Introduction to GIS: digital mapping in QGIS and Google Colab
Are you interested in using digital maps in your research? Geographic information systems (GIS) are systems designed to process spatial data and generate map visualizations. This course is particularly aimed at students and researchers within fields where such technologies are not yet widely adopted.
Main content
This two-day course provides a brief introduction to GIS, as well as hands-on exercises and demonstrations of GIS-software. On the first day you will get to try the QGIS software package. Arne Solli, associate professor at AHKR, will also give a lecture on how he has used GIS for historical research. On the second day you will get a taste of more advanced GIS-tools using Python scripts in Google Colaboratory.
Preparation
In preparation for day 1, you should download and install QGIS on your own computer. No installation is required for day 2, but you will need a google account and available storage in google drive. To get the most out of day 2, we encourage participants with little or no prior experience with Python programming to have a look at a Python tutorial before attending the course. Installation instructions for QGIS and links to Python tutorials will be posted on the resource page: https://git.app.uib.no/uib-ub/d-lab/gis-course-2021
Planned schedule
Day 1 (Tuesday November 9)
9:00-9:30 What is GIS? (Peder Gammeltoft)
9:30-9:50 Open GIS-resources (Peder Gammeltoft)
10:00-11:45 Hands-on exercises in QGIS (Peder Gammeltoft)
12:15-13:00 Lecture: Historical Place References and the Geonorge API (Arne Solli)
Day 2 (Wednesday November 10)
9:00-9:50 Introduction to Python and Google Colab (Henrik Askjer)
10:00-11:45 Map plotting in geopandas (Henrik Askjer)
12:15-13:00 Creating interactive maps using folium/leaflet (Henrik Askjer)
13:00-15:45 Further assistance and exploration of QGIS and Google Colab for anyone interested
Registration
Sign up for the course here. The course is limited to 20 participants. We will prioritize participants from fields where GIS is not taught in credit giving courses.
