UVa GIS Resources

The Scholars' Lab located in Alderman Library is the home of the UVa Geogrphic Information Science (GIS) support group.  We support all UVa affiliates in four basic areas of GIS: software, data, consultations, and education.

Got a spatial question?  Ask us! uvagis@virginia.edu

Fall 2020 UVa Library Virtual GIS Workshop Series

All sessions are one hour and assume participants have no previous experience using GIS.  Sessions will be hands-on demonstrations with step-by-step tutorials and expert assistance.  All sessions will be taught on Wednesdays from 10AM to 11AM and are free and open to the UVa and larger Charlottesville community. Late-comers are welcome and encouraged, registration is open until 1 hour before class. 

If you've attended our workshops in the past, please note that things are a bit different this semester:

• All sessions will be taught virtually, via Zoom. Unfortunately, there will be no in-class sessions this semester. 
• Registration is required. This is the best way to get Zoom links out to our attendees without posting the links to the world. 
• Sessions will be recorded and made available, along with our slides and hand-outs.
• We can't provide laptops to attendees, so that will affect access to ArcGIS Pro. To be clear, Pro is NOT required to attend. However, it is required to complete the hands-on exercises from the first six sessions on your own. The final two sessions cover ArcGIS Online which is browser-based and will be made available to everyone. 
  • Non-UVA attendees: Unfortunately, we're unable to provide ArcGIS Pro licensing. We suggest a Personal Use license. We know this isn't ideal for some, and we apologize for the inconvenience.
  • Attendees with a Mac: ArcGIS Pro is not Mac compatible. There are several ways in which Windows can be run on a Mac, including a multi-boot utility or a virtual machine, neither of which we are able to support. For UVA affiliates, the simplest solution is to take advantage of the UVA Hive, which provides access to Pro.

September 9th
Making Your First Map with ArcGIS Pro
Here’s your chance to get started with geographic information systems software in a friendly, jargon-free environment.  This workshop introduces the skills you need to make your own maps.  Along the way you’ll get a taste of Earth’s most popular GIS software (ArcGIS) and a gentle introduction to cartography. You’ll leave with your own cartographic masterpieces and tips for learning more in your pursuit of mappiness at UVa.

September 16th
Putting Old maps and Aerial Photos on Your Map: Georeferencing in ArcGIS Pro 
Would you like to see historical maps overlaid on modern aerial photography?  Do you need to extract features of a map for use in GIS?  Georeferencing is the first step.  We will show you how to take a scan of a paper map and align in it in ArcGIS.

September 23rd
Getting Your Data on a Map
Do you have a list of Lat/Lon coordinates or addresses you would like to see on a map?  We will show you how to do just that.  Through ArcGIS’s Add XY data tool and Geocoding (address matching), it is easy to take your tabular lists and generate points on a map.

September 30th
Points on Your Map: Street Addresses and More Spatial Things
Do you have a list of street addresses crying out to be mapped?  Have a list of zip codes or census tracts you wish to associate with other data?  We’ll start with addresses and other things spatial and end with points on a map, ready for visualization and analysis.  

October 7th
Taking Control of Your Spatial Data: Editing in ArcGIS Pro
Until we perfect that magic “extract all those lines from this paper map” button, we’re stuck using editor tools to get that job done.  If you’re lucky, someone else has done the work to create your points, lines, and polygons but maybe they need your magic touch to make them better.  This session shows you how to create and modify vector features in ArcGIS Pro, the world’s most popular geographic information systems software.  We’ll explore tools to create new points, lines, and polygons and to edit existing datasets. 

October 14th
Easy Demographics
Need to make a quick demographic map?  This workshop will show you how easily navigate Social Explorer.  This powerful online application makes it easy to create maps with contemporary and historic census data and religious information.

October 21st
Introduction to ArcGIS Online
With ArcGIS Online, you can use and create maps and scenes, access ready-to-use maps, layers and analytics, publish data as web layers, collaborate and share, access maps from any device, make maps with your Microsoft Excel data, customize the ArcGIS Online website, and view status reports. 

October 28th
ArcGIS Story Maps
Story Maps are templates that allow authors to give context to their ArcGIS Online maps.  Whether telling a story, giving a tour or comparing historical maps, ArcGIS Story Maps are easy-to-use applications that create polished presentations.

Register Here: https://cal.lib.virginia.edu/calendar/events/Fall2020GISWorkshop8