this site (other than those copyrighted by others) subject to the licensing agreement linked to the bottom of this and every page.