This is not a typical e-book; it is a free, web-based, open-source “textbook” available to anyone interested in using mapping tools to create maps. This e-text focuses primarily on Geographic Information Systems (GIS)—a geospatial technology that enables you to create spatial databases, analyze spatial patterns, and produce maps that communicate more effectively. While this GIS textbook is principally an introduction to GIS, most of the chapter’s concepts are applicable to other geotechnologies including remote sensing, global positioning systems (GPS), Internet mapping, and virtual globes.

Creating good maps and analyzing spatial data is a time consuming and challenging practice, but recently, a new set of powerful mapping tools has enabled almost anyone with a computer to make maps easily and to perform at least some low-level analyses. The results, however, are not encouraging. Most of the new mapmakers do not have adequate training in mapping concepts and spatial analysis principles, and their maps are often improperly designed and do not communicate easily nor effectively. This e-text—GIS Commons—seeks to help you analyze spatial data and communicate more effectively. In short, GIS education is our goal.

The goals of this textbook are to help students acquire the technical skills of using software and managing a database, and develop research skills of collecting data, analyzing information and presenting results. We emphasize that the need to investigate the potential and practicality of GIS technologies in a typical planning setting and evaluate its possible applications. GIS may not be necessary (or useful) for every planning application, and we anticipate these readings to provide the necessary foundation for discerning its appropriate use. Therefore, this textbook attempts to facilitate spatial thinking focusing more on open-ended planning questions, which require judgment and exploration, while developing the analytical capacity for understanding a variety of local and regional planning challenges.
While this textbook provides the background for understanding the concepts in GIS as applicable to urban and regional planning, it is best when accompanied by a hands-on tutorial, which will enable readers to develop an in-depth understanding of the specific planning applications of GIS. Chapters in this text book are either composed by the editors using Creative Common materials, or linked to a book chapter scanned copy in the library reserve. In the end of each chapter, we also provided several discussion questions, together with contextual applications through some web links.

Short Description:
This workbook introduces and scaffolds key GIS concepts without relying on canned datasets and projects. Lessons use a problem-solving framework based on the Seven Stages of Action model, connecting software tasks with concepts from the open textbook Essentials of Geographic Information Systems by Jonathan Campbell and Michael Shin (2011). NOTE: Chapter 1 is currently available; Chapters 2 and 3 will be published in 2021 and Chapter 4 is expected to be published in 2022.

Long Description:
This workbook introduces and scaffolds key GIS concepts without relying on canned datasets and projects. The intent is to make introductory GIS lessons more relevant to students and emphasize skill transfer. Datasets for use with the workbook lessons may be curated by a course instructor or by the individual learner. Lessons use a problem-solving framework based on the Seven Stages of Action model, derived from usability studies. They connect the software tasks with concepts from the open textbook Essentials of Geographic Information Systems by Jonathan Campbell and Michael Shin (2011). As an Open Educational Resource, this workbook is available for free to all learners, reducing financial barriers that result in educational inequities.

Word Count: 49061

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

User-friendly Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the common thread of this collection of presentations, and activities with full lesson plans. The first section of the site contains an overview of cartography, the art of creating maps, and then looks at historical mapping platforms like Hypercities and Donald Rumsey Historical Mapping Project. In the next section Google Earth Desktop Pro is introduced, with lessons and activities on the basics of GE such as pins, paths, and kml files, as well as a more complex activity on "georeferencing" an historic map over Google Earth imagery. The final section deals with ARCGIS Online and StoryMaps with tutorials, basic exercises on pins, paths, and CSV import, and a lesson plan for creating a research project presentation on an historic building in StoryMaps. In addition to an xml file that has been uploaded here to Academic Works, the module is also a live website at https://libguides.brooklyn.cuny.edu/cs-x. The site was created with Libguides software, and is a Community Libguide that can be reused and imported into other LibGuides sites. The website also contains links to two live StoryMaps, one on an Introduction to ARCGIS StoryMaps (https://arcg.is/1SX1zH), and the second, a model assignment on the history of the Fairway building in Red Hook, Brooklyn (https://arcg.is/1nbHP).

This book is designed to be used as a class text but should be easily accessible to programmers interested in Web Programming. It should even be accessible to an advanced hobbyist.

The original goal behind this text was to help students doing research with me in Web based mapping applications, generally using Open Layers. The idea was to provide persistent storage using REST and simple http request from JavaScript to store the data on a server.

The purpose of this text is to promote understanding of the Geographic Information Science and Technology enterprise (GIS&T, also known as “geospatial”).

Essentials of Geographic Information Systems integrates key concepts behind the technology with practical concerns and real-world applications. Recognizing that many potential GIS users are nonspecialists or may only need a few maps, this book is designed to be accessible, pragmatic, and concise. Essentials of Geographic Information Systems also illustrates how GIS is used to ask questions, inform choices, and guide policy. From the melting of the polar ice caps to privacy issues associated with mapping, this book provides a gentle, yet substantive, introduction to the use and application of digital maps, mapping, and GIS.

The purpose of this text is to promote understanding of the Geographic Information Science and Technology enterprise (GIS&T, also known as “geospatial”).

Essentials of Geographic Information Systems integrates key concepts behind the technology with practical concerns and real-world applications. Recognizing that many potential GIS users are nonspecialists or may only need a few maps, this book is designed to be accessible, pragmatic, and concise. Essentials of Geographic Information Systems also illustrates how GIS is used to ask questions, inform choices, and guide policy. From the melting of the polar ice caps to privacy issues associated with mapping, this book provides a gentle, yet substantive, introduction to the use and application of digital maps, mapping, and GIS.

The course discusses several Geopgraphical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) tools relevant for analysis of (problems in and aspects of) water systems. Within the course, several applications are introduced. These applications include GIS tools to determine mapping of surface water systems (catchment delineation, reservoirs and canal systems). The RS tools include determination of evaporation and soil moisture patterns, and measurement of water levels in surface water systems. In exercises and lectures, different tools and applications are offered. For each application, assignments are given to allow students to acquire relevant skills. The course structure combines assignments and introductory lectures. Each week participants work on one assignment. These assignments are discussed in the next lecture and graded. Each week a new assignment is introduced, together with supporting materials (an article discussing the relevant application) and lectures (introducing theoretical issues). The study material of the course consists of a study guide, assignments, lecture material and articles. The final mark is the average of the grades of the individual assignments.

An Open Geospatial Textbook

Short Description:
The purpose of this text is to promote understanding of the Geographic Information Science and Technology enterprise (GIS&T, also known as "geospatial").

Long Description:
The purpose of this text is to promote understanding of the Geographic Information Science and Technology enterprise (GIS&T, also known as “geospatial”).

Word Count: 102175

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Global Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS), such as GPS, have revolutionized positioning and navigation. Currently, four such systems are operational or under development. They are the American GPS, the Russian Glonass, the European Galileo, and the Chinese Beidou-Compass. This course will address: (1) the technical principles of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), (2) the methods to improve the accuracy of standard positioning services down to the millimeter accuracy level and the integrity of the systems, and (3) the various applications for positioning, navigation, geomatics, earth sciences, atmospheric research and space missions. The course will first address the space segment, user and control segment, signal structure, satellite and receiver clocks, timing, computation of satellite positions, broadcast and precise ephemeris. It will also cover propagation error sources such as atmospheric effects and multipath. The second part of the course covers autonomous positioning for car navigation, aviation, and location based services (LBS). This part includes the integrity of GNSS systems provided for instance by Space Based Augmentation Systems (e.g. WAAS, EGNOS) and Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM). It will also cover parameter estimation in dynamic systems: recursive least-squares estimation, Kalman filter (time update, measurement update), innovation, linearization and Extended Kalman filter. The third part of the course covers precise relative GPS positioning with two or more receivers, static and kinematic, for high-precision applications. Permanent GPS networks and the International GNSS Service (IGS) will be discussed as well. In the last part of the course there will be two tracks (students only need to do one): (1) geomatics track: RTK services, LBS, surveying and mapping, civil engineering applications (2) space track: space based GNSS for navigation, control and guidance of space missions, formation flying, attitude determination The final lecture will be on (scientific) applications of GNSS.

Numerous academics have researched Japan’s dehumanizing comfort women system that, for decades, forced innocents into sexual slavery. Since 2010 a campaign has been in place to proliferate comfort women memorials in the United States. These memorials now span from New York to California and from Texas to Michigan. They recount only the Korean version of this history, which this text finds incomplete. They do not mention that, immediately following World War II, American soldiers also frequented Japan’s comfort women stations. They say nothing of how, to the present day, GIs continue to patronize Asian women and girls organized in brothels near their barracks. The Korean narrative also ignores the significant role that Koreans played in recruiting women and girls into the system. Intentionally or not, comfort women memorials in the United States promote a political agenda rather than transparency, accountability and reconciliation. This book explains, critiques, and expands on the competing state and civil society narratives regarding the dozen memorials erected in the United States since 2010 to honor female victims of the comfort women system established and maintained by the Japanese military from 1937 to 1945.

Human geography emphasizes the importance of geography as a field of inquiry and introduces students to the concept of spatial organization. Knowing the location of places, people, and events is a gateway to understanding complex environmental relationships and interconnections among places and across landscapes.

Geographic concepts emphasize location, space, place, scale of analysis, pattern, regionalization, and globalization. These concepts are essential to understanding spatial interaction and spatial behavior, the dynamics of human population growth and migration, patterns of culture, political control of territory, areas of agricultural production, the changing location of industry and economic development strategies, and evolving human settlement patterns, particularly urbanization. Geographers use geospatial technology (e.g., satellite imagery, aerial photography, geographic information systems (GIS), global positioning systems (GPS), and drone technology), spatial data, mathematical formulas, and design models to understand the world from a spatial perspective better.

Human geography enables us to consider the regional organization of various phenomena and encourages geographic analysis to understand processes in a changing world. For example, geographic perspectives on the impact of human activities on the environment, from local to global scales, include effects on land, water, atmosphere, population, biodiversity, and climate. These human ecological examples are inherent throughout the discipline, especially in topics dealing with population growth, agricultural and industrial practices, and rapid urbanization. Geographers apply geographic methods and geospatial technologies to a variety of situations.

Short Description:
本教材設計除沿用張琬茹所繪之插圖外，另增加cc 授權或是公眾領域的歷史相關視音頻和圖照、自製 GIS 定位圖像及網頁鏈接功能、客語朗誦、課後討論等，具有多媒體式的展現效果，大幅擴充了原本少年圖書暨繪本的教學功能，提供客語教學規劃更多元的教學情境選擇。(本設計不需另外安裝軟體直接輸入網址即可開啟閱讀）

Long Description:
本文改編客籍作家甘耀明第一部長篇小說《殺鬼》，縮減其文字篇幅，輔以張琬茹所繪之插圖，使其成為適合國小五年級至國中九年級學生閱讀的少年圖書。甘耀明為新生代客籍小說家，其長篇小說《殺鬼》描寫二戰期間台灣少年劉興帕的成長經驗。劉興帕從客籍漢人的認同，在日本殖民政策以及皇民化教育下，逐漸轉為日本認同，直至二戰結束日本戰敗後，國民政府接收台灣，身為台籍日本兵的劉興帕因作者甘耀明所賦予台灣原住民之「原力」(The Force)，而得以脫去政治制度認同的枷鎖，回歸族群原生的力量。

張琬茹創作插圖則以下列幾個原則找出描繪的圖像，代表張琬茹對於《殺鬼》的詮釋角度。一、鬼之圖像。《殺鬼》的主軸是國族認同的擺盪，各有不同國族認同之「鬼」代表：劉興帕-飄盪的「日本」鬼、劉金福-慈悲老鬼、吳湯興-為民族而戰的鬼王、鹿野武雄-實現武士道的鬼中佐、拉娃與尤敏-反戰的祖靈。二、象徵意義。筆者列舉文本中具有代表性之象徵：火車-現代化的力量、菊花-日本皇族、茶花 -堅忍的客籍族群、螃蟹-原住民救贖之力、台灣山林與土地-涵養生命與族群扎根之處。筆者徐光鋕依張琬茹的《少年的自我療傷》為基礎，將之製作成多媒體版本，命名為「《少年的自我療傷—甘耀明《殺鬼》少年圖書改編》多媒體教材」。

Word Count: 30588

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