[Qgis-user] QGIS vs ArcGIS in Education and Practice

[Michael Treglia]

In my training, one thing I found immensely valuable, was even a small
amount of cross-training. For example, if the course is primarily given
with Arc, showing students how easily similar operations can be conducted
in a differnent tool - your course might give 'proficiency' in a main tool
of focus, but also a 'working knowledge' of other tools (I originally
learned primarily in Manifold GIS, with some Arc sprinkled in by the
professor). I think the titles of different software packages that exist
can be a hinderance and overwhelming, particularly to new GIS users who
'only learned on Arc/QGIS'. Thus, even a small bit of cross training can go
a long way - both in terms of actual knowledge and working confidence to
try new things.

hope that helps.
best,
Mike

On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:31 PM, Jochen Albrecht <jochen.albrecht at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> It really depends on who your audience is, Markus.
> In general, the advice that you got is (still) true but:
> I am not aware of any GIS program from small consultancies to large
> multi-hundred seats enterprise systems that don't now also use QGIS.
> I have put this question to employers as part of a graduate class, where
> in the course of 15 weeks, we visited a range of GIS employers once a week.
> Without exception, they told me that we would be remiss if we skipped
> ArcGIS completely. But they also, unanimously (public, private, and
> non-profit) were adamant that if we don't teach our students open source
> software that we would be doing our students a disservice.
> So, if this is only one course, and if the audience is in wealthy
> countries, then the answer is ArcGIS. If your audience is people who cannot
> afford commercial licenses or organizations that are just starting to get
> into the GIS business, then the answer would be QGIS. If you are offering
> more than one course, then I would recommend to teach both.
> Cheers,
>        Jochen
>
> Dr. Jochen Albrecht
> Computational and Theoretical Geography
> Hunter College CUNY
> 695 Park Avenue
> New York, NY 10065
>
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 2:07 PM, Markus Weidenbach <landconsult at freenet.de
> > wrote:
>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> I was asked to give a 5 days international GIS training course at the
>> university and proposed to do it with QGIS. The program leader finally
>> insisted on doing it with ArcGIS arguing  that the students had better
>> chances to find a job knowing ArcGIS rather than QGIS. This argumentation
>> does not reflect my long professional experience as a GIS consultant at all!
>> But how can I proof that knowing QGIS is the better choice for young GIS
>> professionals than ArcGIS (or at least that both systems are equally
>> suited)?
>> Does anybody know any official numbers of GIS users worldwide or on the
>> worldwide application of QGIS over ArcGIS?
>>
>> I know the Master thesis from Boku Vienna (https://geoobserver.wordpress
>> .com/2016/02/09/arcgis-vs-qgis/) but it is focused on a technical
>> comparison of both systems only.
>> Also the link https://www.g2crowd.com/grid_r
>> eport/documents/gis-winter-2016-report is not really helpful because it
>> is based on some 40 reviews only and therefore not representative.
>> I really need to know some proven facts on the number of global QGIS
>> users and renown companies using QGIS worldwide.
>>
>> Thanks for your help in advance,
>> Markus
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Markus Weidenbach
>> *landConsult.de*
>> Geographical Information Management
>> and Environmental Planning
>> D-77815 Bühl
>> Germany
>> e.mail see: http://landConsult.de
>>
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