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Guide

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This course introduces the concepts and components of a geographic information system (GIS). It also teaches the essential skills of spatial data management, analysis, and visualization through the use of the ArcGIS software package. Upon completion of this course, students understand the fundamental concepts of a GIS including spatial data models, spatial analysis, and cartographic principles. They also gain hands-on training in spatial data collection, editing, transformation, and mapping, as well as spatial analysis operations such as location-based query, address geocoding, terrain and watershed analysis, spatial interpolation, best site selection, least cost path delineation, and a number of other GIS modeling techniques. GIS technology has broad applications in the natural and social sciences, humanities, environmental studies, engineering, and management. Examples include wildlife habitat study, urban and regional planning, contagious disease monitoring, agriculture and forestry, environmental quality assessment, emergency management, transportation planning, and consumer and competitor analysis. This course introduces a few selected cases of GIS application in different disciplines.

Prerequisites: Familiarity with Word documents, spreadsheets, and browsing the Internet.

To register please click here.

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Northwest Building (52 Oxford St., Cambridge) Room B-129.

Instructors:  Derek Law, Technology Evangelist, Esri Apps Product Management team, and Geri Miller, Solutions Engineer, Esri Education Outreach team.

• Open to anyone (limited to the first 30 registrants).
• Use your own laptop, OR a provided workstation
• You can attend one or all of the sections below:

1) ArcGIS Platform (9:00 - 10:00 a.m): In this session we’ll discuss the ArcGIS Platform and how it can be used to deploy the Web GIS pattern – both in the cloud and in your own infrastructure. The ArcGIS software product portfolio will be presented in context of the overall platform, as well as how they integrate and work together. Concepts such as the geoinformation model, the web map, and web scenes will also be discussed.

2) Insights for ArcGIS (10:15 - Noon): In this hands-on session we’ll explore the Insights for ArcGIS app – a new app which enables iterative and exploratory analysis of your spatial or non-spatial data. Insights provides an intuitive technology with a simple drag-and-drop UI, which enables information to be easily extracted from data. Students will learn about various data sources to utilize within Insights, and will practice different methods of analyzing the data. The deployment options for Insights for ArcGIS will also be discussed. 

Details:

-  Visualize data through interactive maps, charts and tables
-  Conduct spatial analytics to answer questions of your data
-  Share your results with others

3) Esri Mobile Field Apps (1:00p.m. - 5:00p.m.): This is a practical hands-on session where students will learn about Esri’s mobile field Apps strategy. An overview will be presented, followed by a discussion on the detailed workflow to perform data collection in the field. Students will learn how to leverage ArcGIS Online to create a hosted feature layer, then use Collector for ArcGIS to collect map-centric field data. Next, students will use Survey123 for ArcGIS to collect form-centric field data. Participants will perform these tasks and “play” with the software. After performing data collection in the field, you will be shown options on how to present your data results using the configurable application templates and Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS.

Details:
- Create a new hosted feature service in ArcGIS Online, based on a template
- Collect field data with Collector for ArcGIS: point, line, polygon – based on map data
- Create a survey form with Survey123 for ArcGIS web designer, will be shown Survey123 Connect
- Collect field data with Survey123 for ArcGIS – a form based field data collector
- See how the field data can be “presented” in a web app, with the configurable app templates and Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS.  

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CGA Newsletter July 2017 PDF (Download)

CGA Home Page . Contact us . Follow us on Twitter

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Download Slides PDF

Most spatial data describes events in time though often not explicitly.  When data does have a time component it is often not easily accessed.  In this presentation we show how toincrease the value of
existing data by:
1. Making latent temporal information explicit using enrichment techniques
2. Implementing UI/backend enhancements on existing systems
3. Increase research on space/time data exploration

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Presentation by Bernd Resch

Thursday, Aug 24th, Noon - 1:00, Room S354, CGIS South Building (1730 Cambridge St.)

Watch a video recording of the presentation.

Abstract:
The disruptive technological advances over the past decade have fundamentally changed how we see the world. As a result from this transformational development, the scientific community has faced a transition from a data-scarce to a data-rich environment, which also reshapes the field of geoinformatics through the integration of data-driven approaches. This again necessitates the development of new methods for data acquisition and analysis that go well beyond established algorithms in geoinformatics, i.e., new methods for data analysis that need to be developed in collaboration between different disciplines including computer science, computational linguistics, sociology, psychology, statistics, medical science, or the environmental sciences. From a less positivist viewpoint, these developments come with a certain risk. For instance, new business models are often based on collecting and selling user data, implying that less privacy is the new social norm. Consequently, scientific research efforts involving locational data referring to individuals or groups of people need to ensure privacy and data protection through raising awareness and through comprehensive Privacy by Design guidelines that follow legal and ethical rules.
This talk will discuss new analysis methods in a number of application areas and propose a comprehensive Privacy by Design guideline for dealing with personal location data in scientific research.

Speaker Bio:

Bernd Resch is an Assistant Professor at University of Salzburg’s Department of Geoinformatics - Z_GIS and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University (USA). Bernd Resch did his PhD in the area of “Live Geography” (real-time monitoring of environmental geo-processes) together with University of Salzburg and MIT. His research interests revolve around fusing data from human and technical sensors, the “quantified self” movement and crowd-sourcing methods, environmental monitoring, People as Sensors, real-time analysis of urban dynamics, Sensor Fusion, and interoperability in geo-sensor networks.

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Ben Lewis of the Harvard Center for Geographic Analysis developed materials to geographically represent the genetic history of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., for the PBS documentary “African American Lives 2”, segment “The Past Is Another Country” which was broadcast in 2008.

Links:
Segment for PBS documentary African American Lives

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Presentation by Dr. Shan Jiang, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Thursday, October 5, 2017.  Noon - 1:30.  CGIS South Building, Room S354.

Youtube Live Broadcast will be available HERE

 Abstract: Cities are growing at an unprecedented speed: by 2050 the urban population will grow to 6.4 billion, and over 60% of new urban areas will be built (United Nations, 2014). As a result, human beings are facing enormous challenges such as traffic congestion, environmental degradation, increased energy consumption, decreased quality of life, and climate change. Meanwhile, the explosion of urban sensors, mobile phone traces, social media and other windows into urban systems has generated much hype about the advent of a new urban science. However, translating big data into understandings of human activities and their interactions with the complex urban systems presents great obstacles and requires creative and robust interdisciplinary approaches. In this talk, Dr. Shan Jiang will present her research that bridges data science with urban sustainability issues, moving from data to information, knowledge, and action. By applying data-driven approaches (incorporating methods and tools from big data analytics, statistical learning and data mining, network science, spatial analysis, etc.), Dr. Jiang focuses on the interactions among human activities and mobility, the natural and built environment, and the society, with examples from global cities of Beijing, Bogota, Boston, Chicago, and Singapore. She will also discuss challenges and opportunities in the Information Age for responsive policies to plan, design and manage sustainable, equitable, smart and healthy cities.

 Speaker Bio:  Dr. Shan Jiang is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. Her research interests lie in the fields of Big Data Analytics, Spatial Analysis, Computational Social Science, and the use of Information and Communication Technology in Land Use, Transportation, and Urban Planning. Her research addresses social, economic, and environmental issues and their connections with public policy. She has worked for projects funded by the National Academies of Sciences, the Singapore National Research Foundation, the Portugal Foundation for Science and Technology, the Center for Complex Engineering Systems at KACST and MIT, and consulted for the Chicago Transit Authority, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Cambridge Systematics, among others. She received her Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning, Master in City Planning, and Master of Science in Transportation from MIT, and B.E. in Urban Planning and B.A. in Economics from Peking University.

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Location:  Belfer Case Study Room, CGIS South S020
Date: Sept 18th, 2017 5:00pm - 7:00pm

Click here to watch the recorded presentation.
For thousands of years, tracking animals has meant following their physical traces – footprints, fallen feathers and nests. But cutting-edge geospatial technology is revolutionising our ability to map their movements and behaviour.

GIScientist James Cheshire and designer Oliver Uberti discuss the creative and technical processes behind their efforts with scientists and wildlife experts around the world to collate billions of data points, from tracking elephants to counting penguins, and bring them to life visually in their new book entitled Where the Animals Go.


Presenter Bios

Dr. James Cheshire is a geographer with a passion for mapping data. He is an Associate Professor at University College London, and recently received the Royal Geographical Society’s Cuthbert Peek award for ‘advancing geographical knowledge through the use of mappable Big Data’.

Oliver Uberti is a visual journalist, designer, and the recipient of many awards for his information graphics and art direction. From 2003 to 2012 he worked in the design department of National Geographic, most recently as Senior Design Editor.

Agenda:

5:00 – 6:30  Presentation, followed by Q/A and discussion.

6:30 – 7:00 Book signing and light refreshments served in room S030.

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