Participant Background
- Students/Participants are expected to have some previous GIS experience, familiarity with ArcGIS (don’t need to be an expert), and some understanding of topographic data and digital elevation models.
If its been a while since you’ve used ArcGIS and you want a refresher, you may find these ‘Getting Organized and Oriented’ pages helpful, or you may find Task 1 of this Intro to GIS Lab Exercise helpful (don’t bother with the making a website portion; Task 2 and 3).
Hardware/ Laptop & Software Requirements
Before you get to workshop/class, all students/participants will need:
- Their own laptop computer with Windows (Windows 10 recommended) and:
- Wireless network access (to download exercises) - Note USU uses eduroam
- For ArcGIS to run efficiently in Windows, 4 GB or more of RAM is recommended
- A mouse is strongly encouraged over a trackpad
- Required Software Installed Before Workshop
- Optional Software (NOT MANDATORY)
- Powerful text editor, such as Notepad++
- An easy way to unzip files, such as 7Zip
- You may find this list of utilities useful
If you are unable to get ArcGIS installed prior to the workshop, it typically takes about 30-60 minutes. As such we sometimes schedule a help session during Registration on Day 1 in the morning (see your workshop schedule), and we will help you install it. If you can not meet any of the above requirements, please contact Joe Wheaton prior to the workshop so we can make alternative arrangements or help you with the necessary changes.
Bringing Your Own Data
If you have your own repeat topographic survey data and/or surfaces that you want to analyze, feel free to bring them to the workshop. On the third day, we will have a session devoted to working through analyses on your own. We will provide a dataset you can use, or you can choose to bring your own data. Raw topographic survey data can be in tabular or text file format (e.g. .csv, .txt, .xyz) or in any point feature class type in ArcGIS (e.g. ShapeFiles or feature classes in file geodatabases). DEM surfaces will need to be in .img or .tif, and NOT in an ESRI raster format.