We launch the first module of an ambitious free course to acquire the necessary training to apply Geographic Information Systems to the municipality management. This course is based on the use of the gvSIG Suite products, a catalog of open source software solutions for working with the ‘Geo’ component, consisting of desktop, mobile and web solutions. It is important to note that at the end of the course you can obtain an official certificate issued by the gvSIG Association.

We hope that the effort and time that we have devoted from the gvSIG Association to its elaboration is interesting for you, and we also ask you for help to spread it as much as possible. We are going to try to introduce the maximum number of people in the Geographic Information Systems together with open source software.





About the course

The course is based on video-tutorials and practical exercises with municipality data, with some and necessary theoretical introductions to some concepts. Once done we do not doubt that you will become experts in the management of Geographic Information Systems and your work in municipality management will be consequently optimized.

The course is destined for municipal technicians mainly, either architects, draughtsmen, surveyors, computer scientists, foresters, environmentalists, … because almost in any area of a municipality people work in one way or another with geolocated information. The really important thing is that despite being a very complete and advanced course, it starts from scratch … so it is not necessary any previous knowledge to do it.

The list of topics of the course is:

Introduction to GIS: Differences between GIS and CAD

Introduction to Reference Systems

Views, layers, symbology, labeling

Attribute tables (alphanumeric information)

Attribute tables (joining tables)

Introduction to Spatial Data Infrastructures

Loading web services from gvSIG Desktop (OGC services)

Loading web services from gvSIG Desktop (other services)

Add-ons manager

Editing: new layers, graphical and alphanumerical editing

Editing: derived geometries

Geocoding

Event layer

Hyperlink

How to convert cartography from CAD to GIS

Reprojection of vector layers

Geoprocessing

Layout

Image georeferencing

gvSIG 3D

gvSIG Online: Publishing of cartography

gvSIG Online: Editing, hyperlink, …

gvSIG Mobile: Taking data in the field

The first 2 video-tutorials are theoretical and from module 3 they become eminently practical. In each post (module) we will indicate the link to the cartography necessary to perform the different exercises.

To make the location of all the video-tutorials of the course easy they will be stored in a Playlist.

For any type of doubt or problem that you have, in addition, you can always use the gvSIG Users mailing list. In this post you can find more information on how to register and use the Mailing List: https://blog.gvsig.org/2015/06/17/what-to-do-when-we-get-an-error-in-gvsig/

There will be a final exercise for all those who complete the course and want to obtain an official user certificate in gvSIG. About the certification and final exercise we will give the information with the last modules of the course.

Frequent questions

– How to register?

It is not necessary to make any registration. It is enough to follow the different modules that we will publish in the gvSIG blog. Each post will include a video-tutorial. The first two videos are theoretical ones and from the third one they will include practical exercises.

– Is the whole course online?

Yes, the course is 100% online.

– Can I participate if I am from any country?

Of course, the course is open to anyone, regardless of the country.

– Where can I download the software?

During the course, gvSIG Desktop and gvSIG Mobile will be used.

From the third module, in which the practical part begins, instructions will be given to download and use the software and data necessary to perform the exercises.

– How often will the modules be published?

During December 2017 a module will be published per week (on Monday). The last week of the year any module will be published. From 2018, two modules will be published per week, every Monday and Thursday until the end of the course.

– When does the course end?

At the indicated publishing rate, the course will end in March. Regardless of the end date, the course will be always available, so you can start and end the course -including the certification- freely and at any time.

– Do we have to deliver exercises/practices?

No, the exercises corresponding to each module can be done at your own pace and nothing should be delivered. At the end of the course, and only for those who want to apply for the Certificate, it will be when we will ask for the evaluation exercise.

– Can I receive alerts in my email about new published posts?

Yes, in the lower right part of the blog you will see a section titled “gvSIG blog on your mail”, where it says “Write your email address to subscribe to this blog, and receive notifications on new messages by mail.”

There you can register indicating your email and you will receive an email for each new published post (not only those of the course).

– What will have to be done to get the certificate and how much will it be?

The complete information will be given together with the last modules of the course. It will be necessary to carry out a specific and complete exercise that validates the knowledge acquired during the course, that will be evaluated by a tutor. The cost of the certification will be the minimum to cover the expenses related to the evaluation and certification and it will be € 30. In this way we hope that it is accessible to as many people as possible.

The certificate will be issued by the gvSIG Association and it will include all the information related to the training content acquired.

– Where can I make queries about the course or send problems that I have with the software?

You can do it through the users mailing list. It is a list of gvSIG users, not only students of the course, so it has a high volume of queries per day. Each registered person can ask questions and answer them, being a collaborative and community support.

You can sign up to the users mailing list from this link:

https://listserv.gva.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gvsig_internacional

It is recommendable to read this post with the instructions for both registration to the mailing list (including how to configure the registration to avoid receiving all the messages from the list) and for reporting problems:

https://blog.gvsig.org/2015/06/17/what-to-do-when-we-get-an-error-in-gvsig/

Module 1: Differences between GIS and CAD

In this first module we introduce the Geographic Information Systems, dedicating a part of it to identify the differences between GIS and CAD. There are many municipalities where technicians are working with CAD, but a few who have implemented a GIS … let’s see the advantages of taking this step.