Geographical Information Systems - Introduction 1

Course content

The aim of the course is to give basic theoretical and practical knowledge about concepts and methods for treatment and analysis of geographic data with geographical Information systems, (GIS), and an introduction to cartography and geodesy.

The course also highlights general geographic problems within environment and society through practical GIS-applications. These treat both Swedish and international conditions and vary in scale from local to regional. You will learn to describe different conceptual models of spatial phenomena, data models and storage, and advantages and disadvantages with the models. On completion of the course, you will know how to organise and handle digital geographic data in vector format. You will be able to independently carry out basic analyses of geographic data in vector format by using standard software for GIS.
Special emphasis is given on cartographic presentation of digital geographic data. In the course, training in oral and written communication is also included.

Course design

This course is distributed via the internet. The course is flexibly designed and you can choose between 50 % or 100 % study pace. The course is divided into thematic modules. All theoretical sections are
composed by recorded video lectures and text material. Each section contains theoretical and practical written assignments. Written assignments are compulsory.

Hardware requirements and operating systems

Since this is a distance programme, you need your own computer upon which to install the GIS software you will need.  This computer must run a modern version of the Windows operating system, as is required for ArcGIS Pro.  The specific technical requirements to run ArcGIS Pro can be found at the ESRI website:

ArcGIS Pro requirements

Using a Mac 

Note:  While it is possible to install Windows on an Apple computer (using Boot Camp on older machines with Intel processors or some virtualization approach on Apple silicon) we can provide NO support for this approach.  That means that if you have technical issues we cannot help you, and you must provide your own licensed copy of an appropriate Windows OS as well as any other software needed to make this work.