Wonderful course. The structure of the course was very beneficial to me. There are non graded assignments that help you better understand the weekly material and practice basic workflows in GIS. There is only one grade assignment due at the end of the course. Also, you get to work with watershed data which was a plus for me since I am interested in water issues as it relates to public health and the environment. It is a foundational course so you will learn how to add data to your map and work with geoprocessing tools to make maps that are understandable and appealing. 5 stars!

Instructor Nick Santos explains the concepts clearly and in detail and his referral to the book Getting to Know ArcGIS provided really helpful additional information and practice. Santos explained up front and periodically throughout the course that at times we will make mistakes and need help with finding answers, and he helped point us to many resources to help us find those answers. He even had a lesson solely focused on troubleshooting ArcGIS error messages. What a life saver! Thanks for a great course, really useful info, and for being a great instructor.

Although very focused on hydrology from a learning perspective, this course gave a lot of information which allowed me to complete all of the required tests and final assignment without issue, and I certainly felt like I refreshed my previously limited GIS knowledge whilst adding to it some new features such as how to add and modify metadata. I liked that it went out of its way to provide additional information to the user for further practise although this was focused on a single, quite expensive book. Looking forward to taking the rest of the specialisation.

The course was really good. I learned a lot of things related GIS. The most important thing is, you can learn about GIS from many sources but you may struggle to implement them in a good GIS software. This Course is so well organized that it will ensure that you understand how to use the software efficiently .Besides, The assignments were superb ! Whenever I face any difficulties in doing work in ArcGIS , I go through the assignment files. They are really helpful. will recommend everyone to give it a try. You will make the best use of your time surely. :)

As someone with a Science background, I know I could learn any new technical skill for my career growth. However, never did I ever imagine that I could do so within the shortest possible time. The course content was great, the video lectures were so easy to follow and understand, and the assignments really allowed me to easily apply the new concepts I learnt both in my work and personal study time. Thank you! so much, Coursera for the Financial Aid that made this possible. I will definitely recommend Coursera and this Course to my colleagues and friends.

Great course, great presentations, great lecturer.

All the contents are pretty clear, very effective and detailed explanations and very high level in general, considering it's an introduction course.

It looks like they they care so much about it and there's a lot of hard work underneath.

I took some other courses of GIS in the past and I can say this is one of the highest quality.

Congratulations Nick Santos and all the UC Davis team involved that make it possible!

Can't wait to take the next one.

Juan Esteller,

Granada, Spain

It was really good course I have learned a lot. The lecturer is really wonderful Professor. The thing that I did not understand WHY I didn't get my certificate until now! I already submitted it before the deadline and also manage to review my colleagues work. I went for a holiday and come back yesterday to the website it says I didn't submit the assignment and didn't review any work!!!!!!! WHAT!!!!!!!! HOW COME!!!!!!! I have to re-subscribe and submit again! I tried to upload the PDFbut it doesn't work.

Really good course for those who have never worked with GIS and maps before. Covers al the basics, but isn't boring for those with some experience in the field.

I really enjoyed learning a bit about all of the different sides of GIS. The final project was a bit too easy.

I was a bit disappointed by the cartography aspect. As a designer I always find the end products of Arcgis to look a it stale. I didn't particularly find that the way in which symbology was implemented qualifies as good design.

Me ha parecido un curso excelente, los temas abordados, la enseñanza virtual ha sido de calidad, el material proporcionado durante todo el curso para realizar practicas de lo aprendido, el sistema de evaluación entre participantes me ha parecido muy novedoso.

En este corto tiempo, he aprendido muchísimo acerca de GIS y de las funciones básicas del software ArcGIS.

Felicidades al equipo que ha trabajado para hacer de este curso una experiencia única.

Muchas gracias Coursera por esta oportunidad.

This course was an easy and exciting glimpse into the world of GIS. I'm grateful for the instructor, Nick's, ability to take a complicated subject and break it down into simplified terms for someone as brand new to GIS as I am (as well as many others, I'm sure!). The layout, time/effort requirement, and quality of the course are commendable and I would highly recommend this course and Coursera to friends, family, and colleagues. Thanks so much, Nick, UC Davis, ESRI, and Coursera!

Like a lot of people, I started using GIS at work and was kind of thrown into it and fumbled my way through for a while. Going into this course I had a basic understanding of how to make maps and import data etc but I didn't really understand what it all meant. This course was extremely helpful for gaining insight and understanding into the basic why's and how's of this program. I highly recommend it if you use GIS at work but never received any real formal training.

This was a fantastic class. The instructor and those that constructed the lectures, exercises, quizzes and projects managed to put so much into very efficient, but complete packages that are really well organized. I was able to watch some on my phone, some on my tablet and many on my PC. Instruction was very clear and valuable. The exercises were great. The project at the end was challenging and interesting. I look forward to the next class in this specialization.

Instructor is fabulous. Very easy to listen to and informative. I learned a lot in 4 weeks. I was not a fan of the peer review process in regards to my project. I had all of the required elements and it was evident that one reviewer must not have even looked at my assignment. The other made a mistake in his review and looked at the wrong thing part for his grading, this is frustrating when you know you did everything correctly. It worked out, however.

This course stands true to its name. It covers all fundamental concepts of GIS and helps one become familiar with the software used by GIS specialists. The step by step instructions make the course very easy to follow. I was a little intimidated by the course content because long distance learning can be difficult as I do not have a GIS oriented study group of sorts and am now proud of the fact that I challenged myself with the course as it's just great! :)

I previously had some GIS experience, but it was two years ago and I hadn't used it since. This course was a perfect way of remembering what I learned while adding new skills. I loved the ability to go at my own pace and really think about why certain things worked the way they did. I would highly recommend to anyone who wants a GIS refresher. For people who have never used GIS it may be a little more difficult, but I still think it's completely do-able.

I recently completed this course, and I couldn't be more satisfied with the experience. The course content was well-structured, informative, and engaging, making complex topics easy to understand. The instructors were knowledgeable and passionate, providing clear explanations and valuable insights throughout the course and the assignments really helped solidify my understanding. I highly recommend this course to anyone looking to level up their skills!

Well designed course with relevant homework and a challenging (but fair) final project/assignment. The instructor does a good job adding in real world relevance, and informing the students about potential pitfalls or challenges with respect to the data. I appreciate that he also made it clear that there isn't necessarily one "right" way to do things, and that there are going to be multiple approaches that could work to solve geospatial problems.

I absolutely enjoyed this course. Provided me with the essential knowledge and skills needed to perform basic GIS tasks. The Syllabus is easy to follow and exercises are concise with pertinent details, tips and tricks. There was a whole lot of information made available to participants, not only for this course, but what you can apply in all of your GIS tasks. I encourage everyone to take this course-you have nothing to lose, but lots to gain!

I completed this course a couple of months prior to beginning my Masters Degree in Marine and Coastal Management. My degree relied heavily on GIS, with roughly a semester dedicated primarily to the software. This course was a great introduction and gave me pre-requisite understanding of some basic tools and the software interface in general. Highly recommended for beginners, especially if you plan on pursuing a degree which incorporates GIS.

This course provides an excellent overview of GIS for beginners, building a solid theoretical foundation from which to work and continue learning. The instructor walks through basic concepts from the beginning in a way that anyone can understand. The course assignments are very helpful practice in using the skills covered. The course focuses primarily on ArcGIS, but some of the material is useful regardless of the computer application used.

it was really very very interesting course i enjoyed it

thanks to : the primary instructor of this course : Nick Santos

thanks to the outstanding team of dedicated educators at UC Davis Extension including:

Instructional Designers and Project Managers: Jennifer Kremer, Dan Comins, Andy Roy, and Jeff LouxVideo Production: Kristen Hoard, Joe Najera, Adi Maldonado, and Dominick Porras

Thanks as well to Esri for their support of this course.

This course was outstanding. Nick does an excellent job of breaking down the key elements of ArcGIS into easily digestible lectures as well as applying those elements in exercises and quizzes. There truly is no experience necessary before jumping in. If you work in a field that currently uses GIS or could, this course and specialization is right for you - and likely a better use of money than getting a degree or certificate in GIS.

During my master studies, I had a course where we had to use ArcGIS but it was very problematic to understand the software due to the structure of the learning program. This course is completely the opposite. The lectures are very clear, and the theory behind each operation is given. The exercises are simple and help one put into practice the newly gained skills. I recommend this course to everyone go wants to learn about GIS.

This course was an excellent introduction to Esri's ArcGIS! I really liked the format it followed, where there were video tutorials followed by forum discussions, quizzes, and practice assignments, which prepared me well for the final assignment. The professor was able to clearly and simply explain concepts, and provided lots of helpful examples. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to begin learning GIS!

I'm getting started in the world of GIS. My profession, for that last 10-15 years, has been librarianship. I found this course both well designed and a very good orientation for the beginning student of GIS. The method of delivery and the instruction via the lecture was very helpful. The evaluations were useful in building GIS skills and fair. Being introduced to ArcGIS by ESRI was very helpful to the novice. Great course!