Following the Intro to GIS Presentation, I received a few questions about how to get GIS software. Here are some answers:
1. CUNY has a site license with ESRI, the makers of ArcGIS. You can put in an IT Help Desk ticket and request to have ArcGIS installed on your machine. You can then sign-up for one of the free online courses to learn how to use it. I would suggest the The 15-Minute Map: Creating a Basic Map in ArcMap, if you just want to get your feet wet.
2. If you're not up to getting the full ArcGIS, with everything and the kitchen sink, you can try downloading ArcExplorer, which is a free, light-weight data viewer and mapping application made by ESRI. Since this is an application, you will need administrative permissions in order to install it at work. You could try it at home if you have a Windows operating system.
3. If you're a Mac or Linux user (or a Windows user who wants to try a non-ESRI product), you can try Quantum GIS (or QGIS for short). It is a free, open source, and relatively simple GIS program. You can work with many of the same datasets (shapefiles, imagery, etc) that you can use in ArcGIS.
Check out the GIS Subject Guide for places to download data to use with these GIS programs.
Happy mapping!
- Frank
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