Some days ago we launched an idea: what if we celebrate the broadcast of the Game of Thrones final season with a GIS course? The enthusiastic response that we obtained in social networks has encouraged us to record a new course to learn SIG using the Game of Thrones cartography. The collaboration between the gvSIG Association and the Miguel Hernández University has made it possible. Video-quality tutorials, easy to follow and replicate. Of course the course is totally free of charge. You only have to follow each of the modules/videos of the course, and use the free and open source gvSIG Desktop software to be able to replicate the exercises shown at the videos. The files with the necessary cartography to follow the course are also available.

All the videos are available in a Youtube playlist, which you can access by clicking on the following link: Playlist. For those who prefer it, the course is also available in Spanish.

Syllabus

The course is formed by these modules:

• Loading data in a GIS
  
• Attribute tables
  
• Navigation in a GIS
  
• Selection by attributes
  
• Table editing
  
• Hyperlink
  
• Adding coordinates
  
• Field calculator
  
• Exporting view to image
  
• Legends and symbology
  
• Labelling
  
• Graphical editing
  
• Geoprocessing
  
• Layouts

Software

The software that we will use during the course is gvSIG Desktop 2.5. For newcomers, gvSIG Desktop is a free and open source Geographical Information System, available in more than thirty languages and with distributions for Windows and Linux (distribution for Mac will be available at the final version).

Those who regularly follow the gvSIG project news, you will know that the latest version of gvSIG Desktop is 2.4, and that 2.5 is in the stabilization phase. And why do we launch the course on gvSIG 2.5, if it is not a final version? On the one hand because it brings some very interesting novelties that can be used during the course and, on the other hand, because in exchange for enjoying this course you can help us to test gvSIG 2.5 and detect bugs. 🙂 You can download the software in the following link: gvSIG Desktop 2.5 (Windows 64 bits: Installable – Portable; Windows 32 bits: Inst. – Port.; Linux 64 bits: Inst. – Port.; Linux 32 bits: Inst. – Port.; Linux 14.04 o anterior -64 bits: Inst. – Port.; Linux 14.04 o anterior -32 bits: Inst. – Port. )

Data

All the data that are used for the course can be downloaded from the following link: Data.

Support material and doubts resolution

For doubts resolution and communication of any error in gvSIG Desktop, you can use the users mailing lists. In this post we explain how to register in the gvSIG lists and the best way to communicate any errors: What to do when you get an error in gvSIG? Regarding the support material for this course, it may be useful for you to have a book with exercises to learn SIG with this same Game of Thrones cartography. There are some changes, since it was made on previous gvSIG Desktop versions, but in general it is a good complementary material. Download link: GIS Book with Game of Thrones.

Other free available courses

This course aims to introduce new users in GIS (and gvSIG). If you want to expand knowledge we have other free online courses (all of them with the option to get certification) that we link here:

• GIS applied to municipality management
• GIS applied to archaeology
• GIS applied to crime mapping