National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis

This short narrative introduces the Core Curriculum in GIS and provides a historical overview of the Core Curriculum Project, including the later Core Curriculum in GIScience and Core Curriculum for Technical Programs. Appended to this description is an original pamphlet advertising the Core Curriculum in GIS.

This unit presents a synopsis of the GIS marketplace, discussing characteristics and features to take into account when acquiring GIS software and hardware. It addresses choice of computing platform and software domain (commercial, public, or educational), performance issues, ease of integration, training needs, user interface, maintenance requirements, and other considerations.

This unit begins a six-part section that reviews the spectrum of different applications of GIS. It characterizes the core groups of GIS activity in terms of three categories: (1) mature technologies that interact with GIS sharing its technology and creating data for it; (2) management and decision-making groups; and (3) science and research activities at universities and government labs. This unit focuses on the first category, exploring GIS applications in cartography, surveying and engineering, and remote sensing. Science and research activities are addressed, as well.

This unit introduces the raster data model for representing geographic phenomena. It differentiates it from the vector model and discusses appropriate applications, how a raster is created, the types of values that may be stored in a raster, and fundamental concepts like resolution, orientation, and zones. The unit concludes with an example analysis using a raster GIS.

This unit introduces the different ways users can interact with GIS. It also provides an introduction to the range of interfaces available and will help students recognize differences between different GISs.

This unit delves deeper into database concepts introduced in the previous unit. It describes requirements of a database for spatial data including data security concerns, ability to support concurrent users, security against data loss, and prevention of unauthorized use.

This unit considers digital elevation models (DEMs) as one way of representing surfaces. It describes how DEMs are created and used, particularly in hydrology. Approaches for estimating elevation, slope and aspect, and for determining drainage networks are presented, along with a discussion of issues that may arise when automatically determining drainage networks from DEMs.

This unit begins a three part module introducing concepts and techniques of spatial decision-making. Although it is far from a complete coverage of the topic, it will provide students with a sampling of the kinds of decision-making activities GIS will be required to support. This unit introduces students to the concept of multiple criteria decision making, outlines some of the simpler strategies developed to solve multiple criteria problems and demonstrates the potential applicability of GIS.

This unit outlines fundamental concepts in database systems and their integration with GIS, including advantages of a database approach, views of a database, database management systems (DBMS), and alternative database models. Three models—hierarchical, network and relational—are discussed in greater detail.

This unit explores the map analysis roots of GIS. It discusses cartography and its relationship to GIS, including topics such as map types and characteristics, the concept of scale, map projections, applications of maps, computer-assisted cartography and geographic data display and analysis.