Lately I’ve been asked this question quite a bit: What on earth is GIS? So I thought i’d enlist the expertise of our friends at ESRI to give us a quick overview of what GIS actually is.
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.
(Information provided by ESRI)
GIS is:
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.
GIS technology can be integrated into any enterprise information system framework.
Want to dive in further? Check out this video to learn more about GIS!
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Penn State also put together a website and several videos to help explain not only GIS but the whole Geospatial thing. There’s also a let of resources for people to use for educating others about geospatial technology: http://geospatialrevolution.psu.edu/episode1
Apologies for slightly high jacking this conversation but if you are interested in GIS and its implementation in the public sector (UK) its worth looking at this National Audit Office report on how Defra has used GIS in the http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1012/defra_gis.aspx
Cheers