Learning GIS

The Data Lab and Geospatial Technology Services provides many resources for Tufts students, faculty, and staff to learn Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

Here are a number of resources that we provide:

  • GIS Courses at Tufts – Tufts University provides 17 GIS classes per year in a range of disciplines. Classes range from GIS for International Applications, to GIS for Urban Analysis, to GIS for Public Health, and many more. For a full list, please see our GIS Courses page.
  • GIS Online Tips & Tutorials – The Data Lab maintains a large number of online tutorials for learning ArcGIS, QGIS, GeoDa, Remote Sensing and Google Earth. Many of these tutorials are written by Tufts faculty and staff. Additionally, we have a number of links to other useful tutorials hosted outside our university.
  • ESRI Virtual Campus – The ESRI Virtual Campus is a set of online, self-paced tutorials and lessons designed to help users learn ESRI ArcGIS software for a variety of applications. Through Tufts Enterprise license, the Tufts community can enroll in a number of free ESR Virtual Campus courses. To view a few list of courses available, please see this page.
  • Reference Materials & Books – The Data Lab owns a number of printed textbooks, manuals and books on learning GIS, Remote Sensing, Data Visualization, Cartography and a number of other topics. Many of these resources have lessons, tutorials or other activities to assist with learning GIS. For a full list of printed materials, please see this page.
  • Access ArcGIS Online – ArcGIS Online is an online, collaborative web GIS that allows users to create and share maps, scenes, apps, layers, analytics, and data. ArcGIS Online is a complete, cloud based mapping platform hosted by ESRI.Tufts University holds an Enterprise Account/Subscription which allows current students, faculty and staff to create a personal ArcGIS Online account for their web mapping purposes using their Tufts University credentials.