Learn how you can represent the real world in geographic information systems, and data types in this free online course.

This course will begin by introducing you to the meaning of data, the kind of data that can be handled by geographic information systems, the different data models, and examples of data models. This includes the vector data model, the two types of vector data models which are the spaghetti data model and the topological data model. You will learn about representing the real world in the surface model, surface representation, and how you can represent the real world in terms of surface models. This will lead you to digital terrain, the digital surface model, and the digital elevation model.

Next, you will understand how to do georeferencing, the different kinds of systems, and different projections. You will be familiar with geoid, the different kinds of the geoid, and how we look at the geoid as a reference point. You will also be familiar with datums, how we look at datums, and certain coordinate systems. Moving on, you will be knowledgeable about maps, how maps are represented; the meaning of a map, and what you should look out for in a map. 

Lastly, you will be brought up to speed about coordinate reference systems, geographical coordinate-system, geodetic datum, and representation of the earth. You will gain an understanding of the components of the coordinate reference system and the two important systems in which earth is referenced. You will further understand the things that you have to look at before you start analyzing a particular map. This will then lead you to how to identify a map, and the scale on a map, even without knowing the scale.