A Tutorial
This tutorial is aimed at non-geographers who are seeking to learn how to use a GIS in order to examine spatial, geographic, characteristics of information within their own disciplines. It is intended for use primarily within the UK Academic Community and is thus based upon the ArcView GIS and upon British data which is readily available within the community. The structure is such that it is hoped that local usage will substitute appropriate datasets, of specific interest to the students, for those referenced in these materials where appropriate. It is intended that this framework is adequate to permit the addition of further units to take account of new facilities within ArcView and, perhaps, to introduce more sophistcated techniques of spatial science.
ArcView is a product which runs on a wide variety of platforms, some of which restrict the capabilities of the tool. The initial units, 1 - 4, of this tutorial should work on all ArcView supported platforms although it is recommended that one of Windows 95, Windows NT, or UNIX, should be used if at all possible. Unit 5 will make extensive use of features which are not supported on Windows 3.1 or on the Apple Macintosh platforms.
Inevitably, individual installations will make use of different filestore conventions. The authors envisage that local instructions will be provided alongside these materials to define the specific filestore naming and access conventions that apply.
Within this material there are illustrations drawn from a variety of sources, much of which is copyright. Whilst copies of these materials may be made for teaching and training purposes, no part of these materials, printed or digital, may be used other than as an integral part of the tutorial. Thanks are gratefully expressed to the copyright holders for permission to reproduce their material.
Unit 1: A Brief introduction to Geographical Information Systems. Especially for non-geographers; starts at the beginning. Should require 1 to 2 hours, depending upon the student's familiarity with maps, etc. No computing facility is necessary but a ruler and a pencil are!
Unit 2: Introduction to ArcView and simple display. Runs ArcView, loads and manipulates some datasets and introduces some basic presentation techniques. May require 4 hours.
Unit 3: Introduction to Analysis. Introduces some of the basic spatial analysis techniques, such as statistical and overlay analysis. May require 4 hours.
Unit 4: Data - input, conversion, integration and management. Introduces some of the considerations involved in getting data into a GIS
Unit 5: Introduction to cell based analysis. Using the Spatial Analyst extension to ArcView, introduces more complex analytic techniques. This unit is not included in the first release.
Datasets required (Units 1, 2 and 3):
Bartholomew Great Britain Digital data for roads, railways, and drainage: roads_gb.shp, railf_gb.shp, and river_gb.shp; Administrative Boundaries (County and District): counties.shp and dstricts.shp (1981 boundary data). Sample copies of these datasets are provided with these materials; seek local advice regarding their location on your system.
The production of materials such as these can only be achieved by means of a team effort. A large number of people and organisations have contributed to making this possible. Especial thanks are due to the following organisations:
ESRI (UK); Harper-Collins Cartographic (Bartholomew); The National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC); AGOCG; Leeds Metropolitan University and the Universities of Newcastle upon Tyne, Sussex, and York.
The Advisory Group on Computer Graphics, AGOCG, provided a generous grant which enabled an editorial workshop, held in York in July 1996, and assisted with the editorial costs of production. The Editors wish to thank the participants in the July Workshop, for their contributions in completing tasks set at the workshop, and their institutions for supporting them: Martin France, Sarah Falconer, Rob Fletcher, Howell Harris, Kamie Kitmitto, Martin Ralphs, Phil Schwartz, Oliver Tomlinson, Rosemary Tomlinson, John T Wills, and Peter Wyatt.
The following assisted in the definition of the project and in the assessment of the materials generated: Nigel Brown, John Castleford, Kamie Kitmitto, David Maguire, Anne Mumford, Jim Petch, and Mike Worboys. Thanks are gratefully expressed for their contributions of time and guidance.
Undergraduate and Post-Graduate students studying courses at Leeds Metropolitan University, and at the University of York, have field trialled these materials and have made many constructive comments; their willingness to learn, their tolerance of incomplete materials, and their many helpful suggestions for improvements are gratefully acknowledged.
Grateful thanks are due to Helen Parker, of the Computing Service at the University of York, who provided invaluable secretarial support and made much of the finishing process a reality.
Spring 1997
The Editors:
T J Browne, University of Sussex
P J Halls, University of York
A Millard, Leeds Metropolitan University
A P Miller, University of Newcastle upon Tyne