|
|
| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
| |
| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | FW: GISList: Teaching Software advice sought |
| Date: |
08/15/2002 05:21:31 PM |
| From: |
HealthMaps |
|
|
Check out Maptitude www.caliper.com
1. Easy to learn and use compared to the others, and has a scripting
language with many, many functions
2. It has functionality not found in most GISs at any price,
3. Company is friendly - unlike some we could name. The tech support is
good. There is friendly listserve where folks help each other out more than
I have experienced most places.
4. The manual is friendly and one can really learn it right out of the
supplied documentation. It has "one minute exercises" which pretty much tell
you all you need to know to make Maptitude work.
5. It reads (and exports) ESRI, MapInfo, etc data, often repairing files on
the way in(and out)
6. Its affordable, comes with enough data to really do something.(like all
the streets in the US, lots of the TIGER components, US Census, etc) They
have an academic deal too. For Canadians, they might have data too.
I use it to teach courses in public health, disease surveillance, and
exposure and health outcome assessment, and a summer class, this year an
emphasis on bioterrorism http://healthlinks.washington.edu/nwcphp/niphp/
I also have participated in developing course work in the other GISs around,
and I have found that for a course of 20 exercises developed in Maptitude,
only about 8 can be transferred to ArcView or MapInfo. The reason is
Maptitude's large number of features.
As far as teaching goes, when I teach other GISs in say a 3 day course, I
find that by the beginning the of 3rd day students begin to finally
understand enough about the software not to have to be coached through every
step, they begin to stop stumbling around...
With Maptitude by noon on the first day people are making maps like crazy
and generally are clear on the operational paradigm of the software. Each
new feature of the software I introduce is consistent with the last one. NOT
the case with some others. That leaves me to focus on CONTENT and not
operating the software! I want to talk about spatial relationships in
epidemiological investigations, not on how to get your state to stop looking
like a pancake ...(recall that some prominent GIS software still can't
handle projections without major interventions of the user)
Also I have taught Maptitude to 7th graders with no problems. I found them
very adept at operating the software and especially clever at coming up with
new ways to map. They broke all the rules of cartography but ... rules are
to be broken.
The point of this is that Maptitude can be used at many levels.
BTW, if you want to get a class to really test the limits of the software,
give a prize for the most outrageous map, that map that would cause a Swiss
cartographer to gag ... but when you are finished, your class will have
explored every feature, etc.
And, if you are doing Municipal GIS, then Maptitude's big sister Transcad is
the GIS of choice for transportation.
Am I totally happy with Maptitude? Not always. I have "issues" but they are
trivial compared with other vendors. Maptitude folks will talk about it and
have responded. My opinion is that ESRI and MapInfo keep customers at a
soccer field length ... if you are not paying for tech support, the
likelihood of your having input is pretty small... having never bought their
tech support, I'd be surprised if you had any input even then.
Incidentally I do not sell the software, no financial interest etc. I just
use it. And if something came along that was better - I'd switch in the
proverbial heartbeat.
Richard Hoskins PhD
School of Public Health
University of WA
Seattle
-----Original Message-----
From: Rick Gray [mailto:rick_gray@canoemail.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2002 11:14 AM
To: gislist@geocomm.com
Subject: GISList: Teaching Software advice sought
Hello friends:
After a brief absence from the list, I am back.
As you may deduce from my signature below, I
have taken on some new and exciting challenges,
and it is for one of these challenges that I am
seeking advice from the list.
As GIS Program Liaison with Ridgetown College,
I am involved in curriculum development for a
new, one year, GIS Post Diploma Certificate
program. Our program will focus on Agriculture
and on Municipal GIS, the former because of the
college's long history and expertise with
agriculture, the latter because of the strong
relationship we have with the local government
and their interest in this program.
At this very early stage, we are considering
courses in programming (VB, Avenue), database
management (Access, Oracle, and SQL), some
overview type courses that will cover the likes
of cartographic principles, precision farming,
etc., an intro to remote sensing, spatial
stats, etc. - all, of course, with respect to
our dual focus. We also would like to offer a
course in data acquisition that will deal with
GPS, data loggers, on-screen digitizing, etc.
In other words, we want to provide students
with the es
|
|
Sponsored by:
For information
regarding
advertising rates
Click Here!
|
