GIS 101 – Teaching Yourself GIS

1. GIS 101 – Teaching Yourself GIS

2. What is GIS? • A geographic information system (GIS) integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information. • GIS allows us to view, understand, question, interpret, and visualize data in many ways that reveal relationships, patterns, and trends in the form of maps, globes, reports, and charts. • A GIS helps you answer questions and solve problems by looking at your data in a way that is quickly understood and easily shared.

3. How GIS Is Used In Public Safety

4. How GIS Is Used In Public Safety Computer-Aided Dispatch Putting spatial intelligence at the fingertips of the 911 dispatcher and field personnel improves emergency response. GIS enables emergency 911 centers the ability to map incident locations and ensure that public safety first responders get to the right incident at the right time. GIS based CAD Solutions help optimize the dispatch mission with • Vehicle and/or resource management and tracking • Premise history and dispatcher situational awareness • Mobile and in-vehicle mapping using remotely accessed data

5. How GIS Is Used In Public Safety • Call routing using "as the crow flies" buffer circles does not always equate to the closest unit. Using GIS, drive time, distance, and street impedances are interpreted to determine the unit closest to the call.

6. How GIS Is Used In Public Safety Maps are an essential tool for the fire service. GIS extends the capability of maps to provide intelligent, interactive visualization of location-based data and analysis. GIS enables: • Comprehensive situational awareness in order to understand the activities, events, incident status and overall circumstances of the jurisdiction

7. How GIS Is Used In Public Safety • The ability to quickly and thoroughly conduct risk assessment and to develop and assess response capability to effectively manage and allocate public safety resources and staffing • The capability to access critical information and data while responding to an incident (routing, pre-incident surveys, etc.) resulting in quicker, safer and more intelligent deployment. • The ability to more effectively manage all types of incidents (real-time location of public safety units, exposures at risk, areas suitable for staging, triage. etc) and develop and implement appropriate tactics and strategy.

8. How GIS Is Used In Public Safety • Analyze historical incidents to determine staffing and resource needs. • Provide dynamic analysis to determine optimum EMS unit positioning. • Supply dispatchers with a comprehensive view of EMS unit locations and their response capability. • Create a common operating picture that dynamically updates incident and unit locations and provides predictive EMS call potential based upon historic occurrences. • Support EMS units with field GIS capabilities.

9. Learning The Basics Of GIS

10. What You Will Need To Get Started • ArcGIS Trial Software can obtained through WWW.ESRI.COM • Training account with WWW.ESRI.COM

11. Learning The Basics Of GIS • Once you have set up a training account, ESRI has several free online courses you can take. • ESRI has an extensive knowledge base, including web based help, white papers, user forums, etc… • There is a large variety of books that can be purchased.

12. Recommended Free Courses Getting Started with GIS (for ArcGIS 10) Format: Web Course Duration: 3 modules (9 hours) Price: Free Goals After completing this course, you will be able to • Explain what a GIS is. • List some ways that GIS is being used to address real-world problems. • Display geographic data on a GIS map. • Query a GIS database to gain information and locate features. • Understand different types of spatial relationships among real-world features. • Use analysis tools to create new data. • Apply a standard approach to solving geographic problems.

13. Recommended Free Courses Editing in ArcGIS Desktop 10 Format: Web Course Duration: 1 module (3 hours) Price: Free Goals After completing this course, you will be able to • Edit with feature templates. • Work within the new snapping environment. • Follow new editing workflows.

14. Recommended Free Courses Basics of Geographic Coordinate Systems (for ArcGIS 10) Format: Web Course Duration: 1 module (3 hours) Price: Free Goals After completing this course, you will be able to • Describe why the shape used to model the earth is important for GIS mapping and analysis. • Understand how the system of latitude-longitude locates features on the earth's surface. • Convert latitude-longitude units to decimal degrees. • See how the choice of geographic coordinate system affects feature locations and measurements on a GIS map.

15. Recommended Free Courses Turning Data into Information Using ArcGIS 10 Format: Web Course Duration: 6 modules (18 hours) Price: Free Goals After completing this course, you will be able to • Describe what spatial data are and how information is derived from them. • Assess the nature of spatial data and techniques of spatial autocorrelation, sampling, and interpolation. • Understand how uncertainty in spatial data is propagated through the conception, measurement, and analysis of geographic phenomena.

16. Recommended Free Courses • Visualize, query, and measure spatial and attribute data • Perform spatial overlays, interpolation, and density estimations in order to transform spatial data into meaningful information. • Conduct optimization studies with spatial data to identify desired point locations and routes. • Assess uncertainties associated with spatial data.

17. Learning The Basics Of GIS • Practice data can also be downloaded from ESRI. • Don’t afraid to use the software and practice editing data.