[GRASS-dev] Re: [GRASS-user] Basic GIS course ideas

[Benjamin Ducke]

Hi Maning,

I taught a combination of QGIS and GRASS a little while ago
and I think it went alright.
About one third of my students had no idea about GIS at all
and one third had GRASS GIS skills.

So I started by demonstrating some basic mapping, GIS file
format issues, projections, georeferencing etc. using QGIS.

 From there, it was easy to start the GRASS plugin and introduce
students step-by-step to the underlying power of GRASS GIS.

The transition was quite smooth, as many tricky GRASS concepts
(like the region) have direct visual feedback in QGIS via the
plugin and things like data import and export from/to the GRASS
database get quite a lot easier using the GRASS toolbox.

I would recommend using GRASS GIS 6.2 and QGIS compiled natively
for Windows (there are some instructions by Radim Blazek
somewhere on the Wiki site).

For 3D-visualization, I used ParaView and that worked well, too.

For an extended course including things like point patten analysis,
you could also add R.

Best,

Benjamin


maning sambale wrote:
> Hi FOSS GIS users,
> 
> I am a part-time instructor in a college teaching introductory gis
> course.  I have been advocating for the use FOSS GIS (particularly
> GRASS and QGIS ) in our schools for the lab sessions.
> This is the second term I am doing this and have been reflecting on
> how did it go the first time.
> 
> The objective of the course is for students to understand basic gis
> principles as well as practical applications in site planning, land
> use, ecology and business.
> 
> Judging by the previous experience, it is a little bit difficult
> introducing the student FOSS GIS especially the linux way of doing
> things (CLI).  We are using XP machines and most students probably
> know computers as MS windows only.
> 
> Some are more interested in creating cool maps and not on the
> underlying spatial analysis techniques (i.e. r.mapcalc) that were
> used.
> 
> I wrote the list to ask GRASS instructors on any ideas in making the
> course better.  If you have any approaches/techniques/exercises you
> might want to share please do.  I firmly believe using FOSS GIS
> especially in our country is very important.  As a compromise though,
> a suggestion from this list was to also introduce them to propriety
> GIS package.  We have a few arcview 3.2 in the lab so I might give a 1
> or 2 sessions about it.
> 
> Any ideas would be appreciated.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Maning
> 

-- 
Benjamin Ducke, M.A.
Archäoinformatik
(Archaeoinformation Science)
Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte
(Inst. of Prehistoric and Historic Archaeology)
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Johanna-Mestorf-Straße 2-6
D 24098 Kiel
Germany

Tel.: ++49 (0)431 880-3378 / -3379
Fax : ++49 (0)431 880-7300
www.uni-kiel.de/ufg