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Mapping & GIS: Penn Mapping and GIS Club

PennMGIS

Penn Libraries Mapping & GIS club (PennMGIS) by Research Data & Digital Scholarship.

The Penn Libraries Mapping & GIS club (PennMGIS) presented by Research Data & Digital Scholarship team at the Penn Libraries is a group that meets to discuss, learn, and collaborate on topics and projects related to mapping, geospatial data processing, visualization, and analysis tools through hands-on tutorials, workshops, and presentations.

Beginning February 2021, the group meets virtually (at least for now until the end of COVID-19 pandemic) via Zoom regularly on the third Thursday of the month from 3pm - 5pm. The first hour will feature workshops, talks, and discussions, and the second hour will be reserved for co-working and collaborative project work.

Students, staff, and faculty of UPenn at any level of skill are welcome to PennMGIS Club.

Meeting 02/18/2021, 3pm - 5pm 

  • Brief address by Nicky Agate, Assistant University Librarian for Research Data & Digital Scholarship.
  • Introduction to the purpose, format, and requirements of PennMGIS.
  • Short presentation on Geospatial tools and software.
  • Other discussion, Q&A, and suggestions.
  • Suggest or vote for a topic at https://pennmgis.hearken.io/

Meeting 03/18/2021, 3pm - 5pm

  • QGIS Basics tutorial: We will explore GIS data models and formats, and the various components of the free and open source QGIS interface and tools.
  • Requirement: Bring a laptop with QGIS preinstalled from https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html
  • Recommended: QGIS Standalone installer 3.16 (also known as "Hannover"), long term release (LTR).

Meeting 04/15/2021, 3pm - 5pm

  • Building interactive Web maps.
  • We will explore how to build interactive Web maps and applications using the ESRI's ArcGIS-online and Web AppBuilder.
  • We will also learn how to create simple web maps using OpenLayers and Leaflet. Both are free and open source JavaScript libraries.
  • Requirement: Bring a laptop with QGIS preinstalled from https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/download.html and should signup for an ArcGIS online account.
  • Recommended: QGIS Standalone installer 3.16 (also known as "Hannover"), long term release (LTR).
  • If you don't have an ArcGIS online organizational account setup yet, drop me an email at gmisgna@upenn.edu with "ArcGIS online" subject line.

Meeting 06/17/2021, 3pm - 5pm

  • Digitizing and Editing Spatial Data: 
  • Oftentimes, you might need to create your own vector layers by digitizing from scanned maps or images to use in your analysis. In this meeting we will explore the on-screen digitizing and editing capabilities of both ArcMap and QGIS to create polygon, line, or point vector layers. 

Meeting 07/15/2021, 3pm - 5pm

A workshop on Accessing and Visualizing Census Data focusing on various ways of obtaining Census Data for use in GIS analysis and mapping.

  • Access census data through Social Explorer,
  • Access directly from Census Bureau's website and visualize in desktop GIS software (ArcGIS and QGIS),
  • Access through python based census API wrapper.

Meeting 08/19/2021, 3pm - 5pm 

  • Cancelled

Meeting 09/16/2021, 3pm - 5pm

A workshop on Accessing and Visualizing Census Data focusing on various ways of obtaining Census Data for use in GIS analysis and mapping.

  • Access census data through Social Explorer,
  • Access directly from Census Bureau's website and visualize in desktop GIS software (ArcGIS and QGIS),
  • Access through python based census API wrapper.

Meeting 10/21/2021, 3pm - 4pm

  • A workshop on building Interactive map using python and Jupyter notebook.
  • Will demonstrate how to build a simple IP Address locator tool.

Meeting 12/16/2021, 3pm - 5pm (Cancelled, Final Exams week)

QGIS Basics tutorial:

Meeting 01/20/2022, 3pm - 5pm

Digitizing and Editing Spatial Data: 

  • Oftentimes, you might need to create your own vector layers by digitizing from scanned maps or images to use in your analysis. In this meeting we will explore the on-screen digitizing and editing capabilities of both ArcMap and QGIS to create polygon, line, or point vector layers. 

Meeting 02/17/2022, 3pm - 5pm

OSM as a source of Spatial Data: 

  • Often dubbed as the "Wikipedia of maps", the Open Street Map (OSM) can be a source of detailed spatial data for a mapping project any where in the world which otherwise might be difficult to obtain or costly from proprietary sources. OSM is a crowd sourced data constantly edited by a largest volunteer community of mappers. If you would you like to know how to extract and use OSM data for a project or  how you might be able to edit and contribute data for humanitarian emergency areas using OSM, then this session is for you.  

Meeting 03/17/2022, 3pm - 5pm

Building Interactive Web maps: 

  • A hands-on tutorial on how to build interactive web maps in QGIS (no coding), and in python Jupyter notebooks.  

Meeting 04/21/2022, 3pm - 5pm

Cancelled in favor of an Earth Day Mapathon, Friday, 04/22/2022, 3pm - 5pm : 

Meeting 05/19/2022, 3pm - 5pm

Accessing and Visualizing US Census Data: 

  • Demonstrates various ways on how to access and visualize US Census Data in a cloud platform, desktop GIS software, or programmatically in Python & R environments.