GIScience /GIS/ Geospatial Instructional Resources

This collection emphasizes Open Educational Resources for the teaching and learning - about and with - GIScience, GIS, and related geospatial and mapping technologies.


The compilation is designed to be representative and current, though not comprehensive or exhaustive. If you have something that you'd like to see included here, please use this online form to bring it to our attention.



Read, Review, Deploy

Extend, Enhance, Expand

Speak, Listen, Share

Read Review Deploy

Read, Review, Deploy: Collections of Pedagogical & Instructional Materials


Are you re-visiting and dramatically changing your instructional materials (course syllabus, lab exercises, tutorials, etc.) in response to shifting to an online or hybrid modality? Have you ever wondered, at 3 am, where to start or how to begin? These focus on how GIS can be taught and learned (the infrastructure around teaching and learning).

Course syllabi, lab exercises, and/or assessment ideas

Closed campus, open source: Teaching GIS during the Covid-19 crisis (David Abernathy, Warren Wilson College)

Geographic Data Science Lab's Teaching Links, including links to existing courses on spatial data science, GIS, and statistics. Maintained by Alex Singleton with the Geographic Data Science Lab, (University of Liverpool, UK).

Bolstad's GIS Fundamentals (6th edition) materials; Designed to support his GIS Fundamentals textbook (6th edition), Paul Bolstad (Univ of Minnesota) shares linked lab exercises with data and videos for use both ArcGIS Pro and QGIS, plus exam & quiz questions for use directly with Canvas

Geographic Information Systems in Decision Making Situations (Paul Cote)

Geographic Data Science (Arribas-Bel)

Assorted GIS Classes at the University of Minnesota

GeoTech Center's Model Courses

GeoTech Center's National Database for GIST & Geospatial Technology Syllabi

Skills Commons, search for keyword "geospatial"

University of Minnesota's StoryMap Curriculum Portal


Instructional video collections

Intro to GIS video collection, produced by Jarlath O'Neil-Dunne at the University of Vermont Spatial Analysis Lab

GIS at Midd, produced by Jeff Howarth at Middlebury College for an introductory GIS course

Applied Remote Sensing Training, NASA

Training videos for using The National Map, USGS


Instructional tutorials & workshops

Collection of data science tutorials, many using R (Center for Spatial Data Science, Univ of Chicago)

Online Tips and Tutorials (Tufts University)

QGIS Tutorials and Tips (Ujaval Gandhi)

Learn ArcGIS (Esri)

Introduction to GIS (MIT OpenCourseware)

Spatial Humanities Workshop (Lincoln Mullen)


Online textbooks

Essentials of Geographic Information Systems (2011). Campbell & Shin.

Geospatial Analysis (6th edition, 2020 update). de Smith, Goodchild, and Longley.

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (nd). Dastrup.

Intro to GIS and Spatial Analysis (2019). Gimond.

GIS Commons (nd). Schmandt.

GIS in Sustainable Urban Planning & Management (2019). van Maarseveen, Martinez, and Flacke.

Spatial Thinking in Planning Practice (2018). Fang, Shandas, and Cordero.

Introduction to GIS (nd). Olaya.

Spatial Data Science with R (nd). Hijmans.

Geocomputation with R (2020). Lovelace, Nowosad, Muenchow.


Journals (and some specific articles) with pedagogically-targeted content

Journal of Geography in Higher Education

Virtualization in CyberGIS instruction: lessons learned constructing a private cloud to support development and delivery of a WebGIS course (Goldberg, Bowlick, and Stine; JGHE, 2020)

JGHE Symposium: Innovations in and the Changing Landscape of Geography Education with Geographic Information Systems

Journal of Geography

Journal of Geoscience Education

International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education


Thoughtful & worthwhile ideas about teaching in general (not geospatial specific)

Covid-19 and rapid adoption and improvisation of online teaching: curating resources for extensive versus intensive online learning experiences (John Bryson & Lauren Andres, JGHE, August 2020, open access)

Making Your Zoom Look More Professorial (funny) (Andrew Ishak, Santa Clara University)

Listen to students? Yes! A practical, student-inspired guide to improving online education at the college level (Karen Harpp, Medium Magazine, July 2020)

Jesse Stommel (Univ of Mary Washington) blog and Open Online Office Hours

Preparing to Teach in an Uncertain Fall 2020: Ideas and Resources (José Antonio Bowen, Teaching Naked blog)

Faculty Focus, Higher Ed Teaching Strategies

The Teaching Professor (subscription; your institution may have access)

Academic Honesty, part of an online Computer Science syllabus from Harvard's David Malan (pdf of related publication)

Extend, Enhance, Expand: GIS, GIScience and

Geospatial Content

Are you looking for online materials that will provide you and your students with new or supplementary knowledge around geospatial content? These Open Educational Resources may be useful additional and/or alternative resources, especially when you're unable to be meeting in-person. These focus on what is taught and learned during geospatial instruction.

The GIS&T Body of Knowledge is supported by UCGIS as an enduring and dynamic expression of our evolving domain.


Geographic Information Science & Technology Body of Knowledge (GIS&T BoK) (gistbok.ucgis.org)


Mixed collections of materials

UCGIS's Webinar collection

GISGeography.com

Project Geospatial

Open Geography Education

Tufts Student GIS Expo Explorer

Spatial Reserves, a data-focused blog maintained by Joseph Kerski

Ignite Education, a geospatial blog by Adena Schutzberg


Whole open courses

Penn State University's Open Educational Resources

Esri's MOOCs


Conference, Symposia and Meeting presentations

UCGIS's 2020 Symposium

QGIS North America 2020

North American Cartographic Information Society (nacis) Conference Presentations

Esri's Conference and Summit Proceedings


Specific topics: fundamental spatial concepts

Unwin, David (2010). Numbers aren't nasty: a workbook of spatial concepts. Developed via SpLiNT: Spatial Literacy in Teaching.

Spatial Concepts, from UCSB"s Center for Spatial Studies

Spatial Concepts Browser, from TeachSpatial.org

Grossner, K. and Janelle, D. G. (2014). Concepts and Principles for Spatial Literacy, in Montello, Grossner, and Janelle (Eds.), Space in Mind: Concepts for Spatial Learning in Education. MIT Press. (pdf)


Specific topics: ethics & integrity

A GIS Code of Ethics, GIS Certification Institute

Ethics Education for Geospatial Professionals Products

Elwood & Wilson (2017), Critical GIS pedagogies beyond "Week 10: Ethics". DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2017.1334892

Teaching and learning about geo-ethics with the Geoprivacy video series, Esri

Speak, Listen, Share: Events & Opportunities

Overwhelmed and uncertain about all of this? You're not alone!

The survey results from geospatial-teaching faculty at UCGIS member institutions being asked about what worked and what didn't during their fall 2020 semesters.


Fall 2020 survey about teaching wins and losses, conducted by the UCGIS Education Committee


A world-wide series of panel discussions around resilient GIScience education that took place in summer & fall 2020

Global GIScience Conversations (https://globalgiscienceeducation.org)


Birds of a Feather: Best practices for Teaching QGIS remotely

Recording from a session during the QGIS North America 2020 Conference, July 2020


List-serves and other online Discussion Forums

Esri's Higher-Ed List-serve and GeoNet

GIS Stack Exchange

CartoTalk

UCGIS's members-only list-serve (review our Membership video)

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