good

Best

Od

ok

OK

k

I

The content is very well made. Concepts are well explained with plenty of graphics and examples to help understand. The topics are also very relevant, and one can tell that the instructor loves teaching well, cares about actual map making and has professional experience beyond academia. This is probably the best course of its kind on Coursera (I have already taken the GIS specialization which is its direct competitor from UC Davies). The drawbacks are: 1) no software provided, and the lessons refer to ArcMap, no longer available. One can use QGIS, for free, but will need to figure out how to use it, because the lessons cover ARCGIS. Alternatively, one can take UC Davies GIS, and use the student licence provided with that for this course too. 2) The forum discussions are quite dead, regrettably. Lots of people posting with ChatGPT text unnecessarily, so it is hard to run into any interesting comment or learnign opportunity. 3) There could be more hands on activities with the software, currently they are limited to some at the very beginning, which is not necessary to progress, and then the final assignment. 4) The final assignment is perhaps not clear enough, leading to people submitting maps with no attribute table or missing other required elements. It would be good if an example screenshot was provided. 5) Some just chance it for the certificate, so some submissions might be very lacking or simply taken from some atlas online. 5) Because the course is not super popular, there are few students in the same cohort. However, this did not hamper the peer review process, my submission was marked and the certificate assigned within hours of submitting.

I had taken GIS classes in my undergraduate studies, but I haven't had the theoritical background to interpret the procedures I was mechanically followed in order to finish my assignments. Now, with this course I can definitely understand the "WHY", behind every step I follow in order to complete my work.

Finally I have an overall view of projections (learning about geoid, ellipsoid) as well as matters concerning scale (ideal scale for digitization etc.) The tutor also is really understandable, methodic using humor in his lectures, exactly where he needs to make you "relax" before he goes on. I recommend it to those who want to learn the basic theoretical knowledge, before starting to get into the deep practical matters of GIS.

Great Course. I've done few courses on Coursera. But till now, Don Boyes is the most friendly instructor. He explains everything from the very beginning so that anyone from any discipline can easily catch his lesson. Still I think it would be more helpful if he could provide some specific instruction shapefile, and serve the course like a guided project. I knew nothing about ArcGIS, so when he was showing volcanic map/elevation map and using some tools on that map, I was frustrated where to get these files, how to make it look like the same as the video.

Muy completo el curso, me divertí y aprendí muchos sobre GIS, pero lo que no me gusto fue que al no tener ArcGis pro es muy limitada la experiencia, además es muy complicado tener el programa, pues es costoso y obtenerlo de otra manera es complicado , yo utilice Arcgis online o Arcgis viewer y la experiencia es muy diferente pues el curso no tiene secciones que ensenen a manejar esta plataforma online, la cual es bastante diferente a ArcMap O Arcgis pro.

This class was very informative and gave me a good background for understanding what there is to know about GIS software. The only drawback for me was that the ESRI software does not work on a MacBook, so I was only able to use the online version. Thus, many of the tips and tricks did not work for me, and my version looked different than that of the instructor. I had to do a little investigating on my own in order to figure out the online software.

This course has been very helpful for learning the basics on cartography and GIS. There's a lot of attention for some fundamental principles that need to be taken into consideration before starting with a map design (e.g. the consequences of the fact that the Earth is an ellipsoid, choosing a geographic coordinate system, methods of navigation, and so on). Many interesting examples of projects are provided, with a historical context alongisde!

Interesting course. I love that Don is a very passionate professor. Other than that, I feel the course should have involved more practice on ArcMap. There are also a lot of plagiarized works for the final assessment, which is frustrating, but okay, not really the course organizer's fault. Also, the ArcGIS is not provided for free anymore, which is kind of sad. Nonetheless, I still learned a lot and had a lot of fun with the final assessment.

Course material was wonderful but the peer reviews I received were very unhelpful. I do not necessarily see the point in having these types of roadblocks to completing the course if those grading your content are not going to give constructive criticism to your work. I received a number of low marks on my map but not a single note as to what was deficient. How can a student improve if low marks or reviews are not explained?

The course structure is good and thought out well. It is quite beginner-friendly and certainly helpful for people who are working to get their GIS certification. My suggestion would be to include more reading material and maybe show some additional map representations so that we can get a deeper understanding of how things work. Overall, it is a good course for beginners.

Well-organized content, though quizzes could have been better integrated into the hands-on material. One limitation was that access to ArcGIS takes up to two weeks, so it's hard to get much hands-on experience in ArcMap until the software is available. However, concepts could be tied to online versions of ArcGIS, which appeared to be available sooner.

Excellent foundational course that helps you to "speak" the language of GIS. Course could be improved by adding a video that helps students to navigate The "ArcGIS Online" software that's offered for a 21-day free trial since not everyone will have the desktop version shown in the video. I had a great time learning!

if I had old software, it would have been easier to navigate. In the lectures, he uses the older version. Maybe if he gave a rubric of where each item could be found on the new software.

I was able to find most items in the software though.

As far as teaching style, very good, and fun

It was a very interesting course about maps. I know that its the introduction of mapping, and it was foccused on the geography and geology on maps, however I would have love to have more practice with arcmap. The proffesor was great, very clear and even funny! :)

Lots of things can be learned fro this platform in a very easy way and this can be helpful in the career because in this modern technical world software knowledge is like a success of KEY. So please go through this and developed or enhanced technical skills.

En general es muy completo como base, quizás una parte practica en cada semana estaría bien y como proyecto final algo un poco más complicad, aunque completo me ha parecido un poco fácil.

Un saludo

Great course, very necessary for the people with zero knowledge of GIS, like me. It tackles difficult subjects but with a very simple approach that makes them very easy to understand.

Easy to understand. If there's more practice include in this course will be better. Hope professor can add more related data materials for students to practice with each course video.