Where and how to learn free GIS and answer questions?

Where and how to learn free GIS and answer questions?

Today  in this article cartogeek.com will provide you can find all kinds of information about any questions or problems that arise with the use of software quickly. In fact, there are plenty of free resources to learn Geographic Information Systems and Geotechnologies. In this article we are going to try to show some references for learn GIS and answer questions about possible problems that may arise.

In fact, the web is full of places to go when in doubt, or simply to learn new methodologies, new tools or ways of working on your projects and, of course, improve them.

Internet is the meeting place of the GIS community from all over the world and it is the ideal place to learn, resolve doubts or meet other professionals and recognize the reality of the GEO sector.

The reference site: GIS stackexchange

This great forum of the global GIS community is part of the stackoverflow project. Unlike this one,GIS stackexchange focuses on multiple GIS themes of great relevance: webmapping, GIS development, main desktop GIS clients, GIS analysis, files and standards, geoservices, APIs and map libraries, spatial databases, etc.

It is a space of questions and answers where users can write their doubts under a series of labels and the community tries to solve them in the best possible way.

It is tremendously useful to find answers to questions that we have not been able to resolve directly by doing simple searches due to its specificity or in the official documentation of the programs or libraries we use.

Operation and volume of activity in GIS Stackexchange

Users, while expressing their doubts, They can help solve them and are rewarded with “ replenishment ” if your comment is accepted and useful for solving the problem you are referring to.

If you can’t find an indicative answer that can help you resolve your question on GIS stackexchange, it’s hard for you to manage to solve it anywhere else. To get used to it, with the QGIS label alone there are more than 23,000 issues, almost 18,000 for ArcGIS, 8,000 for ArcPy or almost 7,000 related to the Python label.

Surely the answer to your problem or part of it is found in one of them. In any case, you are free from expose your own doubt and the community may be responsible for solving it. There is always someone who has been able to have that same problem before.

Although most content is in English, there are also doubts in Spanish. In any case, the QGIS forum in Spanish ( unofficial since it is not an initiative promoted by OSGEO4W ) but which is acquiring more and more user participation. Good answers can be found to very common doubts among QGIS users in the Spanish-speaking community.

From geomapik we encourage GIS users to actively participate in this project by contributing the knowledge of each one to solve doubts that have been posted on gis stackexchange.

ArcGIS lessons to learn GIS

It is a website that makes ESRI available to users to learn to use ArcGIS and its multiple web applications. The content is mostly in the form of video tutorials

Exist multitude of tutorials and training itineraries ranging from hydrological modeling to geomarketing, through web viewer setup, creation of ESRI’s famous Story Maps, remote sensing, 3D mapping, forest analysis, telecommunications applications, etc. All of them are guided and applied to different specific themes.

It is an interesting resource to learn new ESRI tools at no cost, even if they are clearly geared towards promoting your products, of course.

However, it can be very useful for users who need to learn how to manage the suite of ArcGIS Pro, ArcMap, or ArcGIS online and some other ESRI applications.

Training platforms with free GIS content

one. Youtube. Undoubtedly, one of the main sources of consultation to resolve doubts regarding GIS analysis, spatial information management, spatial databases. But attention, why Youtube represents the two sides of the same coin: at the same time that you have very useful information and successful, there are also hundreds of tutorials that are a real mess where nothing relevant is explained, without theoretical foundation and in which it is shown how to do something by clicking here, click there…

2. Udemy. It’s about the quintessential popular training platform. It offers thousands of video tutorial-based courses on hundreds of different topics taught by ( generally professional ) users specialized in a specific sector.

They also exist courses on QGIS, ArcGIS, AutoCAD, GIS Analysis, development and webmapping, Spatial Databases, etc. However, it is necessary to filter since not all courses offer a training itinerary suitable for all types of users. Quality, logically, it is superior to that of many of the YouTube videos since behind them there is work by the teachers of the course in question and interesting courses can be accessed by prices very contained.

3. Coursera and Edx. There are two training platforms with a format similar to Udemy although in this case the courses are professional entities or universities, thus ensuring a superior quality standard. Although most itineraries and courses involve reasonable disbursement, there are free options for some courses.

Alternatively, you can search for information about training to learn GIS in public institutions or training centers in your city. They will probably launch courses related to the geospatial sector or data analysis for the unemployed, students or professionals who wish to recycle.

Generally these courses are free and prior knowledge of access is not necessary, as could be done in formal training linked to the university environment.

Official documentation and technical books to learn GIS

If your doubts are not resolved, do not despair. Contact other users or acquaintances in the sector, present your doubts in forums or social networks if they are not resolved or subscribe to specific GIS-themed mailing lists to receive news, updates, articles, discussions…

Of course, in parallel it is ( almost ) mandatory to read the documentation offered by developers software: they will be your best ally to know do things right without depending on third parties.

Both QGIS and ESRI, PostGIS, SQLite, MySQL, Carto, Mapbox, and webmapping libraries like Leaflet, OpenLayers or Google Maps have extensive documentation available to users that they can solve your doubts, help you find an alternative or indicate how to solve certain technical doubts.

One last recommendation: invest in yourself making sure you have good manuals and books about geotechnologies that you can have on hand to learn new concepts and techniques for treating geographic information. An indispensable and also free book is Geographic Information Systems by Victor Olaya.

Although they are not always so up-to-date since their editions cannot keep up with the hectic pace of the sector, probably the information provided is of quality and may be useful for your GIS projects.

Other blogs and social networks

There are many blogs and regular reference publishing sites in the GEO world as MappingGIS, the blog of UNIGIS, the blog of Geoinnova, the blog of GIS & Beers, the one of TYCGIS…

Outside of Spanish-speaking orbit you can access magazines like Geoawesomeness, GISGeography, GISLounge or the Anita Graser blog, developer of QGIS.

Also, they exist profiles on Twitter and LinkedIn very active in which you can learn very interesting things if you know how to find them on these social networks. Many professionals use them to share their knowledge on a regular basis. You can get ideas, applications to real projects and network on them.

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