GIS Workshops for Fall 2020, We're Going Virtual

Scholars' Lab Blog //GIS Workshops for Fall 2020, We're Going Virtual

Blog //GIS Workshops for Fall 2020, We're Going Virtual

By Drew MacQueen on August 11, 2020

Feel free to scroll past all the extra words for a course schedule and registration links, below.

I want to talk briefly about a shift in the way we’ll be teaching our workshop series and let you know that, despite the challenges we’re all going to experience this semester, we’re still here to support your research. For many, that support often starts with our GIS workshop series. While improvements and changes to the software, the growth of cloud-based tools and resources, and the introduction of new tools and techniques have necessitated continual changes to the content and structure of our courses, one constant has been hands-on, in-person instruction. We believe that getting your hands dirty is the best way to absorb new technology, and that’s always been our goal. That belief hasn’t changed. However, the world definitely has, and as a result, our workshops will be moving to a virtual, and therefore, more lecture-style format. You are welcome to follow along if possible, but if not, we encourage you to watch and absorb and use that information to work independently afterwards. I know that can be overwhelming for some, so we’re going to supplement each workshop with office hours to provide class-specific support. As always, we’ll also be providing step-by-step handouts, and are available for scheduled meetings as well. Going virtual drives another change, which is registration. We’re big fans of walk-ins, but posting a public Zoom link isn’t going to work, so please be sure to register for sessions you’d like to attend.

A big challenge this year relates to ArcGIS Pro. Because we can’t handout laptops to our attendees, we’re unable to provide ArcGIS Pro to all users. To be clear, ArcGIS Pro is NOT required to attend the sessions. However, it is required to complete the hands-on exercises from the first six sessions on your own. The final two sessions cover ArcGIS Online which is browser-based and will be made available to everyone.

For our non-UVA attendees, unfortunately, we’re unable to provide ArcGIS Pro licenses. Our typical suggestion would be to take advantage of one of the public computer labs on Grounds. However given our current situation, we think the best bet is to acquire a personal use license. We know this isn’t ideal for some, and we apologize for the inconvenience.
For our attendees with a Mac computer, ArcGIS Pro is not Mac compatible. There are several ways in which Windows can be run on a Mac, including a multi-boot utility like BootCamp or a virtual machine, both of which require expertise we’re unable to provide. For UVA affiliates, the simplest solution is to take advantage of the UVA Hive which provides access to Pro.

We’ve covered potential challenges, so let’s talk about benefits. Workshops will be recorded and made available for asynchronous learning, virtually (see what I did there?) eliminating the ever-problematic scheduling conflict. If you can’t attend in real-time, give them a watch when your schedule allows. Hit a snag and need a refresher? Feel free to watch again, as many times as you want. Tune in for some GIS learnin’ and chortle freely at our mussed hair and terrible jokes.

The short of it is:

All sessions will be taught virtually, via Zoom. Unfortunately, there will be no in-class sessions this semester.
Registration is required. This is the best way to get Zoom links out to our attendees without posting the links to the world.
Sessions will be recorded and made available, along with our usual slides and hand-outs.
We love teaching GIS, we’re just going to do it a bit differently. Regardless, we’re here to help.
We can’t provide laptops to our attendees, so non-UVA attendees and attendees with a Mac computer could face some difficulties. See above for more info.

All sessions are one hour and assume participants have no previous experience using GIS. Sessions will be hands-on demonstrations with step-by-step tutorials and expert assistance. All sessions will be taught on Wednesdays from 10AM to 11AM and are free and open to the UVa and larger Charlottesville community. Late-comers are welcome and encouraged, registration is open until 1 hour before class. Use the links below to register and get a Zoom link.

September 9th - Making Your First Map with ArcGIS Pro

Here’s your chance to get started with geographic information systems software in a friendly, jargon-free environment. This workshop introduces the skills you need to make your own maps. Along the way you’ll get a taste of Earth’s most popular GIS software (ArcGIS) and a gentle introduction to cartography. You’ll leave with your own cartographic masterpieces and tips for learning more in your pursuit of mappiness at UVa.

September 16th - Putting Old maps and Aerial Photos on Your Map: Georeferencing in ArcGIS Pro

Would you like to see historical maps overlaid on modern aerial photography? Do you need to extract features of a map for use in GIS? Georeferencing is the first step. We will show you how to take a scan of a paper map and align in it in ArcGIS.

September 23rd - Getting Your Data on a Map

Do you have a list of Lat/Lon coordinates or addresses you would like to see on a map? We will show you how to do just that. Through ArcGIS’s Add XY data tool and Geocoding (address matching), it is easy to take your tabular lists and generate points on a map.

September 30th - Points on Your Map: Street Addresses and More Spatial Things

Do you have a list of street addresses crying out to be mapped? Have a list of zip codes or census tracts you wish to associate with other data? We’ll start with addresses and other things spatial and end with points on a map, ready for visualization and analysis.

October 7th - Taking Control of Your Spatial Data: Editing in ArcGIS Pro

Until we perfect that magic “extract all those lines from this paper map” button we’re stuck using editor tools to get that job done. If you’re lucky, someone else has done the work to create your points, lines, and polygons but maybe they need your magic touch to make them better. This session shows you how to create and modify vector features in ArcGIS Pro, the world’s most popular geographic information systems software. We’ll explore tools to create new points, lines, and polygons and to edit existing datasets.

October 14th - Easy Demographics

Need to make a quick demographic map? This workshop will show you how easily navigate Social Explorer. This powerful online application makes it easy to create maps with contemporary and historic census data and religious information.

October 21st - Introduction to ArcGIS Online

With ArcGIS Online, you can use and create maps and scenes, access ready-to-use maps, layers and analytics, publish data as web layers, collaborate and share, access maps from any device, make maps with your Microsoft Excel data, customize the ArcGIS Online website, and view status reports.

October 28th - ArcGIS Story Maps

Story Maps are templates that allow authors to give context to their ArcGIS Online maps. Whether telling a story, giving a tour or comparing historical maps, ArcGIS Story Maps are easy-to-use applications that create polished presentations.